On Saturday I went out to my favorite beach, Chapin Beach in Dennis.  It was very foggy and sprinkling a bit, so I decided not to bring my camera.  I hadn’t really been paying too much attention to the tides so was happy to find it was approaching low tide – there would be huge expanses of sand to explore.

When I was out at the waters edge, listening to the gently surf and looking across the foggy expanses of sea water, I heard an eerie sound.  It happened again from some dark dots in the water.  I walked over and recognized a seal bark.  Then I saw them, I counted over twenty, most in a large group, some swimming farther away, some coming and going.  They were very close in.

So, without a camera all I had was my phone.  I’ve said this many times, my phone camera stinks for taking pictures of “things”.  It’s great for ultra-wide angle panoramas, but a close up?  Once I saw a snake and decided to get a picture to see if it was poisonous.  I’m glad it wasn’t, because I’d be dead: I had to get less than 10 cm from it to get a picture.  The hawk pictures I took this summer?  They were all horrid unless i was less than two meters from the bird, even then they weren’t good unless I stuck my hand within a meter of that nasty beak.  So, armed with only that, what was I to do?

I had on Tevas (water sandals) and shorts.  I hiked my shorts up as tight as I could get them (I’m glad it was too foggy for the one or two people on the beach to see what I was doing as I know my back-end was a little exposed….)  I waded out until, well, I got my shorts wet even hiked up that high….  And I reached my free hand out to take pictures.

OK, a few things.  yes, I’m talking New England in late October.  But the water was surprisingly warm!  And I could see the seals so clearly – I could see their eyes, nostrils and even whiskers.  I was that close!  I could hear them breathing!  Wild!  And, yeah, I could see people, but they were quite a ways away, hopefully not laughing at my exposed bum getting wet.

So, how did the pictures turn out?  The below picture, perhaps the best, was rotated and cropped a little.  Great, huh?

OK, I officially hate my phone’s camera!  And look at the picture at the top – I was about as far away from shore as I was from the seals….  (that picture was very out of alignment and had to be rotated and cropped even more than the others)

Here’s another!  Cropped more than the other seal picture.

WooHoo!  Isn’t that great?!?  If you don’t hear sarcasm, look again at the picture ;)

So, when it is finally time to replace my phone (it is over two years old but, other than the camera, works great and keep a charge better than most new phones), I will have to ask about the camera and make sure it can do something other than panoramas.  But then, this one does panoramas so well!