Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning


March 7-9, 2008:South Bintan and Agro Beach

This was the weekend to test a place for Mike, Kristin, Joshua, Charlie and Sarah - who will visit in June. We left Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and watch flights land at Changi.

Here is a new experiment - with Google Maps. GPS Visualizer provides some neat tools for converting from GPS file formats to Google Earth / Maps format. The map is fully interactive - so you can zoom in the Agro Beach Resort and see the islands shown below in the photos.

    Somthing about the colors (the map is interactive - click and drag)
  • Red is going from Tanah Merah to Bintan.
  • Green is the return trip.
  • Blue is from the MRT from Tanah Merah to Queenstown.
  • Black is where the MRT went underground.

From Google Earth, here are the tracks of our Ferry ride to Bintan Agro Beach Resort (red trace) as well as the tracks to our first visit(blue trace) on Feb 8, 2008.(click image to see in GoogleEarth)

mar_09_2008_singapore_bintan_gearth.jpg

and with a tilt to get an interesting perspective (click image to see in GoogleEarth)

mar_09_2008_bintan_gearth_tilt.jpg

Friday March 7, 2008

Here, SQ landing.

mar 07 0542 sq landing

And Air India landing

mar 07 0545 air india landing

Leaving Tanah Merah

mar 07 0561 leaving tanah merah

The Singapore skyline and waiting ships

mar 07 0566 singapore skyline waiting

Mersk - as we often saw in Charleston

mar 07 0571 mersk singapore

March 7-9, 2008:South Bintan and Agro Beach

Arriving Bintan harbor

mar 07 0593 arriving bintan

Ellen and Shanti (from Agro Beach Resort) - waiting for our van to drive across the island

mar 07 0594 ellen shanti

First we obtained our return tickets - a typical Pinang street

mar 07 0600 tangung pinang street

The Falcon office. Here Shanti exchanged our voudher for return tickets

mar 07 0602 falcon office

Driving along the highway

mar 07 0606 diving

A fishing village

mar 07 0608 fishing village

Check in at the Bintan Agro Beach Resort - Reception

mar 07 0611 checkin

The entrance area - full of fresh air, sun and pleasant people!

mar 07 0612 entrance

Well the surprise and overland trip was worth it. Here is the Bintan Agro Beach Resort from the Sun Moon Restuarant (at high tide). Our room is in the building to the right.

mar 08 0902 Agro resort

A view of the Sun Moon Restaurant, with the best Gong Gong and Chili Crab and fried bananas and ... we've tasted.

mar 08 0933 sun moon clouds

And our room

mar 08 0928 3111 our room

and Ellen on our porch

mar 07 0616 ellen

It was low tide shortly after we arrived so I took a hike across the ocean floor. Here were some kids looking for shell fish. On a good day they can harvest 1 kg of these small tasty treats

mar 07 0685 harvesting

Here she is looking through some sand

mar 07 0689 searching

and looking at me

mar 07 0694 searching

and pulling her bucket leaving a trail of sand

mar 07 0701 harvest trail

This is some sort of fish net

mar 07 0719 fish net

This lady sets crab traps and later harvests the contents. Here she is baiting the trap.

mar 07 0741 harvesting

Later the sun started its goodbye

mar 07 0811 sunset island

with streaks of red

mar 07 0816 sunset

Evening lights

mar 07 0827 sunset

This was an experiment. A 6 sec exposure while moving the zoom from the 55 mm to 18 mm

mar 07 0829 evening lights

Saturday March 8, 2008

Its a new day and high tide and the sun is just beginning to say hello

mar 08 0843 sun moon morning

mar 08 0845 sunrise

I had so much fun with the zoom exposure, I thought I would try it in the morning. Here is one of the resort boats with 1 sec exposure (f22) while moving the zoom

mar 08 0900 zoom photo

The walk from the beach to the restuarant

pier

Our table in the Sun Moon Restaurant

mar 08 0906 sun moon dining

They have a small trap for catching really fresh fish

fish trap

Ellen did her lap swimming while I was spider hunting. She met a Korean family (Janet and Soo). Soo is 8 and speaks perfect English.

mar 08 0936 janet soo choi ellen

As part of our exploring we visited another group of bungalows that were built over the water - like Lincoln's kelong.

There are a group of small over-the-water bungalows - so we visited

mar 08 1006 bungalow

There is a common sitting area

mar 08 1010 bungalow porch

And the beach

mar 08 1011 bungalow beach

Meanwhile - I was spider hunting. A Nephila

mar 08 0952 nephila

The dorsal side

mar 08 0960 nephila dorsal

Across the path was a lady and her micro-man

mar 08 0977 nephila male

Male and female

mar 08 0981 male female nephila

Male - note the black palps

mar 08 0986 male web tangle

A side view and ventral side (with the male to the right of her last leg

mar 08 0997 male female side mar 08 1003 male female

Nearby was a small stream with water lilies

mar 08 0964 water lily

I liked them

mar 08 0970 water lily

Can't wait for the next visit

mar 08 0974 water lily

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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