I absolutely love it when it rains in LA. After it stops, you get the most amazing cloud formations in sky that is normally just regular blue, with small puffs/wisps of clouds here and there. But this evening the clouds were epic. And couple that with the iconic Santa Monica Pier, with its Pacific Park amusement park, and you have yourself a beautiful setting. You can see way off on the horizon the sun is setting, backlighting the mountain of clouds consuming the sky. The Pacific Wheel ferris wheel was just turned on so you can faintly see its lights. Way off in the distance, out of this shot, a storm was again brewing up the coast in Malibu with periodic flashes of lighting. Later on that night after finishing up, the storm had made its way south down the coast and started to sprinkle. I fortunately made it back to my car, parked about eight levels high, to capture the storm and lighting moving in to Santa Monica. Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, CA, 90401 Google Maps Location photo was taken from: https://goo.gl/vmC3ll
Taking a break from the mountainous region of Patagonia, my buddy and I made our way down to Punta Arenas to see the King Penguin colony on Tierra del Fuego. With our trusty and amazing guide from Laguna Azul, Rodrigo Eduardo, we made our way onto the ferry to cross the Straight of Magellan to the town of Porvenir, a little over 20 miles away. You can see our white van below on the deck. As we were still sitting docked, ready to push off, the sun had already risen but was doing its hardest to break through the cloud coverage. It cast this amazing, warm glow across the whole straight of water and made for such a peaceful, calm setting. You can also vaguely make out Tierra del Fuego off in the distance, that thin spit of dark matter that barely sticks up over the horizon. Once we set sail, we were fortunate to have this view stay with us for a good portion of the trip. Punta Arenas, Tierra del Fuego, Chile Google Maps Location photo was taken from: https://goo.gl/A0DOyx
Our first day arriving in South Georgia, on the north westerly southern facing side of the island, we were headed for King Haakon Bay for our first landing. Imagine now it is 1916 and you are part of Shackleton’s 5 man crew, sailing for 16 days from Elephant Island in Antarctica in a 20 foot lifeboat across the Drake Passage. You hope to navigate to South Georgia 800 miles away, using only a sextant, which relies on seeing the sun, but have mostly overcast stormy days with 50 foot plus waves. And then you eventually make it, to only be greeted by 2,000-3,000 foot rocky mountainous cliffs like these. While we could easily make it to a landing spot for our Zodiacs, since we were on a large sea faring cruise ship, imagine being on a tiny boat, powered by 6 men with paddles, aided somewhat by a sail, and you are faced with a hurricane for two days that makes landing onshore near to impossible. Seems like a walk in the park right? King Haakon Bay, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Google Maps Location photo was taken from: https://goo.gl/9cLdk6
