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Yea, there's lots of pictures on this page. Scroll down if you aren't in a mood to read my award-winning prose about my walk out onto the Redington Long Pier. Nobody reads web pages anyway. Scan and click, scan and click. That's what everybody does. Only search engines read web pages. Thanks Google, for reading all my web pages. A Walk on The Redington Long Pierby I took a walk out onto the Redington Long Pier on a sunny day in March, just to see what I could see. Unfortunately my camera's battery charger died that morning, so I didn't have a camera. So I took my camcorder and shot some video. Nice thing about video editors is that they let you take "snapshots" of the video frames. So here are some video captures from my Canon ZR-500. The quality isn't as good as the rest of the photos on BeachHunter, but they serve the purpose (and the quality is better than on most sites). The Closing of the Pier (not)The Redington Long Pier was closed for 4 days last summer because some wood from the pier was seen washing up on the shore after the passage of a storm. It was declared unsafe until engineers could inspect it. I couldn't find any info as to whether the pier had reopened, so I decided to check it out for myself. As of March 2007, the last 60 feet of the pier is closed for repairs, but the pier is open for business. Ya can't keep a good pier down. Of Course is Smells Like Fish--It's a FISHING PierI really like this pier because it is old and funky. That's how piers should be---wooden, creaky, fishy smelling, with lots of bird crap and fish blood and scales stuck to the wood. A good pier needs old men with big bellies and beer breath, hairy arms and necks, loud voices, but with a gentle manner and lots of patience. The fish are in no hurry. And birds. Every pier needs lots of hungry raucous birds flapping and squawking and hopping all over, ready to grab any fish cast aside by a fisherman. The Redington Long Pier has lots of birds--long-necked herons, goofy pelicans, pesky seagulls, flighty terns, and confused pigeons. Being close to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary adds to the bird population quite a bit. Take a Walk on the Pier -- You Look Like You Could Use ItThe pier isn't crowded because it costs $2 just to walk out onto the pier, and it costs $10 to fish. But if you ask me, its worth $2 just to get out over the Gulf and away from all the condos and resorts and traffic. Out on the pier you can catch the breeze, smell the salt water and really breathe. Had a tough day? A tough week? A tough life? Just walk out onto the pier on a warm sunny day. Take something to drink. Sit in the shade on a hard wooden bench and just sink into the wood. Pretend you are a whacky pelican with no place to go. Just sit there and get into the zone. Don't move for at least an hour. No one will bother you. Real fishermen respect your quiet space. That's why they are there too, most of them.
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