Spring has Sprung on the Coast!

Best Dude had today off from work, so we spent the morning on the beach. he took a cobia rig for fishing, but did not see any cobia close enough to the shore. The boats were out fishing, but we could not see if they brought any in or not.

I wrote " Choot 'Em" in the sand. { If you do not watch "Swamp People" on TV, you will not understand the humour behind it. }

Best Dude did some casting. I tried to cast with his cobia rig, but it is still a wee bit too heavy for me. I cast much farther with light tackle.

He took this photo of me showing off my {hard-earned} slightly more muscular physique.

I NEVER tire of seeing this view...and it is located only 5 minutes from my home.

Cloudy Beach Day Cobia Hunt

After early Mass today, Best Dude & I took a walk on the local beach. Although it wasn't sunny; the Gulf was still gorgeous today.  It is days such as today when I really do not miss the mountains nearly as much as I do at other times of the year.

The cobia boats were out fishing today. Best Dude had a rod & reel with him, but we didn't see any cobia close enough to shore to cast a line. Best Dude *did* let me cast once.:O)

ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHTED 2013 by COASTAL HILLBILLY PHOTOGRAPHY.

Yaking

Yesterday I went kayaking with my parents & some relatives who are visiting Lower Alabama, Florida for a spring vacation. It was cool & windy the first two hours that we were there, but after lunchtime the sun shone & the wind dissipated.

My Dad taought himself to surf{ at the tender age of approximately 60!} several years back & has " graduated" to a smaller board than the one that he started with back then.

Here is " SurferDan" with his board. He ALWAYS wears the orange swim trunks, no other color is acceptable. :O)

I did some kayaking in the Gulf, but no one took a photo of me in the water with the kayak. Kayaking in the Gulf is MUCH harder than doing so on the lake.

My cousins Keven & Ali tried kayaking. Both of them are athletic, so they fared very well for first-time " yakkers"

I've taken to carrying my Vera Bradley purse *everywhere* with me---including the beach! .

We met a cute French-Canadian couple who are friends of friends yesterday. My cousin speaks French fluently, but all I remember from two years of high-school French classes is " bonjour:

It was a GREAT day at the beach.

Yet more photos....

I took these photos two days ago in our yard. Plants are starting to bloom here in Northwest Florida after what seems to have been a long " winter" season.

 This is a photo of our betta fish boy" Duncan". We got him almost one year ago after my first betta boy, " Argo" expired suddenly. His names comes from the his bright red crown tail: it reminds me of the chasuble that our bishop wears.

A Photography Gig!

I am excited.

I will be attending the 43rd Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast this Thursday -Saturday.

This year the events will be hel at the beach in Panama City, Florida.

I am not a voting lay delegate this year, I will be involved with all the Convention-related activities as a PHOTOGRAPHER! Yup, not only do I get to  see my friends from around the Diocese, but this is an opportunity for me to show my budding skills as a photographer.

My first Mardi Gras Parade 2011

I lived on the Gulf Coast for over ten years before I participated in my first Mardi Gras parade. Although celebrating " carnival" for { at lest} six weeks prior to the start of Lent is part of the culture here, were I come from this practice is as foreign as fried pig ears.

I do NOT like crowded events, so I'd avoided participating in the { mostly family-friendly} Mardi Gras parade until I served on the steering committee for the local American Cancer Society Relay For Life effort.

Here is one of the many floats that walked in the 2011 Navarre Beach Mardi Gras Parade.

  Our float was , of course PURPLE!  My favorite color also happens to be one of the three colors of the Mardi Gras season.{ The other two are green and yellow}

The High School JrROTC marched in the parade, as they do every year.

  Here is another float preparing for the parade. We were there literally ALL DAY and , being February on the Gulf Coast beaches,  in COLD and WINDY weather.

I

Shoreline Park pics. Sorry for the delay.

I very recently discovered how to post photos to Blogger, so I am late in posting photos from my Shoreline Park morning.  However, Blogger is MUCH more user-friendly than is Wordpress.

Here s a dinghy that I saw tied to one of the boat docks.

I LOVE the juxtaposition of nature versus human-made in this photo. The tree{ which is what originally caught my eye} in the foreground against the background of the buildings over on Pensacola Beach.  When I shot this photo, all I saw was the tree, but a friend pointed out to me the artistic tension of the natural versus artificial structures found on the Florida Gulf Coast.

Here are some exposed tree roots.  Such tree roots look quite different up North.

Here is yet another example of nature versus human made near our Gulf Coast. The birds were moving too fast for me to get a good close-up portrait of one.

Beach in January

I checked my Facebook & saw that the family & friends up there in Appalachia are pretty much snowed in.
Since I grew up in the Snow Belt I understand their frustration.

This morning  I went to the beach after I attended my gym session. It was a perfect day for walking on the beach with my new Nikon camera. I wore a pair of long " gym pants", a t-shirt and a light jacket. At the end of my walk I had to remove my jacket , it was too warm in the sun!

AWESOME!

Until today I had not been to our local beach in many weeks, so I am especially glad that I took the opportunity to enjoy our local Gulf beach today.

I do admit that I miss my mountains up North---ESPECIALLY during the seemingly endless and miserably humid Florida summers. Yuck.Yuck.Yuck.

Humidity here in  in inescapable  in the summer months  and our " summer" seas lasts from May -October. My annual trip to my godparents' Lake in rural Eastern Ohio is my respite from the oppressing humidity that comprise Florida summers.

I like snow, but since I came of age up north I learned quickly to not like ICE on the roads.

It is dangerous to drive on icy roads and I do not miss the stress that worrying about someone while waiting for them to drive home on icy mountain roads. When we lived in eastern Ohio my Dad's commute from work included a long stretch of driving on icy and { in some places} narrow , rural mountain roads. I am not kidding--- it is scary and especially scary after dark.

This was my view this morning when I went outside for a walk:

My new Nikon is so good, hat the photos I took at the beach required little editing. The individual file sizes are huge, so its essential to at least employ a wee bit of cropping. When I email my photo files taken with the Nikon I found out that I cannot attach more than four files.  My " old" camera is a Canon PowerSht and , although a good " beginner's" camera I am grateful for my new Nikon. Of course I a still discovering it features...I've yet to attempt to take video.