Shoot!

Whew! Our tidepool shoot at Cat Rock -- an inhospitable lump of lava and barnacles seething with icy suck-you-out-to-sea-
water -- is done and I'm glad to say we returned with the same number of kids we left with.
Taking "other people's children" on a shoot is sheer terror: especially if you don't know the parents. Otherwise you can threaten the children with death and explain half-assedly to your friends and neighbors why their kids are not home on time, why their best sneakers are wet and their jackets are torn; but the kids of strangers provide a strange conundrum indeed - starting with how curious it is that these nice people let me take their children out of school and transport them on a film shoot to an offshore island in the first place.
Luckily these children were polite, enthusiastic, and were not pukers (they did, by contrast, eat voraciously). After picking them up at school and driving them across town to Ventura, we boarded the research vessel and made a quick crossing to the south side of Anacapa.
The scientists we were tagging along with debarked first, for their thrilling studies of intertidal species within the established transects <yawn>; then the film crew left to 'search for the perfect location' while I was left aboard to entertain children. Within a couple of hours though we were snapping on lifejackets and transferring the kids to the rocky shore in an inflatable.
Hours passed, but in sum: while the rest of the crew set up we played on the rocks, with the directive not to get hurt as bloodied children would make poor documentary subjects. The filming commenced and the kids, truly, were delightful, and played their parts well - handling sea hares and sea stars, crabs and urchins, all the while with waves surging at their ankles (knees ... thighs ... hips ... ) The sea was particularly unruly and despite the low tide, south swells came barreling in at random, flooding the tidepools -- at which point we hollered for the kids to HOLD ON as mountains of seawater rushed in. "One...two...three...four..." we counted the sets and then resumed filming. This continued until we felt a) we'd got the shot and b) the tide was coming in so swiftly that a hasty retreat was prudent.
By then the calm-ish pools on the west side, where we had debarked, were underwater, so we half-crawled out amidst the slippery rocks to the arriving dinghy. I held it in place as the kids pawed their way out then flung their bodies into the inflatable, and returned to the R/V where we had them change to dry clothes; after which they ate everything in sight.
All in all the shoot was a success, in a stunning location that most mere mortals only dream of visiting. Score another one for the lucky people.
[Personal note: I've had three very physical days and continue to be amazed/thankful/thrilled that I have been blessed as such:with the ability to heft a zillion cases of wine for two days then have such an active day crawling & climbing around Cat Rock ... I think tomorrow I'll take it easy at the gym: maybe bench press a small sumo wrestler and stationary bike 100 miles ... and YES - this is work: I *did* get paid for this job today :-D ]