Anna Marie Island/Longboat New Year’s Eve Photo Shoot Returning – Speed on the Water
For the past seven years, 36-foot Skater catamaran owner Chris LaMorte and photographer Pete Boden have organized a New Year’s Eve Photo Shoot in Southwest Florida. The casual happening is sandwiched between the same-day “Munyan Run”—named for local performance-boat fan Bill Munyan—to lunch at Hula Bay restaurant in Tampa and the Joey Gratton Memorial New Year’s Day Fun Run from Sarasota to Bradenton.
Thanks to gorgeous Gulf of Mexico water, the annual New Year’s Eve Pete Boden photo-session never fails to produce spectacular images. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
On again this year, the annual photo shoot has produced some of the speedonthewater.com chief photographer’s finest images thanks to the Gulf of Mexico’s vibrant water colors.
“We’ve been calling it the ‘New Year’s Eve Pete Boden Photo Shoot around Anna Maria island for the last few years,” LaMorte, who lives in New Jersey but spends his winter boating-time in the Sarasota area every year. “It’s just been a word-of mouth type of thing. Pete likes it when we go out in the Gulf. It makes for better photos plus the water at the end of Anna Maria island is really nice and blue. So we spread the word among those in town.
Once the photo shoot is complete most of the fleet will head to lunch in Tampa.
“Ryan Beckley typically posts information about it on the Joey Gratton Memorial New Year’s Day Fun Run Facebook page,” he continued. “This year though, some of us are going to head up to Tampa for lunch and kind of mix the photo shoot with the Munyan Run. We are going to head out Longboat Pass, go around Anna Maria Island and head for the Sky Bridge and then go on to Hula Bay for lunch. That makes for a longer ride for the bigger boats.”
Boden, who will capture images from a helicopter, said he expects fleet to depart Sarasota Bay at 10:45 a.m. “There’s no formal registration or anything like that,” he said. “People just show up.”
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