Posts Tagged ‘adventure’
Spring walks on the coast
Our coastal parks are either Redwoods or beaches or clifftops by the beaches. The trails may skirt the Pacific ocean or start off at the sea level and climb up an adjacent cliff, or climb up the Santa Cruz mountains.
This spring, after a lot of deliberation, we bought a convertible, a car that my spouse and I have discussed with adoration for the last three decades. We now are proud owners of a little two seater, a Miata. It feels purpose built for the mountain roads that separate the valley from the Pacific coast. We have been walking the mountain trails these last several years, but now the drive to the trailhead is part of being out in nature. Driving in a convertible is the equivalent of walking in nature. You can hear the birds, smell the petrichor and be awash in the dappled sunlight. Much like I deliberate over the trail properties, now I deliberate over the drive properties. Is the road narrow or twisty enough to allow us to slow down? Is there an alternate county road to the highway? Will the road give the Miata bumper a chin rash?
Post Miata, a number of our hikes have started off on the coast. One stayed on the beach, one climbed into the Redwood forest, and a few that climbed the dead cliffs covered with scraggy vegetation.
Chaos Overhead
We are continuing with our rough drafts of the deep sky. We have a tiny courtyard, our house is built around this courtyard (a cultural memory of Indian homes) and is lovingly branded the Aangan “courtyard” house. Taking deep sky photos from the courtyard has its pros and cons. The big pro is we live here. We have high speed internet. Every clear night comes with a possibility where we are experimenting and learning from our successes and failures. Gemini is at our beck and call and helps us troubleshoot like an old friend. The big con is that we have an intimate courtyard (by design, but at the time of the design, we weren’t into deep sky photography!). It is a wooden deck that responds to traffic going by. There are massive trees on two sides, including a heritage oak. And a mess of electric poles and wires on the other two sides (reminds me of back home!). What we have is the overhead and a small time window – say 2-3 hours with our current efficiency of 50% (i.e., 60-90 minutes of image integration time).
We shared our horsehead and flame nebula image with our home architect, Lynn, and in her words, “it feels like a little glimpse into the chaos of the universe”. I hadn’t thought of the physics driven universe as chaos, but in many ways it is. It is quite purposeless. It doesn’t care that a couple of humans, sitting on this pale blue dot of a planet are painstakingly observing.
Hence, the series, Chaos Overhead. It will mark a series of deep sky objects observed from this little courtyard, mostly rough experiments that we hope to improve as we skill up.
Orcas of Salish Sea
It will be underwhelming to just say that I loved every minute of this four hour trip. It was a thrill of a lifetime, although wish me luck, I want to have many such thrilling adventures in my life. A weekend trip to San Juan Island materialized the dream of seeing the orcas up close.
Before the story, we have to start with the confusing terminology – killer whales. A – Orcas are not whales, they are largest members of dolphin species. B- Some of them might be whale killers, but not in our neck of the woods. Here in our pacific northwest, the resident orcas exclusively eat chinook, the fattiest salmon. The transient orcas eat marine mammals like harbor seals and porpoise. They eat what their grandmother taught them to. Frankly, their persnickety eating habits remind me of some members of my own family!
In the language of Haida, orcas are called Sgan (sometimes written as Sgaana or SGaana). “The word for killer whale in Haida is “Sgan” which means “supernatural,” and also “the chief of the underworld.” In mythic times, killer whale was chief of the underworld. They say that when you go underwater to visit the territory of the killer whales, it’s no different from being on land, except that because you’re in their world, you see them as humans.” — Robert Davidson, internationally acclaimed Haida artist
Back to the story. My first interest in orcas coincided with my interest in the gentle humpback whales. I am now convinced that humpback whale is my spirit animal. These two species are not friends so, and therefore, my position on orcas is not particularly friendly. That is not to say I don’t admire the grandmother orcas. One of my favorite wildlife program is The Wild with Chris Morgan. Listening to the episode, “Evesdropping on Orcas: Love, Grief and Family“, I have grown to appreciate how close they to human kind. I am not known to be fond of humans either.
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Locomotoring 