The Nature Cruise

This morning we headed out to the Coronado Islands located in Mexican waters. The cruise out went smoothly enough with some good viewing opportunties for Pacific white sided dolphins. When we got to the islands we had Santa Anna winds which made it very choppy. I was thinking how glad I was that for the most part I don't get sea sick in choppy conditions.

When we got over to the wildlife viewing areas, I was using my big lens. Now to get a feel for this situation . . . Remember in the original Star Wars film when Luke, Hans, Princess Leia, and Obi Wan are escaping Tatooine in the Millenium Falcon, Luke and Hans get in the gunnery bays and start shooting the Empire fighters. Well, imagine me with my big Sigma 300-800mm lens mounted on my Wimberly head mounted on my heavy Gitzo tripod which is lashed to one of the railings. Consider as well that we have bench seating not really designed for people's legs not a big tripod. And while I was one of the first ones on the boat, I did not get the best seat for setting up the tripod. Picture me trying to get the right angle on the various sea lions, elephant seals, cormorants, pelicans that came into view during the day, especially once we hit the choppy waves with the boat not only going up and down, but sideways.

As we went along one very rocky steep shoreline, I also found that I wanted to capture the wave action and the waterfalls as the water cascaded back to the ocean.



As the boat is moving up and down, sideways in the choppy seas, I'm trying to focus at 800mm for those "close-up shots." I am on someone else's tour so I'm in bright mid-day sun. Too bright to check the histograms for exposure. Plus I've got to have a fast shutter speed because I'm the one in motion. Less than a second to lock focus, shoot, and hope that the animal is still in the view finder. Planning for a level horizon . . . yes, I tried for the most part, but level horizons in this shooting situation are luck rather than planning.

When I got back to the computer, I had a lot of cut off heads in the pelican shots, lots of blurred birds and seals. However, while I was on the cruise, I was literally shooting in the "dark" and hoping that at least a few of the shots would work without being able to check and correct as I went along.




I'm also working in a little discomfort. I had set my tripod at a height that I thought would work for catching whales and dolphins at the water level. I'm short so I need the setting low enough to look down. But when we got to the sea lion and bird areas, it was set a little too low - so my legs got a good workout as I tried to get myself in the right position to look through the view finder, get my subject into view, click the shutter, before the boat bounced me out of position. I was in a partial squat with my back bent backwards and arched so that my eye could get to the view finder. At one point I tried getting on my knees on the seat (asking Henry to hang on to me so I wouldn't fall over the railing to the deck below.) That just did not work - my legs started cramping and I could not get the right position. Henry started supporting my back with his hand and that helped tremendously. Plus I kept worrying that I would bonk the head of the guy that was seated close by in the seats in front of us. (Fortunately that did NOT happen!)

Now sea sickness is a visual thing as well as a physical thing. Looking through my big lens magnifies the action. I was definitely having some motion sick dizziness. But I was seeing these wonderful photo opportunities, with fortunately some break in the action as we sailed around the islands. I would stand up, find my posture for getting the shots, take bursts of shots, and then take a break on the seat, and then stand up and go again. All the while not knowing whether any of the shots were going to work and worrying about exposure and over exposure, because even the in camera metering was hard to see and read in these conditions.

After we left the islands to head off to find the whales, I headed down to the galley to get some lunch and a carbonated drink hoping to relieve some of the sea sickness symptoms. There was enough time to eat and get to feeling better before we started spotting dolphins and finally found a couple of gray whales. And, yes, food really does help sea sickness.

I've posted some sample photos of most of the species we saw during the day on the The Nature Cruise page on my website. I have not had time to do the processing to see if any are competition quality with the sharpness needed, but they turned out much better than I expected given the conditions I was working under.