The Blue Angels: My Last Word

This Blue Angel made a lovely 'Breast Cancer Awareness' trail.

Interpretation: mine.

Quite possibly, these Blue Angels posts are getting to be a bit tedious for whoever happens to read them. So I thank you for indulging me as I post a few final photos and thoughts about this bi-annual event that grabs me by the heart and doesn't let go till the last loud jet zooms off into the ether.

And then some little part of me goes, "Will I even be alive in 2011, to see this show again?

It just makes me wonder.

So, I didn't bother fighting the traffic to the grandstand area; instead I wandered over to our beach, which is about four and a half miles south of the performance area. I wasn't alone. Many people were on the beach, enjoying the breezy afternoon, socializing, spectating, fishing, and even swimming, while watching the Angels as they flew straight overtop us before looping back to do their stunts for the crowd.

It's amazing how piercingly loud the jets are, and how they seemingly come out of nowhere and suddenly they are straight above you and about to break the sound barrier. I wasn't the only person to drop her camera and clap her hands over her ears in utter reflexive reaction (thank God for sturdy camera straps).

(these jets were straight above me and oh, so loud! awesome.)

THE END

Sea and Sky Spectacular, Jacksonville Beach

If you haven't made it to Jacksonville Beach to see all the amazing air show performers, it's not too late. The show will start on Sunday, November 8 at 9:30 am at the oceanfront where Beach Boulevard meets the beach. Come early for good parking. You can poke around the side streets, especially south of Beach Boulevard to find some random free parking like I did this morning. You'll just want to carry a beach chair, and you'll walk a couple of blocks and cross over to the beach where you can watch the festivities if you don't mind being exactly front and center of the action. You'll still see plenty that'll thrill you. The beach is beautiful; it was a luminous morning today.

I was watching from from the beach at about 17th Avenue South and saw the first performers of the day, The Red Devils.

These guys are stationed along the beachfront to prevent people from entering the water during the air show. But you are free to get comfy with your chair, camera, binoculars and a picnic!

The U.S. Navy Blue Angels Fat Albert will be the penultimate performer. The show ends at 3:30 pm after the U.S. Navy Blue Angels do their thing, and that will be it for us, here at the beach, until 2011.

***********

(The videos below are compliments of the little Canon Elph and shows a couple of maneuvers of the Blue Angels' practice show. The two jets in the last part of the first video below were flying very slowly - at 120 mph - in front of the crowd...thus the "soundtrack" Slow Ride being blasted from the speakers to the crowd. Props to the little Canon Elph, whose primary mission in photography is not videography, for taking several serviceable videos of the Blue Angels practice show.)

The Blue Angels Arrive in Jacksonville Beach

I made it to the oceanfront in Jacksonville Beach this afternoon in time for the Blue Angels' practice show despite various "roadblocks" that could have derailed my plans at the last minute.

The weather was perfect. The vendors were in the final stages of setting up for tomorrow and Sunday's big show days. Lots of spectators were out for today's performance; everyone was in a great mood.

I was happy with the pictures I got, so I'll leave you with those. Nothing can compare with seeing them perform those precision maneuvers practically in front of your eyes or just overhead.

Thrilling.

I'll be back tomorrow with just a few more shots, and video clips. The ambiance at the Sea and Sky Spectacular is...well, spectacular! Our beaches really know how to bring it.

They're Here!

It was about noon today when I heard the first of Angels' jets zoom overhead. Then there were several, zig-zagging the sky over the beach.

My plan is to be on Jacksonville Beach during the afternoon tomorrow for their practice runs. The forecast promises lovely weather; November is a great month here. If you like 75 degrees and sunny with low humidity.

I'll bring my camera and hope for the best. This should be tricky, but fun to see what shots I can get.

The oceanfront is set up with tents and booths for local vendors, creating a fair-like atmosphere. I love the whole ambiance of the event, too. It's a wonderful event for the whole family.

The Blue Angels show just makes most people feel excited, happy, patriotic and inspired. Think of the kids whose dreams will be stoked, eyes to the sky, mouths agape at the skill of these pilots, our Navy. We are a naval town and proud of our military.

They're Coming!

The first weekend in November in odd-numbered years, means but one thing to me: The Blue Angels are coming to the beach!

It was 2001, just after 9/11, when I experienced my first Blue Angels Sea and Sky Spectacular, and it was amazing.

For several days preceding the Saturday/Sunday airshows, the jets would arrive in thrillingly loud and fast passes overtop of the school and neighborhood, up and down the beach. Practicing their tricks. Sending observers into ecstasies. Well, speaking for myself, anyway.

I was peering into the skies by this afternoon, listening for the thunder that announces their approach. Nothing. I thought that by Wednesday, I'd have at least seen a few stray jets.

On Friday the practice show is scheduled. I'll be there, camera ready. I will do my best to capture something, but I have no idea if I'll succeed. The formal air show will be held on Saturday only this year; one performance at 9:30 am and another at 3:00 pm. Venue: Jacksonville Beach. On the beach. It's just the coolest thing ever!

Surely, though, I'll see some Angels practicing tomorrow?

A Hawksbill Sea Turtle

Here is another picture of a hawksbill sea turtle like that one I saw, that I cadged from a National Geographic website.

The turtle I swam with at Chica Rocks was more vibrant than this picture depicts. His shell was stunningly pretty. I thought, "Now that's tortoise shell," when I saw him. His spots were of a lovely, chocolate brown, on a creamy yellow background. I'm sure it was a juvenile sea turtle as he was not as large as the mature turtles are described: up to three feet long and possibly weighing 300 pounds.

While it was nice to be free from having a camera on my wrist, it really would have been lovely to have captured photos of all the marine life I saw, up close and personal. You can bet I would have snapped photos of the shark! And I know I would've gotten some wonderful pictures of the turtle; and all of it. Still, having the camera would have made for a different snorkeling experience. Without it, I was free to just be...to swim about and fully enjoy the underwater experience. Jeannie + camera makes for a different dynamic. I wouldn't have been able to stop taking photos; the impulse to simply photograph everything would have overtaken me. If you think I'm kidding let me tell you that I shot over 300 pictures of the school's beach cross country race the other day. I was so enamored of what I saw on both snorkeling dives that I would have kept that camera whirring the entire time. So it was liberating, honestly, to just snorkel...but at the same time I can imagine the thrilling images I'd have been loading for you now. Well, thrilling for me, anyway.

I'm glad I snorkeled sans camera. As rhapsodic as I am about the experience, it's likely that my pictures (except for possibly the shark) couldn't convey the mood and would have been, to you, just someone else's fish pictures.

A Very Salt Life Weekend, Part Duex

(underwater photo of me (right) and my son (left) snapped by a fellow snorkeler whose picture I took en route to the reef with iPhone, and emailed to him on the spot. he returned the favor, here.)

I've been blogging ecstatically about my new favorite sport, snorkeling, recently. Because the springs are just easier to get to from Atlantic Beach, and the water is so crisp and clear, it's been fun knowing that I can snorkel even if I'm not somewhere truly tropical. So when we took an impromptu long weekend to Islamorada recently, I immediately booked two snorkeling charters for myself. Oh, the euphoria of swimming over a gorgeous living reef, amongst fish of such magnificent colors and sizes! The coral! The spiny lobster, hiding between the rocks! Who am I kidding? Springs snorkeling and reef snorkeling are incomparable. Sure, I wear a mask, snorkel and fins in both bodies of water, but that is where the similarity ends. I stand by my springs, to be sure, but the salt life* is a call that runs deep within and not a day has passed since coming home that I haven't ruminated about when I can return to those waters.

I left the camera behind, but what fun it would have been to have gotten some pictures of the fish I saw traveling along the reef. And then there was this stunning hawksbill sea turtle, that I swam along with for about ten minutes as he made his way around the Chica Rocks reef. This is a photo of a painting I took with permission of the artist that depicts the turtle I swam with:

I excitedly motioned to a nearby couple from our boat, to come and see this beautiful turtle. Noisily, they swam over and the boy-man of the couple boisterously tried to dive down, attempting to grab the turtle. I was appalled. The turtle appeared nonplussed and continued to move along the reef and I swam with him, away from this overeager snorkeler until I could no longer hear him underwater. Isn't there an etiquette to the sport that frowns upon excessive noisiness and touching the coral and sea life aggressively? Or am I just getting fussier by the day?

Fortunately we were a small group of snorkelers and I was able to move away from them, and soon I was enjoying a solitary swim. So I was alone when I peered down and saw the long shark, about five to six feet, rooting around the reef in search of...friends? Food? Me? Oddly, I felt nothing beyond that first moment recognition: "oh my gosh, that's a shark."

I observed him for a few minutes, astounded that I really was seeing a shark. Not a small, nurse shark, like my son has caught on his fishing line, which was thrilling enough, but a big shark, out on the reef, and as long as a grown man is tall, slender rather than stocky. I was not afraid. The shark was not aware of me, and I could see that he was busy perusing the reef, and just didn't feel that he'd regard me as a threat, or a potential meal. I admit that I didn't purposefully swim along with him the way I'd done with the turtle, no. I gazed at him for a few minutes, but annoyingly my mask kept fogging, so I swam off and continued snorkeling until they called us back to the boat. The dive master told me that such a shark sighting wasn't common; perhaps one in every 500 snorkelers will see a big one like that. Nurse sharks are far more common and sure enough, I saw one of those, too. I immediately recognized it as a nurse shark; it was about two feet long and relaxing on the reef's sandy floor.

On the ride back to shore I felt so happy. The trip to the Keys was a last minute idea, and everyone got to pursue their passions during the four-day visit. Snorkeling is my call; to see such amazing things under the sea is completely thrilling, and the view was one that only a salty sea can offer.

*check out http://www.saltlife.com the local company I mentioned earlier whose cool designs I love. they originated here in our area and i'm very excited about their expansion; would love to be an official part of it, but in the meantime, go here and have a look at their apparel if you love the life as i do.

**due to Blogger issues, I've not been able to make 'live links'; sorry.