A walk down to the beach

Every fall we spend a week or two down south in North Carolina on Hatteras Island. Fall is a wonderful time to go there. The summer crowds have gone and the weather, most of the time, is still really nice - and windy i.e. great for windsurfing. The only downside, if you can call it that, is that 80 % of the shops and restaurants have closed for the season. We're okay with that.

This year, to maximize our time on the water windsurfing we opted to rent a house on the bayside of the island, where we go windsurfing instead of the oceanside. However, despite this difficult decision, this vacation has been a bit of a wash out for us. No crowds, beautiful sunshine but - only a couple of days of wind in two full weeks. That's unheard of! This has been the worst wind since we started going to OBX in 2011.

Of course, we still had a wonderful time because we always make the best of things. For me any time spent at the ocean is a wonderful time. I love the ocean air and without the wind or waves the ocean's calmness can be mesmerizing.

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One morning when I got up and look out the kitchen window I thought it might be fog over the bay. When I was a bit more awake and my eyes more open I realized that what had looked like fog were little white puffy clouds reflecting in the mirror-like surface of the bay. It was gorgeous. And stayed that way until the afternoon. I have some more photos that I'll be sharing in reflectionhunters soon.

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We didn't want to spend all no-wind days at the house so we took a little drive down to lighthouse beach our usual go-to when there is no windsurfing. But - surprise, surprise - the beach was completely blocked off due to pretty massive construction. Turns out, since it is off-season, they're re-doing the carparks and adding bike lanes and who knows what else. And they're also renovating the lighthouse itself, it is 100 % surrounded by scaffolding. I failed to take a photo of it: Bad photographer!

What I didn't miss out on was testing my still somewhat-new 70-300 mm lens on a cute deer family modeling perfectly, looking right at possible danger into the camera.

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As we continued our walk through the dunes to the beach I was presented with more testing subjects: Nicely peeling surf, along with surfers catching a wave or two.

On the photos the waves don't look that big but trust me you don't want to get caught in one (unless you're surfing). I'm throwing in the first of the pictures to give you a bit of an perspective. Also the current in the flat partially white water you see is crazy strong. When surfers paddle in or out they always get drifted hundreds of meters before they make it.

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On the way back to the car I just had to take another pic of Sea Oats - I simply love how they look against the ocean and the sky. And just for the fun of it I edited this photo in LR to give it some vintage touch (colors, vignette, grain).

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I don't remember if it was a Wednesday when we took this walk (I guess I could look it up in the photos) but it was one of the very enjoyable walks during our vacation and I'm sharing it with #WednesdayWalk by @tattoodjay.

Till next time!

Have a great rest of your day!

Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee

_{Unless otherwise noted, copyright for all photos, dividers, and gifs ©Oceanbee|ImagesByCW}

_{99.9% of photos taken with my Fuji X-T5 and iPhone}