Beach photos and the supermoon

A few days ago the full moon of Ramadan rose over the darkened houses of my neighbourhood as I was walking to the beach.  It was a supermoon this year, at its closest point to the earth.  It hung in the sky like a great gold coin.

The Supermoon rises over houses in Olvera, in the southern Spanish province of Cadiz, July 12, 2014.
REUTERS/Jon Nazca

The supermoon over Oman.  This image has been circulating on Whatsapp.

More moon photos: NASA; Reuters

I have been bored lately.  I can't even really say I'm bored, as I have plenty to do.  I work, and translate, and write fiction, and read nearly a whole book a day.  But I'm restless and distracted and so I've taken to walking to the beach every day even though it's a tad hot in the afternoon and there are men in the street at night.  It beats sitting at home chewing on the furniture.  I feel restless at the beach too, but at least there are dead things to photograph (does anyone want to see?  I can post pictures), and after an hour of walking at least I'm tired and somewhat less restless.  And 4pm during Ramadan is the perfect time to go to the beach!  I usually have it all to myself.  The soccer players don't come out to jog until 6pm.

Portuguese Man of War

Seagulls at low tide.

Mosque behind a palm grove.

Running the pump to fill up the falaj.

A fishing boat.

The Black Sea

On our way to the Black Sea last week, after the pickle shop incident. There were a lot of animals on the road as we drove through farmland - cows, chickens, ducks, and what looked like some sort of buffalo:

This beach is usually very crowded, but summer is over now, so it was just us and the cows.

The beach was littered with the sort of things you might find on a Canadian beach.  There were a lot of beer bottles and cans (here's a Tuborg bottle):

Other assorted bottles as well - this one's covered in barnacles.

Shotgun shells! Very Canadian. There were a lot of less attractive things, including dirty diapers, which I didn't photograph.  I found a lot of empty sunscreen tubes, alcoholic drink containers, dead campfires, and old sofas and rugs littered around. There was a fair bit of garbage, but not as much as there is on the public beaches at the Dead Sea.

Seagull footprints:

Little kid footprints:

Rukiye and a relative having fun in the waves. The first time they got drenched was a surprise.

The seagulls who made all those footprints:

It was a very fun trip, despite the incident with the police.