Cruise pics...

[diane]

I didn't drag the camera everywhere with me, so I dont have a lot of pictures from this holiday.. it was too hot, and too lovely to to do anything other than relax really..and I certainly wasnt prepared to take it on any of the fun stuff such as jetskiing    So, some pics from the two islands I did take it to.

Two days of this gave me an understanding of why 'pacific blue' is a discreet and recognised colour...



You sort of get an impression of how glad sailors must have been when suddenly you see this in the distance..this is mystery Island - not much of a mystery really - since you can walk around it in about an hour  



How tranquil is this...



The main photographs on my camera are from Pentecost island - where the locals do 'land diving' at this time of year. I wanted to take pics here, and to use the manual settings. the challenges were poor lighting, it was raining for most of this activity, coupled with what I wanted to photograph was clearly going to require very fast shutter speeds.

This is the platform, which takes about 5 weeks to build, and those planning to jump sleep under it to ward off any evil spirits.



Catching the jumpers is pretty tricky, they dance around on the platforms, singing and praying - not to mention working the crowd a bit   for an unknown length of time, then suddenly jump.  Here are some I did catch.

This boy is seven - and therefore going from a low platform.



This photo, sadly, is not in focus - I wasnt quite ready, as he wasn't supposed to be jumping yet, but I thought I would include it - as it is interesting. He didn't get the dancing quite right - and fell off    He went down all legs and arms akimbo The village boys seated behind us found it highly amusing and were hooting with laughter - we did, once he got up and was all safe. Until then, we were holding our breath!!



As the boys become men, they go higher up...





And of course, the chief goes from the very top one - all up, about 30 metres up!!




A quick 'by the way'..this is the child that someone from Angelina's group ran out to photograph - he is very cute