Babel Fish – Flying Fish !!! – Mahul, 1st May 2008

We made a trip to Mahul to watch flamingos from the boat. Rakesh and Tushar joined in for the boatride. I carted both, the 600 F4 VR and the 300 F2.8 VR in a Stormcase iM2500. Both the lens hoods were in a separate knapsack. Rakesh used the 300 2.8 today.

Boy it is tough handling the 600 but, all my gym efforts paid off today! No tripod on this shoot…but took along a cushion to use as a bean bag. For short instance you “could” do a 600 handheld 🙂 . Also, I used a TC 14EII for the first time today on the 600.

For few of the flamingo shots, we transferred into a small canoe. The canoe can only seat max three ( one behind the other) including the boatman who is the paddler at the rear. The tide was coming in and the water was choppy. There was a steady some 12-15 knots South Westerly breeze as well..indicating the monsoon approach next month. The South West monsoon breaks over Mumbai usually on the 1st of June. I sat in the centre of the canoe , pulled my knees up, put the cushion on my knees and rested the 600 on the cushion and shot for almost an hour. Not the best of positions but thats the only thing that could work on a bobbing small fisherman’s canoe.

Yes got a little splashed with waves, but thanks to Adesh’s tip had, carried a towel for just that possibility. After I got back home I wiped down the lens and camera with a damp cloth, blow dried it with a hair dryer and stored them away in the air tight Stormcase after refreshing the desiccant ( silica gel).

 

Here is an interesting Flying Fish Shot, HSC mode and shot a long burst in the general area the fishes were jumping 🙂 . BTW Bable Fish is the exotic translator from the Douglas Adams “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.

“The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.”

—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.

A word about the Mahul jetty. We saw a bus load of flamingo watchers organised by some tour company at Mahul. What is a complete let down is that they dispose styrofoam plates righ besides the jetty. Wonder why the locals cannot enforce some cleanliness. So much for the eco tour operator. Now that was a complete let down. It is a rather quaint village and, it has potential to get on the tourist map.

To see all the pics from this trip Click Here

One response to “Babel Fish – Flying Fish !!! – Mahul, 1st May 2008”

1. Nice shots ! keep up the good work.

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