Tag Archives: washington

Olga

All of the communities on Orcas Island are small but Olga, despite being pretty tiny, had caught my attention because of its store. Currently closed, this had been a long lived facility. The community is currently working to try and get it opened up again. I imagine it is going to be a struggle since there aren’t too many customers within range. Hopefully they can do something. We stopped off and had a brief wander around the area near the store and down to the water’s edge. With the sun out, it was a tranquil spot, even if we did wonder whether someone was going to come out and ask us what we were doing there. (They didn’t but we did feel like we were an oddity there.)

Turbine Floatplane That’s New to Me

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While we were walking along the beach in Shoreline, I heard the sound of a plane coming our way. I could see it was a floatplane from a long way off but, even as it got closer, I didn’t know exactly what it was. I took a bunch of shots and then continued on our walk. Only when I got home did I look closer and still I didn’t know what it was. Time to hit the FAA registry. Turns out it is called a Murphy Moose. Never heard of this let alone seen one before.

Sailing Amongst the Islands

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The holiday weekend meant the San Juan Islands were definitely the place to be if you had a boat. We saw plenty of boats coming and going including plenty of sailing boats. Some seemed either to be racing or training together too. I just grabbed some shots of the boats when I could. The evening light on a spinnaker really looks very nice.

Korean Air BBJ

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I was surprised to discover that Korean Air, while being a major airline, is an operator of corporate jets. I’m not sure how an airline ends up in the bizjet market but they have. They have Globals, G650s and BBJs. One of the G650s was in SEA recently but I didn’t have an opportunity to see it. However, I did get the BBJ on one of its visits to BFI. It was stopping at BFI before making a direct run back to Korea. It is quite a nicely painted jet. Lots of the windows are blanked out on the front fuselage. A check on their website shows this is where some sleeping seats are installed. Plenty of smaller accommodation at the back for your lackeys to use while you rest up front if you like.

Strange Sunset Light in the Sky

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Sunsets are a regular theme for photographers since they provide a scene that resonates with people. I have shot plenty of them myself. However, while on Orcas, I saw something in the sky which I was quite baffled by and taken with. The sun was setting in the west and, looking off in that direction, the sky was lighting up as you would expect. However, looking directly south, the sky was doing something very odd. I don’t know exactly what was happening but my guess is that there was a lot of moisture in the sky in that direction and it was reflecting the setting sun back in our direction. It was a localized effect and quite something to see.

Boats That Other People Buy

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While boating across Lake Union, we saw a few of the sort of boats that you buy when you have amassed a decent amount of cash. Some of them looked quite elegant while others had a more aggressive look to them – perhaps the style is indicative of the owner? With the IT business being so large in the region, I suspect a lot of the boats are connected with people from that industry. I doubt I shall be buying something like this any time soon.

Embraer Departing Paine Field

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I was up at Paine Field one weekend morning awaiting a Dreamlifter movement – more of that in another post – and one of the local Embraer operations was departing while I was waiting. Sure, an Embraer E175 is not the most exciting photo subject but I wasn’t doing anything else and the morning light was alright so why not get some shots of it as it taxied by and lined up to depart.

Night Skies on San Juans

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One great feature of traveling to more remote areas away from the cities is the clear skies you can get at night. The ability to see plenty of stars when the sun has gone is great. With summer approaching, the sun takes quite a while to go down so I had to wait until quite late to get a shot that I wanted. I could have waited even later but I wasn’t that committed to the shot. I wasn’t using a fast lens so, even with higher ISO, I was still using a 30 second exposure. Even at 16mm, this still shows up some motion in the stars. Ideally, I would have taken a fast wide lens but I didn’t bother renting one for the trip so this will have to do.

More Black Hawk Shots

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I posted some shots of the Black Hawks that were delivering personnel to Paine Field for their onward flight in a USAF C-32. There were only a few shots in that post, but I took a lot of photos of the Black Hawks as they made there approach. Since there is a limit to what I get to shoot these days, I felt a post could certainly be made of some of the other shots from that day. Nice evening light really helps a Black Hawk look good.

Some Odd Maritime Contraption

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This is a weird looking boat. It passed me twice at Ruston while I was hanging out. At first I thought it was a catamaran with two people in it but I then realized there was a third person in there. I’m not sure whether they were pedaling too. That got my wondering how many hulls it really does have. Is it two or three? Who came up with it? Is it fun to use?