The first time I saw the sunrise over the Mediterranean was in 1989 (possibly 1988). (About me) I’m pretty sure it was March of 1989; I had come to my Spanish host family’s beach house with my oldest host brother and two of his friends. We’d drive into Valencia every evening and stay until the early hours of the morning, from bar to bar to disco to bar, until ending up, as per tradition, drinking chocolate around 6am. Then we’d drive back to Pobla de Farnals.
We’d get up with a lot of talking about last night, put on bathing suits, and head for the beach. It was freezing. I’d dig a hole to try to stay out of the wind. I’ve got pictures of that too 😉 After the beach, we’d go home and cook. We had made one run to the supermarket and bought 5 kilos of potatoes, many boxes of pasta, milk (for breakfast), cream, ham, and probably alcohol, because there is wine in my pictures.
Lunch was French fries and pasta. The pasta was (always) spaghetti a la carbonara.
After lunch, nap, and then we’d meet friends from la Pobla; this was even more common once the Palencia friends had gone, and it was just family. Lots of Trivial Pursuit happened. One of the reasons my Spanish became so good.
Anyway, back to dawn photography. I’ve made a point of dragging myself out of bed to watch the sun rise every time I’ve been here in summer since then. Sometimes I’d make it before dawn, and wait until the sun made a long shiny path across the sea towards where I was sitting. Other times I’d catch a moment of sunrise and stagger back to bed. There are some photos, somewhere.
My first sunrise over the Mediterranean
One of those days, after everyone else had collapsed into bed (OK I’d collapsed into bed too, but I got up again), I wrapped a blanket around my pajamas, grabbed my camera, and walked to the beach to await the sunrise. I took many pictures with 35mm 400ISO film (remember those days?). Then I went back to bed and slept until two-ish.
I still have those pictures, somewhere.
My latest sunrise over the Mediterranean
On Friday I got up early and walked to the beach with my Lumia 920… A good camera, for a mobile phone, but not nearly as good as that old 35mm camera I used in 1989. On the other hand, it has a video camera, and I made a video as the sun came over the horizon, in between shooting stills with various camera settings.
I sat and walked along the top of the wall that surrounds the marina, climbing up with the help of the rocks from the beach side. Afterwards, I jumped down on the boat side and walked back casting envious looks at the sailboats. In my next life, I am going to make room for a boat or many, and time to sail the sea.
I’ve also got old photos of the dock from 1988-1989. One gorgeous picture of the evening light playing on many masts. I gave an 5 x 7 (or maybe 8 x 10) print to my parents. Wonder if they still have it.
The Bike
On this past Friday morning, after watching the sunrise, I took out an ancient bicycle and rode down (it feels like up, but it’s really south) to Puig, the next town on the coast.
Just as you reach the beginning of Puig beaches, you get to the Torre of Guaita, built in the early 16th century to defend the coast from pirates.
Yesterday I went for a run, and did not carry my phone, but today I took The Bike again, and got some later sunrise pictures. (The first one in this post is from today)
