Despite high winds on Friday and Saturday, gusts of more than 50mph, water washing over the jetty, and waves of 40 feet in the inlet, a great time was had by all on the Barnegat Jetty IPT. All four of us: Denise and I and Bill Wingfield from South Carolina and David Policansky from the Washington, D.C. area. As David had left after lunch the leaders had the participant out-numbered two to one that afternoon. We said goodbye to Bill at about 4:30pm on Saturday. <\/p>\n
As is my custom I removed my Delkin 700X 64gb PRO CF card <\/a> from my 1D X and placed it in my left hand front pocket with the key card to the motel room. When Denise and I got back to the hotel in Weehawkin I stuck my hand into the same left hand front pocket and came up empty. I searched the room. I went down to the car and searched around and behind it. It was cold and still very windy. I searched in the parking lot and the motel lobby. And in the hallway leading to the room. All without success. As we had had a rather productive afternoon despite the fierce winds I was having some problem loving what is. But then I realized that there are a lot worse things that could happen than losing a compact flash card. <\/p>\n I decided to head back to the state park and look for the card on the ground. Denise volunteered to make the ride with me. Twenty-five minutes later I made a u-turn at the end of the road buoyed by the fact that two street lights illuminated the parking area outside the gates. (Note: never park in the lot in the afternoon as they lock folks in promptly at 4pm.) <\/p>\n I swung the Sequoia around and pointed my headlights in the vicinity of what I thought was my parking spot. As I stopped the car I spotted something on the ground. “That could be it.” I exited quickly, bent down, picked up my precious flash card, held it over my head and let out a whoop of joy as I leaped about as high into the air as I have in recent decades. It was then that I realized that the card had been soaked in salt spray by the vicious west wind. <\/p>\n But back in the room the card downloaded perfectly. Sometimes you just gotta love being lucky.<\/p>\n ps: I did the exact same thing at Bosque last year. With help from Jim Heupel I found the then missing card in the pitch dark at 5:15am in the parking lot at Harry’s Crane Pool. <\/p>\n Moral: it is a lot harder to lose a card that has been safely placed in a Delkin CF Memory Card Tote. Only $9.99 here<\/a>.<\/p>\nFour Reasons to be Happy<\/h3>\n
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| \n This first-winter Purple Sandpiper was photographed on the just-concluded Barnegat Jetty IPT with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 800mm f\/5.6L IS USM Autofocus lens<\/a> and the Canon EOS-1D X digital SLR <\/a>. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1\/400 sec. at f\/5.6 in Manual mode. Central sensor\/AI Servo Surround\/Rear Focus AF and re-compose. Click here<\/a> if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. <\/p>\n |