During the average newsgathering day, a reporter, or reporter/photographer team will gather two stories. On most weekends, the lone hunter/gatherer, in our case, the photographer, will scrape up three or four stories. For me, Saturday was brought by the number 4. Three local stories, and one that required an hour and a half drive to the coast. I will never complain about having to go to the water--especially the ocean. Yes, even if hurricane Shaniqua is bitching her way into the coastline, I will still be there with my goggles, shorts and aqua socks to say:"ok, gimme sexy!" or, "you're a tiga" and paw at it. I've been sandblasted by every one of those swirlies since '96. Her name was Bertha.
Anyway, this time the water was covered with boats of all sizes, and some of them had cannons that were fired. Blanks of course. It was the re-enactment of when, in 1747 some bold Spanish pirates came into Beaufort, the oldest harbor in the state. They were met by some locals who put together a milita, and defeated the invaders. The event gave many an excuse to dress up like they might be going to a halloween shindig. Lots of people really got into it, and had a great time. I went into the day charged with making a long format nat sound package out of it. By the time I could legally park the car and walk several blocks to get to the action, it had already begun, and there wasn't enough ingredients to make a delicious nat pkg. We settled for a 30 second VO. Not much for three hours of driving, but sometimes, that will be the price of broadcasting an interesting event. And it reinforces a big reason why I do what I do: access.
