A U.S. Army soldier with the 10th Special Forces Group and his military working dog jump off the ramp of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment during water training over the Gulf of Mexico as part of exercise Emerald Warrior 2011 on March 1, 2011. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez/U.S. Air Force)

In this photograph taken on September 22, 2016, a Pakistani devotee decorates symbolic paper boats, an offering to Muslim saint Abdulqadir Jilani as a way of giving thanks after their desire to give birth to a son was fulfilled, before dropping it into the water during an annual ceremony on the banks of the River Ravi in Lahore. The ceremony commemorates a centuries-old tale that Muslim saint Abdulqadir Jilani raised a sunken ship carrying a wedding party, at the pleading of the groom's mother, saving all the occupants. (Photo by Arif Ali/AFP Photo)

In this July 5, 2016 photo, a tamed elephant rests in a pool of water by a road in Baduraliya, a village outside Colombo, Sri Lanka. Even as the country cracks down on illegal ownership, the enduring demand for elephants has the government planning to set up its own pool of captive animals to be hired out to temples for ceremonies and maintained with budget funds. (Photo by Eranga Jayawardena/AP Photo)

A girl carries fire wood collected from flood waters in the flood affected Morigaon district of Assam state, India, 25 July 2016. Over half a million people of 15 districts in Assam state have been affected by the current wave of floods. According to the media reports more than 70 relief camps have been set up in the affected districts to provide shelter to the flood affected people. (Photo by EPA/Stringer)

South Korean traditional bow artisan Kwon Yeong-Hak works on a bow in his workshop in Yecheon-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea, 26 February 2015. Kwon Yeong-Hak still crafts his bows in the traditional way, carrying on a four-generation family business. The Gakgung bow, of which Kwon is one of the last remaining artisans, is unique to Korea, and is constructed with a variety of materials, including water buffalo horn, oak, bamboo and cattle spinal sinew. A ban on the import of water buffalo horns has put the Gakgung tradition at risk. (Photo by Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA)

“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

A woman poses on the flooded St. Mark's square during an acqua-alta (high-water) alert in Venice, on November 19, 2013. (Photo by Andrea Pattaro/AFP Photo)

P.S. All pictures, as usual, are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture (if available; this principle works anywhere on the site AvaxNews).

Jacob's Well is a perennial karstic spring in the Texas Hill Country flowing from the bed of Cypress Creek, located northwest of Wimberley, Texas. The twelve foot (four meter) diameter mouth of the spring serves as a popular swimming spot for the local land owners whose properties adjoin Cypress Creek. From the opening in the creek bed, Jacob's Well cave descends vertically for about thirty feet (ten meters), then continues downward at an angle through a series of silted chambers separated by narrow restrictions, finally reaching a depth of one hundred and twenty feet (forty meters). Until the modern era, the Trinity Aquifer-fed natural artesian spring gushed water from the mouth of the cave, with a measured flow in 1924 of one hundred and seventy gallons per second (six hundred and forty liters per second) discharging six feet (two meters) into the air. The spring is the greatest source of water recharging the Edwards Aquifer.