My brother Mark will turn 50 at the end of this month. To celebrate that milestone we will spend the next four days sharing our avocations with each other. Photography for me and fly fishing for Mark. With exactly one day of planning we rendezvous in Denver where we rent a car and make the three hour drive to Glenwood Springs. Here we stay at the Hotel Colorado and enjoy a fine steak dinner at Juicy Lucy’s. This will be our last civilized meal and accommodations before switching to gorp and a small two man tent.

Every St. Patrick’s Day the Concord Recreation Department organizes a father-daughter dance called the Shamrock Ball. There is no event on my social calendar that I look forward to more. Maya has grown taller making us more compatible dance partners and her skills have improved from last year. The result is that we looked ready to audition for So You Think You Can Dance. We started the evening with a dinner date with Lydia and her father at our local Japanese restaurant.

Tomorrow morning I have an early flight to Denver where I will join up with my brother for a five day camping adventure in Colorado and Utah. I will update the blog with another batch of photos as soon as I return.

I returned from Florida today specifically so I could attend the end-of-season wrestling banquet with Nicolai and Jeanine. Nicolai looked dapper in a suit and tie and enjoyed the celebration, which included a 10-minute slide show I put together for the team.

I finished the day with a visit to the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island. By the time I arrived the sun had nearly set but it was well worth the drive and a great place to enjoy my last night in Florida.

For a change of pace from wildlife and landscapes I took in a Grapefruit League baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays this afternoon. The City of Palms Park where the Red Sox train is very intimate and I actually prefer this venue to Fenway. Baseball has to be one of the most boring games on the planet to watch or play but I can handle nine innings once every few years.

This morning I set out in search of Manatees. I learned that they are very sensitive to water temperature and will seek out warmer water during the cold winter months. Power plants use river water for cooling and the water that emerges is a few degrees warmer than went in making an ideal gathering area for these gentle creatures. Their true beauty can only be appreciated from under the water but I did my best to photograph them from above. Very often the only glimpse one gets of them is of their nostrils as they come up for air. I encountered a half dozen including one baby.

After completing my kayaking tour I spent the last few hours of the day at a place called Corkscrew Swamp. Spotting the Barred Owl was the highlight of my day. If not for a well timed and distinctive call to his/her mate I would have walked right by this exquisite creature without noticing its motionless body hidden less than ten feet from where I was standing.

When I reached my original put in point I continued upstream where I found two lagoons and much more wildlife. I wanted to get a photograph of an alligator from short range and found the best way to get close was to glide up from behind them. When I took this photo the tip of my kayak was over its tail and I was still moving forward. After getting the shot I quickly reversed and once I reached a safe distance also resumed breathing. The alligator was aware of my presence but did not perceive a threat or opportunity and just remained still. I considered paddling along side of it for a full length shot but decided not to push my luck and to heed the requests of my children to not get eaten.

Does anyone think I am going to worry about the challenges of a new job after getting this shot?

At the end of the two tunnels the river widened substantially allowing me to turn the kayak around to head up stream. The return trip took considerably longer as I was fighting both the current and the tide. Thankfully I did not encounter any alligators in the tunnel which would have been very unnerving. They seem to prefer open areas such as this.

This morning I rented a kayak and paid to have it shuttled to the Turner River where I spent 6 hours on the water. During that time I encountered two other paddlers and a half dozen alligators ( a good ratio in my opinion). Paddling down stream I encountered two very long mangrove tunnels varying in width from 1.5 to 4 boat widths. The mangrove roots were so densely spaced that they would have made an effective set of prison bars. The upper branches formed an equally dense canopy creating a true living tunnel. There was insufficient clearance to paddle and it was far easier to simply grab the branches and pull myself through the tunnels.

It is hard to imagine how the day could have been any better from a photographic perspective. Even as I am heading to my tent site I am treated to a beautiful sunset. I initially feared that the Everglades might not be as interesting as some of the higher profile national parks I have visited recently but I could not have been more wrong. You simply need to get off the beaten path.

The variety and abundance of birds in Florida is quite amazing. I could spend days instead of hours getting similar photos in New England when these same birds migrate north for the summer.

Here is a small sampling of my alligator shots. I was hoping to catch one eating a bird for lunch but they typically hunt and feed at night.

Alligators, if not surprised or cornered, will seek to move away from adult humans. I took great care to approach those on my side of the canal without startling them and was able to get quite close for good pictures. I am told they can out run a human over short distances but do not believe this to be true. If this guy turned to chase me I can guarantee you that I would set a new Olympic record for high jumping to the top of my rental car.

This afternoon I discovered a canal paralleled by a dirt road that was chock full of birds and alligators. I was able to drive down the road and get out anytime I spotted something interesting. I literally encountered dozens of alligators. Fortunately, 90% of them were on the opposite side of the canal.

I spent the morning doing a little macro photography before stowing my gear for the return trip to civilization.

After sleeping like a baby I arose to enjoy a magnificent sunrise which bathed the island in golden light.

As I had hoped, the island was a photographic treasure trove and I spent hours wandering the beaches in search of interesting subjects.

I am the only human on the island but I am not without company. Less than 50 yards from my tent is an osprey nest and the pair seem oblivious to my presence affording me a great source of viewing enjoyment.

My first order of business is setting up my tent above the high tide mark and planning my exploration around the tide table I have brought with me. Many sections of the beach disappear at high tide and it is virtually impossible to travel inland forcing you to wade through the ocean, something I was trying to avoid while carrying all my camera gear.

After breakfast I make arrangements with a local outfitter to drop me off on Panther Key, an uninhabited island just outside the Everglades National Park boundaries in the Ten Thousand Islands chain. We navigate through a virtual maze of islets until we reach the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico where we shoot north until we reach our destination. Panther Key is less than a mile wide and less than two long with almost 50% of its shoreline covered in beaches. The interior has dense vegetation and is completely impenetrable. After off loading my gear and provisions I make arrangements to be picked up tomorrow. Just like that I am off the grid and totally on my own.

This morning I get an early start and head to the Everglades City Rod and Gun Club for breakfast. I arrive too early to dine but this photo of the lobby makes the trip entirely worthwhile.

After pitching my tent in Collier-Seminole State Park I head out on a nature walk in the waning light and am rewarded for my effort with these two photographs. The first features what must have been a century long battle between an enormous strangler fig and an equally massive tree. The second is of the endangered Wood Stork perched over a tiny lagoon.

My first destination is the city of Cape Coral, home to Florida’s largest population of Burrowing Owls. When development first began in the area of Cape Coral and the land was clear-cut for homes, these owls found suitable habitat in the sandy soil of freshly cleared lots and set up residence. The owls either create new or make use of abandoned burrows to live in and nest. They stand approximately nine inches tall and weigh roughly four ounces.

Jeanine drove me to the airport early this morning for my 6AM flight to Fort Myers where I will start a 5 day solo adventure centered on exploration of the Everglades and surrounding areas. This photo taken on approach sums up southwestern Florida quite well. In the foreground is Lovers Key State Park a pristine wildlife sanctuary with Fort Myers Beach and its back to back high rise hotels just across the channel in the background.

Today was my final day at Sonos. Although I am very excited about my new opportunity with iRobot, I am going to miss the friends I have made over the last two years. I learned a great deal and am very proud of what my team and I were able to accomplish. There are many many things I am going to miss about Sonos but the commute through rush hour traffic (pictured above) is not one of them. Knowing this was the last time made the journey just a tad more tolerable. The heavy heart over saying goodbye had the opposite effect.

I leave early tomorrow morning for the Everglades where I will spend several days on a solo kayak and camping adventure.  I hope to come back with some great images and will post again late next week. The children have given me a great deal of advice on how best to avoid being eaten by an alligator. I will heed it all.

Jeanine and I love the fact that Hannah is a serious student and has introduced Kyle to the concept of a study date. Without the time demands of a varsity sport to deal with Kyle has taken his academic performance to a higher level and the hard work is paying off.

Any visit to the optometrist which does not result in a stronger prescription is one I am happy with. I wish the results of my soccer match this evening were as good as my checkup. We came from behind to tie the game at 4-4 but gave up two goals in the closing 2 minutes. I found the back of the net once with a line drive from 25 yards which the goalie was unable to handle.

This is the brush assembly from the electric motor which raises and lowers our downdraft ventilator in the kitchen. The narrow dingy yellow device on the right side of the image is a thermal overload interrupter which was tripping after a few seconds of motor use. Bypassing the device and rebuilding the motor revealed shorted windings and a replacement is now on order. It took several hours of work to disassemble the ventilator before I discovered the root cause of the problem. On the bright side, the replacement motor costs $150 compared to a new ventilator which runs $1400.

I used a long exposure to capture this image of Maya’s soccer team during an indoor training session. I like the resulting photograph more than the ones that more faithfully depicted the scene.