Category Archives: Cruise Ships

Christmas Time Cruising

December 30, 2012Cruise Ships, OUTSIDE FLORIDABahamas, Christmas, cloud, Coco Cay, holiday, Nassau, Starfish, sunrise, vacationEd Rosack

Mike, Sara, and Mary joined Lynn and I for Christmas this year. When we’re together we often visit a theme park, but since we liked our last cruise so much, we decided to take a holiday cruise instead. We booked on Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas and departed from Port Canaveral for Nassau and Coco Cay on Friday, Dec. 21st.

Port Canaveral is about an hour east of Orlando on the 528 Beachline. We found parking right at the pier and the embarkation wasn’t too bad, although there was a line getting through security.

Overall the Monarch of the Seas was very enjoyable. The food was good (the Strawberry Pavlova dessert was a BIG hit!), and so was the service. Our staterooms were in different parts of the ship this time, which made coordination a little more difficult – but we worked it out. Once nice thing about sailing at this time of year is that the ship was fully decked out for the holidays – Christmas trees, gingerbread houses, and other seasonal touches.

Ship’s decorations in the main atrium

We departed Port Canaveral late in the afternoon. The weather was nice for the whole cruise and although Friday’s sunset wasn’t that great Saturday’s sunrise made up for it:

Pre-dawn clouds in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida

We arrived in Nassau Saturday afternoon and spent time shopping. Then Mike and Sara found us a great place to sample the local food (the Bahamian Cookin’ Restaurant) where we enjoyed their Conch Fritters. After that, we all boarded a catamaran for a sunset tour of the harbor. The low light combined with a moving boat made for a challenging photo-op, but I did get a few nice images. One of the highlights was seeing Oprah Winfrey’s pair of side by side mansions (with a huge matching yacht). I guess she uses the second mansion for guests – quite impressive.

Nassau harbor at night from the sunset cruise catamaran. I thought the red and green running lights were an unexpected seasonal bonus!

From Nassau, we sailed to the Berry Islands where Royal Caribbean has exclusive use of Coco Cay (also known as Little Stirrup Cay). They’ve set the place up for cruise passengers to enjoy beach time, snorkeling, shopping at a straw market, parasailing, wave runners, an aqua park, kayaking, hammocks, and of course – food. We had kayak reservations for first thing in the morning. The wind was really blowing and even though we were a bit worried about it we went anyway. It was a workout, but worth it in the end. We paddled about a mile to a sand bar off of Big Stirrup Cay, where I made this photo:

A starfish in the ocean near a sand bar at Big Stirrup Cay. We haven’t been able to ID this one – our guide told us it isn’t common.

Later, back on Coco Cay we relaxed, shopped, and yes, ate too much. Mike and Sara also went snorkeling and saw fish, Sting Rays, Spotted Eagle Rays, and coral.

Sara and Mike enjoy the view from our Coco Cay cabana

It was a wonderful way to spend time with our family. Except for the wind, the weather was great and not at all typical of the season in most of the country. Poor Mike and Sara had to return home to winter storms and snow. I imagine it was a bit of a change!

You can click any of the photos above to see larger versions on Flickr and I’ve posted several more from our cruise in this set.

This is my last post of 2012. I’ll be back next year and I hope you will too. May you, your family, and your friends all have a happy and prosperous new year. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, get cruising and make some photos!

Cruise Ship Photography Ops

April 29, 2012Cruise Ships, INSIDE FLORIDA, Must do list, OUTSIDE FLORIDAbirds, Frigatebird, Grand Cayman, infrared, Mexico, reviews, sunrise, travel, vacation, wildlifeEd Rosack

Intro / Description

Cruising is a great way to vacation and Florida is a great departure point. There are several ports where you can board a ship, leave your everyday concerns behind, and set sail for exotic destinations. Tampa, Miami, Palm Beach, Port Everglades, and Port Canaveral all offer cruises – both seasonal and some that go farther. We recently cruised out of Tampa on the Carnival Paradise sailing to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and back.

The party starts – The Carnival Paradise departing Tampa.

Cruising provides a large choice of activities: Spend time with friends and family, relax, sample gourmet level food, party, attend shows and other entertainment, lose money at the casino, etc. Ports of call along the way let you to see the sights and sample what life is like in other cultures. You can sign up for excursions to do things you may not get a chance to do everyday. And even if your trip isn’t photography centric, you can sneak in some non-interference photography ops.

A snorkeling excursion off of Grand Cayman – Lynn’s getting ready to jump in.

Your preferences will help you select which cruise to go on. For ours, we were limited to a small selection since we wanted to leave from Tampa on a specific date.

Info for Photographers

There are some cruises that cater to photographers and some destinations that are more photogenic than others. Why you are going, where you are going, and what you expect to see will decide what equipment you should bring. Since our cruise was a family get together, I brought a much lighter gear bag than on our Alaskan cruise in 2009. We went snorkeling in Grand Cayman, so I took my old Canon G9 (which still works remarkably well) and the underwater housing I have for it. I also wanted to take my IR modified camera to use at the Mayan ruins in Cozumel. Your trip and interests will be different so you’ll need to plan accordingly.

The San Gervasio Arch Structure on Cozumel. This Mayan ruin dates from 1000 to 1600 AD.

Photo hints:

Spend some time enjoying sunrise and sunset. Relax, get a cup of coffee or a drink and sit and watch. It’s hard to tell what will develop, especially when there are clouds around. Do some research before you go. Flickr is a great place to search for the places you’re going to see what others have posted.

If you’re on a family trip, you’ll want to document all the fun and together times. Be careful not to spend too much time away from your family making photographs.

One good idea is to combine everyone’s photos into a common pool and share them so that everyone has images of everything that happens. You’ll be glad you did.

Another thing to think about is creating a photo book from your images. Make several copies and share them with your travel companions. They’ll make good reading several years in the future and will remind you of the good times.

Always keep a camera with you and when you’re wandering around the ship, keep an eye out for interesting art work or interesting people.

A cruise is also a good time to practice some food photography. Take your camera to dinner and see if you can create some drool worthy images.

Tripod/Monopod: The ship’s motion will make long exposures from the deck problematic. A Gorillapod or something similar would be handy for HDR or long exposure photography inside the ship. You might also want to use it for some time-lapse photography from a railing on deck. This can be interesting as you cruise along a shoreline or enter / leave a port.

Lenses: This depends on your destination / interests. Bring a versatile zoom or a small assortment of lenses. On a family cruise, you don’t want to be lugging a huge camera bag around all the time. If you’re going to Alaska or some other once in a lifetime destination, you’ll want to take your full kit.

Best time to visit: Do some research on your departure port and destinations. April is a great time for the route we took. It’s before hurricane season and the weather is warm, but not too warm yet. If you’re into birding, April is a big time in the Caribbean for migration. I only did some incidental birding, but I did get three life birds in Cozumel. The Mayan ruins at San Gervasio are out in the middle of the jungle, so there are birds around. I saw a Black-and-white Warbler, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, and several others I couldn’t get a photo of or ID. I also saw this one circling the ship when we returned:

A Magnificent Frigatebird

Other:

I’ve posted three sets of photos from this cruise on Flickr. If you look through them, you can get an idea of the things you’ll see on a similar cruise.

For descriptions of a different type of cruise experience, you can go back and read my three posts about our Alaska cruise here, here, and here.

Summary

You’ll have a great time!

My Gallery / Flickr photo set:	http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/collections/72157629896267577/
Website:	Various – search out the cruise line / travel sites for the departure port you select
Central Florida Photo Ops Rating:	This is a Central Florida Photo Op MUST DO!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now, get cruising and make some photos!

Our Alaskan vacation – Ch. 2: Glaciers

September 27, 2009Alaska, Cameras and Photography, Cruise Ships, Must do listglacier, Glacier Bay, landscape, panorama, sunrise, travel, vacationEd Rosack

This is the second installment of our Alaskan adventure, where I’ll show you the glaciers we visited. Chapter One is here and describes the wildlife we saw on our trip.

Our ship, the MS Westerdam left Seattle on Sunday, September 6th and headed north to Glacier Bay National Park where we arrived on Tuesday. Glacier Bay was one of the main reasons that we picked this itinerary and we were looking forward to seeing it. The morning started out beautifully, with a very nice sunrise.

While cruising in Glacier Bay, we visited Lamplugh, Johns Hopkins, and Marjorie glaciers. Several cruise ships had been unable to reach the Johns Hopkins glacier this season due to ice, so apparently we were lucky. Here’s a panorama I made from the 4th deck of the Westerdam at Johns Hopkins glacier.

One of the first things we noticed is that the color of the water close to the glaciers is a very distinct greenish blue. According to ~~this article~~ (sorry – no longer available) on wired.com (which also has some stunning photos of glaciers taken from space) the color is due to the very fine silt that is ground away from the valley walls by the glacier and deposited in the water. This “glacial flour” can be very reflective and turns the water this color.

At Marjorie glacier, I was in the right place at the right time to photograph the ice calving. Here’s the middle photo of a three photo sequence (you can see the others when you visit the gallery for this post).

When we exited Glacier Bay, we headed for Juneau where we also visited Mendenhal Glacier, among other things.

When we were back on board in Juneau, the captain made an announcement about gale force winds and 40 foot seas that were expected off of Sitka, which was supposed to be our next stop. To avoid this weather he decided instead to cruise through Tracy Arm fjord, where we spent all of the next day (Thursday, September 10th). Tracy Arm is a truly spectacular place that isn’t often visited by cruise ships as large as the MS Westerdam. We were able to get in there since our Alaskan waters pilot was very familiar with the place. It was amazing to watch the ship maneuver in such tight waters — at times we were within 30 yards or so of cliff walls and we must have seen hundreds of waterfalls. There was quite a bit of fog and haze, which made photography difficult, but I did manage to get some good shots. Here’s one example of the scenery:

I also put my Canon G9 on a Gorillapod, mounted it to the balcony rail and made some movies. Here’s a time lapse video (one frame per second) that I made in Tracy Arm. It has a sequence of clouds forming and moving along with the ship. We saw this same phenomenon several times that day. Was it perhaps the great spirit of the northwest accompanying us on our tour?

That night after exiting Tracy Arm fjord, our course carried us back into the Pacific Ocean in order to get to Ketchikan. It was still pretty rough with about 25 foot seas. We had a great view of the ocean from the second deck during dinner. It was like eating on a roller coaster! The next morning, when we arrived in Ketchikan, we had seaweed on our 6th deck balcony!

You can view the rest of my glacier photos in two places. I added a set of glacier photos here in my photo galleries. You can also look at all of our Alaska photos together in a single time ordered set here on Flickr. Clicking on one of the photos above will also take you to Flickr, where if you click on the “all sizes” button, you can see the photo in a higher res version.

Coming next: “North to Alaska, Ch. 3: Miscellaneous photos. I’ll also probably wrap up with a Chapter 4: Photo hints.

North to Alaska, Ch. 1: Intro and Wildlife

September 20, 2009Alaska, Cameras and Photography, Cruise Ships, Must do listBear, Sea Lion, travel, vacation, Whale, wildlifeEd Rosack

Lynn and I have talked for a long time about taking a cruise to Alaska. Since we’re celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary this year, we finally decided to book on Holland America’s MS Westerdam. We did this early in the year and it seemed like forever before we departed Seattle on September 6th for Glacier Bay, Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria. We spent some time before boarding with our good friends, the Sullivans who cruised with us in the next stateroom with a shared balcony.

It was our first visit to the US northwest and Alaska, and we saw spectacular things that we’ve never seen before except on TV. Coming up with words to do justice to what we experienced will be hard. We came home already talking about plans for our next trip. I hope I’ll be able to share some of the feelings of being there through the photographs I made. Although far away and expensive, this vacation most definitely qualifies for the “Must do list” .

Instead of a day by day description, I’ll break this up into subjects. This will help me organize my editing efforts. I’ll talk first about the wildlife. We spent a bit of time on the balcony and were rewarded on occasion with whale sightings, like this killer whale.

North Pacific Killer whale from the MS Westerdam; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/320 sec at f / 5.6

We also saw humpback whales and I was grateful that Chuck loaned me his 80 – 400mm lens, since these were quite a distance away – every millimeter helped.

In Juneau, Sully and I went on a “Photo Safari by Land and Sea”, which was a guided whale encounter and glacier trek run by Gastineau Guiding. Our guide Rick, and boat captain Gary, were both extremely knowledgeable and helpful in finding whales, seals, and sea lions. Also eagles were quite abundant, feasting on the remains of the salmon run, which was still ongoing although according to locals slower than it had been. Here’s a few photos:

Breaching humpback; In the full res version, the two white dots in tree to the upper left, behind the whale are bald eagles.; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/1600 sec at f / 5.6

The whale in the first photo is an adult female. Her calf was also with her. He/she seemed to jump upside down or do barrel rolls most of the time. It’s hard for me to imagine they were not having fun doing this.

Humpback whale calf breeching; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/1250 sec at f / 5.6

Humbolt Sea lion and gull watch two male Sea Lions arguing; NIKON D90,300 mm,1/1250 sec at f / 5.6

Rick also took us to Mendenhal Glacier in Juneau, where there were reports of black bear sightings. Sure enough, as we descended to the lake by the glacier, a bear was seen napping under a bush. I didn’t get a good photo, but here’s one that Sully made. The bear had more sense than us. It was sheltered from the rain taking a nap. We were out in the rain trying to make pictures of it. When we got back to the ship, another couple we ate lunch with told us about encountering bears on a different path than the one we took at Mendenhal. I wonder how common they are?

Bear in the bushes (photo by Martin Sullivan); Canon EOS 40D,135 mm,1/30 sec at f / 5.6

Clicking on one of the photos above will take you to Flickr, where you can see it in a higher res version. I made many more photos than will fit on a blog page and I’ll post them two different ways. You can look at them all together as a time ordered single set here on Flickr. I’ll also post them as galleries on my website, organized by subject:

Alaska wildlife photos are here.
Alaska glacier photos are here.
Alaska other photos are here.

Coming next: “North to Alaska, Ch. 2: Glaciers.” I’ll also collect my hints for fellow Alaskan vacation photographers into a single post to follow.

Back home from Alaska

September 14, 2009Alaska, Cruise Shipspanorama, rainbow, travel, vacationEd Rosack

Lynn and I are so fortunate. We’re home again after a wonderful vacation! Round trip, we traveled 5,092 statute miles by air to / from Seattle and 1930 nautical miles by ship, as far as Glacier Bay, Alaska.

Along the way we visited our good friends, the Sullivans. We saw beautiful sunsets and sunrises, glaciers, mountain vistas, humpback and killer whales, sea lions, harbor seals, otters, many birds including bald eagles, a bear blob, and several types of fish including spawning salmon. We saw the sites and shopped in Seattle, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Victoria, panned for gold and went to salmon bake dinners. The Holland America MS Westerdam is a superb ship, with a fine crew, although we were also thrilled by roller coaster like rides through gale force winds and 25+ foot seas.

Photography wise, it was a target rich environment, but the weather was mostly overcast with fog, low clouds and frequent rain. I took too much photo gear, but since I had it with me, I used most of it. I made thousands of photographs and my friend Sully made thousands more. Many of these are bracketed or panorama sets. I plan to go through them, choose the selects, and post process them as time permits. Hopefully there will be a few that are worth sharing here on this blog and in some galleries. I think that the next three or four of my posts will all be Alaska related. I also want to go through and create a photo book about our trip.

But we just got home, we’re tired, and we have to go to work tomorrow. For now, here’s one photo I really like. We saw this rainbow on our first day at sea, about an hour after leaving Seattle.