Uploads from Ellen Bulger, with geodata

Half Sound Bay Mouth

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:49:51 -0700

This is by the opening to the ocean. See the rainstorm offshore? Here is it sunny. Jim is snorkeling, towing a buoy behind him. Turtle grass is visible under the shallow water in the foreground.

There is a deep channel between the small headlands on either shore. We went to different beaches, different reefs and bays every day. We only saw another person once. It was here. There was a man walking on that cliff on the right. I waved. He waved back. No sense in shouting, he would not have heard me over the surf. What would I have said to him? "Lovely day, isn't it?"

Back here it is glassy calm. But the waves are breaking over the coral reef that spans the opening. When I was out there, I clambered up and out, balancing precariously on the rock. Not easy when you are wearing fins. I took a few shots. But I was anxious to get back in the water again. There was so much to SEE. That, and I didn't want to slip and crack my dang fool head.

Rising and falling tides can cause a bit of current here, so it is wise to stay alert. But if you have decent swimming skills and lick of common sense, you'll be alright. It is beautiful and there are no buildings cluttering up the shore, no boats on the horizon.

Just a zillion different shades of blue.

ODC rule of thirds

Stitched from component shots taken with a Canon D10 powershot.
Sumbitch flooded the next day. :( That's 2, TWO (!) D10's that have died on me: one with a fatal lens error, the other (borrowed) that didn't keep a seal against the sea water when I was snorkeling.

J is for Joy 360°

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:31:10 -0700

Ellen Bulger posted a photo:

The image is rough and ragged, I know. But let me tell you how I came to take it. We drove through the bush, through the mangrove, as we do, to get to Half Sound Bay, and parked by the concrete wall at the little canal, Jim, JoAnn and me.

Jim pointed to the opening.

"You need to be careful there. The tide is going out, but it won't be low for about two and a half hours. In the meantime, there will be some current."

It was JoAnn's first time here. She nodded. Jim nodded. I just grinned fit to split my face in half.

We put on our gear and waded out. You walk through turtle grass meadows for a ways, before it gets deep enough, here in the lagoon, to bother to get horizontal and swim.

The temperature of the water? I can't even remember thinking about it. It must have been perfect. I wasn't wearing any neoprene, just a dive skin to keep the sun and any jellies off my body. The air was perfect. Everything was sweet and unspoiled.

We swam out and I lost sight of Jim and JoAnn, as focused as I was on the world in which I was swimming. On the meadows below me, I saw browsing conchs and helmets and chanks. I was feeling the currents, looking at the bottom topography and the opposite shore and deciding how I wanted to cross. There was so much to explore. I could spend a lifetime in this one lagoon, this one bay. But I had to make a choice. I was giddy with it, but at the same time calm.

The currents don't bother me. I've spent my life on the water. On top of that, I've taken several good oceanography classes. When the water moves, I don't fight it, I use it. I dig it.

I have the soul of a biologist, but as I get older it is the whole habitat, the whole planet that speaks to me. Here she was singing her most beautiful song. The light, the water, the sky, the sand, the sea, the whole marvelous cocktail was blissing me out.

Halfway across I swam over a sandy shoal. There were sunrise tellins spread like pink shiny butterfly wings on the sand. I stood up and spun around and, well, just stood there.

I wasn't thinking about photography. I was just being there. But I had a D10, a borrowed camera, in my fanny pack. (It would flood the next day.)

I didn't want to take the time to shoot, but I made myself do a 360°. I did one. I didn't think. It was click, pivot, click, pivot, click, pivot.

This is 25 shots. I stitched it and saved it as the smallest size of jpeg. And yeah, it is rough.

But you are lucky that I stopped, in the middle of absolute ecstasy, to take any shots at all.

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South Central Eleuthera, Bahamas

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(Note: I did not push the colors one little bit. If anything, this picture is more muted than the reality. You don't NEED to pump up the colors when you do photography in the Bahamas. The place is real-life saturated!)

A Tasty Mojito!

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:16:14 -0800

Ellen Bulger posted a photo:

I was with my son. We were having a quick lunch on our way to see a movie. (Rapid City, by the by. It was charming.) The phone was ringing off the hook, so I never did get a chance to ask this gentleman's name. He was super busy. But before I took this shot, I handed him my camera and asked him to take a close up of one of the interesting bottles up on a high shelf behind him. He was very gracious and apologized for being distractedly busy, then dashed off to get the phone again and I didn't see him long enough after that to start the conversation again.

My son and I split a medianoche sandwich and an order of fried yuca and this mojito. I didn't think I was all that hungry, but the food was so delicious I could have polished off the whole thing by myself. Just as well, we had plenty and it was just right. I could go for the same exact lunch again right now!

The restaurant, soul de cuba, is intimate, but lacks the sense of claustrophobia that the word "cozy" has come to imply. There are plenty of windows and the bar, where we sat, is behind a wall with two large doorways. It is raised above the main seating area. The space is engaging and the music is, well, it's a Cuban restaurant, so you know the music is terrific!

The Jellyfish Tragedy _5435

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:12:37 -0800

Ellen Bulger posted a photo:

In a rarely-seen or photographed event, thousands of hapless jellyfish on their way to spawn were stranded and frozen along the shores of the Connecticut River last week. The gelatinous creatures are not uncommon, but usually go unnoticed because they are a cold water species that do not sting. But the necessities of reproduction bring them together in great numbers this time of year, as they return to their traditional spawning grounds. That, combined with a freakish combination of weather conditions allowed lucky and observant onlookers to enjoy this serendipitous spectacle.

"As a rule, we don't even notice them." explained Caleb Shoeworthy, whose family have fished these waters for shad for five generations."The thing is, you just can't see them in the water. They have no color. You could have half a dozen in that bucket and you'd swear there was nothing but water. Even the big ones are pretty much invisible."

Invisible they may be, but any creatures are hard to ignore when they come drifting in to narrow channels in the hundreds of thousands. In some parts of the world, relatives of these jellyfish have been known to clog cooling intakes of nuclear power plants and have forced some giant cruise ships to change their itinerary. A close relative of the common moon jelly "Aurelia aurita", the greater river jelly "A. awlryta" spends its adult life in estuaries such as Long Island Sound. The animal, which is easily killed by heat, moves downriver as it matures in the early spring, but swims to deeper water during the warmer months. It is only when the days shorten and water temperatures drop, that they come inshore and start to move upriver.

"The greater river jelly can cause some pretty impressive spectacles" says Dr. Kent Dogwhistle, head of the Department of Tentacular Studies at Miskatonic University in Massachusetts."but as they are getting their freak on in cold water, not many people are out and about to notice. The jellies can be very common in the Bay of Fundy," he further explained. "But they aren't equipped to handle the tidal bore very well. And the thomping great splat of them hitting the rocks at speed is something you never forget once you've heard it. It's one of those great mysteries of nature as to why they are there in the first place. Hardly any of them survive to complete their lifecycle."

While most jellyfish are marine and live in salt water, freshwater species are not unknown. However, greater river jellies are unique in that they are the only jellyfish known to be anadromous. They are born in small freshwater streams, to which they return to mate, lay their eggs, and die. This is especially impressive considering these jellies are weak swimmers, moving using contractions of their bell-like bodies in a pumping motion.

"It's kind of amazing they get anywhere." Dr. Dogwhistle told this reporter. "They (A. awlryta) wouldn't seem to move fast enough to even count as pelagic. What they do is hardly more than an agitated sort of drifting. Yet, as long as there are no dams along the way, they seem to manage to get upstream. They cannot, obviously, make use of a fish ladder."

And up the Connecticut River they came last week, at least as far as Chicopee. A combination of a post-storm drop in water levels left countless jellies high and dry along the shore and even in trees! And if the sight of school of jellyfish stuck to trunks and impaled on stems and branches was not surprising enough, a sudden cold snap froze the stranded creatures solid. It might have been a rum deal for the jellies, but it was a delight and amazement to onlookers along the river, as is evidenced by this fascinating collection of photographs from Windsor Locks.. They looked, exclaimed a tourist from Miami, like Christmas ornaments.

Dr. Dogwhistle assured us that enough of the plucky cnidaria survive to carry on the species, and that they are likely to continue to do so, unless global temperatures continue to rise.

"They're pollution tolerant, so they are still plentiful, even if no one notices them because they have no commercial value. But they do need the cold. If it does not freeze, we do not see them here. I can only hope that they will continue to thrive and add their beauty to the diversity of these waters."

The Jellyfish Tragedy _5426

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:11:52 -0800

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The Jellyfish Tragedy _5429

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:12:10 -0800

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Where the Murex Live

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:41:51 -0800

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Just north of the Gov Harbor Airport, in the weeds on those rocks...

Red and More

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 22:43:40 -0800

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Lunch from the Taco Trucks

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:45:29 -0700

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Love, Lighthouse and Tide Pool

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:44:42 -0700

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The Landscape Photographer

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:44:36 -0700

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Beavertail State Park, Jamestown, RI ISA

@ Marjolaine

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:15:58 -0800

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Seymour Thaws

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:06:07 -0800

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ready set go

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:24:03 -0800

Ellen Bulger posted a photo:

A bug* in the hand is prettier in the sky!

And it will eat about fifty mosquitos a day!

Working on my netting skills, it is great fun to catch (or try to catch - they are fast as blazes) dragonflies. When you don't need the specimens, there's no point in killing them. Like tiger beetles, they're dandy practice.

So I do like the trout fishermen do. I catch and release.

The Jellyfish Tragedy _5385

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:10:14 -0800

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The Jellyfish Tragedy _5441

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:12:54 -0800

Ellen Bulger posted a photo:

You can't imagine how freakin' cold it was. I did the best I could to take the shots while my fingers still worked. Then I ran over to Cabela's to get something better by way of gloves/mittens...

The Jellyfish Tragedy _5392

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:10:37 -0800

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The Jellyfish Tragedy _5384

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:10:06 -0800

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The Jellyfish Tragedy _5389

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:10:21 -0800

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The Jellyfish Tragedy _5434

nobody@flickr.com (Ellen Bulger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:12:27 -0800

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