The boat parade

Most of you know we live on a river, the Braden River in Bradenton, Florida . . .  we tend to use this river like a street, as my husband "commutes" across the river by boat nearly every day. It's about 1700 ft to Lucas Boatworks and happy hour club - I should add! 

Earlier this month, Dave sent out a note to local subscribers of his "News from the Tiki Hut". He suggested a boat parade up and down the river on Dec. 20th. Come early for a cook out in the Tiki Hut, bring something, including a boat if you had one, festooned with battery powered lights. We did it and it was quite fun and beautiful. Even when Stan got stuck in the mud, ropes were produced and Dave pulled him out with his boat, the Helen Marie and all was well. The parade continued! 

It was difficult to take photographs in these conditions, but I persevered with the 'hand held starlight' scene setting on my OMD. I got some interesting shots but sometimes the light was just too low and nothing would focus. I was happy with what I got. This photo was shot using that scene mode, producing an f-stop of 4.7, shutter speed of 1/10 sec, iso of 12800, and at a distance of 25mm. I think this boat with the lights twinkling in the darkness looks rather dreamlike and storybook-ish. It was not easy deciding what to blip . . . this shot of Dave's boat  on the river with the lights of our boat in closer was my blip runner-up. My husband Steve, Crazy Steve liked the colors in this one where he is standing up to navigate in the darkness. You can view a number of the parade photos here on flickr. The boats really looked festive and it was a fun time. :0)

I will  include this in the one street challenge : )