Balboa Park

A quick trip this morning to Balboa Park.  Discovered the water lilies blooming and a very curious duckling ready to taste them.

Lone Pine CA

A recent photo workshop (Packtrain Tours) with Kati & Ernie Cowan was held in the Lone Pine/Bishop CA  area.  We were at the Bristlecone Forest, Patriarch Grove, photographing the moon rising.  Here are a few photos from that weekend.  

Bristlecone Pine Forest

Alabama Hills Full Moon

More photos from the Galapagos

There were so many wonderful parts to this trip, and this day was just one of the many.   We did a "dry" landing on the island of Floreana.  Dry landings mean the inflatable that took us from our boat (Archapell II) to the land actually drops us off at a dock, rather than the beach.     It was still tricky getting off the inflatable because of swells, etc., but the crew were magnificent in handling the inflatable, swells, dock & passengers!   We all did it & it did get easier after a few of these dry landings.

Our hike took us up a muddy path to the water source for this island.  Our guide, Pauli, told us the story of the infamous Galapagos affair.  I'm reading a fascinating book called "Floreana" by Margaret Wittner, she was part of the early families who built a home on this island and recalls the "affair" that I mentioned.  

One of the many iguanas we walked by.

All the guide books (& our guide) told us not to approach the animals we might see.  We observed this rule, however his Galapagos tortoise approached us!   We gave him plenty of room as he crossed the path.  Pretty cool to be this close to them. 

On the cement dock, our welcome committee!

Sally Lightfoot Crab

2014 All Girls' Jam, MBYC

I spent a great day yesterday on the water photographing the All Girls' Jam, a race for women only, maybe in its 11th or 12th year?    Here are a few of the women racers, Juniors and Seniors racing Sabots,  all ages racing Snipes and CFJ's.  

Can I nominate Gene Ratliffe for "Best Boat Boy" ?     He was the driver of the boat I was on & made it very easy for me to get some great photos of all the racers.    Just a preview of some of the photos I took yesterday.  

"Best Boat Boy" Thanks Gene for driving!

Snipes 

Snipes rounding the mark

Sabots racing

Sabots

Back to the Galapagos ...

We toured the Centro de Interpretacion San Cristobal Parque Nacional.  Our guide, Pauline, gave a very informative tour of the center.   We had a chance to walk around this area, then took a bus back into the town.     Here are a few photos from our walk at the center.    More photos to come from the town of San Cristobal.

Main entrance to the interpretive center.  Lots of mo-peds for transportation on the island.

Galapagos Cotton

Giant Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp.)

 This plant (Galapagos Cotton) gets its name from the oval seeds.  They break open to produce something like white lint (cotton) and the guide book says this is used by finches and other small birds for nest lining.

I loved the fungus growing on this tree, couldn't resist a quick photo of it.















For those who care:  I just learned how to use Lightroom to make my photos web friendly.   So far so good.  Quick & easy (at least compared to the way I was doing it).   I had read that it was possible, but wasn't figuring it out, then thanks to a tutorial from Julianne Kost (Photoshop guru), it's happening!  

Change of pace ...

My daughter-in-law, Barb, sailed this past weekend in the Sr. Sabot Nationals Regatta held at Mission Bay Yacht Club.  She hasn't raced in years and was up against some great competition.   Barb held her own and against 17 other competitors, placed 2nd in the Masters-Gold category.  She missed 1st place by one point !   So proud of you Barb.  

Great skies too.  

Start line.  

Heading back to the beach after a great race!

The workers in the cities

Here are a few photos of folks working in their neighborhoods.

These guys started waving & smiling for the camera!