This next set of pictures was taken on my first Saturday back in the Bay of Plenty (region) where I live. On the calendar, it was November 9, 2013. I went down to Pilot Bay where the cruise ships come & go as well as the freighters. I sat on the grass in the park area along the beach and attempted to take several shots covering nearly a 360 view around me (without a panoramic camera).
Starting behind me on the left is some of the park area, a few trees, and a street - note the guy in the picture, nobody I know, he's just a visual anchor for the overlap on the next shot.
Pretty big boat! Next shot starts looking out into the bay. See the little people on paddle boards? If I knew how to swim, I'd have to try it. The boat on the right overlaps with the next photo.
People anchor their pleasure boats in the bay. There is a bigger, more crowded boat docking area farther in past the cruise ship. I don't know the rules for who gets to anchor here versus having to anchor in the crowded area. It's probably a matter of money ;-)
The older boat in the middle above overlaps in the next photo. The below photo starts to include Mount Maunganui on the right side.
That's the mountain I hike up. I don't do it often enough, I have been slacking but hopefully I will start again regularly. If you can see the change in green going up the mountain - that's where the pastureland meets the forested mountain top. The path I hike goes along that tree line for a while.
The treeline in the above shot overlaps with the next photo which shows the rest of the mountain and brings us back to the beach on my right side.
Marvelous weather for early November. November is perhaps technically Spring here, but it's hard for me to tell because there are so many months of good weather compared to the US Midwest. Imagine having weather like this for Thanksgiving (when you don't go away on vacation).
While I enjoyed the view, a freighter came into the bay. Likely coming in to get a load of lumber, possibly even from my employer. This next picture is a bit blurry, I tried to get a bit of a close-up showing the freighter in size with its tugboat guide (tugboat near back end of freighter).
The freighter is huge, it can carry a lot of lumber or a lot of freight containers (and you know the containers are big). Yet, surprisingly, the freighter looks pretty small compared to the cruise ship.
