A beautiful morning beside Kawau Bay

The Olympics are over. In keeping with past successes (since 1976, when John Walker won the 1500m, and Dick Quax was second in the 5000m) the country's successful athletes tended to be sitting down and on the water. Rowing, sailing and kayaking were where the NZ gold medallists competed.

I stayed up to watch the marathon, and enjoyed it, in large part because of the informed and informative, and low key commentary from British commentators, rather than our NZ ones, one of whom from very early in any event was talking about someone "putting the hurt on" her/his competitors. Whenever a field contained two or three athletes from a single country we were informed that they would use (cycling) team tactics.

I shouldn't moan. What I watched I enjoyed, even when it kept me up late. No chance to sleep in this morning, as the men were coming to repair the water damaged floor boards; months later due to reasons I don't fully comprehend. I wanted to be back before they arrived an hour north of Auckland. Thought if I could get back by 0730, I could have breakfast before they got there.

No. When I rolled up at just before the aimed for time, after being witness to one of the glorious morning skies, there they were waiting for me. Terrible lot of noise of hammering and sawing, as they removed the damaged floor boards, and cut and laid the new ones. They worked hard and fast, and were done not long after midday, meaning that we could leave and have a quiet drive back to the city, and be on time for appointments.

Anyway; this picture. Taken with the compact. I decided (with it being still dark when I started out) that I would increase the ISO setting. As the light increased I didn't reduce it again. So this was with a very high ISO number. It was taken just after the whole sun emerged above the cloud bank on the horizon. Despite the graininess, I like the horizontal bands, the track the sun is making across the bay, and the nuclear explosion appearance of the sun itself.