boston island

Playing with Snapseed's New "HDR Scape" Tool

Boat on a Travelift

Snapseed, a popular image manipulation tool for Android and iOS, has added a feature to turn any image into an HDR image. I did some tests, and here are my results. An HDR version of a photo I posted earlier in the year. Our house in Maine. Gisela and me at a photo shoot. Another one of Gisela at the photo shoot, this time with much heavier HDR filtering. Counter Protesters against the Westboro Baptist Church.

Shipping Up to Boston Island for the Weekend

Sheepscot River from Boston Island

It’s Memorial Day weekend, which means my family and I are headed to our summer place in Maine to open it for the season. It’s become an annual tradition, and for me it marks the start of summer. As I’ve done during all my past trips to the Island, I’ll post pictures while I’m there. Check out the Boston Island blog as well, as we’ll be posting stuff from our trip there too.

First Trip to Boston Island in 2012

Our house on Boston Island

This weekend I’ll make my first trip of the season to Boston Island. It will mostly consist of cutting down trees and other maintenance, but any trip to the Island is well worth it. As I usually do, I’ll make an effort to post pictures and updates while I’m there. I’ll also be posting stuff via Twitter. I’ll also post some stuff on the island’s web site, so be sure to check that out as well.

Maine for the Weekend

House on Boston Island

My father and I are headed up to Maine this weekend to close up our summer house. October is a great time of year to be there, since the leaves are changing and the weather is cool, but not so cold that it isn’t fun. I’ll be posting pictures on this page while we’re there, so check back for that. 11 October 2011, 0950 EDT So obviously the live blogging thing from Maine didn’t work out so well.

New Tie-Off for the Boat

Boat on the tie-off

One of the projects I had on my list for this trip was to upgrade the tie-off for our boat. Since there are three houses that share one float, we need a method to keep them accessible but off the loading area. The tie-offs are simply lines with weights on the end strung out to a piling that a boat is clipped on to. I decided to change the way ours connects to the dock by splicing an eye in the line and installing galvanized hardware.

Townsend Gut and the Southport Swing Bridge

Southport swing bridge

We went in to town this afternoon for brunch. I snapped some photos of Townsend Gut, and the bridge that connects Southport to Boothbay.

And Still More Fog

Fog on Boston Island

The view out my window this morning when I woke up…of more fog. Not that it’s surprising or unexpected. We’re headed into town today for brunch and a local reggae cover band. Pictures and videos to come.

Fog at the Boatyard

Fog at the boatyard

After a couple of days of hard work we decided to come into the boatyard and get cleaned up. I snapped this while waiting for a shower to become available.

Our House on Boston Island

House on Boston Island

Since it’s sunny and pleasant today (albeit a bit foggy on the water) I figured it’d be a good time to post some pictures of the house. It’s actually a kit house, bought from the Sears catalog in the 1890s. It was brought out to the island unassembled by rowboat, and built on the site where it stands today. The island has no electricity or running water, but we have propane which is hauled from the mainland and a rain water collection system.

New Boat Engine!

Yamaha 75hp outboard

Behold: the brand new Yamaha 75hp 4-stroke! So excited to see what this baby’s got.