I rang in the New Year down in Naples Florida with a nice fireworks show at the Naples Pier and decided to hang out for a few days and catch up with my old friends. Mike Morris forecast waves for the next few days and I'm always up to shoot a surf session. We all knew it was going to get cold as the fronts moved through but I don't think anyone anticipated just how low it was going to go. As it turned out 2010 kicked off with record low temperatures with some parts of Florida even experiencing ice and snow. To make matters worse the cold snap lasted longer than I can remember and some places broke their record for most consecutive day below freezing at something like six or eight days in a row. Not exactly the weather I wanted for the beach but I tried to make the best of it.

Naples is still a beautiful place but nowhere near the sleepy little town it used to be when I first moved there with my family in the summer of 1972. It's where I learned how to surf and the beach was my favorite subject to photograph when I got my first camera in 1976. Living just a few houses from the beach and walking distance to the pier I spent most of my time surfing when the waves were up and fishing when the Gulf was calm. Looking back it really was Naples at it's best and I'm thankful I got to enjoy it in it's prime. I eventually moved to central florida to be closer to all the things I like to photograph that you see here in my website but I always like going back to the place I still consider home. This gallery is from the first week in 2010 one of the coldest ever and Naples still managed to catch fire.