New Year's Eve - Pleasure Island Style

No, it's not the name of a bad porno movie. Pleasure Island is the name given to the island that is just south of Wilmington, NC. It is made up of Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and the Ft. Fisher National Historic site. The area is also called the Cape Fear Peninsula but probably that was not enticing to the tourists!! It was once a peninsula but the Army Corps of Engineers decided that there needed to be an additional waterway between the Cape Fear River (behind the "island") and the Atlantic Ocean, thus the island was born.

George and Chainers are enjoying the boxes from the Christmas gifts.

Each year, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach erect Christmas light displays on the main road stretching the length of the road. In Carolina Beach, the lights are traditional Christmas icons while in Kure Beach, they are anchors, seashells, and various other "beachey" representatives. It is charming and very colorful.

Carolina Beach and Kure Beach alternately host a New Year's Eve bash, complete with DJ and fireworks. This year it was Kure Beach's turn. I arrived back from Raleigh just in time to see it from my third floor porch half a mile from the center of the celebration.

I had a lot of fun trying to take pictures of all the different configurations. I used an ISO of 1600 with my Canon EOS camera and my Tamron 28-300 telephoto lens. I let the camera adjust the exposure and time!

Loved all the pink and different textures in this one!

This was all great fun!

Loved the weird shapes and the look of paintings in the above two pictures.

This looked like an exploding galaxy!