Up on the Rooftops

For the first time that I can recall in my many many years of blogging, Blogger ate a post. Or my computer did — probably the latter since it was behaving poorly earlier.

Our town has the oldest, continually operating canoe club in Canada. This leads me to suppose that there is an older club which perhaps shut down for awhile. But I don't know, and it doesn't matter.

They have a regatta every year, and it fell on last weekend this year.

A few of us local photogs were invited to shoot from a nearby rooftop — the former Hawthorne Mill.

Now, I'm not the most rooftopyish guy on the planet, but I was game to try. It was four flights up: four dark and dirty flights. When I say dirty, I am referring to the prodigious quantities of pigeon poop, which was even on the railings which we were forced to grasp. (Having a very good wash was the first item on my agenda afterward.)

It was a somewhat comical climb (and later descent) as both Bob and I are seniors with some difficulty with our legs. He has a bad knee while I limp around (a little) on a bad foot (and my knees are no great shakes either). But we made it along with two others.

The roof was slightly slanted with a peak in the middle, but the pitch wasn't great, so I wasn't too nervous. I was at pains to stay far from the edge, however. (iPhone pano shot)

Later, we went down to a lower roof. This is a shot looking form the lower to higher roof.

As it turned out, neither location was great either for sight lines or distance, but we snapped away anyway. These were all taken after the finish line, which was the best view that I had. I did take a few others of the actual races, but these were the better shots.

Oh, here is a finish line shot after all.

Shots of other things while I was up there.