At The Beach...

These are the last of the photos from my Florida trip. I am so glad we had the opportunity to play on the beach before it became affected by the oil spill. I see that this past weekend the oil made it to Pensacola beach. Yesterday I saw some images of oiled pelicans that were captured at Grand Isle, Louisiana and these images really touched me. I guess it's because I have been around pelicans recently and observed them enjoying their surroundings and hunting for food. These are truly beautiful birds and to think that their food source and their very existence is affected by this disaster is very disheartening.

We were on the beach for the Memorial Day weekend, so needless to say it was crowded. I shot these pictures with my new Canon Powershot SX20IS in manual mode. This is a great camera with an incredible zoom. It's also my first Canon camera and I have to say I am loving it! I will be taking it with me on all my future trips.

I thought this was so beautiful, two mothers attending to their daughters. Hopefully this will be me one day!

One thing we noticed this time on the beach was that a lot of people were being bitten in the water and this bite left them paralyzed for minutes. We believe jellyfish were the culprits but I did not confirm this. The picture below is one such instance of this. There were a couple others. The little boy in this picture was bitten. The life guard, in the red shorts, came to his aid as his concerned parents and sibling comforted him. For this reason alone, I did not enter the water for a swim. With my luck, I would have been the next victim!

I sat on the seashore and took pictures as my husband sat next to me reading.

Some more beach pictures.

Below are examples of the zooming power of this camera. These people were very far away from me. The Canon Powershot SX20IS has a 20X wide angle optical zoom so it brings you closer to the action. I was hand holding the camera for all these shots.

These other pictures were taken in the evening around 7:00pm as we arrived to capture pictures of the sunset.

This is where I sat to take my sunset pictures.

In the distance, way across from me, I noticed a couple getting married on the beach. From where I was sitting I was able to zoom in for this shot. I zoomed all the way to the faces of just the bride and groom but I had a hard time keeping the camera steady enough to get a good picture at such a long zoom. A tripod would have helped.

On the other side of me were these teenagers enjoying the water and the beginning glow of the sunset.

Well that's it for today. Enjoy the rest of your week and until next time, keep on snappin'!