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Pre-Patricia (and post)

I haven't been down to Altair yet, but I am on my way.  I'm not sure what I will find, because Patricia hasn't really finished.  I know that storm is really big and huge, but Altair is in a marina and I hope she comes out all right.  I don't  know, much depends on the mountains and the storm.
I, however, am totally all right.  I am driving south with my friend Wes, to go to our boats, and we have just crossed the border into Mexico today, and are in Hermasillo.  I'll try to give an update when i know more, but I am OK.

Everything turned out all right.  Altair is getting her wings back on slowly and I have to do some things, but we'll get out sailing soon.
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Lego Sailing

In between "sailing" in Alaska and sailing (with sails) in Mexico, I have been sailing a bit in Seattle.  My friend Danny and I were racing his boats around in a pond and I decided to make a short video about it.  I know it is cheesy, but I had a good time making this.  About 10 more days till I head down to Mexico.


And here's the video:

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End of Season

I'm back in Seattle now, with another season behind me.  I made a video from this season as well.  Actually, two videos...  The first one was from the beginning of the season and the second is from the end.








Here's the second...

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The Last Juneau

 I saw Sitka for the last time this past weekend, and all I could think about as I walked about the town and at the bridge was my friend Ty Jones.
Then, I got back aboard the Wilderness Discoverer and my mind was wiped clean by the torrent of all sorts of things going on at once.   We stopped again at Pavlof harbor and there were bears there.  Mama with her little cubs have gotten a lot bigger!  This other bear is what I would like to call "papa" but I don't know.  The days are blending together and I am getting more and more mindless.  I can't remember any names anymore and the sun rises quite late and sets early.  Alaska is settling down for the long dark days ahead.
Still, there is beauty in the world.  A beam of sunlight shone down on John's Hopkin's inlet and we passed through it and found the fall colors delightful.


  I did the hike up the side of Lamplugh Glacier this week and we went high on the hillside overlooking the ice, then clambered down to it to get a closer look.  Looking up at the blue ice is magnificent, and the rocks that might cloud the surface fall off, so the ice is relatively clear.  The tops of glaciers tend to have a lot of dirt on them, but the bottoms are drippy and clean.  And shine with a blue dream.



 Pam was driving one of the skiffs and I got this shot, one of my best this season, I think.  She might have been traveling at mach 2.
 Just as we got to the bottom, we looked over and the ice calved in front of us.  It was magical.


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Airplane! Salmon!

 It is feeling like Fall up here now, but I got my first float-plane ride last saturday!  The salmon are running like mad everywhere and it is wonderful.  I don't have much time to write, but I m eager to put up more photos and to be back in the world again.  It is raining up here.


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Top of the season

 This week rained almost the whole time, and though I love this time of year, the season is winding down towards winter.  All the early season sunshine is a distant memory, back in the foggy recesses of Misty Fjords.  We'll go to Misty Fjords this next week, on a trip to a huge number of places I haven't been to before.  Now is the age of Exploration!  I'll talk about that in a week though.   We went to McBride Glacier this week, and I love it there, because there is so much ice.  Tons and tons of ice, everywhere and we don't get to go there often.
Here's a picture of some things I saw on one special skiff tour this week.  A bear from close up, eating salmon....

A dipper that didn't want to fly away...
 And a swimming deer.
 This is a portrait of my boot, because I have a new lens that I was trying out.
 And the beach in front of Riggs Glacier
 And at last, my new kite set-up flying high above the world.

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Icarus, etc.

I flew too high, too close to the sun.  I didn't have wax wings, but they were destroyed by the hubris of heights, the awesomeness of altitude.  Also they were betrayed by the malice of monofilament.  I broke my kitestring, while flying my faithful kite up in the air above Golden Gardens park in Seattle.  Sadly, the kite flew itself out into the water (the puget sound) and also the camera (and my beautiful new slider set-up before drowning in the picture) were dropped from on high down into the depths.  It was a pretty sight, and no doubt will make a good video, should it ever be recovered, but it came down like a meteorite.  Gravity is quite effective.  So I lost all my stuff.  The next day (yesterday) I went to Glazier's Camera shop in Seattle to buy a new GoPro, since I am out one.  I ended up spending almost 1000 bucks.  Oops.  Luckily, my companion in kiting, The sage that I learned my high flying camera work from, Danny, was near a kite store (in Ventura, CA) where it is possible to get the same kite I flung away, and so I have two coming my way.
 I still need to rebuild my slider rig.  It used the most cute little pulleys you could ever see, tiny little things that cost 15 bucks a piece, and then there was a piece of the fishing rod that I use for flying the kite.  And a nice gopro mount that I will miss.  I'll make another one.  I have two of the pulleys still, and I'll find some piece of lightweight rod to make it around, but I still think I can do better than this.
Ok, enough of that.  I'm mostly through with my break this time around, but I have a few more days.  In the past two weeks I've been out canoeing and hiking in the North Cascades, and I got to see some Cedar Waxwings.  (see picture) On that trip we also went up to see Nooksack Falls, a beautiful waterfall on the Nooksack River up from Bellingham.


 So when I went to the camera store yesterday, I got myself a new lens, a 35mm lens.  I've been believing that I need this kind of a lens for a while, so here I am trying it out.  This one is a video lens, and it has some cool features, it is made by Rokinon, and has these little gears for adding focusing externally.  It is a Manual focus Lens, and is also manual aperature.  Maybe I won't like this as much as I think, but I am happy with it for now.  Here is a picture of some technology juxtaposition for starters....  The captian of the Orion busy with navigation...


 This lens is F/1.5, so that means it is super wide in the pupil, and if you ever went to the eye doctor and came away with those funny sunglasses after because they gave you dilating eyedrops, you understand that you can't focus on things.  This is because you have a huge aperture, and lenses with huge apertures have really narrow depths of field, which means that only a tiny bit is in focus at a time.
 It is a neat effect, so I took some pictures on the docks...
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