Crystal Pool craziness

We have ventured down to Crystal Pool before, but never to swim. We'd heard tales of big waves crashing into the pool which in turn have washed peeps out to sea or smashed them up against the rocks!!! They may be exaggerated tales but the fact is the swell can be pretty unpredictable. But when some local friends said they were making the trip down the cliff because the conditions seemed favourable, we enthusiastically jumped on board. It felt safer tagging along with people who are in tune with how this environment works and I've desperately wanted to swim in Crystal Pool since we moved here. After the precarious climb down (it's steep, slippery and involves gripping a rope), we arrived to find a big crowd of locals, most of whom were jumping off quite a high rock wall into a very deep pool below. Somehow snorkeling lost it's appeal as we all got an urge to test our inner daredevil. Till was the first of us to give it a go. I thought I'd stay safely tucked up behind the camera lens, but in the end I thought what the heck, if a 7 year old can do it, surely I can too!

Harry leaps!

Till flies!

I'm the 'nose-clamper' -  no grace I'm afraid!

Sadly these photos are very ho hum indeed. I've been experiencing a few camera glitches of late! Over the Christmas period many of my photos turned out ghastly due to me unknowingly altering the ISO setting. Then today I got this nostalgic idea that I'd use one of my old lenses from a Pentax SLR I no longer have. When I uploaded my photos I was really disappointed - thankfully I have Picasa to play with. Clearly my old lens should just be remembered for it's performance in the pre-digital days!

Kristy and John take the leap - this photo gives you a sense of how high that rock wall is!

This is Crystal Pool - and the water really is crystal clear!!

A holiday at home

Before we moved to Norfolk, every January we packed up the kids and all manner of beach paraphernalia and drove nearly 5 hours to the South Coast for a two week sea-side holiday. Now we pack the car (ie "quick kids, swimmers on, cream-up, grab your towels and hats") and drive 5 minutes down the road! Lucky huh? And luckier still that whilst our family and friends in Australia have been suffering horrendous 40 degree plus temps, we've barely had a day that's cracked 26!! Heaven.

This is Bumborus. Cool spot hey! The snorkeling in that little pool was something else. Watching the colourful little fish darting in and out of the rocks was truly captivating. The trick (we assured those wiggly kids) was to stay really still and wait for the curious fish to swim out from under the ledge. If only I'd packed the under-water camera. I might just have to force myself to return. Oh poor me.