Took a short drive out the coast after Sunday lunch today. The weather had been pretty miserable all day but just as we got to Portmarnock strand the sun came out and the sky cleared. So I stopped to get a shot of this sculpture ‘Eccentric Orbit’. I have photographed this sculpture before but not as part of my 365 project. Here’s a little info behind the sculpture…
“It was from the Velvet Strand, on the 24th of June 1930 that the famous Australian aircraft, Southern Cross, departed on a pioneering Atlantic flight to Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, where it landed safely some 31.5 hours later. The plane was piloted by the legendary Charles Kingsford Smith and navigated by Dubliner, Captain J.P Saul, accompanied by crewmembers John Stannage and Evert Van Dyk. The sculpture ‘Eccentric Orbit’ commemorates the Southern Cross flight and can be seen in the grass area at the north of the strand. This piece, by Remco De Fouw (2002), consists of a limestone sphere showing a map of the world. The bronze needle at the top of the sphere points directly at the North Star, a point that has been used for navigating for thousands of years.
It was also from this beach, on the 18th of August 1932 that James Mollison made the first solo East-West flight accross the Atlantic in the De Havilland Puss Moth aircraft ‘Heart’s Content’.”
Shot details :- ISO 160, 50mm, 0 ev, f/8, 1/1000