Like many islands, the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands rely on ferries and locals seemed to be racing to get them before the last ferry left for its destination. We found the ferry schedule a bit confusing at first, but once you know which terminal you’re at, it makes sense. Pre-planning helps, I didn’t even know where our B&B was located; It’s not a huge problem, but this might catch the casual tourist off guard. Our Native Sons ferry from Red Hook, Saint Thomas was nice, third world enough to make us realize we were in a different country. The shuttles certainly seem safe enough, just a bit dated, my type of travel. While we weren’t joined by chickens or cows on our trip, there was a great selection of food and other items brought into the British Virgin Islands. A cooler was on the dock waiting for a later trip.
A quick and very scenic thirty minute drive brought us to HM Custom Dock in West End, Tortola, BVI. The West End is a stunning harbor with waterfront villas hanging over the bay. The number of boats is amazing, most of them large catamarans and monosailers.
Going through customs is a very informal affair, although one must remember to bring your passport; this is another country. You are entering a small part of the UK, perhaps the only part of the UK that uses US currency.
Soper’s Hole, West End, Tortola
The West End is known locally as Soper’s Hole, a great hideout for pirates and buccaneers in the past. It’s still a relaxing place to hang out and get ready for the next trip. We spent the afternoon on the boat being pretty lazy as well as heading to shore to see the marina and grab a bite to eat at Pusser’s Landing Bar & Restaurant.
My first serious photography opportunity came while we were walking along the docks. The timing certainly wasn’t perfect for the “mood” photos I like to take, but the dark blue sky and clean white boats certainly made for “calendar” type photos. Looking back through the photos, I realized that all my shots had been done in about 40 minutes. This is certainly the most journalistic approach at work. If I had been using a tripod I probably would have only taken about 5 photos and freaked Cherie and Terry out!
We went back to the boat to enjoy what turned out to be a very beautiful sunset, not one of those outrageously impressive but very photogenic. This was the first time I had shot a sunset with the Nikon D800 and the amount of detail really blew me away. Using matrix metering, I was able to use only -0.3 exposure compensation with pretty much the only flare right near the ball of the sun. Shadow detail carried through to the darkest areas of backlit scenes.
I think when I come home and look at the images on my big work computer, I’ll be surprised. By looking at the histogram, you could tell how much detail it contained, amazing. I can’t wait to open the images in my RAW converter, Nikon NX2 and play around with the levels a bit. (note: the image shown here has been worked on; more details will follow)
I also took some images at dusk with the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 lens. This is the VRII model that supposedly gives you up to 4 stops of image stabilization. Heard mixed reviews about using stabilization on active instead of normal, but decided to give it a try. I found this active mode useful last summer when I was shooting from our boat and from an airplane, but I had never tried using it in low light situations before and our boat in this case was tethered to a mooring ball, not sail. .
The results were a bit hit and miss. Most of the images I shot at around 1/100th of a second were sharp enough and I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to submit them for posting, but when I shot them at around 1/15th of a second my success rate dropped to around 10 %. Still, out of the 10 photos I took at 1/15th of a second, one of them is sharp enough to use if needed, maybe not for a poster, but would hold up to a double page spread in a magazine. I certainly have no complaints about that, especially with the “no cost” factor of taking a lot of digital images. Photographs like these would have been totally unheard of even 10 years ago.
