Aekingerzand sunrise

My alarm clock was set on 04.45 this morning aka silly o'clock.
But what happened: I got up at 04.18.
Am I crazy? I guess so but I just couldn't sleep anymore because I feared I would oversleep and be too late to pick up Peter and Richard.

Their alarms were scheduled at the same time because we planned a dawn patrol yesterday. It's been so long since I/we did that. Somehow I don't get out early anymore for some proper photography. I should change that habit!

It was such a rewarding morning. Great light, great photos, great breakfast afterwards at Van der Valk (Spier, Dwingelderveld)

The plan was, as agreed yesterday afternoon with Richard, to go out today to shoot the sunrise with our drones above the (hopefully foggy) tree tops of Gasselte (Drenthe).
And then yesterday evening, while visiting my parents in Stadskanaal, I spoke to Peter and asked him if he'd like to join. He did!
So, Gasselte would be the place to be.

Then I woke up this morning and thought about that plan again. Richard and I would be having fun flying our Mavics, and Peter would be left with photographing maybe not such nice views. Of course we would have our regular cameras as well, but all and all it felt not fair towards Peter.

So, I changed plans and drove to Aekingerzand instead, after telling Peter and Richard of course. They both agreed.
And, boy oh boy what a good decision that turned out to be.
We had gorgeous light, all three of us made superb photographs and we even flew our drones a bit.
Not so much though. We were getting errors of magnetic interferance once in a while. Maybe because of a giant radio antenna that is near the place we were, I don't know for sure. On top of that, warnings of too much wind came in as well.
It all made flying a bit insecure. Luckily I did get a shot I'm quite happy with. I like the atmosphere very much.
We all used our regular cameras, I used my long 100-400 lens only.
Peter started out with a wide angle but soon I saw him switch to his 70-200 and Richard kept using his wide angle, but that was because he didn't bring his telelens.

It all felt so un-Dutch this morning. The light and mood/atmosphere felt more like as if we were on an African safari. It was great. Total silence, apart from geese in the distance and some nearby sheep (and our drones for a wee while).

When the light became too harsh, around 09.00 am we were tired and hungry and went to Hotel Van der Valk in Spier. A place nearby where we had a huge (full English for me) breakfast. What a finale of fantastic morning.

I hope your Sunday was as good as mine.
Tomorrow it's back to work!