San Pedro

Ambergris Caye is the largest island in Belize, running 40m long but only 1.6km wide. Inhabited by the Maya in pre-Columbian times, the island was also popular with 17th century whalers, gradually turning to tourism in the early 1970s. Modern ‘San Pedranos’ are of Mexican descent with some Creole influences and it is said that you are not a true San Pedrano if you don’t know how to fish.

There are a number of settlements and resorts scattered around, but San Pedro Town is the only sizable town with an estimated population of 20,000. The majority of the island is set aside for national parks, further limiting the availability of real estate. The restricted space make car culture non-feasible, with that void being filled by golf carts. Access to the island is easily achieved either by domestic flights or a ferry service from Belize City.

Many of the roads are gravel and in perpetual need of re-grading, so a conventional golf cart won’t do the trick, these are some serious vehicles for a wide-range of conditions.

Steven arranged to borrow a golf cart from a friend in his condo complex and showed us a great time by shuttling us throughout San Pedro. As a trio we fit quickly and easily into our borrowed vehicle to zip from attraction to attraction.

 

 Between the Iguana Sanctuary, feeding tarpon in the marina, Garifuna culture, animal shelter, and the myriad number of restaurants, bars, distilleries, and shops in town we always had somewhere to be going and something different to enjoy.

Christmas in Courtenay

My parents bought a townhouse in Courtenay on Vancouver Island in 2024 and this was our second family Christmas out there. For those of you that have never been to the Island, its a stunning mountainous landscape and in winter there's constantly steam and fog rising out from the forests.

There's only about 45 minutes of daylight where its not raining, but if you can be outside in that window its an excellent opportunity for a hike and some gorgeous landscapes.

Neighbouring Comox as an air force museum and, continuing the theme from our last post, they have an annual contest among the units on the base to see who can decorate the preserved aircraft outside in the best way. There were no wrong answers, but this plane with antlers and a red nose was certainly a strong contender for my vote. Kathryn has also really mastered night photography on her phone and got some incredible flares and streaks to bring some extra energy to this picture.

Of course the real Christmas Miracle was Wesley being the centre of attention and getting all the love he so richly deserves. He remains a pretty nervous traveller so bringing him there takes some effort but once he arrived he took right to it, clearly remembering the layout and the different people from his extended stay last year.

Learning to Fly

I wanted to do something special for Kathryn's birthday this year, so I bought her a flying lesson with Sea to Sky Air, out of the Squamish Valley. The airport in Brackendale is little more than an airstrip, helipad, assortment of fuel tanks, but the area around it is stunningly pretty and well worth the trip.

Our flight was onboard a small Cesna. Made of fiberglass and aluminum, this little four-seater (which the fish eye makes look bigger than it was) was light enough that our captain could pull it out and position it by hand. We had a very informative orientation session, walking around the entire craft and discussing how all of its pieces fit together and work before getting inside.

Covid continues to make everything a little more complicated, but since there were only 3 of us onboard, we were able to mask up and put Kathryn in charge. The plane has two sets of sticks with the rest of the controls in the middle, so she was able to try her hand at everything and could feel how the plane responded to the takeoff and landing (which she was part of but not in charge of)

Strangely enough, on the ground these planes are steered entirely with foot pedals which brake on the left or right to turn the craft, and the sticks are only used during flight.

Some of Kathryn's sea captain experience with currents and navigation was directly applicable to flight. While air is clearly a different medium than water, the fundamentals are similar and some technical controls, such as trim tabs, are comparable in nature between water and aircraft.

We were quickly in the air and soaring over the highway on our way to Garibaldi Park.

Droning on about perspective

DJI have been making increasingly impressive consumer drones for years, and I have been promising myself one ever since I finished my degree a few years back. I finally got one this spring with the announcement of the Mavic Mini, which weighs a ridiculous 249g including the battery and memory card. Once unfolded and configured, this little drone can fly for up to 30 minutes and easily reach the legal Canadian recreational airspace ceiling of 100m (the app automatically caps altitude, so its easy to safely stay within the limit).

While this little marvel can shoot video and race around at ludicrous speeds, my primary interest in getting one has been to expand the possible results of stereographic photography.

For those of you that aren't as nerdy on the terminology as me, stereographic photography is the end result of shooting 360° panoramas and then re-projecting the image to make a "little planet." I've been shooting these for nearly a decade and think they are really cool, but find that sometimes they over-emphasize the immediate foreground to the detriment of the horizon.

This is entirely understandable since my camera is usually 5.5 feet up and, therefore, there is quite a bit of immediate ground in that perspective. The image below is from the Langdale Ferry Terminal and was shot with my usual fisheye technique.

In contrast, the image below was shot in the exact same spot but from the Mavic Mini at a height of around 80 meters. Not only are the beach and tide line a much smaller proportion of the overall composition, but you can see the islands behind the ferry and terminal as well as the mountains beyond the trees.

DJI has done an incredible job of making a powerful and compact flying camera that I can carry with me on any trip. As an added bonus, its an ideal hobby to take up during times of physical distancing as you're not permitted to fly within 30m horizontally of other people, or over crowds at all, so it's a great excuse to get away from everyone around you. You're also required to keep the aircraft in line of sight at all times, so having a hawk-eyed wife/spotter is highly recommended when you need to focus on getting all your shots right.

Sea Plane to Nanaimo

 We have watched sea planes depart from Burrard Inlet for years and finally found the opportunity to take one of these flights to shave off some travel time on a trip to Vancouver Island. The terminal is walking distance from our home and they have a pretty slick operation to get everyone ready and off to where they need to be.

 I remember seeing the cockpits of airliners when I was little and taking children to see the flight deck was a thing airlines would do, but its been awhile. However, these planes are so small that Kathryn and I were literally seated directly behind the captain, making for a more personal flight than you are typically used to.

 The weather was quite rainy and cloudy so it was not ideal for interesting pictures of the crossing, but seeing your own city from a different angle is always interesting. I have crossed Lionsgate bridge dozens of times but never seen it from this perspective. Kathryn and my dad briefly saw a humpback whale during the flight as well which was pretty cool albeit fleeting.

White Water Rafting on the Sarapiqui

Not every minute of our trip was spent traveling from hike to hike in our van. On the contrary, we had a few days where we left most of the fancy camera gear behind and got a little more extreme, like our afternoon of rafting on the Sarapiqui river. The tour was nicely divided into 2 sections with the rougher patch being first, followed by a nacho lunch and then a more leisurely finish.

 Our group was the perfect size to fill a raft without anyone being too squeezed or left behind, and the danger of the waters was low enough that we all had fun and had turns directing the raft. The waters were very cool and refreshing, and there was enough shade from the trees and breeze in the air to keep us pleasantly cool the whole time. There were some nice animals to see in the area, including a stunning bird called a sunbittern, but given the fairly high moisture involved in the excursion, we wisely decided to leave all the gear except for the GoPro behind. Luckily there was a local photographer there to take the pictures in this posting at a few key points.

 Never to be one left behind, Mario went through the rapids in a kayak which alternately led and followed our raft through the rapids. As a bonus, in the second half of the outing, each pair of people in our expedition got a turn in the kayak, which gives you a little more freedom and mobility but requires a little more effort as well.

Team and Transport

 Before we bury you all photos of birds and sloths, we think its really important to take a moment and thank the two guys without whom we wouldn't have seen a fraction of the things we did.

Our driver Nicolas (left) and our guide Mario (right) did everything they could, every single day, to make our trip unforgettable. They were both endlessly patient with our requests to stop along every roadside to take photographs and answer all our questions about nature, politics, geography and their country. Having worked together many times over the years, they joke around together like a pair of brothers and quickly got a group of strangers laughing and chatting along with them.

 Our transportation throughout the trip was this little while bus which are quite common sights as tourist vehicles in Costa Rica. It carried all of us, along with our assorted gear, up hill and down dale from the ocean shore to the heights of the cloud forest. Weirdly enough (though not shown from this angle) there is a driver-side door, but the front seat on the right has to be reached by getting in the side door and then vaulting over a platform and into the seat.

 There were 6 of us at our peak and there aren't too many photos of the lot, but I was very happy that Mario had a fellow guide take this picture of us all during our first hike in Cahuita national park. From left to right we have Lisa, Sue, Sam, Mario, Kathryn, Janet and George.

Lisa and Janet were a daughter-mother team from California and Michegan. Sam and Sue were a son-mother team from Montana. Both mothers were very keen on botany and knew a lot about the various plants and flowers of the country. Lisa and Sam were both young and funny folks. We had a great little group and each of them has a special place in our memories of our time in Costa Rica.

Wild winds, high tides, and the blood moon

 This fall there was a blood moon which resulted in some extreme tides in the same week as a fall storm brought in fairly high winds. Since you've all seen countless clear blood moon photos, I thought I'd share this stylized and shakey picture Kathryn took which neatly emphasizes the energy of the moon and the city night.

 Those high winds and tides caused a number of poorly moored ships in English Bay to slip from their ropes and wash up on shore. For a brief period there were 4 boats washed up in False Creek and while two of them were reclaimed fairly quickly, two were abandoned by their owners and have sunken further into disrepair. The boat below washed up quite high on the rocks and has since had its mast removed as it was hanging strangely over the seawall.

 The ship below, Tabasco, had apparently slipped its moorings several times already this year and had a bad reputation. This has no doubt been compounded as the owners have also abandoned it, and the day after this photo was taken, it had filled completely with water and was lying on its side underwater. This continued for a few weeks until someone pulled it out of the water, but not very gentley such that the keel and mast have both been removed.

 

So in summary, if you're lucky enough to own a sail boat, please tie it up properly, and if you can't be bothered to do that, don't be surprised if nobody else can be bothered to keep your boat ship shape for you.

The Scorpion Submarine

 On the same day in Long Beach that we clambered around the Queen Mary, we also took in a tour of the Russian Scorpion Submarine. While there are interenet rumors that it was submarine which The Hunt for Red October was based on (and the portrait of Sean Connery in the gift shop does nothing to dissuade that idea), the truth is a little less cinematic. It was actually decommissioned by the Russian military during the collapse of the Soviet Union and sold to a group of Australian investors.

 Being right beside the Queen Mary gives you a nice opportunity to see it from above as well and appreciate the size and shape of the whole craft. This photo also shows the entry and exit ramps tp reach the ship and the edge of the gift shop in the lower left corner.

 The inside is a great spot for photographers who like to combine low light with tubes, gauges, and valves. Once again I put my trusty fisheye lens to the test and got some nice pictures of the interior, my favorite of which is Kathryn crouched at the end of this array of torpedo tubes. Scorpion had 4 at the front and back, along with elaborate winches for loading the next shot in. There were also a number of round doors to crawl/sling your way through and an active periscope on the bridge.

Weekend Wanderings

 Now that my exams are all done and summer has arrived, I actually have time to spare to go out and enjoy the city we live in. So while there is still plenty to share about California, I thought I'd mix things up for one week and share a trio of events that I was able to take in recently. Below is the affordable housing protest at the art gallery.

While I do agree that housing in this city is disconnected from reality, the people at the protest didn't really have a clear message of what they wanted or even what they were protesting for (against foreign owners? raise minimum wage? magically make more land?) Vancouverites themselves were clearly uncertain how they felt about the issue as well since there were perhaps 200 people there, but for pro-marajuana day there are thousands in every direction.

 Next up was the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival (Vancaf) which is in its 4th or so year and gets bigger and better every year. They had 2 full exhibition rooms of artists plying their wares and sharing their creativity which is a real boatload of fun to be around. I actually went on both days since one trip can be a little overwhelming and I didn't want to miss anything.

 Finally, I went to a local Show & Shine to see everyones nice vintage toys. Most everything there was a collector's piece from a time when there was a whole lot more chrome and leather going into car design.The highlights were a very nice firebird and a vintage corvette, but I thought the picture below better shows the mix of cars and people.

Strange sightings in the sky around LA

 We saw quite a few strange things up in the skies of Los Angeles, like this Ultralight craft which looks far too big and heavy to me to be supported by what looks like such a small wing. That said, they were contentedly soaring across the ocean and clearly know what they were doing, so it's clearly a viable vehicle.

 We've seen the Good Year blimp both times we've been in LA, but I particularly like the marquee in this picture. As far as I can tell, the pilot was just fine and we just had good luck in the timing of the photo... though being L.A. its equally likely that there was a superspy chase culminating in a zeppelin battle which we were totally unaware of.

 I'm not sure if it was because President Obama was in town that weekend, or if I'm just not used to seeing military aircraft randomly, but this helicopter was an unexpected sight. There were quite a few traffic and civilian choppers as well, but this one in particular looks a little more warlike, though I could be completely misunderstanding its mission. Either way a neat sighting.

Aboard the Queen Mary

The RMS Queen Mary served as an ocean liner from the 30s to the late 60s as everything from a luxury liner to a WW2 troop transport until its retirement as a tourist attraction/hotel in Long Beach. Kathryn and I initially weren't too keen on what we thought would be a kitchy tribute to excess, but changed our minds and thoroughly enjoyed our time onboard.

 We had free roam of most of the ship (which ones again, is a great place to bring a wide angle lens) and also took a behind-the-scenes ghost tour. I continue to not believe in ghosts, but our guide had excellent delivery and knew his stuff. It was also a great opportunity to peer around some creepy bits of the ship like the old pool and where the boilers used to be. (Part of the contract to keep the ship in Long Beach involved a guarantee to remove any transportation functionality, so the enormous furnaces that once powered it were removed).

 Its been awhile since I shared a fisheye planet with everyone, and I was particularly pleased with the way this one from the front of the ship turned out. Having lots of wires running overhead forced a particularly interesting perspective to avoid cutting anything out and I very much enjoy the binary feel the final image has.

 

As a quirky aside for this picture, near the bottom left there is a large white dome (click on the image to enlarge, as always) which once housed Howard Hughes's "Spruce Goose"

Space Shuttle Endeavour

As part of our recent trip to California, we visited the California Science Center which is home to the Endeavour, one of the 3 retired space shuttles. While the craft itself is placed out of reach and far more fragile than you would expect, they do have a small area where you can touch the original wheels as Kathryn is demonstrating below. I don't typically go for touch exhibits, but I made the effort here since its not often you get to feel something that people sent into orbit and back.

I recall when Columbia blew up in re-entry that it was caused by damage to the tiles on the exterior but, until I saw the vehicle up close, I had no real context for what that meant. The majority of the craft is covered in incredibly particular tiles which are coloured to reflect or absorb heat at key points, and can individually expand or contract as needed to maintain the condition of the ship in space. It's hard to tell from the picture, but each tile is about the size of an a tea saucer, composed mostly of silica, and would apparently crumble in your hands if you made the effort.

 The hangar that stores Endeavour is certainly an ideal spot for panoramas (or a wide angle lens at the very least) and I was content to shoot more than a few pictures in there. This was one of my top 3 target spots for our visit and it most certainly delivered the excitement I was hoping for. Carl Sagan has explained how we're all made of star stuff, but its truly humbling to see one of the pinnacles of human achievement that got us back out into space.

(Click on the image above to enlarge it to soak in its full majesty)

New Years Visitors and the Polar Bear Swim

 We had some great visitors to begin the new year with my cousin Sarah and her husband Aric passing through Vancouver just in time to start the year out by leaping into the sea. We hadn't seen these two since their wedding, so it was really nice to have a full afternoon to catch up and have a proper visit.

 On our way to the water we had the fun of seeing the hovercraft parked on the beach. We always enjoy seeing this thing in the area, so naturally the one time it was open to visitors we were too busy and cold to wait in line for a proper look.

Rounding out our day, here's our GoPro camera footage which Kathryn shot as we charged into the water. Since its in a dive housing, the audio is pretty terrible, so don't crank up your computer volume to try and hear our mutterings and curses, but its as close as you can get to being there without actually having been there.
For those of you that are impatient, things actually get moving around the 1 minute mark.

Alert Bay

I have always wanted to visit Alert Bay (Kwak'wala: 'ya̱lis) on Cormorant Island.  Over-rated Emily Carr paintings that don't do it justice aside, it is a lovely ocean-side community.  We did not dock but were able to view it from a boat after our dive.  Looks like a fantastic place to go ashore to stay or camp. 

It is located in traditionally Kwakwaka'wakw territory and post of the inhabitants are of this First Nation. The influence is reflected in the lovely ceder canoes that occasionally dotted the docks that ran the long towns length. 

The old residential school is in the back ground of the below photo. I don't believe it is being currently used for anything but I am not sure.  Alert Bay is home to the world's largest totem pole and also sports an inspiring collection. The totem poles are mostly in one area of the town but every once in a while there is another. My favorite thing about traditionally situated totem poles as that just as the trees they came from and the people who created them they eventually decay, fall over and go back to the land and are reabsorbed in the soils so you would never know they were there.

Sarah and Aric's Wedding

A few weeks ago Geordie and myself were honoured and privileged to be invited to his cousin Sarah's wedding to her man Aric.  It was a lovely and unique ceremony.  How often do you get to see two people tie the knot in a trolley car from 1952 moving through downtown Toronto.  Ding Ding!

And there is the really happy couple.  YAY!  Not too much to say about that besides heart felt Congratulations and of course Best Wishes!

So it was in our wedding best that we toured around Toronto before and during and after the ceremony until the dinner and reception.  It was neat to see friends and family dressed to the nines on the vintage trolly.  This was the first time anyone had done a wedding like this!

The Grouse Grinder.

Geordie and I do the Grouse Grind once a year at least. It is not an enjoyable hike or even a pretty hike so we tend to look elsewhere. Its crowded a lot of the time and there are no views just endless stairs.  You do it purely for braggin' rights. My last time was an 1hr 6 minutes what was yours? I shaved almost half an hour off my last time. Here is the timer at the trailhead at the bottom.

The trail splits just beyond. Baden Powell trail goes east towards Lynn Canyon. The BCMC trail goes through the first little bit of Baden Powell before heading up.  It ends the same place the Grind does but it is a bit longer by about half an hr. Again not much to see there but there is an old cabin site.

So if 2.9 kilometres an elevation gain of 853 metres and: 2,830 odd stairs isn't your bag, I suggest the option below. Grouse Mountain is a pretty big tourist trap but at least you can get up for free. Down is another matter. The Grind is one way for safety reasons.You can take the gondola from the top to the bottom for $15 bucks and the price seems always going up.  If you want to take it up I believe its $55 both ways which includes the Peak.