Scenes from Gwynn's Island

Saturday morning I drove over to Gwynn's Island.

Although it was very cold, there was surprisingly little wind.

Some of my favorite shots were taken from the public landing at Edwards Creek.

When I was a teenager it was possible to drive your car or truck up onto this dock. Many of the commercial watermen kept their boats here, and driving on the dock was essential for loading and unloading things from the boat to the truck. I always thought it was such a thrill, driving or riding up on this dock.

Of course, I didn't get out much.

As you can see in the shot above, there was a thin coat of ice on the creek.

What you can't see from the shot above is that as I was squatting down to shoot this, a man and his two dogs were approaching from behind.  He was just out for a walk, and part of that walk included a stroll to the end of the dock.  Turns out, the man used to play in a band with my father.  We had a nice chat about the good old days, his dogs, and the weather.

He was also quick to point out how displeased he was that someone left these old crab pots on the dock.  I didn't have the heart to tell him I thought they were photogenic and would make an interesting picture.  So I waited until he left before I snapped this.

It wasn't until after he left that I remembered I was wearing pink socks.  I couldn't find any other clean socks and certainly was not going to do laundry on a Saturday morning, when there was so much fun to be had taking pictures.  So I scraped the bottom of the sock drawer and came up with pink socks.

It's important to know that I don't usually wear pink anything.  I'm not a pink sort of person.  But desperate laundry situations call for desperate measures, up to and including donning pink socks paired with brown tennis shoes. It's sort of like sneaking out into your yard in a bathrobe to walk the dog or something.  You're not really expecting to stay out long, and you certainly aren't expecting to run into someone. Same logic was applied here with the socks.

It's bad enough trying to justify wandering around Gwynn's Island with a camera on a freezing cold day, eagerly snapping pictures of things other people view as a disgrace.  But it's another thing entirely to do so while wearing neon pink socks.

Of course he didn't notice since I was standing and my pants covered them up. But still. I knew they were there and I wasn't expecting to run into anyone at the end of a dock in the dead of winter in the middle of Gwynn's Island. Plus, there's no doubt in my mind the pink socks were visible when I crouched down to take some of the pictures I did, prior to knowing anyone was approaching.

I wish I knew why I choose to focus on ridiculous things like pink socks that nobody but me was worried about, rather than the crab pots; or the dock; or the beauty and serenity of the water; and the glory of a magnificent, carefree Saturday.

Throughout this week I'll share more photos from my little jaunt to the island.

And I promise there will be no further mention of those dreaded pink socks which, to add insult to injury, have holes in the toes.

Have a great day.