The Longest Day

"If I didn't have such a big pack I'd pat myself on the back."-Me

Before I do anything else, I must address a grievous error in the previous post. I referred to the backpack I've brought here from the United States as "my pack." This is false, the backpack belongs to my dear vet student brother. In return for using it, I am expected to tutor him on the hibernation patterns of echidnas. All he, or you, needs to know about is this: they sleep and they sleep around (true story I wrote that on an exam when I was studying Tasmanian fuana. For more information on echidnas please see the post from a few years ago). Two other facts for fun: 1, spell check thought echidna was actually a misspelling of enchilada; 2, baby echidnas are called puggles and they are not cute.

Second thing to address is my other horrible mistake. Isabel and I were both pretty tired so we went to sleep immediately last night. Then we woke up about halfway through the night because it was so horribly, cripplingly cold. We each put on lots of layers in our sleeping bags, but I'm not sure if we really got much sleep for the rest of the night. We were just waiting for it to be light enough so that we could start moving around and warm up.
It turns out that all the dew froze because it still below freezing, and we thus found little ice pellets sticking to our tent and especially on the metal poles.

the shiny bits are ice and the not dark black on the pole is also frost

I am smart and threw on my gloves to take care of disassembling the tent. The gloves were cheap and not waterproof so all the frost melted in my hands and soon I had to take the gloves off in order to keep my fingers. Honestly the gloves had only made things worse. This meant during the beginning of the morning I had to resort to (wool) sock gloves, a trick I picked up running in Maine. It was shocking that it was this cold. Why would it be the same temperature as yesterday morning? How could we have predicted that? Estimates are that at the coldest it got down to -7 C (19 F) (no one got up to look at the thermometer during the night. I did try to take a picture of it in the morning, but my hands were shaking to much). Finally we got the tent packed and my hands almost warm again, and then it was travel time.

Our view for much of yesterday and today: Barn Bluff. We passed it yesterday and lost sight of it today

Today was tough, possibly the hardest day we'll have out here. We combined two days into one, and hiked from Waterfall Valley to Pelion Hut, passing the Windemere Hut on the way. Getting to Windemere was a breeze. We opted not to do a side trip to Lake Will because we had enough distance to travel already today, but I still took a picture of it

Lake Will

Anyway, we cruised to Windemere, stopping for lunch a little bit before it because we figured it was still an hour away. We were wrong, Windemere Lake appeared maybe 10 minutes later and then we made it to the hut (it had a crayfish drawing on the door). We hung out there for a little while despite having just stopped for lunch. It was a pretty hut and the lake was beautiful.

She loves all the pictures I take of her

Isabel stuck her feet in, but I was not so brave, and took pictures of her instead.

Part one of the day had been a rousing success, and it was time to press on. We then spent the longest four hours of our lives muddily slogging  another 12km or so to Pelion Hut. Part of the problem is that we probably saw the next Pelion after 4k, but rather than heading towards it, we had to skirt a huge vale through muddy and indistinct forests.

Why go straight (which includes a kind of canyon that you can't see from this picture) when you can go around instead?

Adding to the feeling that it was taking forever was the fact that once we were in the forest, there were no landmarks. The one alledged place to keep an eye out for was never marked, only adding to our confusion. Once we started going uphill we knew we things would be fine, as our map also gave us a good idea of where the elevation changes were. Still, for a while we were a bit worried we were lost. There just weren't many trail markers in the forest (probably in part because it was impossible to miss the trail. Here's how to find it: you see the only trail in the forest, stay on it).

I also want to break here to talk about the rangers. They maintained the trail amazingly and made sure the huts were clean and really did a great job making our lives a little easier. Here's an example

It doesn't need to be bigger, it's starts to look worse when expanded

We met another guy part way in. He had forgotten a camera at a little bridge that we had passed a moment before. He grabbed the camera and started running back towards Pelion Hut. I offered to let him carry my pack for me, but he demurred. Apparently he had his own 3km up the path and didn't feel like being generous. Jerk. We limped our way into camp and all but collapsed in the doorway. This was a much bigger hut than Waterfall Valley, able to sleep probably thirty people. On top of that it had four separate sleeping rooms off of the dining area. Privacy! The guy we met before and his two companions had one room, and a Taiwanese girl had another. We claimed a third. Mark and Craig got there a little after us and claimed the fourth. Let's introduce the new characters. The three guys were from SA (South Australia) and kind of doing a gap year/no money for Uni year. They were named James, Riley, and Ben. James being the one we met before, and arguably responsible for forgetting the camera. They will hereafter be referred to as "the boys." The young woman from Thaiwan was named Iris, and is considered by all to be a total badass. She was hiking solo, which we all agree is impressive. Finally there are still Mark and Craig, who actually have an identical Track itinerary to us, so we'll be seeing them a few more times. As for tomorrow, we're all going to the same place, the Kia Orra hut via Mount Ossa (sidetrip up the tallest mountain in Tasmania). 

I almost forgot what made the day worth it. When we got to camp we saw a wallaby! Why does no one seem excited about this? I forgot to mention the wallaby also had a joey, does that help?

Honestly it's a little cuter in concept than in reality, but that's ok

An important update on food. Mark had extra cutlery and took pity on me, especially when Isabel's fancy travel spork broke (we fixed it with tape).

And a final note. the chooks did calm last night, it was probably too cold to strut around after dark. I'm also wondering if their yelling at us was in fact a warning about how cold it was going to get. Maybe they were trying to look out for us and we just didn't listen. Sigh. Tonight we're inside and warm.

Picture Porn

"Good thing you have your camera for the worst sunset yet."-The ever supportive Isabel Low

And so our trek has begun. There was no post yesterday as we drove all day. The only two things worth mentioning are that we stopped at a wildlife park on the way and got to snuggle a seven month old wombat. There are no pictures as I don't want to incite too much jealously. Also, I didn't have the camera for that part. The other thing of note is that we got to our lodge for the night, packed our bags for the hike and then walked to the reception/dining area. Closed. Have you seen our pattern yet? We ended up driving 50 km on windy road to Devonport in order to get crappy Chinese food, perfect pre hike supplies.

That brings us to today. To quote the Low family "we're off like a herd of turtles." You see, we got up nice and early to drive to the Cradle Mountain Visitor Center to pick up our passes be on our way. We also wanted to get some gas as the unexpected extra 100 km last night left us quite low. So we got there, all bright eyes and bushy tailed, just before 7:30,. The center didn't open until 8...We wait until 8 and get everything sorted. We even purchased gloves because it was about 25 F that morning. I asked the ranger helping us about getting gas and he explained that the gas is run by the cafe, which doesn't open until 9. So we wait until nine, get gas, get a muffin, and get our asses on the shuttle to the start of the Track.

So, a bit before 10, a full two and a half hours after we got to the visit center, we are ready to begin our track. We registered and put down our itinerary and took the necessary photo at the beginning.

Yes, that is a stencil of a wombat

Then we started walking. I kid you not, within 3 minutes we saw a wombat. We didn't see it's leash, but I'm pretty sure the rangers put it there to keep everyone happy, like that moose we saw at Katahdin. Our other theory is that it was to convince anyone who just wanted to see a wombat that they didn't need to do the entire Track, they could just turn around and go home. I would consider this both an excellent and auspicious start to our journey.

We then walked through button grass moorland for a bit, which was pretty, in a brown sort of way. 

My Bag is Huge

The moorland was mostly flat, but then we started a gentle climb. Within a few minutes of the elevation change we were in a rainforest. There was no warning or sign or anything like that. One moment we were walking through these plains, and then we went around a bend and were in a rain forest. The rain forest only lasted a few minutes before it abruptly transformed into a deciduous forest. At this point our gentle climb has become a little more taxing, but we're still pretty fresh and soon after that we were rewarded by getting to the iconic Cradle Lake

This is Cradle Lake

We took a nice little break there because afterwards we would start the steepest part of the Overland Track (OLT). It wasn't going to be our steepest part because we are planning to a few sides trips up mountains, including Cradle Mountain.

Then we climbed the steepest part. Hooray. I know there was a lot of suspense there on whether we'd make it or not. The entire way was gorgeous, and I have to restrain myself with the pictures. Anyway, about halfway through the Track for the day, we dropped our packs and left them in a little hut along side the backpacks of other two OLT hikers who had started before us and were also taking some time to climb Cradle Mountain . We then played the "are they the other hikers or just day hikers?" game. We lost. 

The reason we needed to climb Cradle was that we're in the Cradle Mountain National Park. How can we go there, walk right by the Mountain, and not climb it? We can't. Cradle Mountain gets it name from the fact that to a drunk Australian with poor eye sight who's lost in the bush, it vaguely looks like a cradle.

Probably wouldn't be a very comfortable cradle

This climb was fun for the most part. Isabel and I both love scrambling over rocks, plus it was such a relief to get a break from my pack. Atlas may have the world on his shoulders, but I'm lugging around a tent. Anyway the climb was great until we went over the first mini peak and found some of the less exposed area. This area had snow. We had walked over a little on the way to the mountain, but we had poo-pooed it. As New Englanders we know what real snow is, not this adorable Aussie dusting. Then we saw this and realized that we had been just a teensy bit arrogant. Still, we're brave and never even considered (out loud) turning back. We traversed the snow successfully and even safely.

That's Me, and I know it looks pretty steep if I fall, well that's only because it absolutely is. Here's what it looked like if I had gone left (which would have made no sense as the peak was to the right...)

Just a little drop off over there. And yes, this is Australia, not Europe. Gorgeous though, isn't it?

We made it all the way to the top, and were able to see everything surrounding. It was awesome.

That's me thinking deep thoughts, pondering existence and such

We climbed back down, which is probably even more impressive. We just made sure not to look down during the little snow traverse part. Then it was lunch time. (Yep, we did all of this before lunch time. Saw a wombat, hiked a bit, then climbed a mountain, no big deal). Lunch was pb&j on tortilla, a wonderful little wrap chock full of calories to help power us along. We hiked another few hours and made it to the Waterfall Valley Hut (it had a wombat drawing on the door). It was quite nice, with enough room to sleep maybe 20 cramped people and there were only two other hikers in the area, Mark and Craig. They were a pair of friends from Queensland and were friendly and welcoming. They decided to sleep in the Old Waterfall Valley Hut, a dot further down the track because it was cozier and I think they wanted to make sure that they didn't disturb us and vice versa. I decided that tonight we'd use the tent despite have plenty of room inside. My reasoning is: if I carried the damn thing all the way here, we were going to use it. There was a nice grassy area that we were able to set it up. Then we had dinner, a camp stove meal. We decided to make a game of it deciding what to eat for dinner by sticking a hand into my pack, which has all our meals at the bottom, and seeing what we grab. Tonight was a backpackers chana. I forgot silverware in America, so Isabel had grabbed me a plastic fork to use. After a day of traveling in my bag it looked like this:

The biggest laugh of the night, if not the entire trip came from Isabel watching me try to eat with this former fork. Every time I got a chickpea, it would roll off as I lifted the piece of plastic to my mouth. After her appetite for my humiliation was sated, she relented and shared her spork with me. We ate around sunset and I had my camera at the ready...And the sunset was non existent, leading to Isabel's quote at the top. Once we got back in our tent, we realized that all the grassland nearby was in fact Chook (native hen, think grumpy wild chicken) territory. So they were stalking around clucking and screaming at everything, including our tent. All I can say is I hope their not nocturnal. 

I'll end this with a picture of the wombat we saw once we got to the hut. We also saw other animals that I have pictures of, but I guess this is probably enough pictures for now

Bruny Island is Full and Closed

I don't think I mentioned yesterday that we rented a car. This is of interest for two reasons. One: this is the first time I've ever done that. Typically you're supposed to be 25 to do so, something about brain development. (Seriously, part of the reasoning for this rule is that some of the lobes of the brain have not fully develop until that age, Neuroscience Agrees). So we got slapped with a young driver fee. Secondly, Australians channel their inner Brit by driving on the left side of the road. This is terrifying is you are tired from being on a plane for a day and a half with a 14 hour time zone change.

We got up after about 11 hours of sleep and then walked into town to get some supplies. Hobart is the capital city of Tasmania, and started as a penal colony in 1803. Yes, 1803, adorable I know. Australia is young even compared to the US. Anyway, the big thing we needed was fuel for a camping stove, otherwise we'd be eating a lot of cold food for the Track. On the way we also found Isabel some UGGs, which is only ok when you're in Australia. Now, I said we, but my part consisted of sitting in a chair and zoning out for 3 minutes. Yes only three minutes. In what may have been a shoe shopping world that's all it took. Isabel is awesome and amazing and breaks all gender stereotypes and I'm not just writing this because she'll probably read this post.

Isabel then drove us to Bruny Island (not wearing the new UGGS). For those who don't know, Bruny Island is a small Island off the coast of Tasmania. It's main draw (for me) is penguins. That is why we went there. On the way to the ferry we drove through a bit of pretty countryside and even went through a town called Snug. Seriously, who names a town Snug? We took the ferry over to the island and decided to set up tents and such. Now there are accommodations on Bruny, but I'm cheap, so we were camping out. There was a campsite about twenty minutes in from the ferry, and right near by the penguins (who only come out at night). It was completely full. Damn. So we drove all the way down the island by the excitingly named Adventure Point to check a few more campsites. Closed. Double Damn. At that point we decided it was time to go to the beach where he had lunch and frolicked (not in the water though, it was much too cold). In October The average Tasmanian Sea temperature is 56 F. There was also a ton of wind. Still, it was gorgeous and if you wore a jacket, you could have imagined that you were in the tropics. Here are some pictures

(that's not me)

After this we drove down to our last hope of a campsite, 45 km away right at the bottom of the island. We may have stopped a fudge store on the way. (btw half the roads are unsealed, so we really hope the rental agency doesn't look at the undercarriage when they're inspecting the car). We got to the campsite and found one other person there, and she left pretty soon after. We had the entire place to ourselves.
We set up our tent and went for a little jog to kill some time. Then it was time to get Isabel some dinner. She'd seen a drive thru Oyster Place called Get Shucked (which at various points I called What the Shuck, Shuck You, and Go Shuck Yourself. This last one was silly of me, as that would obviously be a self service Oyster Shucking place). Closed. We really have all the luck.
Then we hung out near where the penguins show up and watched a gorgeous sunset from pretty much the highest place on the island. Here are some pictures, not of the sunset as I had put the camera away at that point.

Not a Sunset

Not a Penguin (or a sunset)

Then we went down to the penguin beach and waited for the little guys with the other people who had nothing better to do on a Tuesday night. Isabel was the official penguin spotter, seeing about three before the cold wind and drizzle drove us away. I'm pretty sure if we had kept waiting there would have been more, but it was almost nine and we're still dealing with the whole jet lag thing. The best part of the entire thing was Isabel commenting on a sound she heard. She wanted to know if that was a penguin. It wasn't. Within seconds there came an indignant sound that was a penguin and could only be interpreted as: "this is what a penguin sounds like, bitch" (penguin's words, Isabel's joke, I'm innocent).
We drove back to the our campsite and saw some animals of the way as most mammals are nocturnal. Also, the stars were incredible. There was virtually no light pollution and the sky was clear at various points between rain showers. An exhausting first full day in Australia, but a fantastic one nonetheless.

We're Back!

I know many of you have been waiting impatiently for the past two and a half years for my next travel blog post. Sadly becoming a real person means that it's a lot harder to go on extravagent holidays (that's Australian for vacation). But I saved my pennies and my time off and have now embarked on a journey back to Australia. I'm currently sitting in the Sydney Airport, waiting to get on a plane to Hobart. Oh Tasmania, or as most people say, "I can't believe you're going to Tanzania!"
Sigh
So my too kind roommate Sherry drove Isabel and I to the airport Saturday late morning, with only a few cars trying to kill us, typical boston, and we checked in no problem, got to the gate and had at least an hour until boring. Sorry I meant boarding. I credit myself with our plethera of time  spent waiting at gates. I am always paranoid something will go wrong and have memories of Charles de Gaulle and the horrible lines there. My memories of the baguette we ate on line are fonder.
Get on a plane to Atlanta. Why? Miles seats, and there's technically a flight from Atlanta to Sydney. I say technically because it's stops in LA, everyone gets off the plane and gets on another, but it's billed as Atlanta to Sydney. So we get to Atlanta and have a medium long layover, maybe three hours. We walked to terminals and called family members to tell them we survived and then found food. I got some tacos and some circle bread (for non new york jews, circle bread is what others try to claim are bagels). Isabel got ribs and regretted it. She wanted veggies but decided that the ribs smelt too good. By the way, Atlanta is the busiest airport I've ever seen. If you stand in the middle of any fall you will get swept away.

We fly to LAX with no issue, go to find a bathroom, and by the time we get out the flight is boarding. We get on and a few minutes later we're joined by a gentleman who looks at us and says, "Well I'm happy you're not the same size as me."

He wasn't that big, though he didn't understand airplane ettiquette. Middle gets the armrest because the aisle has legroom and window has window to lean head. But Isabel and I put the armrest up on all the flights and just had a large seat for the two of us.

The flight was mostly painless. There were three young (australian accented) children behind us, who were adorable except the youngest made way too much noise at times. But for a 15 hour flight it could have been much worse.

Customs were a breeze, I didn't even need to see a real person for any of it. The downside is I didn't get a stamp, there's no evidence I was ever here. Sigh. Isabel had to see a person because it couldn't autorecognize her picture, what with her no longer looking like she is 16. The picture is hilarious by the way.

Now we're sitting in the Sydney Airport. And things are only going to get more exciting

Back to Birding, and Soon Bowdoin

All my aquatic activities are done for the near future, so I had no reason to get up at a reasonable hour today. I took advantage and stayed up late last night and then slept in by a whole forty minutes! The reason I got up was to go for a walk with my dad, try to find some birds. Usual vacation stuff, that's what all of you do right? We were surprisingly successful even though we really started too late to find any birds. I also stole my mom's camera so the pics in this post will have been taken by me not wikipedia. We heard a bunch of birds, and saw a few, but most were common local birds that I wont bore you with. When we were looking for some noisy little bird, I happened to notice a different one just chilling on a branch

It's a very snooty bird and refused to make eye contact with mere humans

The rufus-tailed jacamar is a type flycatcher, so it would sit and wait on that branch until it saw a fly, and then it would dart after the fly and catch it before returning to its initial perch. This made it pretty easy to keep track of. We kept walking and eventually saw two great black hawks and two peregrine falcons. We then had to turn back because there were other things to be done (involving birds, obviously). On the way back we heard this bird kind of cawing at us. The sound seemed wrong, almost crow like, and the glimpses we got showed that these were small nondescript passerines. While trying to find them I saw this branch or wire that seemed to be moving. "Hey Dad, a snake!" I cried with glee. My father looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, "maybe that's what the birds are all excited about." He's completely right. Those were either distress calls or mobbing calls, as shown by other birds approaching the vocally agitated ones. We talked about this kind of stuff in ecology, so it was pretty cool to see nature in action. and to see a snake.

My parents and brother set off to do what we had done last week, with the glass bottom boat and tropicbirds. I decided to pass on that. Instead I plopped myself in front of a hummingbird feeder, intent on seeing and photographing the ruby topaz. Epic fail. I sat there for ages and didn't even see it once. I did see a woodpecker

Red-crowned woodpecker. It was making a giant hole. It was
there for ages. It's probably still there now, pecking away

and a hermit crab and a bunch of other species of hummingbirds, but not the stupid one I wanted to see. I got lunch with the fam when they returned, wherein Jonah and I had a misunderstanding over ketchup mainly because I was being oblivious slash greedy. 

I had done most of my packing already, but I finished that up. After that I went and over to check on my dad, who had taken up my former vigil at the hummingbird feeder. I retrieved the camera and joined. My mom's camera is a canon rebel, with an awesome 70-300 lens. The problem is that there looks like one button got damaged. The manual focus button. So everything is autofocus which is incredibly frustrating when trying to photograph hummingbirds, especially those that don't perch when they feed. They're really fast so you end up focussing on what's behind them. After probably another hour plus of arguably patient waiting and deleting photos of walls, I got one

yes it's a bit blurry, but focus on the pretty colors instead

And that's about it for today's activities and the trip. We head out at five (about 40 minutes), and between layover and flying will be back in New York around 5 am. Then I fly up to Maine for the remainder of preseason. It should be lots of fun (preseason not the flying in at 5 am).

I was also invited back here to do an internship if I'd like, so that's an awesome option to have. Who knows what the future holds. Hopefully animals.
This ends part two of my travel blog, TZ in Tobago, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it and found the plethora of animals and animal facts interesting, or at least tolerable. Bye for now

I Owe Wayne Another Beer

First things first, I passed the rescue diver class. This means I'm now not only able, but kind of obligated to assist or lead rescue and first aid efforts in diving related incidents. Or near-drowning, or really and CPR related thing. I am so special. Actually in my opinion I barely passed. I couldn't find the goddamn weight belt again! Stupid 14 inch visibility. I actually lost my own buddy in the effort to find it. It still has not been found yet. The recovery and towing in went relatively fine, though the victim occasionally got his head dunked under water...oops. Then things went pretty well with the cpr, except i stopped after the Oxygen was hooked up, which you weren't supposed to do apparently...oops. Still I passed even though the victim probably would have been in trouble multiple times over. Close enough I guess...
Before that I went diving. It was my last actual fun dive, and we saw some stuff. Lobster, crab, and a giant green moray with almost it's entire body exposed which was pretty cool. Right at the beginning we saw a peacock flounder. It's so thin that I don't understand how it has bones. I thought it was some invert or other.

That was right as we got down there too. We also saw a rather large turtle with moss growing on its back. The sea was very choppy as we got to the site. I had all my gear on and was ready to go. We had been using a back roll entry, which is that we sit on the side up the boat and do a backwards roll into the war. We wait for the divemaster to give us a countdown. I sat on the side of the boat...and then we hit a wave. I lost balance for a moment and had feet with fins spread out, giant heavy tank hanging off the boat. Predictably, I fell off into the water. This wasn't a big deal as I had everything on, except my mask which was on my neck. I just stayed in the water until everyone else got in. Apparently everyone assumed erroneously that I just hopped in early. I corrected this falsehood, and Wayne claims I now owe him another beer. So that's two. For those paying attention at home, the prospective rescue diver fell off the boat.
So I mentioned possibly being a sunfish. This is what they look like

Bannerfish not usually included

very weird, but very distinct. They're also pretty rare and I had never seen one before. I mentioned it to Wayne and he said that yah, they did sometimes get small ones. It was probably about a meter or a little longer. They can easily make it to found meters long including the fins. It's always fun seeing new things, even if they look really weird.

I owe Wayne a Beer

Today was a very busy day…with no pictures. The morning was my practice search and rescue for a missing diver. The diver in this case was a weight belt. This was almost as frustrating as neurobio lab (though more fun). I could not find the goddamn belt. The first time was my fault, my hatred of compasses overcame me. The second time we started too far in and missed it. And after that we kind of just tried to pin point it and failed. Eventually it took a line of four of searching together to find it. I was the one who found it. I talked to Wayne, the instructor after. He explained that with the type of visibility (about 18 inches) we would have used a much more complicated search pattern only taught in the hardcore search and recovery specialty course. So that makes life hard. Meanwhile, Jonah saw a shark on his dive.

Then I went diving and was supposed to show some helping those under duress under water. I did a great job…when I noticed. But sometimes I got distracted by fish and eels and maybe even a sunfish. It was far off, but it looked like it, it’s a pretty distinct shape. So that was that. It was a fun dive. We got up close and personal with a turtle, saw some squid, and found an eel. It shot away into a small structure so I tried to find it on the other side. It ended up coming out right beneath me. It was fun

Third activity/second dive (unless search and recovery counts as a dive (I was under water for ages). This one I just got to do fun stuff, look at fish. The coolest thing we saw were garden eels. They just stay in little holes, with their heads sticking out of sand. I enjoy watching that. I could have stayed there all dive…but for some reason people wanted to move on.

Once we surfaced I was to do Rescue Exercise 7, helping a nonbreathing diver on the surface. It was fine, except I when I took off the victim’s mask, I stopped paying attention to it and it sunk. Wayne had to go fetch it and says I now owe him at least one beer. I guess that’s fair enough. If I pass the course after tomorrow’s big final practical I’ll buy him all the beer he wants. Also worth noting is that while I was doing this the waves were of an almost surfable quality. So more challenges to overcome. Another new thing was that there was a couple from Canada diving, David and Jennifer, who were diving as well. They had some fun stories involving dry suits, whale sharks, the flu, and other things and places. Meeting people like that is always fun. The dive community is a great group plus friendly and welcoming to those with the same interest. And it’s always fun to dive with new people who wont kick you in the face. So for prospective divers, we’re nice and fun…

I Got Lazy

I know there was no post yesterday. It was mainly because I was so depressed that I didn't get to go diving. I was doing course work instead for the Rescue Diver stuff. With better time management though between me and the instructor I definitely could have gone on at least one of the dives sigh. Jonah went diving all my himself and saw two turtles. He did claim that it was not as much without me though. Still we managed to have our first fight yesterday, impressive that we made it four days without one. I wont explain the details as he is the only person i know for sure who reads this blog. Let's talk about today instead.

This is a Trumpetfish

So today I went diving! Let's talk about trumpetfish. They are hilarious  and not only because they would make terrible trumpet players (they don't have the lips for it). They, like many other creatures attempt to camouflage. They're method is hiding in soft coral which sways in the current. So they make themselves vertical and hope that no one will see them...It doesn't work. That made me laugh on the first dive. The second dive was a little more stressful as there were more people, many of whom I had not dove with before. This worries me because it increases the likelihood I take a fin to the face. We saw some cool little slugs, spotted drums, and a giant barracuda. Communication is really difficult underwater. So I tried to signal to Jonah that it was a spotted drum. The sign is to play the drums (probably snare). He thought I was riding a horse and started looking for a seahorse. Sigh I need to get a dive slate.
I passed the written rescue diver exam. Yay! The only thing left is do some actual rescuing scenarios...oh shit!
Parents came in today and Jonesy and I had dinner with them. There is no such thing as a serious conversation in this family. I try to tell them about caecilians, pronounced sicilian, and my dad starts humming the theme from the godfather. Insufferable!

Caecilian, pronounced like the Italian people (only much more gross and slimy)

That's just one example. Shrubberies, Notlob, and many other things came up. Bonus points to those who understand those jokes. It was fun, i guess parents can be ok to have around, assuming you don't see tooooo much of them.
Bonus picture:

silky anteater, absolutely adorable and so pocket sized

Note, none of these pictures were taken by me, credit to wikipedia.

Dive Another Day

5 points to whoever guesses what Jonah and I did today. Those who guessed braided each other's hair are incorrect. You should have guessed that we went diving. I was too tired (lazy) to get up for the morning chorus today, so Jonah and I got up around 8:15, went to breakfast, and then went to the dive shop. I arranged for the rescue diver course. Apparently it will own my soul for the rest of my stay. I'm ok with that though. The guy I talked too had a distinct and familiar accent. So during the course of things I asked where he was from all ready to talk about my semester down in Tassie and how I dove in Cairns. Turns out he was English, not Aussie, so I didn't really have anything to say about that. Awkward...

Random Picture of Dive Shop Sign, sorry no good new pics today

Then we hopped on the trusty boat, and before we knew it were in the water. And there was this giant fish and I knew it was a shark! Except it was actually a tarpon which is definitely not a shark. So I kind of felt foolish after frantically signing shark. We did see a giant barracuda, which was chasing a small clown fish that had only one good fin. Then a different scuba diver came and captured the clown fish and went away to Australia with it! Right at the end I also found a really cool eel that we watched move around. I later commented to Jonah, "it was so cool! especially how we saw it moved exactly like it does on land!" He replied, "you mean flop around and die?" he has a point
Second Dive! The second dive was definitely another dive. We saw a turtle from afar, and there was another scorpion fish. There were lots of other fish (no tarpon (or sharks)) that I wont list because few people reading this actually know or care about the difference between an angelfish and a butterflyfish. At the end of the dive Jonah is the first one to the ladder, and promptly announces that he dropped his weight belt.

How we responded upon hearing about the belt

Foolish brother, sigh. I went down and grabbed it for him because I'm so nice and sweet. On the way up I saw a school of needlefish that no one else did, so I guess being a hero also has a payoff. I then spent much of the rest of the day reading the Rescue Diver Manual and being surrounded by Ruddy Turnstones as I did so. They're this absolutely fearless little plover. They literally did all but walk on me as I was reading. Anyway, Yay Work!

Birding in the Rain

So Jonah learned an important lesson today. We should make sure that all our activities are done through the Inn for reasonable prices. We kind of got ripped off, but that's ok. Also it probably would have been better organized. As we were walking by some guy invited us to do a birdwalk at a sanctuary. Jonah was all for it while I was simply quiet. Then I started whining that this would make us miss lunch. He didn't care. So we got on a glass-bottom boat and rode out there. Glass-bottom boats are pretty cool, you can see the reef below you. The magic was probably a little lost on us because rather than looking down on the reef we had been in the reef mere hours before. Anyway we get to the island sanctuary place and see a bird right off the bat: chickens. domesticated chickens. as we started scaling a hill we saw another bird or two and even a flicker of a gecko before it hid (for those counting that's birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, as well as tons of inverts in one day). Then we found a Tropicbird

It's baby is underneath. No you cannot see it

This island was a sanctuary for them, which was quite nice. When we went to a different point and were able to see a lot of them flying around a little cove. It turns out that these birds are quite graceful in the air, soaring and swooping, but are terrible on land. We're talking worse than ducks, worse than even penguins. I had a video of one trying to walk, but the internet is evil and hates me. Their legs are too short to really walk so they kind of hop/scoot. It's pretty funny. I'll put the video on facebook soon. There some others birds like boobies and frigate-birds

This is a red-footed boobie, what did you think I was talking about?

Fun animals fact: frigate-birds are sometimes described as pirates. They steal food from the tropic birds and so earn the name. So that was fun, but it wasn't an unexciting walk. When we got the view of the boobie our guide looked up and said "looks like rain." With in seconds it started pooring on us. We survived, but where soaked. The weather in the tropics is even less predictable than Maine! So we survived and finished the walk...and found that there was no boat waiting for us. There had been snorkelers, so we assumed they'd get bored before we finished and be waiting for us...Nope. An hour or so later the boat shows up. Apparently someone got sick so they all headed back, and then had to come all the way back out to get us. It was pretty boring/annoying. Sigh. Then it was nap time. Long day and it wasn't even dinner time yet.

Morning Chorus...and DIVING

Today marks our first full day of adventure in Tobago. We did much more than sit on planes! We sat on boats! So my dear brother and I crashed pretty early yesterday because we were whipped from all the travel. I woke up somewhere around 5:30 am and was able to hear the dawn chorus starting. This is a birding term for all the birds getting up in the morning and making a shitton of noise.

5:58 AM, totally worth it

Being the curious lad I am, I got up to investigate who was around. Our main culprit was the bananaquit. No I did not make up that word. They're a tiny honey/fruit eating bird with no shame or fear of humans. They are colorful and very loud

What are you doing Bananaquit? That's a humming bird feeder! You're not even using it correctly!

So I saw plenty of those and much fun was had by me while wandering around. I wont list all the birds I found because most of you are relatively sane and don't want to hear about them. I also found a mammal (other than stray cats and dogs) an agouti! it's a nut/fruit eating South American rodent. I was excited about it ok. Jeeze, stop being so judgmental  Eventually I got my brother wake up (14 minutes before we needed to get to the dive shop), and we went to the dive shop. Then we went diving. Jonah nearly hit me I so was vocally excited. He found me tiresome...

Diving is the best. it is so much fun. we saw tons of fish. damselfish, angelfish, parrotfish, wrasse, triggerfish, a scorpionfish, and that was the first, weaker dive. The second one was even more exciting. We also had company in the form of four very new divers...they were not great with the not crashing into people thing, but one found a green moray so i forgive him. We persevered nonetheless and it was a great dive. We also saw giant spiny lobsters, a massive turtle with exactly 13 inner plates (if you didn't read the Australia blog, i mentioned all turtles and tortoises have 13 inner plates). I also thought I saw an octopus...but realized that either it was an amputated and aware tentacle, or it was a worm. It was a bearded fireworm. For those wondering, it looks like an octopus tentacle. Later on we actually did see an octopus. It was amazingly camouflaged, but once you saw it, it became clear. Still it attempted to maintain the facade of being invisible. It kept opening an eye to check on us. I imagined it's inner monologue going something like "they can't see me, no they cannont. now piss off....are they still there...yes. DAMN close eye fast...but they can't see me..." for about two minutes. Great start to the day, and got right back into diving, not too rusty. the afternoon adventures forthcoming with more pictures and maybe a video

Planes and Ghost Fish

So the blog is back for a limited time only. Both my avid readers will be delighted. I am no longer in Tasmania, or even in Australia. This adventure finds my brother and I stranded in Tobago, miles away from civilization. Seriously, we're pretty remote hear. But I'll get to that.
Today we woke up so early that it really counted as very late (4:00 am). We got to JFK and were shocked that there was pretty rigorous scheduling for Caribbean Airlines.

There is a hummingbird on a the tail

You think they'd be all about Island Time. Turns out the scheduling was all for show. Our plane took off really late. Yay. Not great organization by the airlines. ANYWAY, the flight was pretty painless, kind of dozing and listening to music the entire time. Then our family split ways. My parents went off on a wild adventure to go birding. My brother and I were hopping on another plane to get to Tobago. There was quite a layover for our twenty minute flight. Literally twenty minutes; they didn't even let us take our seat belts off. I took a picture of the sunset when we got off the plane...and got yelled at. Something about taking photos at airports

So now you can all see the details of Tobago's airport secrets!

So we then get in a car and ride for an hour and a half into "the country," which you can kind of read as the middle of nowhere on the more remote island of a small island nation. It took that long because it was long and windy the entire way. This windiness made Jonah almost throw up in the back of the car. He survived, but thought it was worth mentioning. We checked in and everything went swimmingly, except we didn't actually go into the water yet. diving starts tomorrow. yes i'm too excited for words so I wont even try. I did have my first animal experience of the trip. I was walking out on the dock around 7:45, and suddenly I see movement in front of me. The place is literally crawling with crabs. They were about as brave and aggressive as sir Robin. And it was dark so pictures yet. I'll work on that. Also check facebook for more.
So ghost fish. There are lights in the water by the dock probably to help them when they're setting up for night dives. I don't think there were any tonight, but as i was having fun chasing crabs I saw that there were things swimming in the water. These things were fish...duh. But they all had a kind of whitish hue because of the green back light and moved too quickly for me to identify any of them. Thus they are ghost fish. Hopefully I'll have more and better stories/pictures as the week continues

The End: Back Home Again

I made it back to new York and at home. Let's talk about the journey. Sydney to LAX. I was in a middle seat. YAY. One side was a girl with a few extra kilos, and the other looked like some large ex rugby player. So plenty of room right. Did I mention that a little kid kicking my seat throughout the whole ride. I just watched a ton of movies, like The Mulpets (still in love with Amy Adams) Johnny English Reborn, A Fish Called Wanda, tons of TV. Survived it From LAX I then caught the flight to JFK. Slept through most of it, ignoring the upset child four seats away. Apparently it couldnt not sit in its father' lap without crying. We landed without any problems, then sat on the runway for thirty minutes. YAY. Then got to baggage claim. It got jammed )possibly due in small part to my bag. Got that and finally got home. Things have changed. My mom claimed a new room as her secret lair (office/study), someone tried to clean my room, which was horrible! Anyway back home, so the blog is done. Thanks for reading. I have a lot of great memories and new friends. It's been awesome Bye

Longest Post Ever, Diving Abridged

Seriously this is the short version of my diving Day 1: I got up around 5:30 or half five as they say here. I was the first picked up in our van. Our driver was named Rocky, a German? woman, at least she taught the course in German. They brought us to the dive shop and had people check their bags get gear, etc. then we got on a boat. We eventually got on to the boat, then we were introduced to the crew and watched a video on safety. I was trying to play the game Spot the Aussie. It was very difficult, the largest group was of British decent, with one guy who sounded exactly like Wallace of Wallace and Gromit. There was also a Dutch contingent, and a Swiss family. The ride out to the first site was about three hours. We had a briefing about it and then hopped in. Five of us elected to not go with a leader. We saw sharks, and tons of fish, but sharks. Found Nemo on the second dive, a ray on the third dive, and then there was the night dive. Again five people elected to not go with a leader. They let me lead for some reason...saw a shark and moray right off the bat...then I kind of went over the reef than around it......whoops. People were a little annoyed. Throughout the day I felt progressively worse. The first dive had killed my ears a bit, and by the end I was sure I would pop and eardrum and not be able to fly home. Early bedtime due to exhaustion of four dives in a day, about twice that of a normal dive day Day 2: Early wake up, but I felt miraculously healed from the sleep. There was something absurd and fantastic on every dive, but I think the highlight would be swimming with a turtle. It was very large and essentially just ignored me as I swam with it for a minute or two. Another cool thing was the night dive. We were looking for this giant turtle, which we did not find. At one point I kicked the sand, and looked down to see a thin eel burying itself in the ground. I later found out it was, appropriately for Australia, called the convict eel. I so saw a group of razorfish, which are cool in the fact that they swim vertically and moved as a group, would get scared as a group, would probably do everything as a group. Finally, right before our ascent, we saw a parrotfish in a bubble. Parrotfish form a mucus bubble around themselves when they sleep which holds in their scent do they can't be found. I had never seen one before, it was awesome. Even earlier bed time due to more exhaustion from another four dive day Day 3: Early morning, and then what I refer to as the dawn dive. We saw the biggest parrotfish imaginable, along with a couple sharks that hadn't woken up yet. I also kind of kept getting a little too close and scaring annoying them. They tended to be white-tip reef sharks, not dangerous, but still quite cool. Of course there were tons of other cool fish and such,  just like in every other dive. On the next and last two dives the big things were the enormous turtles that essentially just ignored us or tried to swim away. Right at the end of the last dive, boom giant turtle. Nice way to end the last dive. Then we had to travel back...you could say it was a bit of a bumpy ride. That would be an understatement. One instructor (Rocky) went to bed before it even started because she knew otherwise she would get sick. James, the cook, was taking inventory and a stack of bowls fell and broke. The fridge with all the soda burst open and there were cans all over place. This was despite a bungee chord keeping it closed. Also the two little Swedish girls had to run to the back of the boat. I felt a little bad for them. Another guy literally turned green. I went up to the top of the boat so I could enjoy the rollercoaster to the fullest. Twas fun. Got dropped off, ended up back at the dive shop and then was finally dropped off at hotel. My hair was in such bad condition after 8+ hours of saltwater in three days with no real showers, that I used conditioner, yes conditioner. Don't be alarmed, I survived. Now it's time to start to travel home. Sydney tomorrow, home the next "day"