Do you have a "Dream shot"?

As a photographer, there is this "dream shot" that I've hoped for some time to capture. 

(and this isn't it)

 A few years ago, I didn't carry my camera (to the annoyance of my family) everywhere, like I do now. Too bad. That's when I missed "the dream shot."

 It all started on this weekend where my wife & kids went with her mom to visit her sister a few hundred miles away. For whatever work-related reason, I stayed behind. This left me with the increasingly rare opportunity to have a weekend alone to do whatever came to me. I packed up some provisions in my backpack and launched my jet ski from Pirates Cove, (in Alabama on Arnica Bay) and rode to the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Pensacola for an overnight solitary camping excursion in the back country areas near the abandoned Ft. McCree.

 I spent the night in peace and witnessed the most amazing "moonrise."

The light playing off the waves, the moon somewhat tinted by atmospheric hues while the light danced around this unspoiled beach area. It was the most amazing and transformative sight and I didn't have a camera to capture the many nuances.

 In my mind's eye it is something like the fantasy beach in the movie, Contact.

 Since that time, a few years ago, I've dreamt of getting back out there, this time with a tripod and DSLR. Admittedly, when I signed the paperwork on my 33 year old 29" sailboat, the thought danced in the back of my mind that this would be a considerably safer transport medium for my DSLR than that old Sea Doo.. 

 (that wasn't the ONLY reason I went with the Sailboat, though..) :)

 Our family plans for Veteran's Day was to embark about lunchtime and sail to the general vicinity of Ft. McCree to watch the final Blue Angels show of the season from the water the next day. I hoped to squeeze in that "Dream shot" of the full moon peaking up off the horizon on the Gulf on a cool winter night.

 It wasn't meant to be.

 It was cold, choppy, we didn't get off work until an hour before Sundown, the kids, wind & universe did not cooperate in a manner consistent with traveling this relatively small distance by sail. We did have a pretty good time staying in a Bay, streaming Netflix movies for the kids and freezing our butts off. Ah, roughing it :) 

 The next day the wind was perfect but my wife had committed us to a kid's Birthday party on Saturday. I knew I could sail there in a few hours but getting back, into the headwind in time to honor that obligation would have been dodgy, at best. 

 Trey Ratcliff, in a recent Google Hangout, said jokingly that children's birthday parties should be illegal. I happen to agree with that sentiment now.

 I stood on the bow of the boat in choppy waters and 20 km winds and snapped this very high ISO, somewhat motion blurry handheld of the moonlight playing on the water. And.. of course.. I've doctored it considerably in such a way that it isn't even a true capture anymore. More of a franken-image from multiple shots.. I can't get the moon right but I figured I'd share this as a 60% approximation of what I'll hopefully one day get to capture!

 But, this is all I have until the opportunity presents itself again to capture that moonlight beach shot :)

 Do you ever do this? Piece together an aspirational shot that looks ahead to one you plan to capture for real, in the future? What about your dream photo capture, have one in mind?