I’ve recently returned to the sport of kayaking with a Feathercraft folding kayak. New York City has a extensive network of water trails, so there really is no need to practice the art of commando kayaking. On the other hand, I still retain a lot of that anti-authoritative mischievousness from my younger days and have no qualms with hopping over a fence or two with my backpack-able kayak, in order to access some pristine waterscape. As the waters around NYC slowly recover from their heavily polluted and dredged past, certain populations have exploded, becoming pests rather than points of pride. Unmanicured impromptu boat launches are often peppered with these shellfish which can cut right through the skin of my kayak like a thousand little serrated blades.

Volcanoes in the tropics often produce black sand beaches right next to white sand ones. Through the brute force of the waves, the sand sometimes blends in patches like this one.

The World is a vessel without a true home port as this very exclusive floating resort community has a leisurely circumnavigatory itinerary that takes about two years to wrap around the globe. As the home office is near Miami, docking here in Biscayne Bay is the closest thing this ship has its own residence.

For ship spotters (cousins of the uber-geeky train-spotters or bird watchers) the January 2008 meeting of Cunard’s three Queens at the mouth if the Hudson river was historic. At the time, Cunard’s fleet of ocean liners (not to be confused with cruise ships) consisted of the Queen Mary II, Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth II. Each was on different itineraries, seldom in the same region with one another. So for all three to be in New York, and with the QE2 on one of her final voyages before her retirement, was a unique nautical confluence. I joined a large unorganized gathering in Battery Park, eager to witness the event on a cold and drizzly winter night. Several photographers  were present too, on land and in the air. I had hoped to get a permit to photograph from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge as all three ships were scheduled to pass underneath, all neatly in line as they sailed out to sea in different directions.

The QM2 was constructed with the Verrazano Bridge as a major design influence, as it’s height is restricted by the clearance under the bridge. To appease the principles of Archimedes, the ship’s stack has a hinge that flips it back like the lid of a Zippo lighter, allowing for passage under the bridge. I thought it would be rather awesome to get a shot from overhead, but unfortunately, with my press-pass-carrying days long behind, my influence with city hall to obtain permits was very limited, so I was stuck in a crowd hugging the rails in Battery Park.

So with that in mind, viewing this photo one might ask, “where are the ships?” Well there were some embarkation delays so the carefully orchestrated lineup of liners didn’t quite pan out as planned as all three steamed out in the harbor in a huff not allowing for anyone on the ground to capture all three ships in any single frame. But, I did snap this fireboat escorting the Queens through the fireworks display. The shot I wish I took can be seen here.

In the wee hours of the morning on a work night, I was woken up by a ship’s fog horn. I live off Riverside Drive in Manhattan, alongside the Hudson River and near the George Washington Bridge. Up until that night, I had never heard any of the many vessels that traverse this waterway blast their emergency horns. I rushed to my rooftop on this unusually warm November night and found that the mild weather had caused the Hudson to fog over reminiscent of images of San Fransisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. So I grabbed my camera, tripod and a light coat, then headed out.

This untouched image made me fall in love with the Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 lens. I was immediately impressed by the creamy, painterly blur this glass produces wide open, although the Noct Nikkor version, (which costs ten times that of my version,) is necessary for any night-time shooting as this standard 50mm f/1.2 lens suffers from a great deal of coma.

While in Juneau, I lived on Franklin Street, the main drag that ran along the waterfront of the downtown tourist-trap zone. This is a unique summer photo taken from my bedroom window with a view across the channel to the town of Douglas. Surprisingly, it is not marred by one of the seven or more cruise ships usually docked alongside the pier.