Safetosea

This time last week the weather was wild.

Relentless bands of lightning storms, so distant they were silent. I had a camera, albeit an inexpensive one, and a yen to experiment.

This meant happy accidents became the method to my madness as I'd have to be mad to expect anything sharp, but luck can play into you hands.. After all, with digital, all you lose is a press of a button.

So out on the front porch for a few minutes, ducking the rain and trying to hold still leaning on a pole, the usual 'how the hell do I do this?' internal questions coupled with incomplete mastery of my tools resulting in a couple of shots that I like for their painterly oddball-ness.

It was fun, and as I've heard said before by a slightly crazed friend, fun is the key. The more Jackson Pollock of the two came about as I thought the shutter had closed and I'd wandered about, camera in hand.

Soon they may stink, the test of time a bitter mistress, but having a noodle with an idea... playing... well it beats lying down with unseeing eyes staring at the lid of a box, and if you cant' play, then go for a walk.

Which leads me to my next digression in this ramble.

Going for a walk has meant my eyes have been on the ground saving me from tripping, stepping in dog do and/or falling off a cliff.

It does lead you to the bottom of them though and there I found the 'split in two' rock on the left in the pic below. It was in western Spain at the eastern edge of Playa Rodiles, the home of a ridiculous left, and the former home of large gatherings, as I was about to discover, of ammonites, a nautilus like shellfish, though that was around 300 million years back. On a hunch I'd thrown it hard to the ground, breaking it open. Inside was this ammonite, my distant cousin, via an even more distant shared ancestor. 

An ain't life wonderful moment.

A couple of years later, some k's inland from the Moroccan coast near Agadir, at an altitude of maybe 600ft, a glance towards the path side cliff face revealed a not very fresh oyster. I have yet to research the geology of the spot but I bet old Bishop Usher is well off his creation of the world date of 6000 odd years back as this particular mollusc bit the bullet well before Adam was a boy.

That too was an ain't life wonderful moment, bitter sweet in a way though as I love oysters and this one looked like it was a beauty. 

Once.

Why am I going on with all this?

I suppose just a couple of examples of being in the moment.

You never know what you might see, or have fall into your lap, or wished you'd eaten when you had the chance... when you were an ammonite.

Pics for today: Experiments, rocks, and Winki a couple of days back, the first good waves in a few weeks,  hungry crowd just out of the frame.