Flutterby™! : Farallon trip

Random pictures from Saturday's excursion out to the Farallon Islands. First time I've seen 'em up close, usually it's from the 20 miles or so away of up on the slopes of Mount Tam. As always happens on overcast days, I'm still having trouble getting my camera settings right, at least this time I managed to get the contrast setting on the camera turned down, but I should have kicked up the ISO by a few stops, and... well...

The experience was awesome, the pictures less so. These are: A white sided dolphin playing in the wake of the boat (I'll try to edit up some video), an albatross of a sort not normally seen in these parts (and these are amazing birds, slope soaring off the waves, wing tips just above brushing the ocean), obligatory Humpback whale breach ('cause if you get a picture of it, that's cool), and a badly stitched panorama of the largest of the Farallons, with the water tower/lighthouse visible on the top (and I had no idea what that much accumulated bird crap without any sort of ecosystem to digest it smelled like...).