Thursday, January 26, 2012

South Beach Park Webcam

Finally! A webcam!
sharkie crew [Premium Member] Premium Member [Caches Found] 577 
Our mission, to grab a webcam for Basswoodbend before they leave for Michigan. This seemed like the easiest one around. Before leaving from Stuart we looked to see if the webcam was operational. It was, but not taking pictures every 5 minutes as advertised. When we arrived a parking spot was available, but a hot dog guy was in our chosen webcam spot. Curse you hot dog guy!! We hung our cache name signs (we were channeling the Today show) on the railing near hot dog guy and waited for our picture to be captured. Thank goodness for refresh on smartphones. We watched the kiteboarders for aprrox 50 minutes before our images appeared on the webcam page. We are standing next to the railing near hot dog guy. Mr. Basswoodbend is in the yellow Michigan shirt, I am in the middle, and Mrs. Basswoodbend is on the otherside. Thanks so much. 
basswoodbend [Premium Member] Premium Member [Caches Found] 3259 · [Challenges Completed] 2 Webcam Photo Taken Webcam Photo Taken 01/25/2012 
We once again teamed up with the Sharkie Crew for a fun afternoon. Although we have tried on a couple of occasions in Michigan and once at State College Pa, we have never managed to successfully complete a web cam before. This one was a challenge because we couldn't figure out exactly what the refresh rate was but thought if one team member was on a computer and others were on their iphone, eventually we'd get it right. We dedicated today to the task. For insurance, we made signs with our team names on them to put in the corner of the boardwalk fence closest to the camera. When we reached GZ just after noon, we discovered a hotdog stand occupying the space at which we had hoped to camp out. We taped up our signs at the corner as planned, explained what we were doing to the hot dog muggle, and waited, and waited, and waited. It was a great day for gawking, lots of folks on the beach, surfers in the water and about 4 kite boarders doing their thing. (It appears that when two of them crash their kites into each other it creates a real mess and puts them out of action for quite a long time.) Finally, after about an hour, the team member on the computer (Chip) called and reported that a video with us in it had been generated and a still shot materialized on the iphones and we had earned our icon. For others in the future, based upon our level of competence, it seemed that today the camera was refreshing about every 1/2 hour and it took about another 1/2 hour for it to appear on the web site. 



After the webcam shot was verified,  Laurie drove us north on A1A from Boca up to Delray Beach - our old stomping grounds.  We had lunch at Boston's, our old favorite place.  It's right on the beach (well, across the street) and the upstairs has a fabulous view of the ocean.  Turned out to be pretty much of a perfect day - most memorable.