Evening on Whidbey Island

Ron is taking several photos for Jenni's new album.....we are still working on trying to get a night shot with some stars.  So we thought that we would go to Whidbey Island for the afternoon and then try to get a night shot at Admiralty Head Lighthouse at Fort Casey.  We started out in Coupeville, which is the county seat.  It is really a cute little town, with all kinds of Victorian houses.  All the shops on the main street are in the Victorian style as well.  In the center of town, is a large dock with a restaurant at the end of it.  It was such a beautiful afternoon, that we spend quite a bit of time walking on the shore, and then just sitting on the dock watching the boats.



There was a beautiful (and big!) sailboat that had dropped anchor in the bay (which is called Penn Cove).  The owners were relaxing on deck and enjoying the warm afternoon.  Mt. Baker was in and out of the clouds all afternoon.

We walked on the beach under the dock to take pictures, until the incoming tide drove us back to shore.  Wow, can that tide move fast!  As we were standing there taking a few photos, you could actually see the water level rise.

All of the shops in town were closed, but there were several people walking around just enjoying the beautiful day.  There were flowers blooming all over town with cute little benches to sit on.  

The large sailboat that was anchored in the cove, was really beautiful.....especially with Mt. Baker in the background.  We struck up quite a conversation with a couple other people who were sitting on the dock as well.......it seems that a couple of weeks ago there was an old crab boat that caught fire and sank.  It created quite an oil spill in the cove.....which was disasterous, because there is a mussel farm at the end of Penn Cove.  They had to shut down the mussel farm because of the fuel oil contaminating the shell fish.  A couple of the envirionmental boats that were cleaning up the spill, came into dock as we were sitting there.  I'm sure that having to shut down the mussel farm is going to be finanicially devastating to the owners.  They ship mussels all over the world too.

I found a cute little flower basket and sign on the side of the restaurant, that was situated at the end of the dock, in Coupeville.

There were several kayaks stacked on top of each other, that made for a colorful display.

We stayed on the dock for a couple of hours, enjoying talking with people and watching the boats.  This would be a good spot for a sunset photo....but we didn't stay here, but went to Fort Casey for the sunset.  I wish that you could be in two places at the same time!

We got to Fort Casey just as the sun was getting pretty low on the horizen, so the colors started to warm up everything.  We were surprised that there were only a few people visiting the Fort.  We've always enjoyed coming here for a picnic.  We used to bring our kids here all the time, and explore all the ruins of the old Fort.  There is only one long cannon left, and it is pretty impressive.  It was just hazy enough that you could barely see Mt. Rainier in the distance, however after Ron processed this photo using Color Effects Pro and Viveza, he was able to bring the mountain out quite a bit.

I love the lighthouse at Fort Casey....it is called Admiralty Head Lighthouse.  The light is no longer functioning, but is used as a museum now.  It smells pretty musty inside.  It's not the easiest lighthouse to photograph because of where it is situated.....but it is one of my favorites.

The wind was blowing (as it usually does at Admiralty Head), so that cooled everything off a bit.  The air was warm....in the 70's, but the breeze is a natural swamp cooler!  The clouds were really bright pink and orange, so we really enjoyed the view.

I was having a few problems with my camera, so I didn't get the shots that I was hoping for.....maybe next time.  (my compact flash card was acting funny, and I couldn't get the settings right for taking an HDR photo.....I'm sure it was "operator error.")

I think that I got one pretty decent photo of the lighthouse, despite all of my camera difficulties.  I was trying to get an HDR photo (High Dynamic Range), but it didn't work.  It still turned out nice though.

I thought that it would be interesting to show the difference between a shot using the normal light reading, and one that Ron took, using HDR.  It is a composite of 7 different photos.....you take a couple of shots underexposed, and a couple of shots over exposed and then combine them in software on the computer.  Ron then used Color Effects Pro to enhance the color a bit, and as you can see, the final photo has a lot more detail and color.  (and I think he had better clouds than I did too!)

We were going to stay there until very late, so we could get a photo of the lighthouse with stars in the sky......but that wasn't possible.  We just happened to run into a Park Ranger who was shooing everyone out of the park so he could lock the gate.  I asked him if we could park below the gate and then hike back in to take a photo of the lighthouse when it was really dark, so we could get stars in the picture.  He told us, if we hike back in he would give us a $138 ticket!  He was really nice, and wished that he could accomodate us, but we didn't want to get him in trouble if he let us back in, so we decided that we weren't going to get a star photo that night!  Darn!  It would have been the perfect spot too.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.