hazybluedot

Belgium is a very beautiful country, and we all agreed, friendlier than France when it comes to interacting with random people on the street. We started in Brugge, which lived up to its expectations for charm and beauty. Carl was informed of a good Hostel near the center city which turned out to be very decent indeed. The dormitory style rooms slept 15 people and I think there were 3 rooms on our floor that shared a very small bathroom with a single toilet (a sink was out in the common area). It wasn't that much of a problem though, I guess for the most part everyone was on different poop schedules. There was one shower room for the place which was basic but go the job done.

We did the important things to do in Brugge: climed the 366 steps of the belfry tower and then ate frieteken with all sorts of fun and tasty sauces in The Markt, walked along the canals, visited the old windmills and chilled out in one of the pleasant and quiet parks. At the end of the day (by now it was Friday) we headed back to the train station where Curtis started his journey back to Amiens so as to make his flight back to the states Saturday morning and Carl and I headed up to Oostende. Since a lot happened in the 3 days I was in the Oostende area I will start a new post.

Where to begin? Maybe the beginning, but that might make for a long post if I try and put all the events of the last 13 days or so into one. My trip got off too a late start with a canceled flight out of D.C. But, when United gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? So I spent a day in D.C. and got to visit Stephen (who's parents graciously let me stay the night) and Emily, who's birthday it was, as I discovered after the fact. So, a day late to Paris, but I also was switched to a direct flight from D.C. which was nice.

I arrived in CDG a little bit early (well, early for the new, day late flight anyway), found my bag with no trouble (even though it had been been bumping around in the system since I left Roanoke the day before and had a flight change) and then found Carl who was nice enough to take an early train to meet me so I didn't get lost in the middle of France.

Amiens is a nice city, it has a population of around 160,000, so maybe about 3 times larger than Blacksburg or Amherst. Rather than go one by one through every little event I will just summarize: we ate lots of bread and cheese, went to Paris for the weekend where we visited the Eiffel Tower, some famous street and a famous arch thing which were nice, as far as streets and arches go, and the Louver. That place is huge and would probably take a couple days alone to just see everything they have there. We saw the important things, like some greek pots and famous statues, and of course, the Mona Lisa. Apparently, everyone who sees it says that it is smaller than they expected, and in this case, I will agree with everyone. Personally, I think it is overhyped, I mean, it's just a painting of some woman smiling. Don't get me wrong, it's nice and all, and I think Leonardo Dica--- I mean DiVinci, did a fine job, but when all is said and done, it's still just a painting of some woman smiling. Apparently not everyone is as cynical as me though because there was a constant crowd around the painting, everyone taking flash photography even though there were many signs posted (not to mention it is just common since, but unfortunately people are selfish little creatures and think only of their own selfs) prohibiting flash photography. I did take a photo too (without the flash, naturally), just to show that I was there.

So that was Paris, after a couple days of recoup in Amiens we went off to Lille, where it rained when we were outside and cleared up when we were inside. We just walked around and came across a rather nice cafe were I got a salad and a crêpe and our server called me a fat cow, which sounds much nicer when said in French.

That is it for France, off to Belgium, which I think deserves a separate post, just for organizational sake.

This morning I was harnessed onto a pully and zipping upside down through the jungle on strategically placed steel cables and now I'm sitting in the zoo that is the Atlanta airport waiting for my connection flight to Roanoke to board. Kinda weird when you think about it.

The zip line tour was a last minute decision made today at breakfast. A couple other guys mentioned they were doing it and that it only took an hour and a half so they could fit it in before we had to leave for the airport. I'm glad I did it, it was a great last adventure on the island. While we didn't see too much wildlife (an iguana and a small lizard that looked like the Geico geko) the views were spectacular. We were up in the mountains and had one long stretch that had a view down to the coast line. Really great experience and a lot of fun, our guides were fun and friendly as well. It really took a leap of faith to let go and hang upside down or go "super man" with them, definitely on the upside down part I had the sensation that I was slipping out of the harness but apparently I wasn't because I didn't plunge to a jungley death.

Wednesday was a real island adventure and a half. We had heard about the mangrove tours and got two different suggestions. The first we got from someone at our resort. We were told to go to Jonesville and ask for Bob and he'd tell us out to take a tour of the mangroves. When we were exploring the day before we came across a local woman who said that Bob would take us to the Hole in the Wall which was a great little restaurant and we'd have a great time and see some mangroves but if we REALLY wanted to see the mangrove caves in all their glory we should go to oakridge which is a bit further than Jonesville and any of the water taxies there could take us on a tour.

For more input we asked Donna and Andy at our resort about both these options. I think Donna pushed for Oakridge and Andy pushed for Jonesville giving us more detailed directions:
Drive east (there's really only one main rode on the island) until we see the sign for Jonesville, turn right down the dirt road and just keep driving. Just be patient and you will arrive in Jonesville. Keep driving down the road going over 21 speed bumps until the road goes no further. At the house at the end of the road ask for Bob and they will have a boat pick you up and take you to the Hole in the Wall and from there you can ask for the mangrove tour.

We decided that since Jonesville was closer and it sounded fun we'd try that first and if we weren't satisfied with the mangroves we could always go to Oak Ridge afterwards.

One the way we stopped at a couple of really spectacular views of the ocean including one that had a number of straw covered stands with people selling various trinkets. The moment we parked the car there were children running up to it displaying shells, beads, sling shots and numerous other odds and ends. I ended up buying a bag of coffee beans which smell mighty fine, I think I'll make a cup tomorrow morning.

We found the sign for Jonesville just as predicted and turned down the road which ended up being of the bumpy dirt variety. Eventually we entered the really cute fishing village of Jonesville and the road became of the cement variety and the speed bumps began, we didn't count but we trusted that there were 21. We got a little lost when the road split and ended up having to roll down a window and ask a guy standing by the road "Donde esta Bob?" His face lit up and he exclaimed "aqui! aqui es Bob!" pointing at a house in front of us. We parked in a gravel lot which looked like it was there for that purpose and headed towards the dock, apparently the guy we had asked had already radioed Bob because there was a small dingy driven by a youngish boy toward us. We hopped on and he took us out across the harbor to the furthest, deepest part of the bay. In this section we noticed that all the houses were built half on the shore and half on the water. The steepness of the hills surrounding the bay made roads impractical (and probably did a great job of sheltering the harbor from strong weather) so all the homes had a boat tied up outside. We passed women hanging laundry on their docks, children paddling around in canoes fishing and a floating bar that had power lines strong out to it on posts barely high enough to pass under in our small, open craft. Our destination was a low lying building and dock that was also the last structure before complete wilderness. Behind it was a stone house built directly into the mountain side which happened to be where Bob lived. We were greeted at the hole in the wall by a burly weathered sailor-looking guy and asked if he was Bob. He was not but pointed to him. Bob greeted us and introduced us to his beautiful parrot who's name I sadly forget. We were instantly charmed by the atmosphere of the restaurant. In a secluded nock at the back of a bay in a tiny fishing village on a small tropical island in the carribean I felt that I could easily build a house next to Bob's work at the restaurant and lead a happy life an no one could find me unless I wanted them to. It was a pretty tempting thought. Bob and two of his fisherman-looking friends all sat around a table chatting and smoking pipes, one brought out a bowl of seeds for Mindy to feed the parrot. We ordered a few drinks and a young woman (what was her name? Joanna? or something more native-sounding? I forget) took our food orders. The cook was Joanna's mother and she prepared each of our meals by hand as if we were her own children. We all agreed that our fish sandwiches (and Dan's lobster sandwich) were the best we had ever had.
On the portion of the dock that was covered by a roof there were t-shirts from various locations hung up on the ceiling. None specifically interesting but it was a pretty neat decorating idea, I took some pictures as well as pictures of Sue taking some pictures.
We had asked about the mangroves and it turned out the guy who gave the tours was Clide, Joanna's father. He showed up in a small motored canoe while we were waiting for our food completely happy to wait with us and chat with us, his daughter and his wife while they all prepared and brought out our food. We bought him a beer while he waited.
After finishing our delicious meal we hopped in his boat and headed down the bay passing his and his daughter's house (also built on the water accessible only by boat) to the entrance of the mangrove channels. Apparently back in the day of pirates Jonny Depp and other pirate captains would use these mangrove channels and naturally secluded lakes to hide. The were a lot wider and deeper back then, the mangroves and grown in considerably since then.
The tour was great, the channels opened up on a really pretty lake with some beautiful homes and on the way back Clide let Joe drive. We got back to the Hole in the Wall and I couldn't resist ordering a lobster sandwich because Dan's had looked so good. After a few more drinks and jokes and stories we were ready to head back across the bay and drive back to the resort. We had told the folks at the Hole in the Wall we'd try and visit again before we left bringing more of our group with us, unfortunately this never worked out but I plan to make another trip to Roatan some time if for no other reason than to visit Bob, Joanna, Clide and his wife.

The night dive tonight was amazing. I didn't see much of larger life forms, just a stray lobster and a tiny shrimp and a bunch of sleeping fish. The real show was from the bioluminescence. I'm not sure exactly what causes it, but when you move your hands in the water you excite little pieces of plankton that glow. It's really pretty and looks like there's specs of light dancing around your fingers or fins. I've seen this before in Bonaire and Key Largo so it was nothing new but still pretty cool. I was not at all prepared for what came next. Our dive master signaled us to all sit on the sandy bottom and turn our lights off. At first we didn't notice much, just a few glowing dots here and there. Almost all of a sudden, when our eyes adjusted, thousands of strands of glowing beads appeared all around us. If you were good at controlling your buoyancy without any visual aid you could push off the bottom a few feet and float in the middle of it all. The physical description alone can not describe the sensation that this experience gave you. Picture yourself weightless in pitch black space. Then, all around you strings of lights appear and slowly twist and move and dance. Above, below, all around as far as you could see. Each strand had maybe 5 or 6 active lights at a time. One would dim and go out as another one lit up at the other end giving the impression that the beads were inching along down a strand. I wonder if there is some way of recreating the scene with some 3D software (it was obviously way too dark to photograph without a tripod and really good camera).

I found out that I'm vacationing with a traveling pharmacy. When I mentioned my back and sleep condition to Tara she informed me off all the helpful drugs she had with her and referred me to Mindy for the stronger stuff like muscle relaxer. I got some benadryl and advil from Tara last night for help sleeping and the back pain. I only woke up twice and felt rested in the morning and my back is fine. So that's good. It's still raining out, a bunch of us decided not to dive again today. I think if it was off this side of hte island we would have, but it's such a pain to get bussed over to the other side and sit there all morning through two dives with a picnic lunch. The bathroom over there doesn't have running water either which just adds to the annoyance. Plus you're just damp ALL day, it's really nice to be able to take your wet-suit off between dives and get some sun. Instead we're going to go check out the mangrove caves today. It involves taking a water taxi and we're not sure if they have roofs or not, so we may still end up getting damp. The weather looks promising for tomorrow, hopefully we'll be back diving on this side and I'll go out again. This is the least diving I've done on any dive trip.

The surf was still pretty strong on our side of the island today so the plan for the dives was to get bussed over to the other side and do two with another picnic lunch. A bunch of us weren't feelin' that too much so decided to drive around the island a bit to see what there was to see.
To complicate matters I had had a pretty rough night, thinking I'd have more room I tried out the larger bed sleeping diagonally. I woke up some time in the middle of the night with major back pains and had to move to the small bed. Ever since getting here I haven't had a good night's sleep, I always wake up 4 or 5 times every night and never feel rested in the morning. I'm not sure if it's the bed, the weird sounds the air conditioner makes or what but either way it is not pleasant. Today I was feeling really groggy and a bit nauseous, possibly from stuffing myself with food last night and then not getting enough sleep. And my back was killing me.
We drove down to West End first which is kind of the big town on the island. There's one main sand road that runs through it which goes along the beach and is barely wide enough for two cars making it difficult to navigate when people park on the side of the street.
We didn't really drive ALL over the island, we stated around the west side but drove around to where the other folks were diving because a couple wanted to get picked up after their first dive. After taking pictures of Russ and Joe sun bathing on the beach of trash (which was wrong on many levels and sad and depressing as well).
We had lunch at a cute little place called Rudy's. The service was good but extremely slow by U.S. standards but we didn't care much. They had awesome fresh fruit smoothy, I got a coconut one, and really great rice and beans.
Unfortunately by that time I was feeling especially groggy and nauseous and couldn't wait to get back to the resort to take a nap. I don't know how much the nap helped or how long I really slept since there are very few time pieces around (which is nice). I still feel like crap and have been drinking cups of hot herbal tea trying to flush my system. I really hope this feeling clears up tomorrow, it would suck to feel like this the rest of the trip and make the plane ride back especially miserable.

Today I went on my very first shark dive. I will admit, I was a little apprehensive at first. I know sharks would never try and eat me on purpose, but they do have poor eye sight and make mistakes on occasion. And yes, when they DO make a mistake they will let go after one bite and go away but still, that can mangle up an appendage pretty badly. Anyway, there were 25 people going on the dive so I figured at the very least if a shark DID make a mistake it would only be a 1 in 25 chance that it was me.
It was a bit of a boat ride, we had to trek around to the other side of the island (here's the Inn of Last Resort (where we're staying) by the way).
We had a long shpiel from our dive master about how the dive would go and how we were not to stick our fingers out and wiggle them and how we were not to pet the sharks.
We all went down the line and by the time I got there our dive master was already on the bottom tantalizing the sharks with a bucket of fish. As soon as I saw them swimming around any fear and apprehension went away. They were so graceful and not at all mean looking. Plus there were lots of other fish swimming around a lot smaller than me so I figured it they were fine with it I should be too.
It was definitely very cool and I'll do it again if I get the chance. The sharks we saw were large but not huge, I'd say between 6 and 8 feet long. They got pretty close at times and would be swimming all around, to the left and right and above and below, between divers around them, everything. We were really in the middle of a school of these things. Pretty amazing. I wish I could describe it better. I posted some pictures, hopefully that will give some idea. I need to play with white balance and exposure and stuff but I figured I'd get these up right away and then tweak later.

I arrived in Roatan yesterday around 1:30 central time. Then I spend about an hour waiting in customs, then another 2 or 3 trying to figure out where my other bag was. To make things more difficult I had lost my baggage claim ticket so they couldn't do much about it except wait. I ended up at the resort around 5 or 6 and shortly after was informed that my bag had arrived so it all ended well.
I think the word "resort" conjures up images that do not go along with the place we're staying. It's more like summer camp. There are several large "cabins" nestled amongst the foliage each a couple floors with about 4 or 5 rooms per floor. It's cozy and comfortable and really relaxing. Very laid back.
It's also great to see all the Holyoke Underwater folks again, even though it's been two years since Cayman Brac as soon as I was sitting down at dinner with all of them yesterday it felt like just yesterday.
We have three meals a day and as Donna (a staff member who drove me from the airport and helped sort out my bag-misplacement issue) put it, "it's kind of like mom's house, we cook something each day and if you don't like it we figure you can make your own arrangements." So far I haven't had any complaints about the food. Not that I ever complain about food anyway.

We had our first dive this morning, apparently there were some interesting things like a lobster and a turtle but I didn't see any of them. In fact I didn't see much of anything aside from the usual fish and sponges and coral but that was still nice. Just being in the water is nice regardless of seeing anything terribly rare. It sounds like the plan is to do a shark dive in the afternoon. That should be pretty exciting though I must admit I'm a tiny bit nervous. I do still have a bit of a bloody wound on my elbow so I hope the sharks are more interested in the food that our dive masters will be giving them... at least I think they'll be giving them food, I'm not exactly sure how it works, it seemed like a last-minute change cuz the usual shark-dive people couldn't take us or something so our folks were like "well, we can just do it" It that means we don't have to pay the $85 than I guess we can put up with it.

To add to the feeling that we truly are not in Kansas any more is the fact that the power goes out fairly regularly. I'm hoping it will stay on long enough this time for me to post this and upload a few photos. It's not really that big of a deal, not like we really need electricity for anything here.

As much as the stability of the electricity supply allows I will upload photos to flickr from time to time, already put a few up from today.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazybluedot

I am long over due for an update, I know, but really all that has been happening has been pretty much just more of what I wrote about last time. A few more trips to the duck pond, a lot more data collected, a little closer to writing this paper. I hope that the last set of data I got is enough for the paper, after taking an initial look it looks like it might be, but it's still not as convincing as I would like it to be. If it turns out I do need a couple more runs the weather is not looking too cooperative in the near future so I may have to just make do.

Speaking of "do", I got my flight all scheduled for Kerry's wedding at the end of September. Since the lab is going on a trip to Panama City the tuesday after the Sunday the wedding is on I decided I would stay a lot saner if I just flew instead of driving up the east coast and then allllllll the way down over a period of a few days. This also cuts the total travel time from around 37 hours to around 9 hours which means I get a couple free days to chill in Boston. The schedule is as follows (for those of you that care :-))

Sept. 22 1pm Depart Roanoke, arrive in Boston around 5pm
Drive with Chris and Jenny to Dennisport (or somewhere near by I assume) so that Jenny can attend pre-wedding shenanigans.
Sept. 23. - Chill in Dennissport I guess... oooh, those of us who aren't partaking in pre-wedding activities should take a trip to P-town.
Sept. 24. - Watch Kerry get married. Goodbye mistress of the evening hour.
Sept. 25: Chill with Becky (and anyone else?) in Boston... possibly go on a whale watch
Sept. 26 - Chill in Boston possibly with the parents... doing who knows what.
Sept. 27 9am Depart Boston, arrive in Panama City, FL around 1pm
Sept. 27-? chill in Panama City with the lab folk... and by chill I mean get up really early, stay out on the boat all day makin' things work

yay, I'm so excited! It feels like I haven't had a vacation in soooo long (trips to Chesapeake don't really count when you're puttin' in 14-16 hour days) and this is the closest thing to one.

Speaking of vacations I've pretty much decided that when I get the Holyoke Underwater email about their spring trip I'm gonna sign up, regardless of where it is or when it is I'm gonna make it happen cuz I really miss those trips.

So that's pretty much the update... still planning to visit the family when they're all in D.C. assuming I can get far enough along on my paper and assuming I can get a ride out that way.

Oh, and one more thing.. should I have the Scrod Almondine or the NY Sirloin with Mushroom Demi Glace at Kerry's wedding? I really can't decide.