Baie d’Upi - Ballade en Pirogue

 After getting an overview of the island from the top of Pic N’ga I was no longer happy to spend the rest of my time at Baie Kuto as it was pretty clear that the eastern part of the island was nothing short of spectacular, so in the afternoon I booked myself on the Ballade en Pirogue, a tour that is almost de rigeur for anyone that comes to the Isle of Pines.

The tour starts at Baie de Saint Joseph just east of Vao. The pirogues, in the interests of efficiency, have been enhanced somewhat with outboard motors, so our skipper motored out into the Baie, the better to catch the wind. The pirogue then sails up the Baie d’Upi through a landscape that is made for postcards, tropical forest with coconuts coming down to the shore, turquoise water, turtles below, ospreys circling above.

Of course I focussed on the two most photogenic, and also easily photographed subjects, the skipper of our pirogue, and the amazing limestone formations mushrooming out of the bay, often in combination. I’m rather happy with the few photos that weren’t too blurry, too overexposed, or just a bit dull.

At the northern end of the bay we disembarked for a short walk through forest to the northern shore. This forest was one that I would have liked to photograph more, but I’d already exhausted my memory card on the pirogue. I did manage a few photos of the dominant impressions, an enormous species of tree which I haven’t identified as well as the occasional photogenic strangler fig.

 Finally the walk comes out at Baie d’Oro where a small inlet separates some islands from the mainland, all surrounded by those signature pines. Paradise.

Comments

[Teresa Gilman]

Yes, definitely the piroguist is as photogenic as the pines, and that enormous foot-like tree trunk in one of the later photos. Fascinating.

T.

[Philip Gleeson]

I feel somewhat guilty about those photographs since I didn't actually ask his permission to be photographed, and I don't think he was aware that I was either, probably presuming I was just photographing the rock formations behind him, since the camera was never actually pointed at him. It's these sort of complications in photographing people that normally mean that my focus stays strictly on nature.

I hadn't seen the resemblance of that tree to a foot, but can now. I'm often curious to discover what other people see in my photographs, because my interpretation of them is always coloured by having seen the real 3D object that they are based on, foreclosing such observations as yours.

[Teresa Gilman]

Well, as to asking permission for photographing, another blogger friend of mine used to photograph people quite often, and asked permission before publishing any of them. What happened much of the time was that a shot would present itself and he'd take it, THEN ask the person. Otherwise he would've missed the shot. Most of the times the person would give permission [but this is USA....not the south Pacific], and so he'd publish it on his blog. He worked for a newspaper too, so felt bound by the ethics they teach you in J school.

Now I'm going back and see what you've written in your current post.