This week's challenge in the 52 Week Challenge was using the panoramic setting on my phone. I have an iPhone and just recently discovered that there was an option to take panoramic photos. I am still a bit shaky when panning, so I tend to get a black blobish line on the top of some photos. I also didn't do all that much that was exiciting...no snow, no fun daytrips...that is until the weekend, which is why this post is not on Friday.
So on Saturday of this past weekend we took a day trip to the beach. Not only was the beach a perfect place to take some panoramic shots, but we also caught the sunsetting over the bay near Barnegat Lighthouse! Here are my shots for this week:
It was fun to head out to the beach in January! We were also happy to see the island coming along nicely with the clean up efforts from Hurricane Sandy. We checked out the bungalow we rent each summer and were releived to see it still standing. We know it had water damage, but the owners assured us it would be ready for the summer.
We drove the entire length of the island. In the winter with no traffic lights it was remarkably fast to drive. We were saddened to see that so many businesses suffered and appeared to be out of business. We are hoping that some do come back by summertime. We drove all the way to the most southern end of the island, as far as we were allowed to go, to Holgate, the part of Long Beach Island that seems to have suffered the most from the destruction of the storm. Having seen so many photos of the destruction, I though I'd be prepared, but seeing the damage in person was still shocking. Even after several months of clean up work, there was still so much sand everywhere. It looked like piles of snow in some places, instead of sand. Then there were the homes....so many were ruined. Big beach houses missing the entire first floor, with just the pilings showing where the garages and stairs once were. Several homes were literally washed off their foundations by the waves and sand. The trailer park is in the process of being closed permanently since there was so much damage to the infactructure. The mobile homes looked like someone had knocked over a row of dominos.
I had wanted to park and walk around to see everything, but there was no where to park with all the sand everywhere. I took some photos out my window as I drove slowly down the street. Here are some that I took:
I hope that those homes were just vacation homes, and not leaving anyone truly homeless. I think it will be a few years until Holgate returns to some sort of normal.
The rest of the island, while certainly suffering from storm damage, appeared ok. There was lots of sand on the end of the streets, but when we took a walk up to the beach in Ship Bottom, we were happy to see how much sand was on the beach. I had feared that the beach would have been washed away. It definitely seemed somewhat "shorter" than last summer, but it looks like they have worked hard at replacing fencing and moving the sand from the streets back onto the beach. The kiddo had a blast running around on the beach. He is our little beach boy.
We ended the day with a visit to the Northern end of the island, near Barnegat Lighthouse. We got there after the park and lighthouse had closed, but there is a small park area across the street that we were able to explore and watch the sunset over the bay.
