Two years ago, I went down to Lake Washington to watch Seafair. I posted then about an Osprey that was flying along the shoreline while the airshow was underway. This year I went again and, while it wasn’t as frequent a visitor as last time, we did get another osprey checking out our part of the shore once more. We were well away from the display axis so no risk of an osprey checking out a gas turbine. Such a cool looking bird to see. Soon they will be gone for the season.
The Bremerton Air Show had some interesting displays, but the biggest contribution came from the Erickson Air Collection. Aside from the Grumman Duck about which I have already posted, they brought a P-47 Thunderbolt, a P-40 Kittyhawk, a Bf-109 and an F4U Corsair. The Corsair was for the Legacy Flight at the end of the show, but the others went up together for a sequence of passes. Great to see these different planes out and about and congratulations to Erickson for having added so much to the show.
As we motored down Sproat Lake looking for good locations from which to photograph the takeoff of Hawaii Mars, we went through a narrow passage between sections of the lake. Just south of the passage was a small island. A closer look told us that there was a single house on this island. The idea of your own private island does sound quite nice. I think I would like the house to have a less obstructed view of the water but, maybe if you live there and see constant boat traffic like ours, the need for privacy makes the trees a better option.
I was working through some shots of the 777X development aircraft as it landed at Boeing Field and I noticed a couple of the front windows were blanked out. One was a conspicuous sensor of some sort but not far behind it is one blank that looks a lot more normal but also seems to have some sensor protruding from it. No idea what they are sensing but I imagine it is important.
The approach to Swartz Bay ferry terminal on Vancouver Island brought us close to some other ferries in the BC Ferries fleet. Two of the Salish Class vessels were there, one heading out and another heading in alongside us. I only had my phone with me at that point, but I was able to catch both of them at different times and distances. They are a relatively recent build of ferry having been constructed in Poland. I haven’t made any of the shorter trips that would give me a chance to ride one yet.
The arrival of the Starlux A350 has already appeared in a previous post. I got there a little ahead of its scheduled approach and, since I was playing around with using my longer lens, I decided to try shooting some of the preceding arrivals with the same lens from head on to get some tighter compositions and see just what would work before the planes got chopped off by the limited field of view. I had a variety of types coming in from the little E175s to 777Fs. They gave me some things to work with and I quite like how some of them came out. A bit of variety is good when the subjects are very repetitive.
I posted about a beach on Vancouver Island that we had scoped out as a possible spot for later. While looking around, I spent a bit of time checking out some of the tide pools on the shore. As is often the case, they initially look quiet but, if you spend a little time waiting, you start to notice movement. I found a crab scuttling around in one of the pools and grabbed some photos of it. What I didn’t realize was that there was a second one alongside that had obviously been less mobile while I was watching. Lots of barnacles in the water too and a ton of snail-like creatures. Don’t think they were hermit crabs but who knows?
I got a sequence of shots of the F-35B as it was taking off for its display at Seafair. I was a long way down the runway from it so the image quality is not all I would like but what caught my eye was the effect of the afterburner plume on the runway surface. From shot to shot, there was either this red glow or nothing. I was wondering whether it was a function of material on the runway like rubber that was burning in the efflux of the engine. Interesting effect, whatever the reason.
I had met my friend mark down at the top of Lake Washington in Kenmore a while back and some of our shots had been compromised by a large barge moored a little way from the shore. When I went back later a month of so later, no sign of a barge – initially. After I had been there for a while, I saw a barge coming up the lake with a tug pushing it along. It came to the same location and slowed to a halt before mooring the barge.
The tug then cast off from the barge and headed into the inlet at the top of the lake. A little while later it came back out, this time with another barge that was empty, unlike the one it had arrived with. There is a concrete plant in Kenmore that is along the water, so I assume that the barges are used to bring in the aggregate for the concrete manufacturing process. From this reverse angle, I got to see the crew working along the barge handling the lines to the tug. It was rather interesting to see them hard at it. I also liked the tug’s name. It clearly had an original name, Willamette Chief, overpainted although the second half had been left exposed. It had a newer name, Island Chief, on a plate higher up on the superstructure.
When you go out on a lake, you figure that there will be some nice properties along the lakeshore. It’s a desirable place to live so you figure some money is going to be spent to live there. The top shot is just a view along the shore where we rented the boat, but the others are some of the places we saw. While most of them seem really good, I was disappointed in one place. The structure of the house looked really nice but the concrete structures between it and the water look really unappealing from out on the boat. Sure, if you are in it, you can’t see that. However, if I am spending that much on a place, I’d want it to look great from outside too!
