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Monday, March 5, 2007 - 10:30PM

Boston - new baby and big waves

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

As I announced back in December, my sister Katie and her husband Randy became the parents of Caleb Randolph - making me an official uncle! I took a long weekend to visit them this week at their home in Boston. You'll be seeing more of Caleb on this blog in the near future as I finish up a video production (in 16x9 HD!) featuring the new family addition. Here is Katie with Caleb at 3 months:

Caleb and I should get along fine - after a rocky start on the first day, he finally approved of my presence (he's looking at me in that picture above, believe it or not). Yesterday I was even able to carry him around the house without protest.

Katie and Randy gave me a tour of a few of their favorite birding sites around New England, including Gloucester, Cape Anne, and the New Hampshire coastline. The seas were still rough from a storm the previous day, sending large waves crashing into the rocky coastline. At a few spots, the waves were hitting the rocks and sending huge plumes of water jetting straight up. The audiovisuals were spectacular! I shot a good 40 minutes of HD video of the show.

In the second image above, I was standing on the rock to give a perspective on how large the wave spray columns were getting. I expected to get a little wet, but ended up getting soaked:

By then, I had the camera safely back from the wave break zone, after getting a big wake-up call that I was too close. The FX-1 took a couple of hits from two of the larger back-to-back waves, but miraculously survived (another example of divine protection). I quickly raced back to the car and toweled it off, expecting the salt water to seal its fate. But no water got inside, and everything still works. Here are grabs from the two camera hits: