A Quiet Night at Garrys Place

It was a quiet night here at Garrys Anchorage...which on a boat is a good thing! A bit of wind came up during the night (I was listening to it while feeding Eric at 01:30, but it had died right down again by 05:30) but it didn't sound too bad, and we had the AIS anchor watch on, with an 80m diameter, and the alarm didn't go off...hooray! Finding ourselves lodged on one of the nearby sandbars this morning would have been a real bummer of a way to start the day ;-). The Rocna is proving to be a very reliable anchor, and well worth its weight in steel.

Before I turned in last night I dug out my remote release shutter cable and went and played with the camera outside (all the boats with their various coloured cabin and anchor lights looked pretty cool from our stern). I had to balance the camera atop the BBQ, because the tiny tripod I have here won't hold it up with the wide-angle lens attached. I let the camera decide the shutter speed on the first few tries....30 seconds later this is what I got...

...nice light effects, but not exactly what I was hoping for (I guess you get that when you are in a boat on the water....no matter how still it 'seems' there is always going to be some small movement).

I then changed it to shutter mode and played around with everything from 2 seconds to 8 seconds, and I think 4 seconds (and probably a bit of luck WRT boat bobbings) gave the best results...

In the high-res version you can even see hundreds of stars...very cool!

This morning after I'd fed Eric, the sun was just coming up behind Fraser Island, and giving a very pretty light show on the clouds...

We might move up the Strait again today, if it doesn't rain...and see what there is to see.

Have a good one,
Sam.

PS. It would appear that all Nick's work at making Lucey Blue mozzie and sandfly-proof is paying off, because we haven't found any stowaways yet.