I fixed my camera this morning, woo hoo! The Surf Sports store beams wifi to their funky little campground, so I spent a lot of the evening googling phrases like canon powershot shutter opening. Turns out many people have had some variation of this problem, and if I am to believe the internet, the most common “fix” was to bang it sharply on a hard surface and hope for the best. For true, check it out!
So last night I whacked my poor camera a few times which had no apparent effect either good or bad, so I punted for the night. But in the calmness of a new day (and much better light in which to study the problem), I poked and prodded and eventually pressed the shutter cover at just the right place, and the darned thing clicked back in, so I am all good, except for having given my poor camera 5-6 gratuitous whacks on a tabletop :(
Somehow, it didn’t sink in on me until this morning that I must meet the schedule of two ferries today, so I cannot be as carefree about my time as I usually am. There is a free ferry that runs to Ocracoke Island on every hour, and a much longer ferry (I get the $15 auto price because I am under 15′ long!) across the Pamlico Sound that runs only four times/day this time of year. The last one of these leaves at 5PM and it takes almost three hours. Which means a killer sunset on the water early on, but then debarking in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in a strange place.
So my goal is the 12PM freebie, giving me an hour to knock around Ocracoke before I catch the 2PM ferry across the sound. That was a FAIL. I got to the first ferry on time, but not by much, and it was full and they didn’t take the last two cars, of which I was one. So I was first in line for the 1PM ferry, the third guy off, with a big fat 17 minutes to sprint 14 miles – mostly at 55 mph, but the last agonizing stretch through the ever-so quaint town of Ocracoke at 20 mph!
To cut to the chase, I barely made it, the last car on and they closed the gate behind me, so here I am killing my three-ish hours writing and programming and enjoying. I happen to be parked in the outside lane, which means I can open the sliding door of my van and watch the waves and sky from the comfort of my swivel seat!
Debark about 20 minutes before dark, drive across quite a long stretch of tidal wetlands, and end up at … a Walmart! It would be a waste of $$ to spend big east coast bucks to set up in some sylvan locale in the dark, so the Walmart is perfect for tonight.
And yes, I do end up at the Applebee’s again, will probably have coffee and wifi at the Panera tomorrow morning. I’m not afraid to be the same! :)
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