Harlingen

I had an appointment in Harlingen today. I have that every year and for the past few years Richard always comes along and when I'm ready, we continue the day with photography. My appointment usually doesn't take very long.
We arrived in Harlingen at 09.30. Richard went for a walk and I went into the town hall to do my thing. All went very smooth this year and I was outside again before 10.00.
Coffee time! But first I quickly changed my clothes, from office to photographer outfit and we then went for a coffee with apple pie.

After that we went to the harbour, to a spot we tried to put up our drones for the past few years. The previous times we couldn't fly because of wind or fog, but this time the weather is perfect.
But, we still couldn' t get to the spot we picked because this area was blocked. What was going on? We saw lots of photographers and press even (TV-SBS6). We soon learned that the walrus that has been in the harbour last week had returned and was laying somewhere on the quay.
Someone pointed the location out to us and we then saw a huge brown bump. I didn't like the sight of it and felt sorry for this female animal, that somehow has drifted so far from the location it belongs.
We didn't take any photos of it, well only one with our phones.
We went to another place in the harbour to fly our drones. On our way there we saw a few tallships. It gave a bit of a DelfSail-feeling.
Soon we  were airborne. Richard started to chase a sailing ship that just had left the harbour, and I went looking for some nice compositions of the docked tallships.

After the flying part we went into the city and captured on with our DSLRs. After a delicious lunch we went to the Wadden Sea coast near Koehool and flew the drones again. It was low tide and the mud structures were beautiful. But the light was a bit too harsh.

The next location was on the way back to Groningen, near Heerenveen, a nature reserve De Deelen. We had never been there before and it has been on my todo list for a while. A beautiful area, with lots of water and woods. We walked for approx 3 kilometers while scouting the area and some woodland photo here and there.

For our final sunset location we choose the lake Paterswoldsemeer near Groningen. We arrived at 18.00 and decided to have a quick dinner in a restaurant nearby. We told the waiter we didn't have much time, because the sun would set at 19.00. That message was understood quite well, and at 18.40 we were behind our tripods. The sunset was nice but not spectacular.

All and all we had a very nice day, with beautiful sunny weather.

The close observer can see us on the photo, just on the left of the  three coloured sea buoys. :)