February 5th, 2010 by James
We’ve just returned from a trip to St Croix to visit our friend Cor Bosman and Julie Edwards. Sarah and I took Henry to the beach A LOT – and we also got to dive together – after over 2 years!
At the Beach - Cane Bay
More to come soon (underwater photos, etc) but in the meantime, here are some topside pix:
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January 3rd, 2010 by James
I recently read Chuck Yaeger’s autobiography – in which he tells about flying the Bell X-1 through the sound barrier, and other interesting aircraft of the period. So it was a special treat to actually SEE some of these aircraft in person at Wright Patterson airfield in Dayton Ohio – home of the United States Air Force museum. I was able to make the special tour of the Experimental and Presidential aircraft hangars with Sarah’s grandpa (USAF retired) and brother.
Here’s a panorama of the inside of the Experimental hangar:
Experimental Hangar
US Air Force Museum Dec 2009
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August 17th, 2009 by James
Sarah, Henry, and I are back from a few weeks vacation in Norway. While we were there we spent time with friends, and went either hiking or biking almost every day. The weather was of course a great break from Houston’s 90+ muggy days…
I’ll be uploading some new photos soon, but in the meantime, here is a panorama of the Geirangerfjord in central Norway.
The head of the geriangerfjord in central Norway
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June 6th, 2009 by James
I never tire of a beautiful sunrise 
Blind Faith
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April 26th, 2009 by James
We were in San Diego last week for vacation and took Henry to meet his great grandma and grandpa “Cookie.” What a cool experience – we are lucky to have so many generations! I only got to meet my great grandfather once before he died and all of the other great grandparents were already gone.
As usual, click the photo to see the rest.
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February 2nd, 2009 by James
We took Henry to the Caymans last week for his first of hopefully many trips to the beach. 7-Mile Beach is the best place on earth for baby’s first swim – it’s shallow, clear, and with teenie tiny waves. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 23rd, 2009 by James
I was offshore last week for the installation of the 16″ jumper connecting the Shenzi gas pipeline to the Mardi Gras system. The work was performed by the folks on the Boa Sub C – a fantastic multi-purpose subsea installation vessel. And I’m not just saying that because they have an espresso maker on the bridge
Click the photo for the full gallery.
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March 17th, 2008 by James
Sarah and I got to visit the Whooping Cranes at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge – something we have wanted to do our entire lives. Just about the best way to see the cranes is aboard a shallow draft birdwatching boat called the Skimmer – operated by Rockport Birding and Kayak Adventures. The boat makes a three hour circuit through part of the refuge and has a viewing platform on the roof for photographers and birdwatchers. On the day we visited the weather was against us – with thick fog limiting visibility to about 200 yards for most of the trip, however we still had a great trip. We did see 8 or 10 individual whooping cranes, which was awesome – watching them picking fiddler crabs left right and center to eat. Other cool stuff: an osprey with a huge mullet, nesting great blue herons, various merganser ducks, buffle head ducks, and lots of different shore birds.
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For those interested, there are now 266 whooping cranes in the Canada-to-Aransas flocks, up from about 100 in the 70’s. The cranes come to Texas in the winter to eat blue crabs and breed – and they can bee seen through about April 1 most years.
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January 27th, 2008 by Sarah
We spent five nights camping and hiking over New Years with friends. We started with one night at Seminole Canyon State Park followed by four nights camping in Big Bend National Park. The weather was pretty cold, but we didn’t have rain or snow, so the hiking was excellent. We had a great trip and took some cool photos.
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November 30th, 2007 by James
So the day after Christmas, I went diving again (by myself) at the Coronado Islands aboard the Lois Ann. This is my favorite boat/outfit to dive with in San Diego (local) because they have such great service, an excellently laid out boat, and really good food. Can you believe they fed us quiche for breakfast after our first dive! Captain/owner Randy also goes out of his way (burning expensive diesel) to do whale and dolphin watching between the islands and Mission Bay.
For those in the know, the Coronados are a great place to dive with juvenile California Sealions during the winter time. They hang out at an ampitheater on the inland side of North Island – called Lobster Shack after a long-gone lobster fisherman’s camp – and are literally ecstatic to see the boat pull up with their new toys. Diving with the Sealions at Lobster Shack is more like playing at Romper Room in a snow-storm. It’s not that great for photography. But luckily the Sealions are happy to follow the boat around and dive with you at other sites – like the Keyhole. This spot is on the Southern tip of North Island and has great terrain, lots of flowing eel grass, and some nice bull kelp too. This is where I think I got my best shots:
Some photographic notes: For these shots, I was using the Canon 24mm L lens and dual Ikelite DS200 strobes. I think that 24mm is almost the ideal lens for these guys, as they aren’t that big (4-5 feet long) They guys can swim so fast and move their necks even faster, and I found that stopping motion isn’t possible, even with shutterspeeds of 1/125th of a second. So I got a LOT of motion blur in my photos. Motion blur can be a GREAT thing, and can really be used to showcase the speed or energy of a subject in a photo, however I wasn’t able to get the motion blur I wanted. I attribute this to the fact that my Canon camera will not do 1st (or rear) curtain sync with underwater non-eTTL2 strobes 
This to me is a major fault of Canon cameras, because other brands have no problem doing rear-curtain sync with just about any flash. So your options are to pan with the Sealion – which is do-able but really hard – and which results in a sharp subject but a blurred background. If you want a sharp background and a sharp subject with a blur trail behind it, you need to use an eTTL2 converter so that you can get the camera to fire the flash at the END of the exposure. This is what I’m going to try next time…
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