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February 21, 2010
Barbados Trip Comes to a Close :(
It's hard to believe a week has gone by, but it's our last night in Barbados. Has been an awesome trip, we feel very fortunate to be able to come for a week to unthaw and unwind. We're all feeling sad to have to go, but looking forward to getting back to "normal" life.
Heidi's posted several photo albums of our trip:
Barbados West Coast
Exploring Coral Reef
Barbados South and East
Here's a quick breakdown of our daily activities:
Monday- Arrive
- Secure car
- Learn to drive on left, and look the correct direction for oncoming traffic when turning
- Drive across island
- Find condo
- Swim in pool
- Explore grocery store food options, secure food for week
- Swim at Fitt's Village Esplanade beach until lunch
- Swim in condo pool after lunch
- Drive to high peak in center of island, tour Gun Hill Signal and climb on the Lion carved from stone
- Swim in pool (again)
- Spend day at Folkstone Marine Reserve; swim, snorkel, dig in sand, read, eat lunch, play at playground, eat ice cream, buy souvenirs, etc
- Swim in pool
- Morning submarine ride
- Lunch and afternoon in Bridgetown
- Swim in pool
- Spend day at Crane Beach, 3 of us get stung by jellyfish but sand, water, and waves too good to resist and everyone continues to swim
- Swim in pool
- Late night Island observatory visit to overlook the city, see the night sky and look through telescope
- Pack up and load car early, hit Oistins for lunch
- Wade in Oistins Beach
- Move to new house (inland, more local flavor)
- Swim in pool
- Back to Oistins for dinner
- Church with the locals
- Sunday drive to Bathsheba for lunch, watch surfers, walk on the beach
- Up early to pack
- Swim in pool
- Off to airport
Posted by mike at 6:35 PM
February 19, 2010
Vacation Exclusively Filmed on iPhone with Owle bubo
I'm trying an experiment. Every year the family takes a winter vacation to somewhere warm. Every year I lug a bunch of chargers, cables, tapes, and a video camera along to document. When I get home (or in the ensuing months) I capture the footage and spend a few weeks of late nights pouring through the footage, organizing, narrowing it down, and producing a short video that captures the trip.
For example, last year in Ireland I shot ~4 hours of footage over a week in April. Just before the holidays (yes, in December) I worked at that footage for two weeks and turned it into a 36 minute DVD of our trip using Final Cut on my Mac.
For our February trip this year (currently underway), I decided to take another approach. I had gotten my hands on an Owle bubo, a new device to wrap around your iPhone 3GS and notch up the video capabilities (better lens, microphone, and stability). For the past few days now I've been carrying that around and shooting footage like I normally would with our video camera.
Why OWLE bubo?
Charging
I charge each night while syncing, or use the Apple wall charger in the morning before we go. This stuff I have readily available on all trips/vacations so no extra stuff to bring along.
Video capture/upload
Each night I sync to iTunes on my MacBook, downloading the day's footage (using one of these awesome super short iStubz 7cm sync cables). This puts the video clips right into iTunes, ready to export or use directly in iMovie.
Carrying
The OWLE bubo's narrow body slips into the small pouch on my backpack (I've also stuck it in one of the side pockets in my cargo pants/shorts, a bit bulky in there but works in a pinch). As easy as any camera I've used as far as toting it along (plus it looks cooler than a touristy video camera).
Startup
If you leave the iPhone in video shoot mode, the time to get "booted up" and shoot video is pretty quick, makes it easy to go from off to active recording pretty quick.
Video Quality
I'll be able to speak more confidently about this once we get home and I can watch the video on something better than the laptop, but the clips look pretty good when playing in iMovie or directly in the QuickTime player. I know it's not going to compare to the 3CCD camera I've used in the past, but based on what I'm seeing I won't be suprised if it's close enough to still make a great vacation video.
I've gotten some questions about the bubo as we've been traveling and I've been using it to grab footage of our daily excursions. I am definitely advocating it, pointing out what makes it such a handy little device. Like I said, I don't know for sure about the video quality when it makes it's way onto the big screen, and the iPhone struggles/fails in low-light situations, but for quick, convenient video shooting it has been a great companion.
Unfortunately the whole story will take some time to unfold because historically it's always taken a few months until I get around to putting together the video footage and burning to DVD. Perhaps in the interest of finishing this post I can expedite that a bit.
Posted by mike at 3:17 PM
February 16, 2010
Feels like July in Barbados
While Boston gets hammered with another snowstorm we're relaxing on the beach in Barbados. Clear, blue water splashing up onto the beach, hot sun on our skin. Something quite magical about being able to hop on a plane and within a few hours turn freezing winter into summer paradise.
And yes, Caribbean water is really as blue as the TV, brochures, and magazines show.
Posted by mike at 5:29 AM