Sunrises, sunshine and humidity

Well, it's been a busy week on the Costa Blanca. Tracys big sister Paula arrived from the states (she lives part of the time in California and part of the time in Spain) and we are also involved in some preparations for Tracy's mums birthday which is coming up this weekend (it's a milestone year starting with an 8).

On top of that it's been really hot and humid again this week, walking about during the day is very tiring and it's nice to settle in with the air conditioning on for a while.

Due to the general busyness and hot weather we've not really gone anywhere from an exploration point of view. We did a bit of walking around at Playa San Joan where Paula lives because we went there on her first day here to get some lunch and then couldn't find the restaurant that we wanted to go to.

Playa San Joan is to the south of where we live, it may still technically be in El Campello (I'm not 100% sure) but it's past Playa Muchavista on the way to Alicante.

It's very different there to where we live. There's a big beach with bars and restaurants and plenty of apartment buildings. The beach is wide and very long and, although there is a 'promenade' there aren't the small bars and restaurants along the edge like there are in the main part of El Campello. There are lots of places off the beach area to eat and drink but there's not much else. Certainly there is a big lack of shops. Personally I prefer our location which seems to have a bit more character and facilities.

We also did our first run to the airport in the car, not to pick up Paula as she was arriving late and we didn't fancy doing our first run there in the dark, but to drop a friend of Tracys mum off. It's actually a pretty easy run, takes about 25 minutes door to door with a quick blast down the motorway.

Another thing that's good here is that you don't have to pay to drop someone off at the airport. They have recently made changes at Alicante airport which means that there are barriers in the drop off and pick up areas that limit your time but you still get about 15 minutes free, unlike most of the UK airports that relieve you of a couple of quid just to pull in for a couple of minutes.

After all of the events of the Fiesta Virgin Del Carmen last week there doesn't seem to be so much going on in El Campello, it's still busy as we are well into the summer season and the beach gets busy. For us, the best time to go to the beach is either at about 0900 or sometime between 1400 and 1700. This is when the beach tends to be quieter. With all of the stuff going on this week we've only made it down there a couple of times.

Of course one of the best times to be out and about is early in the morning and I've done a couple of sunrise photo shoots this week.

For the first one I walked south along the beach front to Cala de la Punta del Riu. This is where the southernmost part of Playa Carrer La Mar (the main town beach) ends and where Playa Muchavista starts.

It's not a sandy beach. In fact it's full of rocks and pebbles and is actually designated as an area for pets (which aren't allowed on most of the beaches in the Costa Blanca).

This rockiness makes it quite picturesque as a number of rock pools form where the water is nice and still (particularly first thing  in the morning).

It takes about 20 to 25 minutes to walk there from home and I was in position about 25 minutes before sunrise. because I wanted to use a wide angle lens and have the rocks in the foreground as a bit of a feature I waded out into the rock pool and set my tripod up with the camera about a foot (30 CM) above the water.

You can never be sure exactly what you're going to get as a sunrise. Sometimes the best images are a little before the sun actually comes up, hence arriving early. 

On this occasion the best light was about 3 or 4 minutes after the sun cleared the horizon. A few minutes later and shooting towards the sun would have been impossible because of lens flare.

A few days later and another sunrise shoot. This time I walked North along the beach front, past El Campello marina and up to the archaeological site at La Illeta del Banyets. The site is actually closed at this time in the morning but it is possible to access La Bassa De La Reina (The Queens Bathing Pools) which are at the far end of the point on which all of this sits. Again it's a 25 to 30 minute walk including a bit of a clamber around the rocks to get to bathing pools.

The actual bathing pools are rectangular shaped "baths" that are hundreds of years old. For this shot I chose one of the more natural looking channels in the rock and used this to lead into towards the sunrise. This time I kept my feet dry but, again, I was there and shooting before the sun came up because you just can't tell what you are going to get. The best of the light was about 5 minutes after sunrise with the cloud masking the sun enough to make aiming the camera towards it without getting a lot of lens flare a possibility.

This site offers a lot of potential options for different images so I suspect I will be revisiting before too long