tumby - day 22

We had a leisurely nothing sort of morning. The kids are all beached and fished out. Tsk Tsk. Poor things lol.

I've been wanting to do this shot of my summer skin colour for the last couple of days. I don't go out in the sun to get a tan. I just brown up. I'm anal about sunblocking myself and the kids. Every. single. day. Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring. According to my family tree there is Egyptian blood in me so perhaps this is where my family's colour comes from.

Late morning saw us at the shops and then we went exploring and we ended up at Back Beach. I've been here before a couple of times but the kids haven't a chance to explore it yet. Today was the day. I literally had to boot them out of the ute and send them down the beach with a bucket and spade in hand to go cockling.

Mid afternoon saw Kym back from fishing and squidding. He had quite a few to clean so he headed to a friend's pontoon in the Marina to clean them. There has been a Stingray that has been a regular visitor at the Tumby Bay Boat Ramp for some time. My estimation is that it would be 6 foot from wing tip to wing tip. And there is a smaller 4 foot one that was with it as well. The large one has a shortened tail, no barb and a recent wound to it's back. I suspect it came too close to a prop on a boat. Watching the two of them gliding around was truly amazing. This day will long live in the memory of the kids.

I had the GoPro set to shoot a frame every 2 seconds and to keep it from possibly smearing underwater you lick the lens. I just about fell off my chair on Tuesday evening when I came across this shot on the GoPro from the afternoon with the Stingray.

 Geeeez. You just gotta laugh don't ya.


Being able to see things so clearly underwater really got Sean keen to go snorkelling. Something I've been trying to get him to have a go at for the last 3 weeks. Of course he had to pick the last day here to give it a go lol. He loved it. I took the GoPro with us to make it fun for him and then when I had enough of that, I watched him to his own thing on the Sandbar. He should be right to go swimming with the Sea lions and Dolphins that we are planning in March at Baird's Bay.

With tonight being our last night here, Annie suggested we go out for tea. And my chilli satay prawns were yum.

Tonight is attempt three at getting the star trail right. I had it in the bag last night, but due to lens distortion correction in Photoshop, it pulled the circle star trail into an oval. So I'm going out again. And much to my joy, I found that Stacey N was in Tumby and still up. (via Facebook). So with 5 minutes notice, she and Snowy were in the car with me and heading out at 11.30pm to give it a whirl.

By 12.30am we were back in town with the shot in the bag (again). 1 frame took 30 minutes for exposure and trails. And that's the only shot I took. Perfect.

Tomorrow is packup and heading home.

:(