2009.09.03 07:08:37

Administrator

There wont be any pictures in this post!

This is a post about the rare moments in time were my Canon 1d mk iii fails to send a signal to the processor. No mechanical release allows the mirror inside my camera to pop up, no light is falling onto the censor, storing 10 pictures a second at the highest jpg setting with a little bit of extra sharpening onto one of my two 8 GB memory cards. There is no signal because i did not press the shutter button.

This is a post about the rare moments in time were the incredibly fast and silent ultrasonic ring motor of my Canon EF 100-400mm lens is not focusing on the action in time, or I did not manage to get my camera on target quick enough.

This post is about missing things. Today was one of those rare moments in time, I so desperately try to avoid by being ready and focused all the time.

It was one of those days were the whales decided to make it a little bit harder for us: There have been no reports of whales from our spotter on the cliffs of South Head, so we ventured out into the ocean, trying to cover as much ground as we could, looking in places where we suspected the whales to be. Conditions have not been ideal: there have been big patches of rain reducing visibility to maybe a mile or two. But we still went out there, exposing ourselves to rain (if you decide to come on the boat and it rains, you don’t have to do that, we have nice and comfortable cabins for you) and finding a whale in the end. Northbound, 8 miles off the coast - quite unusual for this time of the year. It was a big whale, maybe a pregnant female, in the 50+ ton range, massive!

The whale has been on a fairly regular downtime of around 5 minutes doing a little bit of zigging and zagging. After the whale went on its next dive I decided to have a little sip of water after standing in the rain for two hours. Down at the bar area I put my camera down, water bottle in my hand not knowing that I would have missed a big massive breach in the next two seconds.

Usually there is only one excuse for missing things: they happen on the wrong side of the boat: Humpbacks are fairly predictable, swimming on a fairly straight course. But obviously not all the time, so sometimes I do miss things because I’m on the wrong side of the boat, or the whales are on the wrong side of the boat, to be precise =) Sometimes I actively choose not to take pictures of jumping whales. That might sound crazy, but I have been on trips with whales jumping continuously for two hours. So I might think that a particular breach is not as amazing as other ones I have pictures of already.

In all those cases I have my camera in my hand and that means I am 100% focused, ready to react to any situation. So there is some sort of tension there. When the whales decide to jump and they are in my sight everything happens very very quickly. Adrenalin kicks in, its not a conscious thought, it’s a reflex to point the camera at the action and take as many pictures as possible. Everything happens very very quickly. No time to actually enjoy what’s going on. When I do manage to get those amazing pictures my hands shake a little bit: adrenalin rush!

So far I’m doing pretty good I think. For starters I still work here, so I must be doing something right and I actually just missed two breaches this season out of quite a few. So my expectations are extremely high to be good at what I do.

But again, today was one of those days were I miss things, were I do not manage to get a picture: I was standing there with my bottle of water, looking through the big panoramic windows at the back of the boat when it happened. 50+ tons of whale elevate itself almost completely out of the water just 80 meters or so off the back of the boat. The fact that I did not have my camera in my hands made it one of the most beautiful breaches I have ever seen. Nothing is telling my body to quickly raise my camera, no pointing and no shooting. It does not happen very quickly. It happens very very slowly.

50 tons graciously spinning in mid air. Water is flying of the edges of the pectoral fins drawing lines of water in the sky. Peacefully reaching its highest point to be interrupted by a violent explosion of water on impact.

But there wont be any pictures in this post.

2009.08.29 21:17:00

Administrator

Welcome to August, where everything can happen!

why is that you might ask? Well there is the last whales swimming north and also the first whales swimming south again. In terms of whale activity like breaching there is a slight difference in what time of the year you come on the boat: on their northern migration ( May - Late August ) whales do jump quite a bit and do other stuff like tailswipes, head lunges and and and...

What does not happen a lot on the northern migration is "mugging". A mugging is when the whales swim to the boat and circle it for hours sometimes sticking their heads out of the water, having a good look at the boat. While they are doing that we are not allowed to move the vessel, like a real mugging..

The reason for that happening more often on the southern migration than on the northern is rather simple: The whales have more time on their hands, there is no place where they have to be at a certain time, so the are more curious and check things out ( like our boats for example ). On the northern migration on the other hand, humpbacks are on a strict schedule: they go up to warmer waters to give birth and mate, and who comes first has a greater chance for success.







Having said all of that, everything can happen at anytime. We do still get breaching whales on the southern migration and we sometimes get whales mugging the boat on the northern migration as well. Especially with mothers and calves coming down the coast we usually are in for a great show: Calves are very curious and also very playfull. We have been on trips where calves jump non stop many many times, only to be shown how its done by his/her mother with some massive breaches.

The gratest show on earth some might say!

Yesterday I had my first mugging of the season ( there have been two other ones before, but i had a day off or did some other stuff. So i simply stopped having days off not to miss any of the action =) The whales decided to swim straight towards our boat coming right next to use, sticking their heads out of the water ( called a "spyhop" ) they have been mugging our boat for a good 30 minutes giving everyone a good photo opportunity.



I must say that muggings are actually quite hard work, because you never know on what side of the boat they decide to pop up, so i end up running around on the boat a fair bit ( you shouldnt do that by the way! take your time moving from one side to the other, quoting Will: "those chairs are bolted to the decks and they do not move if you run into them"=) Also having two cameras is quite a work out. Two cameras? Of course two! one with a wide angle lens for close whales and one with a big zoom lens for everything a bit further away. And when they come close you never know whats going to happen, so being prepared is the key to success!

Some nice pics of people watching us from high above on the cliffs:

2009.08.24 21:26:07

Administrator

Our website has been down for a couple of weeks recently so i could not write as often as i wanted to. So here is just a couple of bits and pieces from around the boat over the last couple of weeks.

Dolphins are back

first of all i was wrong about the dolphins! We do get quite a few around the boat now, which is nice to see obviously. Im still waiting for the perfect dolphin shot this season just yet.

here is a couple that come close =)









I especially like the last one: you can see air bubbles trailing along the side of the dolphin as he enters the water

Southern Right Whales:

We had a couple of Southern Right Whale sightings this season. During our trips we usually encounter Humpback Whales, but every once in a while ( maybe 5-10 times a season ) we also encounter Southern Right Whales

The are by far not as active as Humpback Whales, but stay on the surface for quite a bit. So it is even more special to see those guys jumping out of the water. And guess what happened to us? right! Jumping Southern Right Whales!



Last Year we had Southern Right Whales Jumping inside the Harbour, so i guess we are not doing to bad with the SRWs. If you are from Sydney you might remember the newspapers: They have been "playing" with surfers around Bondi / Tamarama.

What else?

Sometimes people on the boat approach me asking if im the one who is writing the blog here, so there must be people actually reading all of this =) If you are one of those people and planning to come out on the boat, just let me know or leave a comment here! its nice to get some feedback.

There also will be a couple of guest writers on this blog very shortly ( just putting pressure on those people now =)

Alex who is driving  Totally Wild , our small and fast boat, is keen to share his experience with us, something i cant tell you much about, because im usually on the big boat ( exept once, when i went out on it to get shots of OD II with whales in the foreground. i should actually write about that as well, because it went just awesomly well! )