Maspalomas diary 07 - Snap decisions
(Thursday 20th October)

I have now filled up all my memory sticks so I bite the bullet and buy an extra Gigabyte memory stick. That will be full before the end.

I walk towards the toilets near the beach and am about to enter where I see a man washing his hands. Spotting the 'female' symbol over the door I swerve at the last minute and enter the gents.

Someone behind me begins laughing and suddenly shouts "Bob! Bob! You're in the ladies!" "Oh," shouts bob from within. "I did wonder why those women came in."

Sometimes when photographing spiders, I have a split personality issue. My arachnophobia is screaming "kill the evil git! Stamp on it." My photographer side is seeing the possibility of getting a great photo and demanding I move in and find the shot.

Standing on the beach, some huge Atlantic breakers are rolling in and smashing onto the beach. The waves are lovely huge rolling breakers with white frothy tops that would make an amazing photo.

I can zoom in from the beach but that will get me a mediocre shot at best. I know that I need to get at eye-level with the wave. And so I move in.

I position myself at the point where the last wave broke and sit down in a foot of water, my rather expensive camera now poised in the path of a something that could write it off in an instant.

The wave approaches.

An explosion of water comes roaring in at me like an unleashed animal. Just as the wave is about to overwhelm the camera I hoist the camera up at arm's length -- I am drenched by the wave and engulfed momentarily, the camera is held above the water high up in my hand like a submarine's periscope.

Like a wildlife documantary maker, I am enjoying watching the waves and have a kind of respect for them, watching them form far out at see, rolling bigger and bigger and then curling into crashing white crests upon the shore.