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Bonus Santa Blog Post

Christmas Eve and I was down by the water in Mukilteo. My timing couldn’t have been better. I made a discovery that will come as a surprise to many of you. You may have thought that Santa rode in a sleigh on Christmas Eve (at night too), flying through the air pulled by his reindeer. I have news for you all. That isn’t true! Everyone has been lying to you all these years. How do I know? Because I saw Santa.

Turns out Santa’s preferred mode of transport is a paddle board. The reindeer do pull him along on his board but they do so from a small boat and they might look a bit like people wearing reindeer antlers. Santa did spend a bit of time getting ready. I’m sure it wasn’t because he was putting on appropriate clothing for being out on the water in December. He just wanted to make sure he looked the part. A mask was also in order so he might have trimmed the beard.

He got on to the board prior to the reindeer being ready. A bit of paddling around until it was time to hook the tow line on from the boat the reindeer were using. With everyone aboard, they headed out in to the water and started motoring around near the lighthouse. The ferries were crossing in the background but Santa was not going to tangle with them. I had to head off after they made a couple of passes along the waterfront but I assume they were off around the world to start delivering presents.

Cattle Point

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We made a couple of visits to Cattle Point on San Juan Island during our visit there. It is a lovely spot for a stroll along the cliff tops. The lighthouse is not quite what you might hope for. It is functional but not elegant. However, the rest of the area is just lovely. Not only is it a great place to walk but the road running down to the point provides a beautiful overlook of the point with the water around it and the mountains in the background including Mt Baker looking imposing covered in snow. We had great weather both times were were there on this trip.

BNSF’s Interbay Yard

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BNSF has a large maintenance yard in Seattle in the Interbay area. My bike ride took me past the yard and then up and over the tracks. On my return leg, I stopped to have a look at the facility. There is a space where a round house used to be which you can see on Google Maps. A couple of trains were on the lines and there were a bunch of locos elsewhere in the yard.

Please Give Me Good Light for a 328Jet

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Late in the day in the PNW, you can get lucky with good lighting. It is not unusual to have a crappy day end with the sun, low on the horizon, cutting under the clouds and providing some briefly great conditions. With a Dornier 328Jet due in, I was hoping that the conditions might be just what I wanted. However, the plane was delayed from its planned time. At the scheduled arrival time, conditions were, in fact, rather good. I got something arriving then that looked pretty cool and will get its own post.

However, my 328Jet was running late. I kept my eye on the horizon, hoping the sun would make an appearance but the thick cloud layer hanging on the horizon told me that things were not going to work out. Sure enough, when the 328Jet showed up, the sky was decidedly dull. This was all the more annoying given that it had a really nice color scheme. They aren’t exactly rare but they are not common enough to ignore the chance to get one so this still counts as a plus for me.

Orcas Hotel and Ferry Terminal

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The ferry to Orcas Island comes in to the town of Orcas. (I think it counts as a town but it is pretty small!). Right across from the ferry terminal is the Orcas Hotel. It is an old style hotel and has a café as well. Restrictions meant eating in the café was out of the question but we did get take out food from there one night and it was great. The south facing harbor gets some nice evening light in the winter. The first time I was out walking there, I figured I would get a shot after I visited the local shop. That was a mistake. When I came out, the lovely light was gone and everything was in shadow. I didn’t make the same mistake again.

It Might Be Raining, But It Is A 727!

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Winter in the PNW does not mean reliable conditions for photographing planes. If the weather is bad, you might decide it isn’t worth going out. If it is raining and threatening to rain harder, there is a strong possibility you would skip a shot opportunity. However, 727s are getting pretty rare these days so that seems worthy of a trip out.

The weather was unpleasant when it made its approach but not as bad as it got a short while later. I went with my normal approach for shooting in really bad conditions by pushing the overexposure pretty high. I include a couple of edits. For the main image, I actually blended two different process versions in Photoshop to get the combination that most reflects how the shot looked through the view finder. The other edit is a straightforward Lightroom edit where the angle and the light suited it.

Stored 777X Numbers Grow

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While Boeing has delayed the entry to service date of the 777X, they have continued to produce airframes at Everett with the result being a number of stored airframes on the field. There are four jets in the test program and the rest are not going to fly until certification is close so, for now, they are finding spaces across the airport for them. Some are on the Boeing flight test ramp (with production of the other widebodies ramping down, space is more available I guess) while others are on the cross runway. This has been home to 787s and 737 Max jets over the years and now it is the turn of the 777X. Some of them are identifiable by the paint on the folded wing tips while others are unmarked for now.

Clouds over Mt Rainier

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On one of my days off – taken in order to get my PTO balance down – I headed out for some aviation exploration. The weather on this day was not great but, since I had struck it lucky on some of my other days off, I guess the odds were bound to swing the other way at some point. While it was cloudy in Seattle, looking south to Mt Rainier, the sun was out on the mountain. That didn’t mean it was cloud free, though. There was a lot of cloud forming over the summit as the wind blew through so I shot a few images to make a pano of the mountain. It would have been a great day to fly around the mountain but sadly that wasn’t to be.

Omni 767 Finds a Gap in the Clouds

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For the second time this year, I was at Paine Field when an Omni Air International 767 showed up. I wrote about the first time in this post. On this occasion, it arrived in some quite blustery conditions but, as it was on final approach, a gap in the clouds opened up and provided some lovely light on the airframe while leaving the background dark and cloudy. It makes for a far more interesting shot that would otherwise be the case on a day like that.

Views of Mt Rainier On My Way Home

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The drive to Mt St. Helens takes you south passed Mt Rainier. The weather was pretty crummy as I headed south so I didn’t get any views of the mountain as a drove. However, the weather had improved markedly by the time I headed home and the sun angle had come around to illuminate my side of the mountain. Consequently, I stopped a couple of times on my way back north to take some pictures. I want to do some hiking on Mt Rainier at some point but this was as close as I have got – at least on the ground.