What happened in reality was the damage I did to myself and my gear was the result of one wonky plank on the pier. And as I tripped on it, fully loaded with cameras and lenses and tripods, I tumbled and fell like a bag of bones, camera parts strewn in all directions, my tripod with its 2 lb ballhead had crashed landed exactly in the middle on my dear 12-24mm DX lens, which I soon found out had rendered it fully broken and most likely unfixable! (tears flow). Both cameras seemed to be missing components, which from my inglorious position on my belly I couldn’t immediately spy the location of.
And then as I made a move to re-assemble my self, the pain kicked in! I’d had a filter and my ball of keys in my pocket. Apparently now, bits of polarized glass shards and metal parts had quite inconveniently re-located themselves inside my left thigh.
As I reached down to see just how much blood was spewing from me, a searing pain shot through my elbow. it seems the pier had also claimed a few inches on my elbow skin as well as my camera’s parts!
Quite clearly I was a bit of a mess!!!!
I did manage to get myself vertical again, and did find all the camera bits. Also delightful was discovering that the ginormous Nikon 70-200mm VR lens emerged totally unscathed. I will never again complain that it’s too big and heavy for a peripatetic nature photographer!
I am ever so happy that I had professional Nikon gear, because the upshot of it all was that only one lens was toast – and maybe it CAN be fixed. (ever hopeful)
As for me, the klutz, and my brused bodyparts, I do believe I am on the mend, thanks to nurse Judy. The skin will grow back and cover the bare patch of bone (!) and who needs gorgeous elbows anyway. As for the shards in my leg, fortunately I’m a little too old to be wearing anything THAT short so the battle scars will be my own reminder of my most recent Lake Winnipeg debacle.
Once again the lake leaves it mark! Sorry no photos this time!!!
Lake Winnipeg. The prairie sea. So huge you can’t see the other side. You can drive north for 6 or 7 hours and never miss the view of its shore.
This lake plays such a monumental role in the lives of most everyone here including me. In high school my girlfriends and I would spend summers at "the cottage" at Grand Beach, known as party central even today! Almost infinite white sand like powder that was the grand beach, that rimmed the warm and strangely shallow-for-miles water. It made it the perfect place to play and party.
Later in university, I’d spend sultry summer weekends with my boyfriend and his parents at their cottage at Gimli, on the other side of the monstrous lake. Sigh…good times there too.
And as the years rolled by, almost every summer activity from sailing on that giant lake, like traversing the ocean, to weekend forays to photograph "seascapes", the lake was always an easy and obvious place to head for a change of scenery. Just about every one I know has a cottage somewhere along its southern shores.
So in these shrinking days of summer I was once again compelled to make the trek, and armed with all my gear, I drove off in anticipation of some great images that I had no doubt the lake would provide.
Now, I’d like to say that the damage occurred as I tumbled down a white limestone cliff seconds after I’d captured that brilliant and infinite sunset. But that would be an extreme exaggeration, if not a bald-faced lie.
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