A Tale of Three Steeples

The steeples of Mother Emmanuel Church, St. Matthews Lutheran Church, and the Citadel Square Baptist Church, one image taken this afternoon, one at sunset, and the other during the "blue hour" at around 8.30pm.

Space Station Flyby

If you go on to the NASA website, you can sign up for email alerts that will let you know when the space station will be visible in your area. Sometimes it's just not convenient, like at 3am, or when you have to be doing something somewhere else, but this evening was perfect. My "spot the station" alert informed me that it would be visible for six minutes, appearing 10 degrees above Southwest at 9:09pm and disappearing 10 degrees above Northeast.  You would think that with such specific information it would be possible to document its entire path across the sky, but I only managed to pick it up about half way through its transit. OK, next time I'll do better.  In any event, it was a beautiful evening to be out in the James Island County Park, one of my very happy places.

A Few more Tall Ships in Charleston Harbor

Before I move on to other things, here are a few more images of some of the activity i Charleston Harbor on the day of the Parade of Sail, Thursday May 18th at the start of the Tall Ship Charleston Festival 2017.  The enormous container ship gave our Captain a few anxious moments as we had to wait for another ship to pass before we could come about and tack out of the way.  The wake it created was also pretty exciting.

 

The Tall Ships are back in Charleston

I am always seduced by the romance of tall ships, so today I stole away and joined the Lynx, a square-topsail schooner from Nantucket, MA in the Parade of Sail. The weather was perfect, just enough cloud cover to mitigate a really punishing day under a hot Carolina sun, and a sweet onshore breeze.  The ships are docked in North Charleston and the festival runs through the weekend, so go take a look and support this wonderful event.

Rooftop Moonset - Good Morning Charleston!

I'm always scouting for new vantage points for shooting a full moon.  I love Charleston rooftops, but there are few elevated views available to the general public without having to shoot through glass, or without freedom to move and compose shots according to the position of the moon, etc.  This one is not too bad, and so this morning found me on top of a public garage watching the moon set behind St. Philips Church steeple.  It was warm, there was a light breeze, and I had my morning cup of tea along with me so all was well with my world :)

 

The St. Augustine Lighthouse

The last location I checked off my list before I headed back to Charleston was the St. Augustine Lighthouse.   A beauty for sure.  I climbed to the top, but cheated sort of, because I was photographing all the way, so I didn't get in the least bit winded.  While I was working there, I watched many locals who climb up and down the stairs multiple times as a daily exercise regime. That's more interesting than the stairmaster at the local gym!

St. Augustine's Alligator Farm

No visit to St. Augustine would be complete without spending some time at the amazing Alligator Farm, a misnomer really, since this zoo is so much more than alligators.  To be sure, they have a LOT of alligators, more per square inch than most southern swamps.  I was there to photograph their rookeries.  What a chaotic cancophony of  discordant squawking and activity.  Birds of every description are nesting and raising their chicks in every nook and cranny they can find.  Just when you think it impossible to fit another nest in a tree, some resourceful bird has bagged a spot.  All of this is going on above the alligator infested swamp. Here are a few of the birds that I photographed.