Morecambe Bay sunset HDR

Sea Kayaking today

Caron and I went out for a paddle today. Force 5-6 winds limited our duration, but I actually managed to do some surfing in our new P&H Quest.

Sunny walk around Heysham HDR images

Last Monday, I went out for a walk around the Barrows at Heysham. It was a beautiful sunny day, but there was a strong wind blowing. The contrast in the woods was very stark, so I made my first attempts at HDR images. These are the result of 5 pictures, at +2 and -2 exposures, blended via Photomatix pro. The colours are amazingly vivid, although the wind has caused some leaf movement, and hence some ghosting.

Swimming with a sea kayak

Went out for a paddle today-yesterday, beautiful flat calm, today force 5-6 easterly.

Anyway the wind was making life tough-together with wind over tide swells on the incoming tide. So to cut a long stort short, I fell out of my boat. Fortunately, I wasn't a long way off shore, but the wind/tide was quite hard to swim against, particuarly holding my kayak and paddle

Lesson learnt-anyone going to teach me to roll?

Sea kayaking on Morecambe Bay

A beautiful sunny day, flat seas and high tides-what more could you ask for!

Pictures from out on the Mussel beds

We get big flocks of Oyster catchers, Curlews, Gulls and Dunlin at this time of year. Whilst investigating the mussel beds (see previous post) I took some pictures!

The demise of Morecambe Bay's mussel beds

I spent some time walking out on the mussel beds around my house in Heysham, and was shocked to see how denuded they are. For the past two summers, there has been mussel gathering on an industrial/commercial scale. Large gangs of labourers, accompanied by dozens of quad bikes with trailers have quite literally stripped the mussel beds. I walked out on the beds early last year, and was encouraged by the amount of re-growth that had occurred since the harvesting of the previous year, but the mussels were very small. I assumed that the size would render the beds uneconomic for the 2008 season.However the gangs were back in force-apparently, they were taking these tiny mussel as "seed". They were stripped out of the beds, and taken elsewhere (to Ireland I believe) to be grown on to a commercial size.  This illustrates the ammount of profit that is to be made-and equally that the profits didn't return into the local economy.This strikes me as a ludicrous system, and one that the sea fisheries protection should prevent. The wholesale destruction of any marine species in an area is not acceptable. There was no attempt to do so in either an way that is sustainable or that would encourage re-growth. In farming this would be called slash and burn-and yet it is going on adjacent to a mid sized town in one the most highly developed nations in the world! I will be watching this year!

Amazing scenery

The combination of clear mornings, snow and higher tides has made me late for work on two consecutive mornings! I should explain. Yesterday I took the dogs out for their normal walk along the beach at Heysham. The early morning light and the snow on the Lake District mountains made for an amazing view. As the tides are high in the morning, the Oystercatchers, Dunlin and Curlews are gathered in large groups close inshore. SO.... rather than go to work on time, I got caught up trying to take pictures of the scene. It does get worse though-while driving along the Morecambe promenade on my way to work, the light and the snow and the boats on the tide "forced" me to stop and take some more! Sorry bosses!Anyway, I was on my way out the door thismorning, and Caron was taking the dogs out, and guess what-take two! The views are just so beautiful! Both mornings, I was playing with my Sigma 170-500. I think the moral is that I need to tripod mount it to get the results I want. I will post up some pictures later though