A story on the perils of the sea.
While shooting this scene, my good friend Miles Morgan and I had our camera bags laying open a little further up the beach after a mad scramble to grab our cameras and dash to find compositions as the sun started to break through the clouds. Probably not a wise place to leave thousands of dollars worth of lenses and whatnot, you say? Yes, you are correct. But see, the tide was going out. A steadily receding tide meant the bags were quite safe higher up on the beach. No water is going to come near them. Merrily shooting away, Miles nonchalantly says “you said the tide is going out right?” I had checked the tide charts a few days prior to see if this beach would be accessible. “Yeah man, tide is going out until an hour after sunset.” “You sure? These waves are starting to get pretty high.” I glanced up the beach at the perfect moment to see a wave reach all the way up to our backpacks. I yelled a handful of my favorite curse words and we both ran to check on how destroyed our gear was. Holy smokes, luckily the wave hadn’t poured into our open bags, they were just a bit wet on the outside. “We really dodged a bullet there, man” I shouted to Miles over the thunderous sound of crashing waves. So like any two guys who think they are intelligent but are actually unstoppable morons, we decided the best course of action would be to close up our bags and move them a few feet higher up the beach. The tide is going out, there’s NO WAY a wave could reach them now. We go back to shooting for another ten minutes and I realize I need to get a lens cloth to wipe the rain from my filter. I turned to walk back to my bag and it’s gone. I started to panic like a parent who can’t find their kid in the grocery store. I thought to myself “Holy crap, did someone come steal my bag?” I was running around like a chubby track star looking all over the beach for my many thousands of dollars worth of gear. It started to sink in… my stuff was gone. I’m devastated. Then out of the corner of my eye I see something bobbing in the water. “Why in the hell is that rock floating? Rocks don’t normally float, right? Wait, that’s definitely not a rock!” Yep, my bag was FLOATING IN THE OCEAN. As it turns out, Miles had every reason to question me about the tide, as it was most definitely coming in, and I’m quite bad at using calendars and tide charts. Miles and I had a very serious discussion a few minutes later and he will now be handling that responsibility in the future. But hey, shout out to NearZero Labs for the waterproof bag that can apparently double as a floatation device if necessary.
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