Church, the market, and chocolate all happened already…tired yet? I crammed a lot into this day! After stopping home for a quick change of clothing, I brought some frozen meals to my CO’s wife to give to our Ombudsman. An ombudsman is a point of contact for boat information. She has a lot of work with communicating with all of us. Anyway, Sept. 15th is Ombudsman appreciation day. She has an almost 6 month old she’s handling herself as well, so I hope the meals help.
Anyway, then I went off to sand island after dropping off the food (I’m on the other side of the island now). Sand Island is an industrial of all industrial areas… except there’s this huge state park at the end of it.
I figured for a Sunday it would be busy, but no, it was so quiet. A hidden gem, kind of? The waves were really big, there’s a break but it didn’t help much. The real reason I came was to check out the sea glass, which my friend clued me in on. It is a seaglass gold mine! In this picture I see at least six pieces (can you?)
I had my camera with me, though, and the waves were huge, so I had to weigh risk of grabbing sea glass and getting soaked. I didn’t have much time to spend here, though, because in short order I went and picked up a friend from the airport. I will certainly be back! Next time with a bathing suit and/or at low tide.
I finished unloading three boxes… so, break time! Almost every morning I leave for a sunrise walk sometime around 5:15/5:30. Sunrises at ~5:50 for now, although that doesn’t change much over the course of the year. I have these walks down to a science. It takes me about 6 minutes to get to the beach. I take off my flip flops and place my water bottle with them at the beach entrance. Then walk down the length of the beach and look for sea glass along the wave line. Usually it’s still dark at this point, so no really great pictures yet. Then, on my walk back I watch the sunrise and walk in the water, ending where I started which is where the best picture framing is.
This morning’s score
The sea glass colors vary by day it seems. Some days it’s clear, some days it’s a brown day, sometimes it’s mostly green. On the rare occasion I’ll pick up a blue. This was today’s haul… must’ve been a green day. I’m trying to figure out the science behind it… is it my mood? The moon changing the tides? I’m filling up my favorite wine bottle in the shape of a lighthouse from Truro Vineyards with the pieces. I knew there was a reason I packed that… Sometimes they are too big to fit the stem so I’m putting them in a different container. When I first started picking up glass I thought it was going to take no time to fill the bottle, but that’s because I have poor spatial evaluation capabilities…. I’ve barely covered the bottom. Hopefully I’ll fill it in three years.
I have to be careful in the morning of the holes the crabs make, I almost face planted once. Footprint for scale. My friend assures me they are more scared of me than I am of them. She hasn’t been wrong yet.
This guy was hiding in the rocks this morning.
I am getting to “know” the regulars… there’s the old couple with a new white puppy they’re trying to train. The guy who walks his big Beethoven dog and small pug pair. The power walker. The fishermen. The gay guy with his coffee (I’m making an educated guess here.) I am friendly and say hi, but no huge conversations yet.
Not that the sunrise gets boring… but how many sunrise pictures can one have? So I try to do something different with some shots. I caught this guy throwing a cast, and the other day I snapped a couple who was here on vacation sitting on the blanket looking at the sunrise. I approached them and took down their email so I could send them the pictures later.
Here’s the one from a couple days ago. The sky was on fire.
In Connecticut I was feeling totally unmotivated. It felt like a lead weight was tied to me making everything feel really hard. I promised myself I’d be more active in Hawaii, but I was worried that I was just using environment as a crutch and I would still have a hard time getting out. That is definitely not the case and although I am a bit tired in the morning, I can find the gumption to get my butt out the door.
