Houston ... I have a problem ... my camera is NFG

I have been noticing over the last few months that my outdoor pics have seemed very washed out or over exposed. It was getting to the point where I thought I was losing my touch.

My paddling pics no longer had crisp water droplets in them. My skyline pics seems very bland and so on.

Normally I could just wlk up to a river or water falls and set my camera to 1/10th of a second shutter speed and voila .... an excellent pic with sliky smooth water. But that is no longer the case.

Luckily my sister (yes I have a sister and yes she hates me most of the time like sisters do) has the Pentax K100D which is one model below what I have. She was gracious enough to lend it to me last weekend so I could do some comparison tests between my camera and hers.

I was paddling at the Gull River on saturday and took some test shots with my lense on both cameras set to the normal 1/10th of a second and voila .... her camera pics look like this

My camera pics look like this using the same settings

My camera is now on it's way to the surgeon to get fixed.

Me being cameraless is going to be really strange as all of my friends know where I go my camera goes.

This will be the second time my camera has gone to get fixed. The first time it was a circuit board that need replacing as it was taking random purple pics like this

Padlding the Lower Yough River in Ohiopyle, PA

Well ... last weekend i decided to go paddling on a new river for me in the USA.

I headed of to ACME, PA from work on friday to meet my friend Paul for the first time in person. Most people would think that it is strange to just show up and stay with people you don't know.

But for us Open Boaters the globe might be huge but the paddling community is small. I met Paul online a few years back on the CBoats.net website so we already had a feel for each others warp sense in terms of personality.

During a few ice cold Canadian beers, paul gave me the low down on how to get to the river and what to expect.

I left for Ohiopyle National Forest Park early saturday morning to meet up with Joe and Tony who were both from just outside Philly somewhere. Added to the mix was Sean from OH and Mike from PA and they were both new faces to me.

We had a great day running the entire river. It was really great to focus on my technical skills of catching eddys and not swimming. After paddling it was basically have a beer and figure out what to do for dinner.

Turns out it is illegal to drink alcohol in a State Park and i was let off with a warning from the ranger instead of a ticket.

Dinner was pulled pork sandwhich and more beer and this place does it right. Forgot the the name of it but you can bring in your own beer :)

After that we head over to Sean's campground to check out the local playspot for future possible camping sites on a return trip.

I headed back to Paul's place for a late night drink before heading to bead.

The next day Paul, myself, and the two boys heded back to the Lower Yough. We met up with the gang from the day before plus Jay, Pete, and a few others. More new people to paddle with. Most of us just ran the loop section as we were pressed for time and had long drives ahead of us.

It was another great day on the river. The only problem now was the path off the river started as a goat trail between the boulders until it flattened out. I actually had to take it easy and put my boat down twice.

After that it was goodbyes in the parking lot. I stopped for a quick bite to eat at the BBQ place before my seven hour trip back to Toronto including the half hour at the border.

It was a great weekend meeting new friends to go boating with in the future.

I will definitely go back and paddle that river for sure.

Newfoundland - Part 02 and then back home for some paddling

Damn ... life has been totally busy.

I totally gapped it and forgot to update my blog when I was on vacation.

So here are the coles notes version:

Saw ice bergs in Twillingate and Durrel
Had a blast hiking around Gros Morne National Park on the west coast
Toured the Viking Settlement on the northern tip of the island
Saw "The Navigators" life at the local pub in Rocky Harbour .... fantastic show.

After that I headed back to the mainland and toured around Nova Scotia for a few days.

I spent a few days up in Canning visiting some friends from my high school days. I probably had not seen Mrs. M since 1983.

I ended up working a day in Halifax with some of our staff there plus an extra day touring around.

All goo things had to come to an end. I had not been in my boat for almost a month as was going through paddling withdrawls. I decided to head back to Ontario a few days earlier than planned.

I still have to go through the photos I took which will take some time.

I managed to drive all the way from Halifax to my dads place in Petawawa in 16.5 hours which included three 5 minute pit stops and a 20 minute Costco shopping spree for my step-mom in Ottawa.

It was nice to just relax before having some fantastic boating on the Ottawa for a few days. I also ended up taking some photos at a freestyle competition that was going on. I have slowly been uploading the photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmnypny/sets/72157621383289639/

Roadtrip to Newfoundland - Part 01

I decided last year that I wanted to do a roadtrip to the island of Newfoundland as I never been there before. After some discussions with some of my friends that had been there on vacation or actually still lived on the island I was convinced. My main goal for the trip was photography only.


Time slowly passed by first it was months and then it was days away. Things were pretty hectic all around and I had to get things packed, ferry booked, bill pre-paid, and then it was time to hit the road.

I decided that I would spend a night at my dads place first as it made for a more quick direct route and avoided the rush hour traffic in the big cities.

My journey started on Saturday 20-Jun-2009 when I left my dads at 6am. After a 15 hour drive I managed to drive 1300 km and ended up in Moncton, New Brunswick where I grabbed a room for the night. I never really thought I would get that far in one day as the weather was pretty crappy once I left Quebec and you always have that fear in the back of your head of running into a big ass moose.

Sunday 21-Jun

I slept in the next morning and thought about different options for the day. I was only about three hours from Halifax, Nova Scotia or three and and half to my friends sister and moms place in Canning, Nova Scotia. I had not seen them in quite a long time so I headed off to Canning. Colleen was quite surprised when I rang the doorbell. She was only going to be home for a bit before heading off to a function for the night. Joan was off in Vancouver visiting friends so I missed her. I went for a drive around the area before head back to the house for the night.

Monday 22-Jun

I left the house around 9:30 the next morning to head up to North Sydney, Nova Scotia in order to catch the ferry. I had lots of time and was in no rush plus as usual on all my vacations it was crappy weather. I took the slower route on the eastern side of Cape Breton Island towards Sydney Nova Scotia. It was a very beautiful drive up despite the rain and fog. I hope that one my trip back it will be nicer for photos as i never really had a chance to take any. I picked up some Gravol at the Walmart in Sydney as I get motion sickness and I was just about to spend 15 hours on the ferry to the east side of Newfoundland.

I arrived at the ferry with lots of time to spare only to be delayed getting into the terminal due to all transport trucks that were blocking entrance as they could not get into the parking lot quick enough to allow the cars in. It turns out there were only going to be about 200 passengers on this big boat. Not sure how they made money on that trip but hey more space to spread out and relax. I ended up having a bunk space in a dorm room that would have had 60 people in it all to myself. I pretty much slept the whole trip as I was drugged up on Gravol.

Tuesday 23-Jun

Finally ... I was on the Island of Newfoundland in Argentia complete with the rain and fog. I headed down south from the ferry terminal to Placentia and then off to the Ecological Reserve at Cape St Marys. The weather was still crappy and not the best for taking photos but I went to the bird reserve regardless. It is definitely a spectacular place to visit and was hoping to maybe go back on a better weather days but that did not materialize at all before I left the area. I headed up to St John's for the night and took some spectacular night shots of Cabot Tower at Signal Hill. I spent the night sleeping in my Motel Ford Taurus at the local Walmart. Wasn't the most comfortable sleep I had but considering I did not roll into the parking lot until well after midnight I didn't care as I was super tired.

Wednesday 24-Jun

I spent the morning touring around the St John's area visiting Petty Harbour, Cape Spear, Kiddie Viddy, and ended up back at Signal to take pictures of the information boards, etc. I started talking to the commsionaire that was working on site. I exchanged one of my Bell Beavers for a couple of St John's city pins. Fair trade all around. To my delight the summer students were having their first outdoor practice for the up and coming Canada Day Tattoo. It was great to watch with the Fife and Drums band with soldiers in period costumes. After that I headed into town for the best fish and chips I have ever had at the Sundance. I spent some time walking around the downtown core before continuing my journey down the eastern coast. I grabbed a camp site at La Manche Provincial Park. Great value at 15 bucks for the night and I was looking forward to my first shower the next morning since the last sunday at the hotel. I ended up next door at the neighbours campsite for drinks before heading off to bed for the night. I ended up having a great sleep considering it poured rained the whole night and my tent was totally dry inside.

Thursday 25-Jun

I managed to sleep in the next morning which felt great compared to the night I spent in the car. Had a shower and a great breakfast before continuing the journey south. The weather still wasn't the greatest but I still wanted to drive down the coast. Definitely a beautiful drive. The weather on the coast was still going to be crap for the next couple of days so I decided to head further west on the island to the Burin Penisula to spend a couple of days visiting my friends Martine ans Isaac. Martine was out and about doing video shoot for work. I sepnt some time catching up with isaac when he asked me if I knew anything about routers for networking. I had to earn my keep so I re-configured the router and voila wireless internet for the house was born. And then after catching up on some emails it was bed time.