1982. | San Diego
I was much younger here, and don’t remember being too anxious climbing up to this vantage, though it was difficult to maintain ‘one hand for yourself, one hand for the ship’ while holding a camera.
What was scary though, was that shortly before this, I had stepped out from the bridge and onto the narrow upper deck and heard a single steel-on-steel clunk. I thought “What was that?” then looked down to see my trusty solid Nikon S2 lying at my feet. I had trussed the camera differently over my soulder to squeeze through the hatch, and it was merely resting on my camera bag, its strap untensioned. That would have made a wonderful splash, and I’m sure I would have heard that, timed perfectly with gravity’s acceleration after the clunk.