Visiting with Susan and Clark

Visiting with Susan and Clark   …   Monday 5th October 2012

You wouldn't think that any day that started out with maintenance to the septic system would be a good one, but actually we had a great day! We did spend a couple of hours this morning dismantling and cleaning the pumping mechanism on the aft toilet. The rubber non-return flaps were both heavily mineralized which was causing some problems, but we got it sorted pretty easily and things seem to be working much better now, which was very satisfying. Gloria then headed out for an appointment with an optometrist which Susan and Clark had managed to set up. Gloria had been experiencing the sense of a shadow over part of the vision in one of her eyes. The optometrist diagnosed a "retinal infarct" which apparently is not serious and he could already see that it was beginning to heal. Nonetheless we were very happy to have checked this out. After the eye appointment we headed in to Southport with Clark and Susan, walked around and had lunch down at the waterfront at the "Yacht Basin Provision Company" - which was great. Then it was off to do groceries. Having a lift in the car seems to be a strong inducement to buy large amounts of food and drink! We stored these aboard the boat then headed over to Oak Island for a sunset walk along the beach. It was absolutely beautiful. I know that in photo competitions judges get well and truly sick of sunset photos - but to me there's something very magical about sunset over the water and I can never resist taking a few shots. I also wanted to take some pictures of the pier in the gathering dusk and found myself shooting with a 200mm lens hand held with the ISO set at 5000 and still able to get reasonable if grainy shots. Its incredible to think that this is possible when previously I carried two camera bodies to have one with 50 and another with 200 ISO film.  It's now getting dark really early (6pm) and we headed back to Susan and Clark's house for another fine dinner. We had grilled "Sheeps Head" fish which was really excellent, a lemon pasta and steamed asparagus. It was a fine end to great day.

Mike

33 55 14.7 N, 78 03 41.6 W

Southport Waterfront

Clark, Gloria and Susan

Dog on then Beach

Gull on the beach

Sanderling on the beach

Pier on Oak Island Beach - 200mm lens,F4.8, 1/100s, ISO 5000 !