Aside

What’s On Deck

I’ll resume more regular posting in the next month or so, but in the meantime:

  • I’m working on finding a new job, since my current contract is about to hit its max of 18 months
  • I’ve started diving into improving my incredibly poor grasp of Spanish using the excellent Duolingo, as it will become useful as I continue my travels around the (mostly tropical) Americas and Caribbean
  • I have my first trip dedicated to birding lined up: in the third week of September I’ll be spending four days at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge
  • Nikon is releasing their new 200-500mm f/5.6 lens in the middle of September and I’m very tempted to buy it. I’ve liked the Tamron 150-600mm but I’m not entirely satisfied with its sharpness at f/8, and the bokeh at f/9 and above is very harsh
  • My next sailing course, ASA 106, is happening the first weekend of October, where I’ll be learning advanced techniques in coastal sailing including anchoring and sailing at night
  • And of course the San Juans charter trip I’ve detailed previously will be occurring over Labor Day weekend, and marking the second time I’ll be a skipper during a sailing charter, and the first time I’ve put the entire thing together by myself

Route Plan for a San Juans sailing charter

I’ve been so busy this past month I haven’t even updated this blog with the few bird photos I took while camping in early July, but it’s time once again for planning the route for another sailing charter. This time I’ve chartered Christelle, a Beneteau Oceanis 505 (a 50′ monohull sailboat) out of Anacortes, WA for a 4 day, 3 night trip into the San Juan Islands in early September, and nine friends will be joining me.

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Gallery

Hummingbird overload at Discovery Park

This past weekend (June 13th & 14th) I spent each morning at Discovery Park, arriving before 7am each day to coincide with the peak of activity by small birds. Specifically, I went looking for rufous hummingbirds before they begin migrating south to Mexico in the next two months.

What ended up happening (after a nice person in the park told me where he’d seen dozens of hummingbirds buzzing about) was probably the two best days of hummingbird photography I’ve had yet. More importantly, it gave me a lot of practice shooting these tiny, fast creatures, as well as an idea on an equipment modification I could make that I’m going to have to try to fabricate (possibly with the help of a 3D printer) which, if I end up doing, I’ll detail in a future blog post.

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British Virgin Islands 2015 Trip – Part 6

After a calm night moored in Little Harbor, we took a lazy morning making breakfast and not rushing things. The plan that day was to head to Sandy Cay for a few hours for lunch, before heading back to Soper’s Hole to get the boats checked in so we could leave early the next morning. We’d be sleeping onboard the boats that night, but docked up securely in the marina.

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