There's a story to this series that starts the night before. We arrived at Phillip Island with plans for a twilight shoot at The Pinnacles, an extraordinarily rugged spot where the coast meets a rough sea.
So we made our way down to the Woolamai surf beach to walk several kilometres to our spot down the beach and through a national park. It was windy, but no rain was in sight, so all seemed to be going to plan.
As soon as we got to the beach, however, all hell broke loose in the form of a sand storm. I'm not sure how you measure a gale, but it seemed like a Force 10. We were literally being sand blasted. That was it for me, I can can take personal punishment, but there was no way I would subject my camera and lens to nature's sandblaster!
We went to other places that evening and I got some nice shots of the fishing fleet at San Remo and a lovely pelican at Rhyll.
Since the weather didn't let up, plan B would have to put into operation. So at 4.30am I left my motel room and headed for The Colonnades. The advantage here was that I didn't have an hour's walk ahead of me in the absolute darkness.
The Colonnades is low-lying a rocky outcrop off shore, unfortunately it is only visible at low tide. Dawn this morning was high tide with the water lapping across the entire beach. These are the disadvantages of not being local.
As I made my way down what I thought was the path to the beach, I stumbled into a Shearwater (Mutton Bird) rookery. Offering a quick apology to the disturbed birds, I beat a retreat and soon found the right path down a steep set of steps to the beach. The wind was howling but there was no sandblasting this time.
I set up my tripod and camera and took the following photos.
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