A to Z Ocean

We are more than half way though the A to Z blog challenge! Today is letter “O” and Lia’s and my blog well be featuring A to Z Ocean.

We live a few miles from the ocean but hardly ever visit it. However last week Lia, Pop and I went to see the sunrise. We got to the beach about 6:00am, walked down a quaint little path until we got the the beach at Cherry Grove Inlet. This is the farthest northern point along the Grand Strand area and it’s so beautiful. It’s not a big touristy spot but the locals love to watch the sunrise at this location.

When we first got there, we were the only ones on the dark beach with just the light of the silvery moon. Some of the photographs I took were dark because I didn’t want to use flash but I was able to get a few winners. My favorite one was with the moon centered over Lia and pop, I captioned it “Under the Carolina Moon.”

It didn’t take long for Lia to pull pop into the edge of the ocean. Little by little she sweet talked him into going out to about mid thigh on her. The way she was skipping through the water you would have thought it was a hot summer day with 90 degree outside air tempurature and 80 degree water temp. But in fact both the air and water tempurature was 60 degrees with a slight wind making it seem colder. Needless to say pop’s feet were frozen when all was said and done. Of course he would do anything for Lia so he kept going out with her.

Soon it was about time to see the sunrise over the ocean and by now there were probably about a dozen or so people waiting to see the sun. When the sun started breaking over the horizon it was such a beautiful sight. I tried to get as many shots so it would be like a time lapse of the sun rising. Next time we go I’m taking the tripod and setting up one phone on time lapse video and the other two will be for still shots.

Since I took a shot of pop and Lia under the Carolina moon, I had to take another picture of the Sunrise over pop and Lia.

Lia and pop made a few more trips into the freezing ocean but they both loved it. There was one more spot we had to visit before leaving the ocean and beach.

As we carefully walked between the dunes we found the Angel of Hope. She is a beautiful Angel statue that was put there in memory of someone’s friend years back. Visitors leave momento’s around the base of the Angel and Lia had a few sea shells she found and carefully placed them near her.

We had a beautiful morning at the ocean, watching the moon dance in the sky, the sunrise over the ocean and a visit with the Angel of Hope before it was time to had back home.

As we walked down the now sun lit path to get back to the truck, Lia turned around to look at the ocean one more time. We are ready to go back to the ocean and I think Lia will probably talk us into going swimming in the ocean once the water tempurature gets a bit warmer.

I hope you enjoyed Lia’s and my A to Z Ocean blog and now we have one more special to share with you and it starts with the letter “O” also. South Carolina’s official state seashell since 1984 has been the lettered olive also known as Oliva Sayana. Dr. Edmund Ravenel of Charleston, South Carolina found and named the lettered olive seashell. Lettered olives are all along the South Carolina coast and we have a jar filled with them that my mom and dad had picked up over the years when they lived by the ocean. The bottle of shells bring back memories of mom and dad. Rich has a handfill of olive shells we collected during one of the hurricanes that went through South Carolina.