Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Last week, my teammates and I woke up at the crack of dawn to go kayaking in Tomales Bay. Having only ventured north of the Golden Gate Bridge once (to visit the Chandon Winery), I was definitely eager to see the much-acclaimed Point Reyes. Apparently the hiking is spectacular beyond words, plus there are even rumors of baby seals to be cuddled!

Knowing that it would probably be a beautiful day (weather forecast was predicting 85 degrees and sunny with a breeze), and also knowing that I would, in all likelihood, drop my cute Canon Powershot to the bottom of the ocean if I brought it along, I opted to get one of those waterproof disposable cameras. It even floats! But the annoying thing is that you have to *develop* the film. I think I mentioned to someone that I don't think I've *developed* film since 1999, and I was totally surprised to find that there are still so many places still in business that develop film for you. I mean, who uses film cameras anymore (except fancy-pants photographers who probably develop their own photos)?

Anyways, it was surprisingly easy to do. I went to a store called Foto Shop in Sunnyvale, and not only did they finish it in an hour, but they didn't even charge *money*! At least not for the digital copies. The prints ended up costing something like $3.40 total. I had no idea it was so easy. They're not as sharp as pictures from my normal digital camera, but that could also be attributed to human factors:

• Us chucking it around in the water to test its buoyancy.
• Having the lens encrusted with salt and other sea minerals.
• Me accidentally kicking it, when I temporarily forgot that kicking doesn't make you go faster in a kayak (unlike in a scull).
• And finally, letting it roast in the car. (Apparently film is heat-sensitive? I'd forgotten that.)

But they still came out quite nice, if you want to see them:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jenn.c.taylor/TomalesBayKayaking

I was going to do some snazziness with the Maps API to plot out our various stops on a satellite map, but then I noticed that Picasa has a feature to do exactly that. Note that for the pictures on the water, "placement on the map is approximate"...but alas, there are no floatyball icons to be had! Also, I'm not positive where that nifty cove full of mussels was, but I'm pretty sure I got the other parts right. Can anyone see the teepees? ;-) (According to www.parks.ca.gov, they are "reconstructed Miwok bark houses".)

In the end, we didn't cuddle any baby seals, but we did see a bunch of jellyfish floating around!