Friday, February 16, 2024

Week 7: In the distance

I found a Facebook group with a 52 week photo challenge that provides an assignment each week.  The first two weeks my photo's both involved my dog somehow so I decided to try and keep him in each of my photo's for rest of the year. So far I've only missed one week and it's been a fun interpitive challenge. This week's photo assignment was "in the distance". I choose to submit the power line picture but the bottom one was my other favorite from our walk today. I went out with a vision of getting Snoop in the area of the field with the grid lines (look at last weeks post) or these power lines.  Snoop was not very excited about either option having no interest in listening to the stay command or leaving my side. So this is what we got. Next week is splish splash. Maybe we will make a trip to Sterling State Park for some beach photos as I'm sort of running out of back yard photo ideas :)


 

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Week 6.. Still shooting just not much exciting to share

Not much new to share we had a lot of rain and gray sky's around here all of January. The weather has now become uncharacteristically warm for February but at least we are starting to have a few days with sun.

I have been getting out with my camera every week but have not been getting much exciting to share from my daily walks with Snoop. Thinking I'm going to need to start mixing it up a bit to visit some parks or maybe a couple of the downtown areas new us for some different photo opportunities.

So far I'm still happy with my lens selection I bought with the camera (85 1.2, 105 Macro, and 24-120). I'm planning to buy the 100-400 sometime in the next month or so before we go to Iceland in May. 

Want to ensure I've had some time to practice with it. So far my most used lens has been the macro lens which produced 3 of the 4 pictures here. I take it out with me at least once a week when walking the dog to see what kinds of new things I can find in our back yard. The 4th was with the 85 at my son's Orchestra competition last weekend. I figured I would take the 85 for some cool narrow depth of field shots of the kids playing but didn't capture much that was exciting and failed to get my cell phone out for the standard group shots of the kids :)


Hopefully I have something more exciting to share next time.





Saturday, January 06, 2024

Week One of 2024

 Today's photo walk was more of the same as last week.  Another gray day, the only thing different was that it's now colder out. Next week I'll try walking the trails at a nearby park to see if there is anything different on the other side of the street. This week's photo assignment is floating.. will have to see what I come up with? For now these are my favorite pictures of the week.  All were taken with my spiffy new 105 macro lens.






My buddy lost his footing going down a large gravel hill and scared himself while out on our walk today.


Monday, January 01, 2024

First Photo Walk


New Year, new goals.. As I mentioned in the last post I got a new camera for Christmas and have made it a goal to post something here every week to see how my photography skills progress over the year. Looking back on this blog it seems my first post was with a goal to take time away from the work/business part of having a photography studio and carve out some dedicated time to take pictures of something besides a wedding/portrait/or event work. I noticed that the original post I had included a picture of my daughter that day so I decided to include a current one here as well. It seems like it was just a couple years ago she was little and sitting on my belly as I was rolling around the flower bed playing with my 105 Macro lens. So with that memory I figured I would start my first photo walk of the year with my new 105 macro lens. 

Almost 20 years later I still love the idea of macro photography. It was my favorite section of the high school photography class that got me hooked on photography and after getting to play with it a bit using lens filters for close up work I was desperate to get a macro lens.  About 10 years later after getting my first "real job" I bought my first macro lens and proceeded to never use it. The feed back between shooting film and getting it developed made the learning curve hard and as a result it got put on the back of my shelf. Today with digital cameras instant feed back and focus highlights in the view finder it's easier than ever to experiment with.  I'm really impressed with how sharp this new Nikon 105 Z mount lens is.  All were shot hand held with the camera set up for auto ISO.  I have a lot to learn/practice as far as depth of field and ensuring I pay attention to my backgrounds but for a first outing with a new camera I'm pretty happy with how these came out.






















My ever faithful buddy looking for me to toss his newly found stick while out on our walk.


Back to posting again & Happy New Year!

Family at our house Christmas Day
It's New Year's day and it appears it's been about a year and a half since my last post.  A lot has happened since then.  Annabelle graduated high school and is now attending Ferris State University studying Criminal Justice, Max is now in his second year of high school and currently in the process of finishing up his Eagle Scout Project, Amy is back to coaching skating, and frankly I've had trouble coming back to land life but am back at my old job and now day dreaming about what our next big trip might be.  I think they call it summit syndrome where one gets to the peak of one mountain and then starts looking for the next one vs being able to simply enjoy where they are at.  We still have the boat. Unfortunately we did not use it much this summer with all of the graduation activities, camps, and other kids related activities going on.  Unfortunately a few months after our trip ended we lost our dog Penelope.  The original plan was to hold off on getting another family pet for a few years but after about a month the other 3 members of the family were desperate for another pet and we got a tiny English Mastiff puppy we named Snoop which is now just a year old and 130lbs. Males of this breed average between 160-220lbs so will be interesting to see where he ends up.  He is a slow and steady grower, most months he gained about 10lb but is not down to only 5lbs the last couple months.  It will be interesting to see how he does getting in and out of the dingy as he gets bigger? I'm not really sure what will be in store for us this year.  We have talked about taking the boat somewhere but Max already has two summer camps scheduled and then there is Fair Week.  I'm hoping we can use the three weeks between fair ending and school starting to go somewhere on the boat.  We might only get to Mackinac Island but at least it would be a small adventure.

In the mean time I decided I needed a new hobby and bought myself a fancy new camera with a couple of prime lenses.  So I hope to start learning to use it with a goal to use this site as a place to post a few of my favorite photos each week.  My real goal is to make myself get out and start taking pictures again while having a place to be able to scroll back to see how my skills and hopefully style develops this year.  Hopefully I stick with it :)

Celebrating New Years with friends at our home
Snoop

Happy New Year and I hope everyone has another good trip around the sun this year!

Monday, July 25, 2022

Day 7 - Buffalo to Monroe, MI (Home)

It was nice to sleep in before we left Buffalo.  We took our time returning the gate card and checked out the observation tower then took P for a really long walk as once one the boat she would not be getting off for at least 24 hours.  About 10am we shoved off on what would be the final leg of our trip.  It was going to be about 220NM across Lake Erie and we thought we could do it in about 24 hours.  This would be our longest crossing since we had originally purchased our first boat and did this same trip.  Last time it took us 16 days to go from Sea Bright New Jersey to Gibraltar Michigan.  This time we were on track to do it in half the time and didn't have to run from sun up to sun down.  How things have changed in the last 14 years yet here we are still in a hurry to get home so I guess not everything changes.

The weather forecast looked great for the next 36hrs and we decided to go.  The weather was great it was almost flat clam the entire trip across.  The engine ran great and the crew held up well.  P was not too excited as she decided to hold going to the bathroom for 24 hours but we expected that and really attempted to limit her water to keep her from being too uncomfortable.  Before leaving we had worked out a shift schedule so everyone could get at least 8hrs sleep with a plan to rotate watches every 4 hours.  Once underway Max and Amy seemed pretty happy running the boat.  I took a nap and watched a movie amongst other things.  Then about 9pm as it started to get dark I took a shift & Max decided to keep me company until about 11:30.  The plan was that I would run the boat until 2 or 3am but was feeling pretty good after my rest earlier and kept going until Amy came up about 5:30 at which point I took a couple hour nap and all of the sudden we were almost back at our home dock.  It really was an uneventful passage.  Amy made cookies, we ate well, the weather was great what more could we ask for.  The only weird thing that happen was the generator overheated at one point and shut off.  We didn't really need it but I suppose that will be one more thing to put on the fix list after we get home.

About 9:45am we were docked at our home dock at Monroe Boat Club where we had left from last August.  The trip worked out to be slightly less then 24 hours.  Luckily for us we have a great extended family that had dropped off a car for us.  We loaded up a few things and any food we thought might go bad and headed home.  Just like that our trip was done.



Day 6 of the Erie Canal - Albin to Buffalo

 



Today we completed the Erie Canal.  We traveled the last 20-30 miles going though a few more lift bridges and the double set of locks in Lockport.  The big thing I noticed was how much rock they had to blast though to create much of this section.  Up until now most of the canal looked rather natural like a river but most of this section looked like they had cleared a highway though a mountain.  It was quite impressive and would have also been hell should multiple boats be traveling this section at speed at the same time as there was no where for the wake to dissipate.  Luckily we were the only ones and it was no big deal.

After going though the double set of locks we asked the Lock Master if there was a place to tie up so we could see the mesume about the locks there.  Turns out there is one spot and its first come first serve and we were lucky enough to get it.  We wondered over to the museum that told about how they built the original flight of five locks, why they picked that location, then how they modernized it in the early 1900's to just the two much bigger locks but had also recently restored the one side of the lock so we could see what the original 5 looked like.  While wondering about the lock we ran into a Swiss couple that had come over and were biking from Boston to Denver over a planned period of 7 weeks averaging about 50-60 miles a day.  Their daughter had also just completed an exchange year in the US and was the same age as ours.  Seems I may have to get in shape and start thinking about the kinds of adventures we could have on a bike?

On the way back from the museum we stopped by the local farmers market and picked up some locally made cheese, salsa, and organically grown beer.  Once again a strange thing happened we saw an ice cream shop and walked right on by for the second day in a row.

After taking the dog for a quick walk we all piled back into the boat continuing on until we got to Buffalo completing a 50 mile day.  After coming though Tonawanda we ran into quite a lot of current in the river and decided to take the ship canal.  After I called the lock master and we were locking though I started to read about how much notice the new 2-3 bridges in this section needed before they would open.  It seemed I may have made a mistake as most wanted 2-3hrs notice and were no manned.  I'm not sure how it worked out but as we got closer to each they all opened without any calls needed.  Not sure if the Lock Master controlled them or what but it worked out great for us there was no current and no waiting for bridges!

We pulled up to the fuel dock in Buffalo and got stuck paying the most for fuel we had yet on this trip at almost $7 a gallon.  Luckily we had only used 70 gallons since winter harbor and really probably didn't need to fill up but with our next leg being a 240 mile run across Lake Erie I wanted to ensure running out of fuel would not be an issue.  They gave us a decent dock for the night and we decided to walk around a bit to explore the harbor area.  I was impressed with the size.  They had two ex navy ships and a sub on display that one could tour if they so wished.  4 or 5 restruants (maybe more?) and lots of other docks.  This is where we ran into our 3rd 42 Nordic Tug that was made in 2000 and looked much more like ours.  Unfortunately the owners were out to eat so we just left our card and wondered off.  As we walked back to the boat we decided to break the streak and bought some ice cream.  Turns out we were not sick of it yet we just needed a day off :)

Day 5 of the Erie Canal - Newark to Albin

Newark was pretty close to the next lock so we slept in a bit and were off the dock about 8 to see where we would end up today.  Turns out we would make it though a couple more locks but this is where we ran into a lot of lift bridges only making it about 58NM today.  The good news is these are a bit easier then locks to do but also a bit more frustrating as each operator is responsible for multiple bridges and it seems they are all issued a hand held radio to talk with boaters on which is not very powerful.  Some of the bridges they are responsible for are 200ft away and some are 5-10 miles away.  Most of these bridges only open up to a hight of 15-18ft which means that our VHF radio antenna has to be down as our boat height is about 14.5ft this highest point with the antenna down or about 19ft with it up.  The highest point of our boat is our crain which we could lower if we had to but there was no need.  The point I'm slowly getting to here is that sometimes when we would get to a bridge we would call for an opening but not get a response because the operator was at another location 10 miles away and could not hear our radio call due to lack of signal strength. Then when you would get ahold of them either by phone or maybe after having to climb up to our roof to put the antenna up only to then go back out to take it down to go though the bridge and do it all over again a in a few more miles.. needless to say the process sometimes got frustrating.  I'm told they went to handheld radios so the operators would not have to listen to all of the chatter from the locks or bridges around them but it also means quite often they don't know your coming which adds some additional wait time while they rather fill or drain a lock upon our arrival.

Albin was a pretty decent sized town and there was one other looper boat tied up between the two lift bridges for the night.  We went for a 15 minute walk took in most of the town and had dinner at the local diner as again most of the restraints still seemed to be closed.  Again the city offered free power and a free wall to tie to for the night which was located right between the police and fire stations.

Something strange happened at this point in our trip.  We found the local ice cream shop and for some reason had no urge to stop.  We did stop in, stuck our head in, and looked at all the flavors but for some reason none of us wanted ice cream.  I think something serious has happened!  Have we finally had our fill?

 

Day 4 of the Erie Canal - Winter Harbor to Newark


Ok so I've given up on the number of locks we have done at this point. The guide book says there are 38 or so let's go with that.  One would think its easy each lock has a number painted on it in bright yellow but for some reason I never know what lock we are at.. I have to grab the binoculars and hope to see it or I'm franticly looking it up on Navionics or asking Amy to as we approach each one of these.  It does not help things that some are labeled 28a & 28b then a bit further down the river I'm pretty sure we skipped a number or two?  But who's counting right.  At this point we have just done a lot of locks.  Needless to say we passed though a few more today and traveled about 65NM ending in the town of Newark, NY.

Newark was a nice stop.  The free wall was right down town and offered free power and water. A representative from the chamber of commerce was hanging out by the water and invited us over to their office by the water just asking us to sign their guest book and offered a lot a great information about the town.  Unfortunately we would learn that this town like many of the other recent stops was pretty much shutdown for the holiday weekend like most of the others have been along the way.  By this point we have been traveling a lot of long days in a row and it had really started to get to me about two days ago.  So in an effort to get off the boat more we have been eating out a lot. We called five restaurant's and none appeared to be open.. Even the local Chinese restaurant was closed.  Those guys never seem to close.. most cities I've been to they are open Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, Easter nothing seems to dissuade their capitalistic nature.  Needless to say we finally found the one pizza place in town that was open and walked over there as well as the grocery store as we were low in the bread and fresh fruit department.

We were one of two boats tied up to the wall here for the night and the other boat happened to be a 2008 42ft Nordic Tug.  This was now the second one we have seen besides ours.  We wandered over and met the owners who were also doing the loop and got a tour.  They were very interesting and it turned out the husband has a things for Nordics and this was his 4th one.  They bought the 42 to do the loop in but seems his love is still for the 32 of which he has owned 3 over over the years and hopes to buy another one when they go back home to the west coast.  After talking with them we were treated yet again to a couple more fireworks shows from two different directions.  We again were attacked by bugs.  At this point after about 4 really good firework shows we were starting to become a bit jaded and almost went back to the boat but we decided to tough it out with the bugs and really enjoyed the last show we would see along our loop trip.

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Day 3 of the Erie Canal - City of Little Falls to Winter Harbor

Today is the 4th of July!  Happy Birthday America!

We left this morning at about 7:30am and made it through 5 more locks over a total of 65 miles.  On our first trip though we had been warned about Oneida Lake and stopped early to ensure we could cross in the morning when it was the calmest.  With our bigger heavier trawler we had no such worries and sort of laughed about our previous hesitation as after crossing it the first time I don't think it would be much different then a slightly below average day on Lake Erie.  But we also now have the benefit of 14 years of experience with 3 boats now and a couple of minor ocean crossings.

Being the 4th of July there were a few boats out.  I would not say a lot but enough that they were in the way from pretty much coming out of the last lock before Oneida until we got to Oneida.  We had been following a 58ft Sea Ray most the day which was nice but even he could not seem to intimidate them out of his way.  Several seemed to have no fear or respect for our bigger boats and would wonder across our bows at times and then randomly slow down or stop in-front of us just to immediately speed up again.  Like last time the free walls were both filled before the lake but we wanted to make it across the lake anyway that day so we kept going.  Once we got to the inlet for the there was a Sheriff boat wondering about clearly not knowing what he was doing (maybe keeping an eye on some small boats heading out) but like the others he decided to stop right in-front of me then randomly move off to the other side of the channel.  The Lake was rough for its size with maybe 2fters.  This was nice and kept all the small boats off.  In our boat we don't really notice these sized waves much and it was a nice crossing.  

Once across we stopped in Winter Harbor marina.  We filled up with fuel, got a pump out, and they had an amazing inventory of marine parts.  If I had more time I'm sure I could have found all sorts of stuff we needed there but I settled for four new Racor filters.  When we stopped in NC I had noticed the fuel filter was really black like we had picked up some dirty fuel somewhere but I also had not changed it over the last 600 engine hours so I just replaced it and decided to keep an eye on it.  I had also purchased some additive in hopes of killing anything that might be living in there but unfortunately had not read the label well enough to buy a strong enough dose for the 250 or so gallons I was attempting to treat.  I added it anyway & figured I would be burning enough fuel during this part of the trip that anything in there would not have time to really build up any sludge.  We had last purchased fuel in Annapolis and it was black again.  I had planned to change it but put it off because we only had two extras on board so I decided to wait until we were going to cross the Delaware Bay or maybe the run from Cape May to NYC.  For some reason it never got changed but in all fairness the engine never acted starved for fuel so it was still doing its job.  However it was really black again after only burning 4-500 gal of fuel by the time we got to Winter Harbor so I changed it again after adding about 300 more gallons of fuel to the boat.  Now that we have a number of extra filters I'll keep a better eye on it and maybe swap it out again before we cross Lake Erie.

Winter Harbor turned out to be a great stop for us we found a group of 15 or so loopers hanging out and spent rest the night socializing with them and enjoyed another nice fireworks show.  One of them turned out to be the fellow we had sold our new dingy to in Tarpon Springs.  We had a few laughs about that and found out he was really enjoying it.  I had ordered a new one the day we sold it but because of supply chain issues was told we would not have it until June.  Last I checked it was still three weeks out before he thought he would have all the parts so maybe I'll have it before the end of July when we get back?

Day 2 of the Erie Canal - Lock 8 to Little Falls at Lock 17


Today we traveled 62 miles to the City of Little Falls just past lock 17 making it though nine more locks.  Surprisingly the Fourth of July holiday weekend still had not brought out many boaters.  The lock masters all said they had been pretty slow and we still had yet to lock though with another boat.  It was like having the Erie Canal to ourselves which by the way is a fantastic experience! 

Today we started about 8:30am and ran until we were told the locks ahead would be closing about 5.  We had read some reviews about the stop there and it was supposed to be within feet of a fantastic Mexican food truck and only steps from there to a brewery.  I was excited as it sounded like my perfect stop.  We pulled in tied up and were happily surprised that the town only charged $1 a foot and included electricity and water.  This was our first time other then Cat Skill of not having to pay an additional charge for electric and it was cheap.  Seemed this stop was getting better and better!  This is when I noticed the food truck across the street was closed.  This was quite sad but I still had hopes for a brewery.  So we set off insearch of some food and instead found the small town theater.  Max was insisting that we all needed to see the new minions movie so off we went.  The movie was ok, Max really liked it, and I was still excited for a brewery visit.  We trekked back over to the brewery only to find out it was closed as well.  Seemed all the local towns coordinate their festivals and these guys decided to simply close everything down for the holiday weekend.  Needless to say I was quite disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm for capitalism the town was displaying.  We went back to the boat had dinner then purchased some ice cream bars from the marina office.

While this is truly a beautiful post card perfect little town on the water they are now dead to me.  I had been excited all day about some good Mexican food and beer only to be denied both.  The worst part was the next morning while walking the dog we ran into a group of older guys having breakfast in the park because of course their normal spot was closed only to tell me how great the food truck was and that there is almost no better beer to be had then the local brewery.  Then just to add salt to the wound it seems a couple of them had accidentally crashed a private event the brewery was having the night before where they were given free beer.  I could not take it anymore and we shoved off promptly after that discussion to continue our journey west up the canal.


Day 1 of the Erie Canal - Catskill to Lock 8


This morning we traveled from Catskill, NY though the first eight locks of the Erie Canal.  Leaving Catskill and heading back up the Hudson was beautiful 32 mile trip and reminded me of our side trip to Knoxville when it felt as if we were traveling though the mountains.  Once we arrived at Waterford we had heard they were having a steam boat festival and figured that they would not have any room on their wall for us with those big boats in.  Little did we know that they were little steam boats that were maybe 20 feet long and a bit wider than a canoe.  Seems we could have stopped by there after all.  Guess we will save that stop for next time!  As we came by Waterford we entered into the Federal Lock with two of the little steam boats and had a chance to chat with them a bit while we waited for the water to rise.  There were mostly wood boats the owners had made and installed steam engines on.  One had a couple whistles and was quite capable of playing a few songs for us though the next couple of locks which made us all smile.  I had been a bit nervous about doing the locks again.  Fortunately we have now been though about 50 locks in this boat coming down the inland river system from Chicago to Mobile and pulled right up to the bollards the first time making it look like we knew exactly what we were doing.

Once in the locks we talked to the operators and it seemed like most businesses these days they are still a bit under staffed and were only staying open until 5pm vs their posted operating ours that stated they would be open from 7am-10pm.  As it was about 5 the lock master  suggested we travel down to a local restraunt called Jumping Jacks to tie up to their wall.  Unfortunately the restaurant was doing a firework show that night which meant the river was full of small boats that were their to party and not paying much attention to us.  So we decided to look for an anchorage.  As we were coming up on what we thought might be a good spot for the night we decided to try calling the next lock in hopes that they might be open extended hours due to the fireworks.  We were in lock.  They responded and locked us right through lock 8.  Once we came though lock 8 we tied up to the wall, had dinner, and then were treated to our first firework show along the canal while be attacked by bugs.  Overall it was a good day and we had traveled one more lock then we did on our first trip.  We were looking forward to our next day in the canal.

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Made it to the big apple!

Yesterday we made the trip from Atlantic City to NYC.  It ended up being just under 100NM but the sea was beautiful and completely clam.  We saw dolphins, schooling fish, and a lot of the NJ shoreline.  It was really a great day to be out on the ocean traveling.  Amy's only complaint was that we didn't see any humpback whales.  We saw a couple tour boats circling something but could not tell what it was and the Coast Guard was on the radio talking about a sighting off of Coney Island.  Despite all that we still missed them somehow.  We were traveling with a couple of buddy boats and stopped by the Statue of Liberty to get a few pictures of each other and our boats in front of the statue.  Our crew wanted to keep moving up the river to get some additional miles under the keel but I convinced them to spend the night at the anchorage behind the statue.  Looking at the weather report it looked like it was going to be a really calm night despite all of the wave action we were getting from the ferry's at the time. As predicted it calmed right down about 8pm and we got some breath taking views of the city lights at night followed by a beautiful sunrise the next morning.  I think we all really enjoyed getting to spend the night there.

Unfortunately we are now on a timeline to get home.  Annabelle flew back into the the USA after completing her junior year as an exchange student in Denmark two days ago and already has plans to go back to Europe first visiting London with her Girl Scout troop and then flying over to Rome to spend some time with Sara one of the exchange students we hosted last year.  So to make a long story short we are now in delivery mode looking to get as many miles in a day as possible to knock out the last thousand miles of our trip.  So sadly we were not able to visit family or NYC while we where there.  So shortly after sunrise we started our trek up the Hudson River and past the amazing NYC & Jerry shoreline.  I had forgotten how pretty the trip up the Hudson River was as we progressed further it truly was breath taking and pictures would not do it justice.  It reminded me a lot of our journey from Chatnewga to Knoxville where it felt like we were boating though the mountains with the large gorges beside us and the mountains in the background.


Tonight we made it to Catskill, NY.  Last time we did this trip was on a new to us 31 foot sail boat we named Escape Plan.  It took us 3 days to make it here from Sea Bright, NJ going about 5kts most the way. Once we got here we then had to wait to take down our mast and ended up spending 2 nights in this cute little town.  We pulled into the marina across the street from where we stayed last time which is now owned by the same guy.  Last time I had made a note that these were the best showers we had seen so far and as a much more experienced boater I can now confirm they are still pretty nice.  We took a bike ride though town and not much had changed.  Most the restraints I remembered were still there as were all of the cat statues.  We attempted to eat at the owners restaurant but the line was pretty long so we ate on the boat then went out for ice cream.

It will be interesting to see if we can make this trip any quicker now that we have a power boat vs the sail boat.  The first time it took us 16 days.  So far we have covered the same ground it took 3 days to do in 1 and can skip any boat modifications required to travel though the canal as this boat is under the 15ft requirement to travel end to end though the canal system.  I suspect the 7 days we spent in the canal system last time will be about the same or maybe we can eliminate one day or so due to our increased speed on some of the longer legs between locks with no speed limits.  We'll see!