I believe I took the photo posted today of three school girls heading home somewhere near Kota Kinabalu but I’m having doubts.
From the shadows it’s clearly close to sunset as these thee girls pick their way along the shoreline at the base of the cliff. I’m left wondering if this was the normal route or just a more adventurous one. It would appear to be close to high tide so I’ guessing this route saves the girls a hike over the hill to whatever lies on the far side.
When I look at the old photos – mine and others – I’m left wondering what happened to these people. They’re probably in their early to mid-thirties as I write the post and may well have children of their own…
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Following from yesterday’s photo, here’s another taken around the same time a little further along the shore of other fishermen still waiting for the right conditions to launch and cast their nets.
The nets look quite large rolled up and stowed on the canoes. That leads me to wonder hoe easy they are to cast and recover. Since they take up most of the canoe they don’t seem to leave much space for the catch of the day suggesting that a lot of effort has to be expended for a relatively small return.
Although the distance here is compressed through the use of a telephoto lens, the relatively narrow stretch of water leaves me thinking the fishermen were waiting on some current or tidal effect as the best time to deploy their nets to catch the most fish.
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In today’s photo, two fishermen play the waiting game shortly after sunrise somewhere near Kota Kinabalu.
I’ve no idea what they were waiting for – maybe for the tide to turn or the breeze to die down or something.
It seems somewhat idyllic, just sitting on a boat moving gently with the swell, just passing the day. I’ve no photo of them actually fishing so I guess I moved on before whatever event they were waiting on occurred. My guess is that these two fishermen are enjoying the calm before the storm, so to speak. I’m sure that once it was time to cast their nets they’d be pretty busy. I also suspect it was a pretty challenging way to earn a living.
Yes, if you teach a man to fish he can feed himself for life (or until the waters are fished out) but I doubt these guys were ever going to have enough spare cash to spend the night in the hotel I was staying at. And maybe they’d never want to but I believe people generally prefer more to less and easier to harder, all other things being equal.
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Wednesday, March 27, 2013
I took this photo I’ve titled Faulty Shoreline somewhere near the the Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort and Spa in Kota Kinabalu but I can’t actually place it on the map.
It’s kind of nerdy but I’m channeling my inner geologist. That and my son has just completed a sixth grade science unit on faults and folds.
On the left is a classic reverse fault where the hanging wall to the right has pushed up relative to the foot wall on the left. There are other faults visible in the cliff wall as you pan to the right across the photo. Clearly the earth moved quite a bit here at some time in the past.
The dip of the layers coupled with the wave erosion has left a very rough floor. This photo was taken at low tide. It’s certainly not somewhere you would want to wander in bare feet. The different relative hardness of the sedimentary layers has led to different erosion rates and you can easily follow the rock layers from the cliff through the exposed sea floor.
From the chilly start to the day watching the sun rise from the summit of Mount Kinabalu at an altitude of 13,435 ft (4,095 m) to watching the sunset at sea level about 12 hours later, that was quite a change of pace. I felt I’d truly deserved my few nights of luxury at the resort and my memory of the previous night in a dorm in the Laban Rata resthouse quickly receded from my consciousness.
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Today’s photo shows a fellow trekker descending Mount Kinabalu on a section of the trail above Laban Rata. It’s the last photo I took on the Mountain.
By now the sun was pretty high in the sky removing any character from the views over the Crocker Range. The next photo I took was on the beach later that afternoon so I guess I stuffed my camera into my backpack and yomped down the mountain. The photo preceding this one is of me, wearing a T-shirt and sweat pants. I’m still wearing the green socks seen on my hands in the photo of me at the summit to protect me from rope burns. Part of my oilfield safety training from many years before had been to always have a hand on a stair rail when ascending or descending stairs and force of habit led me to keep a hand on the ropes when they were available. No sense in taking unnecessary risks.
This photo shows the ropes that were fixed in place i=on certain sections in 1989. They were more useful for the descent than the ascent, helping steady oneself on the slippery rock. Like this guy, I also descended some sections in reverse as it was just easier and less risky. The trail of the thousands of trekkers who’d passed this way before us is plain to see and easily visible in the satellite images in Google Earth.
I’ve no present memory of most of the descent. I remember filling water bottles at Laban Rata and as I yomped down the jungle staircase I remember passing those slowly making their way up ready for their assault in the summit the following day. I do remember walking out past the Park HQ to the road and getting in a blue minibus there that took me to a stop in Kota Kinabalu and then getting a taxi to the Tanjung Aru Resort for a welcome hot shower, shave and cold beer.
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Last September, Google announced they had purchased Photoshop and Lightoom plugin maker Nik Software. Not much seemed to happen after that announcement and not much seemed to change.
Then, on March 14 of this year, Google announced they were no longer selling or supporting Nik’s Snapseed product for the desktop. They continue to support the smartphone/tablet apps, just not the desktop versions.
Personally, I thought they were going to roll Snapseed into Google+ or Picasa or both as a web based simple editing tool, and who knows, they still might.
Then, earlier today, Google announced ‘Nik Collection by Google’. Now I’ve had the full suite for a while but it was quite expensive, topping out at about $500 for the six products, Color Efex Pro 4, HDR Efex Pro 2, Silver Efex Pro 2, Vivesa 2, Sharpener Pro 3 and Dfine 2. (Don’t ask why Viveza and Dfine aren’t ‘Pro’ – I’ve no idea). They’ve also had their logo crew work up some new graphics to represent each of the tools.
But what Google has done is use their financial resources to offer the suite as a bundle for just $149. That’s $350 less than what it cost yesterday! If you bought in the last 30-days you can get a refund but if you bought five or more weeks ago you’re probably pissed off right now. (Since I bought years ago the cost has long since washed through my books but it still stings a little.)
Even better for most is if you only have one or two of the products (or three, four, or five) you can now download the bundle and get the tools you were missing. This is simply fabulous in my opinion! If you’re a registered user you will already have received an e-mail from Nik with a link to download the suite.
If you want to check out the buzz you can do so here!
Nik Collection by Google also comes with a 15-day free trial period – you can try before you buy. That’s always a good option.
The road to Kota Kinabalu is clearly visible in today’s image, etched into the side of the ridge near the base of the photo.
The Park HQ complex is in the bottom left of the photo. I’d be there in about five or so hours of hiking down the trail, most of which is off to my left, out of the frame. The Park HQ is some 7,000+ feet (2,000+ meters) vertically below me and about 4.5 miles (7.5 km) in a straight line and 6 miles (10 km) distant by the trail.
The blanket of cloud shrouds the valleys to the east but the ridges and valleys of the Crocker Range to the west are clearly revealed in the morning sun. My path would be in the open sunlight until far enough down to be shaded by the trees on the middle and lower slopes of the mountain.
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After a while spend wandering off-trail we decided it was time we were rejoining the pack.
With the sun continuing to climb into the morning sky, it was also getting warmer. My Italian friend is walking ahead as we set off the rejoin the trail. The trail has been etched into the surface of the rock by all the trekkers over the years and it’s quite obvious in Google Earth or the satellite view in Google Maps. If you click on the image to view it on my SmugMug site then click again to enlarge you might see the white line across the rock on the right of the photo dotted with other trekkers also heading back down the mountain.
The tops of the clouds in this photo are more than a mile vertically below me, the bottom of the valleys in this photo close to one-and-a-half miles vertically below me. Four or five hours later I’d also be down there, among the trees and below the cloud.
Turn the camera back to the more normal orientation, shift the angle slightly to the left and below I’ve posted an alternate interpretation of my Norwegian friend admiring the view.
My Italian friend was just out of the frame to the right, capturing his own images so he’s not hiding in plain sight in this shot.
Most of the plateau at the summit of Mount Kinabalu is just barren granodiorite but in some of the more sheltered spots a few hardy plants clung to the rock for a life largely undisturbed by man. We’re about a half-kilometer off the beaten track here. At my back is another large rock formation that provides a degree of shelter from the winds blowing from the east.
On the closer ridges of the Crocker Range at the bottom left of the photo you can see the radio masts that the trail runs by. A little further to the right and up you can see the complex of buildings at the Park HQ. Behind the Park HQ there;s a ridge and behind that ridge, the blanket of cloud shrouds the rainforest.
Shortly after taking this photo we’d make our way back to the trail and set off on the 10 km hike back to the Park HQ. From there I would take a minibus to Kota Kinabalu and a rather nice hotel with a rather nice shower and very comfortable bed.
But that was all ahead of me. Here I was admiring the view myself and trying not to think about climbing down that massive staircase I’d climbed up less than 24 hours prior.
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by Richard Davis