Otter, Baby Otter, Kelp

From the indoors to the outdoors, and an even more difficult photographic situation. S spotted this mother-baby pair hiding in kelp and some way off from our balcony window. (The weekend package we got at the Plaza included an excellent view, along with a place to view it from!)

The shot shown here was a) a tight crop from the original frame, b) taken with a 1.4x teleconverter on the Canon 100-400 mm lens, c) had to be manually focused and d) was steadied just by leaning on the balcony railing. In short, far from easy conditions to try and produce something usable. We spent a lot of time watching and waiting for them to move, but when they did it was obliquely and further away from us, so things never got easier!

Wonderful though to see a breeding sea otter in a place where numbers have been under threat for quite some time.

Heading home from Europe on Sunday.

Otter, Water

Of course, since we visited the aquarium to see the sea horses, we also had to go and see the otters, long one of their major attractions. Timing worked out well, so we were on-station when feeding time rolled around (11:30 am for the morning session.) As you can see, photographing these animals is just a difficult as it would be shooting any other fast moving creature living behind a wall of glass like, say, a sea horse, just to pick something at random! This was about as good as I could get that day.

And speaking of going places, I'm once again in Stockholm. Oddly, it seems balmier here than it was in CA when I left at the weekend. Probaly just means that global warming is more of an issue for Europe than it is in North America. Oh dear, and pass me another SUV, please.

Back Sunday.

Oh yes, the punchline. "What's the definition of a water otter?" Answer: a kettle.

Must be the jet lag talking.

Morning With The Gee Gees

Though in this case, the aquatic variety!

We had headed off to Monterey for a couple of days as a bit of a mini Spring break. As part of the deal offered by the Monterey Plaza hotel, we got free tickets to the Monterey Aquarium in addition to much-reduced room-rates.

Purely by luck, mid last week their new exhibition, The Secret Lives of Sea Horses, opened. So off we went.

Despite getting there as soon as it opened, and with advance tickets no less, the exhibit was still crowded. Being there on Easter weekend was always going to mean the place was heaving so no real surprises there I suppose, but even so each of the aquariums was more of a squeeze to get to than we anticipated. That, combined with the optical challenges - especially true of the circular tanks - meant that photographing these little beasties was a real challenge. The above, a leafy sea dragon, was an amazing creature that this shot does a bit of a disservice to, and worth the entry fee alone to see. However, mixing low lighting, crowded conditions, curved glass and creatures that are actually quite active means that you will likely end up with only a handful of shots in focus, let alone worthy of being labelled "keepers".

Notwithstanding the crowds, it's well worth the effort to catch this exhibit if you can. They've done their usual exemplary job of pulling together a fascinating review of a whole class of creatures, as anyone having seen their previous jelly fish exhibit will already know.

Innovation or Deviation?

For various weak and not-worth-recounting reasons, I didn't make it to the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca this year, but I wish I had. There was one car that I'd love to have seen in action that I haven't had the privilege of seeing run for almost 30 years.

Yesterday was a glorious day, and on the track were some unique race cars not seen in previous years that I wasn't aware in advance would be there. Chief amongst those for me was the 6 wheel Tyrrell P34. Not exactly sure which chassis it was but the livery was the right colour (blue all over) for the 1976 season and the car was wearing number 4, so I think that was Patrik Depailler's ride for that year.

(At the time of writing, D.M. Troutman had posted the first shots in a gallery from Saturday and the Tyrrell is on slide 63. Some very good shots in here and the gallery reinforces just what a great day it must have been. Note the shots of Mario Andretti in a period Lotus JPS!)

This design was a brilliant piece of lateral thinking: smaller wheels = less frontal area = reduced drag, but then how to make up for the now-reduced contact patch? Have four front wheels instead of two, of course! And despite the added mechanical complexity, it actually worked pretty well, leading to a couple of other teams starting to look along the same lines. Alas, because it required special tyres and rims,there wasn't the same level of tyre development for this configuration as there was for the more conventional approach, and other solutions were being found to reduce frontal area cross-section. Tyrrell redesigned the car for 1977, adding weight and further complexity, a strategy that works for OK road cars but not so well for racing machinery. Ronnie Peterson took over driving duties at Tyrrell from Scheckter but by then it was clear that this was now an engineering dead-end, leading to its overall demise by the start of the 1978 season.

As a result, Jody Scheckter is still the only driver in history to win a race in a six-wheeled car, and given that these days investments into other technologies - especially wind tunnel based aerodynamic testing and exotic suspension materials & design - have rendered such innovative mechanical solutions to the problem of front-end aero resistance largely obsolete then he's likely to remain so. Oh, and just in case there was any doubt then it's worth mentioning that the arbiters of F1 declared that race cars should have a maximum of four wheels after Williams tested another six wheel design in the early 80s, though this time with the much smarter configuration of 4 at the rear, that provided significant extra grip and in a place where the aero effect was easily managed and you didn't have to figure out how to steer the bloody things.

Of course, that begs the question of whether or not three wheeled design could ever work well enough to get raced, which holds out hope for the old Reliant Robin I suppose. Though not much ....

Brand Limits?

California Dreamin'

Took off on Saturday to the 34th Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca. I suppose it's easy to tell how close you are to the eternal fountain of money that is Silicon Valley when Ferrari has its own island in the middle of the circuit! In addition to the official presence where, amongst other things, they were promoting their services to certify used or collectible cars (see above shot), countless small vendors were selling a bewildering array of merchandise prominently tagged with the iconic prancing horse.

How, then, does the brand maintain its cachet when the exclusivity originally associated with the race car company is so watered down that Ferrari badges are appearing on shoes and shirts, backpacks and bags? Does it even matter if it doesn't, given that their race cars are still winning in F1 and their road cars selling out at the showrooms with waiting lists running into years?

Yes and no. I remember from years ago that it was generally accepted that you didn't wear Ferrari -logo'd stuff unless you owned one, and even then the practice was considered dubious at best. Nowadays, anything goes. But although this might weaken its strength in the eyes of some, I'd bet that if you ran a brand-recognition survey ten years ago and compared the results with the same survey today the company would have accelerated up the standings like a nitrous-powered Enzo. On the other hand, how long will even the most well-heeled of enthusiasts be happy to shell out 250 big ones for a 430 when everywhere they go pot-bellied proles are wearing Ferrari boxer-shorts (pun intended)?

I think the saving grace for the company will ultimately be that their products remain the stuff of dreams for all but the most wallet-hardened enthusiasts or those who have the money to spend and a need to impress. They will come to view the mass-marketing of the brand either incidental and hence to be ignored so long as it makes money to keep on racing or it will help fuel their egos to have even more people ogling them as they drive through town at 25 mph. (And on that topic, I was utterly depressed to hear that Dr. Phil, an annoying TV relationship counsellor here in the USA, bought two white 550s, one for himself and one for his wife.) Therefore, don't expect a budget Ferrari any time soon. Ain't going to happen, and frankly I think that's a jolly good thing too! Make 'em smaller and harder-core and keep the Dr. Phil's of this world buying Bentley's instead. The Germans can handle it.

B-17 Flight (4)

B-17 & Wartime Record

So finally, a shot of the nose! Once landed, there was ample time and access to walk around the plane and take some extra shots. If these tags are indicative of the actual wartime record for this plane then she flew quite some sorties and acquitted herself well.

B-17 Flight (3)

Starboard Waist Gun, B-17

We flew out over Monterey and then turned right back towards Salinas. First-off, I headed down to the forward nose area where the bomb sight was still in place. Alas, the trigger was off to the side and non-operative otherwise I could have scared the hell out of some farmers ... From that point I went towards the rear of the plane to see how things looked from the side and top.

Part way through the fog cleared a little, mostly because we were heading inland at that point. I made a point of taking some shots (pictures, I mean!) from the starboard-side waist gun position since that was my father-in-law's crew position. As you can see, you have to be careful where you point the .50 cal as you have a clear shot at the outboard propeller, never mind the other planes in your own formation.

And that was it. All too quickly we were back on the ground wishing it were like Disneyland where you could queue-up and go round again.

Next year I might do the 24 or 25 if they all come back, but I have to say I may fly "Nine-O-Nine" again. Worth every cent, and highly recommended.

B-17 Flight (2)

Airfield Looking Back From Radio Operator's Position

I ended up seated behind the pilot for take off and landing. Sounds good, eh? Well, let's not get carried away: in practice, this means sitting on the floor between the pilot's chair and a bulkhead, trying hard not to kick the large, red fuel transfer valve for the port wing-tanks that was right in front of me.

We had about 15 minutes for pre-flight checks and taxiing, plenty of time to enjoy the sights and sounds of all 4 engines on part-throttle idle, drifting in and out of synch and sending waves of vibration through the airframe. Stirring stuff.

Anyway, time to go and the pilot pushed the throttles to full power and off we went. Hard to get an impression of how fast we were climbing but overall it was a smooth and seemingly-quick take-off.

B-17 Flight (1)

B-17, Monterey Jet Center

Glad to say, the weather was good enough to allow us to fly, with the marine layer in Monterey sitting around 1,500 feet and no ground fog. Only 6 passengers (9 is the max)and we were airborne for around 30 minutes.

Simply put, what a fantastic opportunity to fly in such a historic aircraft. I'll post more later but here's something to be going on with - my ride parked outside a hanger at Monterey airport.

Q-End Push

Why does any given quarter always have to go down to the wire? I mean, just once I'd like to get to the week before a Q-close with the number done and the luxury of building backlog, but somehow it never seems to go that way. And let's be clear, this quarter will be no different. Right now (22nd) we are about 35% of the way to the 1Q goal.

That row boat may yet come in handy ....