On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Today, pictures from valued commenter J R in WV.
In early March, Wife and I took a real bucket list trip with Lindblad Expeditions aboard the National Geographic Sea Bird, a very small cruise ship that varies between summer trips on the northern end of the west coast and winter trips on the Pacific coast of Baja California where Gray Whales hang out to mate and give birth, and around the south end of Baja, called Land’s End and up into the Gulf of California aka The Sea of Cortez. The NG Sea Bird usually has 64 passengers and around 14 or 18 crew and staff.
The cabins are quite small, the experience is more like summer camp at sea than a trip on a Luxo-barge like Carnival or Princess. There’s no casino, no TV, and not much internet, although lots of computer power to deal with the photos. The staff takes passengers out on Zodiac boats, some can do kayaks or paddles boards, and at least once there was an opportunity to snorkel with sea lions, which was more fun than it sounds.
The trip involves landing at an airport NOT near anywhere the ship docks, so there’s riding around in a bus, and spending a day or two at a landbound resort, which was a very nice hotel with good food in La Paz, which is a nice city with a beautiful beachfront.
Desert Island in the Sea of Cortez
Taken on 2018-03-02
Aerial photo taken while flying from Los Angeles to Baja California Sur.
Taken with an Olympus TG-5 waterproof camera.
f/8.0
1/160 sec
25mm
ISO 100
Sunset over yacht basin
Taken on 2018-03-02
There were killer sunsets most days, this was the first one, which was taken while walking as a group over to the other side of the yacht basin for dinner the first night. The food was great, there was good live music.
f/4.4 at 1/50 sec. and 80 mm, taken with the Olumpus TG-5.
Moonrise over La Paz
Taken on 2018-03-02
After dinner, walking back to the hotel, we noticed that the moon was rising over the hills that surround the city, so I decided to see what the Olympus TG-5 would do in the dark. It did very well, this was a handheld picture.
f/2.9 at 1/10 sec. and 43mm with ISO at 4000
Steven Spielberg’s Yacht moored at La Paz
Taken on 2018-03-04
Outside the yacht basin there were docks for larger yachts, ships really, to moor. We saw these while going out to view whale sharks which hang out around La Paz. They;re huge fish, but not dangerous as they’re filter feeders, living as many whales do on plankton, and such microscopic food.
f/2.8 for 1/800 sec. at 25mm and ISO of 100
Taken on 2018-03-04
A shallow floating whale shark off La Paz.
f/4.9 for 1/320 sec. 100mm with the Olympus TG-5
Whale Shark off La Paz
Taken on 2018-03-04
A very shallow whale shark feeding on plankton off La Paz on the east coast of Baja California. These are the largest species of fish in the ocean.
f/3.5 for 1/320 sec. and 38mm with the TG-5
Steve Job’s yacht moored at La Paz, Baja California
Taken on 2018-03-04
Returning to the hotel after watching whale sharks feed we passed right by the yacht formerly owned by Steve Jobs.
f/5.6 at 1/640 sec. and 74mm lens setting with the TG-5
Part two, next Wednesday!
Thank you so much J R in WV, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Nice! Lindblad is a top quality adventure vendor.
satby
Great adventure, and great pictures. The Moonrise one is reminiscent of Ansel Addams great photograph.
Schlemazel
Sounds like a great trip, thanks for the photos!
Quinerly
Very cool!
raven
raven
Also this
The Unforgettable Sea of Cortez: Baja California’s Golden Age, 1947-1977 : The Life and Writings of Ray Cannon
David Evans
A great moonrise picture. Normally I wouldn’t even think of using ISO 4000 on such a small camera but it works very well there.
JPL
Wonderful pictures, and I’m amazed at the size of those yachts. Wow!
JR
Getting in just ahead of Chubasco season. Nice!
debbie
Beautiful sunset!
arrieve
Great pictures. I’ve always wanted to do that trip. Can’t wait for the next batch.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
Wow!
rikyrah
Gorgeous pictures ?
Waratah
Exciting trip I am looking forward to more photos. The sunset and moonrise are lovely, and the photos of the whales are very good. Not easy to photo, you must have been very close.
mainmata
Whale sharks are so cool. Giant yachts not so much. Great photos and it sounds like a great trip.
Major Major Major Major
Steve Jobs’s is definitely cooler.
J R in WV
@raven:
Yeah, the book was available on the boat, and you could pre-order it to read before hitting the Baja which we did. It was a book from another time, somewhat condescending to the locals, who were at that time from another time and place. Today it was pretty advanced, with a University, Walmart, etc…
@Waratah: No whales in today’s photos, just whale sharks, which are the size of small whales and are filter feeders with no teeth, which must be a hard thing for a shark!!
@mainmata: Well, I thought they were interesting, but I’m a hillbilly who only sees these things once every couple of decades, and I thought both of those yachts were more exotic that the average big boat. We haven’t even started the whale watching cruise yet! This is the land side introduction.
Way more fish, whales, birds, sea lions, etc in the near future when Alain gets them ready. More whales that you could believe, or than I could believe. I was amazed, my expectations were more like what you see today of the whale sharks, and those expectations were blown away by lunchtime of our first day underway, so be prepared to see lots of whale pictures. Really, the hard thing is picking the better, best photos from the hundreds of exposures I made.
JPL
@J R in WV: It sounds amazing.
Mary G
@raven: I have an old edition of that book, I’ll have to root it out and read it again. Ed Ricketts was quite the character.
@J R in WV: I am so jealous. I took a magical trip down there in the 70s and always wanted to go back. It looks a lot different now! There were no yachts; the rich people flew into a tiny dirt landing strip. Such a rich biological area; can’t wait for the rest of your photos.
woodrowfan
Lovely photos. I’m off to exotic Indianapolis for the Pop Culture Association conference. I doubt I’ll see much exotic wildlife to photograph.
Tazj
Great pictures, you guys go to such interesting places. Wow, those yachts, it must be nice.
J R in WV
Thanks, everyone, for the nice compliments.
The first whales next week according to Alain… Today’s aquaportraits were whale sharks, which were passively there. The Gray Whales are actually curious and friendly, as opposed to just there like the sharks.