Surprise!
Today started like nearly every other day on the coast. The sky was nothing but a gray screen, and there was no sun to be seen. About 10:30, the sky lightened a little, so we drove down to Bandon Beach to check out the "Circles in the Sand" design from this morning. Most of the people had left by the time we arrived, and fog covered the top half of the formations, including Face Rock. We shot a few cell phone images from the cliff top and then returned to camp. Carol finished reading her 10th book of the trip, and I continued organizing and developing my images.
About 6:30, the sun managed to punch through the clouds. We still didn't have our golden-light image of the Coquille River Lighthouse, so we grabbed our gear and drove the two miles to the lighthouse. We had the area to ourselves except for a couple of fishermen below the lighthouse. There was no breeze, and the sun broke through the clouds every few minutes. The warm light lit the lighthouse while the river and background were still shaded. This made the lighthouse stand out even more. It also created images that would be fun to use as a source for a "painting" using Topaz.
While we were waiting between episodes of the sun breaking through, we looked across the river to South Jetty. There was a small gap between the clouds and the horizon that the sun just MIGHT shine through at sunset. We had plenty of shots of the lighthouse, so we decided to make a run to South Jetty and hope we made it before sunset. South Jetty is less than a mile from the lighthouse as the crow flies but 10 miles away in the car because we had to go all the way back to the campground, cross the Coquille River, and then drive back through town to reach the jetty.
After we parked at the jetty, we hustled down to "Carol's spot" from the other night. By the time we reached the sea stacks that were scattered along the beach, most of the fog was lifting and the sun sneaked out periodically to create reflections in the standing water along the beach. The sun played its usual disappearing act behind a fog bank at sunset, but by then we'd enjoyed a half hour of trying to capture the changing light. I'm not saying we got great images, but the bar is set very low on this trip, so we called it a good night.
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