“L” is for Lion. I was lucky to be able to see some of these amazing animals in the wild. I went on a photography safari with Great Escape Publishing (GEP) in November. We spent a week exploring Northwest Tanzania. We saw lots of lions and their cubs. I could have spent hours watching them, but we had to move on. So much more to see.
I’ll be getting up early in the morning to drive to Dallas. I’ll be going to the big Travel Show at the Dallas Market Hall.
I’m looking forward to it. I’ve only been to Dallas once in all the years I’ve lived in Texas. My old room mate took me up there once to pick up some dogs or furniture or something. Almost 40 years ago, it’s hard to remember much about the trip.
This should be a pretty big show and lots of interesting things to learn about. I’m going to spend the weekend poking around. I doubt I’ll get to see much of Dallas. Does anybody have any “must see” recommendations for me?
I’ll be driving straight up I-45 to get there, but I can take my time coming home. I might wander around some, on the lookout for the bluebonnets. I haven’t seen any around here, but the Paintbrush is out all up and down the Bluewater Highway between Surfside and Galveston.
I went up to Galveston a couple of times in the last week. I didn’t really have time to stop for photos and only had my iPod with me (which takes crummy pictures). Maybe they’ll still be blooming next week. I’ve only got 1 day of work scheduled so far.
For this weeks photo challenge from the Daily Post, the theme is: dense. I have some great shots of the wildlife I got to see recently in Africa. I went on a photo safari in Tanzania with Great Escape Publishing (GEP) and had a fantastic trip!
We went all around Tanzania, from Arusha to Tarangire National Park, to Lake Eyasi to the Central Serengeti. We met the most interesting people and saw amazing scenery and so many (totally wild) animals every day!
We saw lion prides enjoying their kill with their cute little cubs after a hunt and herds of elephants walking slowly across the plains. It was the time of the ‘great migration’, so we saw huge herds of grazing animals- gazelles, wildebeest, giraffes, and zebras.
Here’s a good example of the density of the herds.
I loved watching those zebras! They sound almost like donkeys. That’s another one of our jeeps on the right edge of the photo. I really wish I hadn’t been so cheap! I should have brought a better camera (lens)! This is what comes from worrying about money! Skimp and save and manage to pay for the trip, but then can’t make the most out of it due to trying to cut corners. If I ever get another chance for a trip like this, I will be damn sure to get something with more than 210 mm lens!
For the Daily Post’s Photo Challenge, I thought I would pick some photos showing how easy it really is to be green. At least for these guys. 😉
Hope you like the photos! Check out the link to the challenge to see what everybody else is posting (and join in if you want). 🙂
Another weeks worth of nautical knowledge courtesy of Monkey Fist and gCaptain. There’s an interesting article about Sadie Horton, one of the women mariners of WWII (who have never really been recognized). Beautiful photos of some ugly stuff. Sounds of the seascape to relax to. And pretty little jellyfish to watch…
10 Hours of Ambient Arctic Sounds Will Help You Relax, Meditate, Study & Sleep   …
Source: Maritime Monday for March 6th, 2017: Oil of Gladness – gCaptain
Since I’m not sure which flower Cee is picking for her flower of the day today (I see some tulips and daffodils and maybe a lily), I am posting a favorite photo I took a while back. These are tulips.
The flowers in my yard don’t look this pretty. At the moment, they are just starting to bloom. I have citrus trees, narcissus, miniature roses, mums, petunias, clematis, lilies, and a few others. The ones that grow best are the weeds (clematis vines cover everything)!
I was going to work in the yard this weekend and start planting. I have grapes, raspberries, pomegranate and lots of flowers to plant. It’s been raining all weekend and so I’m waiting for things to dry out. I think that’s what killed so many of my plants last year. It rained so much right after I planted them. I hope we don’t have floods like we did last year again (supposedly a 500 year flood), but the forecast is calling for rain all week and there are flood warnings out for the rivers again already. 🙁
Ailsa has another good challenge this week at her ‘Where’s My Backpack’ blog. This week’s theme is “bark“.
Here’s my take…
I took these photos at the Houston Arboretum last week (click on a photo if you want to see it bigger). I stopped in for a little relaxation after work while I was waiting to go to a meeting of the Sail la Vie sailing club. I always enjoy wandering around in nature and don’t get to do it enough. Even tho the Arboretum is in Houston, once you get to wandering around there, you can’t really hear much of the city noise.
It’s a nice quiet place to chill out, relax, have a picnic, walk the trails, etc. I saw a few people jogging around with headsets on. I prefer to walk and listen to the sound of the wind in the trees, birds, turtles plopping off their logs or poking their heads up out of the water.
I wandered around for a couple of hours. Taking pictures of everything and looking for interesting shapes, patterns and colors. I enjoyed watching the turtles in the pond and a small snake that was crossing the boardwalk with me. 🙂
Anybody know what kind it is? We had a ranger from the Brazoria County Parks & Wildlife department come to tell us all about our local snakes at last weeks Campaign for Liberty meeting. He even brought some to show us. It was really pretty interesting. I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but he was moving around pretty quickly (and the snakes were not sitting still either). I am guessing this one is some sort of garter snake.
Join in with Cee, to share some beautiful photos of camellia flowers in her ‘Flower of the Day: Camellia‘ post.
Here’s mine.
I imagine there must’ve been some very interesting conversations on that ship. And what a shame for the people of the USSR. They threw out so many beautiful minds. 🙁
Here’s this weeks Maritime Monday from Monkey Fist via gCaptain…
The Ships That Helped Silence the Early USSR’s Intellectuals Russia exiled hundreds of academics …
Source: Maritime Monday for February 20th, 2017: Philosophenschiff – gCaptain
I found a new photography challenge. This week I’m joining in with Ailsa on her Where’s My Backpack Blog. Everyone’s free to join in, click the link here for the details. This week’s travel theme is: turquoise. One of my favorite colors, especially when I see it on the water.
Here are a few of my recent photos with turquoise…
This first batch is from Turkey. I spent a couple of weeks between Istanbul and Cappadocia. They make beautiful pottery (and carpets).
This next batch is from Zanzibar. After Istanbul, I flew to Tanzania for a photography safari and then on to Zanzibar to relax. It was so beautiful there, I could have stayed there forever. 🙂
But, I had to come home. These last few are from closer to home. If you click on the snapshot, you can see more about it.
Do you like turquoise too? See any on your travels? Check out the challenge. 🙂
I didn’t know Claude Monet painted maritime art. I like this better than his water lilies. 🙂
Take a look at Monkey Fist’s weekly blast of interesting maritime news.
Portishead – Portishead (Full Album) on YouTube Tug and Barge Solutions – “If you’re going …
Source: Maritime Monday for February 14th, 2017: Portishead Radio – gCaptain
I’ve always loved dolphins and whales. I always wanted to be able to swim freely in the ocean with them. So far, I’ve never been this close to any out in the wild. I’m pretty sure it’s against ‘the rules’ to get so close to them or to touch them like these people were doing. Tho I have to admit, I would have a hard time holding back myself if they came so close. I think they’re beautiful and intelligent creatures. I hate to see how much we’ve destroyed their world, and yet they’re still mostly OK with us. 🙂
Mother Whale and Calf with people on whale watching trip. Very cool to see the Momma raising her Baby to show it the funny looking humans! Like a revers Zoo, were the people out to see the Whales, or was the Momma Whale teaching her baby about humans? The big momma Whale held her baby […]
via Mother Whale Lifting Her Baby to See Humans on Boat — 2012 The Awakening
Well! The first day in a week where I actually know what color I’m supposed to be looking for! 😉
For Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge, the color today is ‘peach‘.
Here’s my entry…
I took this photo the other day at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I usually try do more than one thing when I go all the way to Houston. I go to a museum or the zoo, or a meeting. I don’t like to drive all the way up there just for an hour or two. I don’t remember what kind of crystals these were. I’m pretty sure the big white one is quartz (but not positive), but I don’t remember what the ‘peach’ ones were. Anybody have any ideas?
Here’s my entry for Jennifer’s One Word Photo Challenge. Today’s prompt is: bee.
There are plenty of bees out on my trees all day now, the lemon trees are blooming all over. They smell so good. The little (orange) limes are just about ready to pop open their buds too. I love this time of year in Texas. Everything’s in bloom. 🙂
Today we had ourselves videotaped. We were all nervous in class and spent every minute practicing our grammar points and introductions. We went over to the other classroom (out of the glare) and we each got to present our grammar points in front of the camera. I’ll put up a link when they make it available.
Afterwards, I taught my one student again, we reviewed adverbs and adjectives and then had a few conversations to try and get the idea of how we show interest in English across. I think it went pretty well. Tomorrow we’ll start a new lesson and then it’s the weekend!
I went to watch the sunset on the beach right behind my apartment. There was a girl sitting out near the water with her little dachshund puppy. I enjoyed watching it running around and having so much fun.
It was a beautiful sunset, the tide was low today so I didn’t get soaked like last time. It was nice, with a little breeze and watching the sailboats, birds and the little puppy on the beach. Puerto Vallarta really is a great place to spend time. I could definitely see myself staying here for a while. 🙂
Here’s my entry for Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge. The challenge is to post about a certain crayola crayon color each day, for 120 days. Today’s post color is: inchworm. I have to admit, I’ve never heard of a color called ‘inchworm’ before this. Glad to be involved in such a fun and educational challenge. 😉
I took this photo of the lime tree outside my front door blooming last spring. I don’t see any inchworms, but I do see a honey bee right there in the middle. I think the leaves look pretty close to the color “inchworm” for the challenge. 🙂
We’ve all been looking forward to our excursion to Sayulita and Nahui. We took off at around 1030 this morning, it took around an hour to get to Sayulita.
It’s a funky looking little town, with narrow winding cobblestone streets. Brightly colored 2-3 story houses line the roads. Shops selling clothes, jewelry, crafts, tourist and surfing stuff seemed to be the majority of things to see. There were plenty of bars, restaurants and coffee shops around too.
In the square, they had set up a market with local artists selling their wares. This was the most interesting to me. They were teaching a bunch of little girls how to weave, and they even had a yoga session for the kids. That was fun to watch. 🙂
The beach was very crowded and full of surfers. It looked like a good place to learn to surf and I guess it must be, since I saw at least 3 different surf schools in the 10 minutes I spent on the beach!
Sayulita seems like a cool little town, but I think a little too crowded for me, and for sure too touristy! I had enough of that in Florida.
So, we piled back into the car and headed to Nahui. It was a nice drive through forested mountains, catching glimpses of the blue-green ocean every few minutes. We arrived to a full parking lot and I was wondering what happened to the nice, quiet isolated beach we were hoping for?
The view from the edge of the cliff behind the parking lot was stunning. The ocean was clear all the way to Tahiti! You could see the mountains lining the bay far off in the distance and a couple of islands way offshore. A few sailboats were out enjoying the beautiful weather offshore.
We found the stairs (thank god) and wandered down the beach til we found a good spot up near the rocky cliffs to camp out.
The water was cold at first but after a minute it was perfect. The waves were a lot bigger than I was used to. We just don’t get large waves in the Gulf of Mexico (except when there’s a hurricane coming close). The waves stirred up a lot of sand and there really wasn’t any calm water til you got out past where the waves started breaking.
I never did manage that. I got washed around pretty good for a while. Gave it up and took a break. The sun started getting to me so I went back in the water for a while. It was OK if I stayed close to shore.
As the afternoon was ending, we were all pretty beat and ready to head back home. I was nodding asleep in the car til we would hit a sleeping policeman going a little too fast. Whoa! That’ll wake you up!
I just got home tonight. It’s late. I’m tired. I don’t really feel like getting into a long post, but since I’m trying to stick with the challenge of Just Jot It January and post every day, I’ll post this…
Today’s prompt is: climate. It seems most of the world is all upset about “anthropomorphic” climate change. That is man-made climate change.
I understand why. I’m just not sure there’s really anything much we can do about it. It seems to me the climate has always been changing, long before man walked the earth, and it will continue to change.
When I was growing up, the overwhelming majority of scientists told us all we would be frozen into ice-cubes by now. A few years ago, they told us we would be burning up in a planet turned into a shriveled up dust bowl. Now, they simply warn us about ‘climate change’, can’t decide on global warming or cooling so just cover your bases.
The Earth’s climate has always changed, the question now is really, will we survive the change?
That depends on how we decide to act.
Will we do the sensible thing and finally limit our population? Or will we be able to invent some miracle cure so that we can continue living the way we’ve become used to? Or will we be shoved back into the stone age due to drastic cuts in energy use? Will we try to fight the change, try to maintain things as they are- right now? Or will we adapt to the changes we see coming?
Seems to me there are still a lot of questions. I think a lot of people have already made up their minds. So far I don’t much like what I’m hearing from them.
I was at the Houston Zoo a couple of weeks ago. I always like to go there, watch the animals and take lots of pictures. It relaxes me and I’m a member, so it’s free. 🙂
Last time I was there, they were doing the “Zoo Lights” event and getting ready for this new exhibit: Washed Ashore.
I got a picture of one sculpture. I thought it was pretty neat. Very creative and a nice way to use up a lot of plastic junk and turn it into something beautiful instead of just leaving it as ugly old trash on the beach.
I try to help with the beach cleanups when I can, but there’s a LOT of plastic floating around out there in the ocean and we’ll never be able to clean it all up from the beaches, we need to stop it from getting in the water in the first place!
Yes, that whole thing was made with trash collected off the beach! Washed Ashore will be at the zoo from Jan 15-April 15.
Dunes Day at Surfside Beach will be Jan 23 (0900-1200). I can’t find the date for the next International Coastal Cleanup, but they should be getting it organized soon. It’s usually in spring (Apr) and fall (Sept). Here’s a link to the results from last year.
(and another post for Just Jot It January)
I haven’t been doing a whole lot lately. I’ve been out of work and so out of money and so not able to do much traveling. I’m trying to avoid spending money as much as possible while I’m trying to find a new job.
I’ve joined in the Just Jot It January, where the challenge is to ‘jot’ (post) something every day for the month of January. I’m finding it a little hard to find interesting things to post about that often, especially when I’m pretty much stuck at home. Things are really pretty boring around here right now.
I did a post a few days ago about what happened last year. Sabrina, (The Photographicalist), commented on it that she’d like to see some pictures of the arribada. That’s where the sea turtles struggle ashore on the beaches to lay their eggs. I did find one picture (almost all my photos from that trip were stolen).
I was lucky enough to see the arribada last year when I was in Nicaragua. So sorry, I wasn’t able to get any good photos since it was night, it was very dark, and tho they passed out little red lights, they warned us not to shine them at the turtles. It might upset them enough to make them stop laying their eggs. I don’t know why they don’t go see them in the daytime, I never got a straight answer to that question. I hope one day to see them in the daylight. 🙂
I did take a few photos anyway. It was such an amazing experience, I soon gave up messing with the camera. There were dozens of turtles (olive ridleys) coming and going up and down the beach. Like all sea turtles, the olive ridleys are endangered, it was thrilling to see so many of them at once. It was hard to see them, but you could hear them coming and you’d better get out of their way cause they weren’t moving out of your way!
We went as a group (I signed up for a tour at a hostel- Casa Oro– in San Juan del Sur), we all watched a movie before we left and our guide explained everything for us. She even scooped out the sand behind the turtle as it was laying, so we could all see the eggs being deposited.
I’d like to go back someday, it was a fantastic experience. If you ever get the chance to see it, you should!
Jeeze, it’s Christmas Eve, but it’s so hot here I’m gonna have to turn the air conditioner on again!
Is anyone able to enjoy a real WHITE Christmas, with SNOW and all the stuff we usually think about for Christmas? You know- snow, snowmen, snowball fights, real icicles dripping from the eaves (not pretend little LED lights), sitting around the fireplace sipping hot chocolate- yeah, all that!
I live in Texas now, but I still remember that stuff and I do miss it. We never get real snow here.
I took that picture a couple of weeks ago from right outside the door of our writing workshop in Evergreen CO. I loved seeing the deer right there, and the SNOW!
Thank goodness I don’t have to deal with it all the time. I have no idea how to drive in it, I’m sure I wouldn’t like having to shovel it out of my driveway every day, but it sure was beautiful to look at and I’m missing it right about now. 🙂
It’s been a (long) while since I’ve done one of these Wild Wednesday posts (and yeah, I’m late).
I was googling around with a little spare time and came across these ‘cute’ lil’ buggers. Sea Angels.
Yeah, they look sweet and innocent. Fluttering around the ocean. Their translucent bodies and ‘wings’ might make them seem like the angels they’re named after.
But they’re really just snails. Snails without shells. Hunting snails. Carnivorous snails. Sneaky snails. Sexy snails (they’re ‘simultaneous hermaphrodites’ which means they can reproduce any time- they don’t actually need a partner to do it tho). According to Joseph over on his very interesting blog Real Monstrosities, they’re really little devils. 😉
It’s a good thing they’re all pretty small, the largest of them only grow to a couple of inches long. I’ve never seen them (at least not that I know of). Have you?
I took a little break and went to the movies yesterday. I’ve been wanting to see the movie “In the Heart of the Sea” since I first saw the commercials for it a couple of months ago.
I’d read the book (by Nathaniel Philbrick) a couple of years ago. I LOVED it. It’s a fantastic sea story (which I always love).The movie tells the story of the Nantucket whale ship “Essex”. “In the Heart of the Sea” showcased adventure, suspense and even horror mixed in with the wonderful descriptions of the sailing ship and life on the sea 100 years ago. Then there was the whole Moby Dick thing. The whaling and the incredible idea that there might be a whale out for vengeance!
I admit, I don’t remember much about the book ‘Moby Dick‘. We all read it in high school. I had no idea it was based on a true story. I don’t remember being all that impressed with the book. I’m pretty sure the ending was not the same as in this movie, (if it had been I’m sure I would have remembered it better)! Like a lot of those ‘classics’ we had to read in high school, I remember thinking “what the hell’s so great about this book?”.
They did a good job with the film. It wasn’t as good as Philbricks’ book (movies almost never are). Still, it was good.
It started right off by following the Chief Mate, Owen Chase (played by Chris Hemsworth), leaving his pregnant wife behind and heading into town for his next assignment. He’d been promised a captains position on his next voyage and was pretty ticked off when he found out he got screwed out of it in a case of ‘office politics’. I hadn’t realized they were even doing that way back then. 😉
Captain Pollard (Benjamin Walker) gets the job instead, simply because he comes from an old time, respectable family.
This creates a situation on board between the Master and Mate where they are constantly butting heads and is NOT good for the ship (it never is)! The tension between the 2 characters is evident throughout the entire movie. They could have done more to show the interaction with the rest of the crew, but the focus was on these 2 men (and the whale).
The movie, directed by Ron Howard, uses the story device in which Herman Melville (working on his book Moby Dick) is interviewing Thomas Nickerson, who went to sea as a young boy on that disastrous voyage. Nickerson is ashamed by what he did to survive and has never spoken to anyone about it. His wife finally convinces him to speak to Melville in exchange for much needed funds.
It works as a way to tell the story. You can still see the effects the incident had on Nickerson, even all these years later. It was well done, not disturbing the story too much with the returns to the scenes of the late night story telling over drinks.
I really enjoyed the movie. I loved all the scenes of the everyday work aboard the ship. I yelled at the captain that he was an idiot to sail into the storm like he did. I was thrilled to see the whales and caught up in the chase when the boats were launched. I cried when the ship was lost. (I’m glad it was dark in the theater). 😉
I suppose todays environmentalists would be cheering for the whale the whole time, but I found myself wavering. Sometimes I felt like I imagined the whale felt. Angry at men for destroying so much innocent beauty. Coming to murder my family for money! Sometimes I felt like the men. Just out to make a living, to survive however they could. This was a survival story in the end. On both sides.
I’m glad we discovered petroleum oil, or we WOULD have wiped out all of the whales. OK, I have been working in the oilfield the last few years (so maybe I’m prejudiced), but I wonder what would have happened if we had NOT found an alternative to whale oil. Would we still have been able to progress? Or would we have gone back to the ‘dark ages’ when everything stopped when the sun went down? Yeah, even tho we have a few oil spills, I’m still glad we have petroleum. The whales are recovering now.
My response to the Daily Posts weekly photography challenge.
I took these at the Houston Museum of Natural Science a couple of weeks ago. A butterfly was just coming out of its cocoon. They have a beautiful butterfly center there. I thought it would fit this weeks theme of ‘transition’. 🙂
I got here yesterday and after a nice long nap I decided to take a walk around and see what there was to see.
There’s a nice big green park across the street. I was surprised to see a lake, people fishing, and even a lady out feeding the ducks.
I’ve never seen ducks like these! One looked like it had a little feathery clown wig on it’s head. I don’t know what kind of duck it was, but we need some of those around Houston, just for the laugh factor. 🙂
I walked through the park and finally saw the cactus I was expecting to see here in the desert. They’re getting ready to bloom! I’ll go back tonight to see if they’re flowering yet. Cactus are SO beautiful when they bloom. I was happy to see them even tho it was only a planting along the edge of the park along the roadside, at least it did let you in on the reality that we are here in the middle of the desert- no matter that there’s a lake right there!
Of course, there was a shopping center right across the way. Typical.
I got home late from Houston tonight and I was taking my daily walk. I was searching the sky for Orion, to see if I could spot any meteors (the Orionid metor shower is still going on).
All the sudden- ICK! YUK! UGH!
I walked under a tree and it was like I got attacked by a giant spider! For a minute I felt like Frodo when he got tangled up in Shelobs lair in the Lord of the Rings. 😉
I’m still not sure if it was a real spider web I somehow ran into, or if it was a Halloween decoration gone wild, but it got me good!
At least I didn’t ever see the spider who might have made that giant web!!
Sad to say, I didn’t see any meteors tonight either, it was just too cloudy and the moon was still too bright to see many stars. I need to get to sleep soon, so won’t be staying up to try again when the moon sets. I’ll be up and out early in the morning, so maybe I’ll have better luck then. 🙂
It’s been a quiet couple of days around here. I’ve been reveling in the fact that I finally found some time to just CHILL!
I wrote yesterday that I didn’t do anything except take my daily walk and cook dinner. Today I got a little bit more done. I did the laundry. 😉
I’ve been reading a good book and thought some of you might like it too. It’s called The Gathering Wind, by Gregory A. Freeman.
It’s all about the tall ship Bounty, (the replica of the one they had the mutiny on). 😉
The Gathering Storm tells the story of the ship, her captain (Robin Walbridge) and crew and how they wound up sinking in the middle of ‘Superstorm Sandy’.
It’s a pretty wild story, especially the heroic attempts by the crew to save their ship and the amazing efforts of the US Coast Guard to save the crew.
It’s a great read, a real page turner. Even tho I knew how it would turn out, it still kept me interested til the end. As a sailor, I kept wondering WHY would they do that? Head out to sea with a hurricane approaching?
The book doesn’t really give a clear answer to that question. It did have a section on the investigation of the sinking, but I would have liked more. I have my own opinion and it mostly has to do with money.
So many of these disasters at sea probably never would have happened if there was a REAL concern for safety, but ‘time is money’ and it gets harder and harder for a seafarer to find employment where the idea of safety is more than just a façade for the insurance companies!
Just a couple of weeks ago, the El Faro went down with all hands, another 33 lives. Lost in another hurricane.
Will the investigation for the El Faro come to the same conclusion? That it was all the captains fault? That only his ‘reckless decision’ was to blame?
Do you really think the captain of the El Faro (or the Bounty) would have taken the risks he did if there were no pressure from the office to ‘make the schedule’? I sure as hell don’t!
With all the new rules and regulations coming out of the IMO and various governmental bodies, I keep wondering when will they get down to the root cause of all this? The people in the OFFICE who run these ships! THEY are the ones who really make the decisions these days, the poor old captain is nothing but a scapegoat for when things go wrong!
There is only so much a captain and crew can do out there! Without the help and support of our employers, we can only do so much! Sailing around a hurricane (or through pirates, or any other extraordinarily dangerous place), is NOT something we should be doing just to save the company a few bucks!
I’m still waiting to see the day when the IMO does something that actually helps the MARINER! Putting at least SOME of the responsibility on those who really make the decisions, and off of the captain who is now only a figurehead would go a long way in fixing a lot of issues out here!
For further discussions of these incidents among the mariners who hang out on Gcaptain, (professional and otherwise), check out these links:
http://www.gcaptain.com/forum/professional-mariner-forum/10134-hms-bounty-hurricane-sandy.html
http://www.gcaptain.com/forum/maritime-news/17656-sea-star-el-faro.html
This glowing green hawksbill turtle was discovered by a National Geographic ‘Emerging Explorer’ while filming coral off the Solomon Islands.
I worked out of Honiara on a tuna boat for a while. I always wanted to stay over for a while and do some SCUBA diving. It’s supposed to be fantastic. I did have some other adventures there, but never did get to go diving. 🙁
Honiaria, Solomon Islands
This turtle is the first (naturally occurring) biofluorescent reptile ever discovered. They have found plenty of bioluminescent creatures before. Mostly corals, fish, jellyfish. They’ve even found some biofluorescent ones before (mostly fish).
The scientists are excited to find a bioluminescent reptile and so am I! I always thought turtles were cool. 🙂
I’ve been having a hard time keeping up around here lately. Since I moved my blog, I’ve had nothing but problems. I’ve been spending a hell of a lot of time just trying to get things working around here again.
But I always like Cee’s photography challenges and I did have a few decent photos of orchids around on the computer. So, I figured I’d join in on this one.
Here are some orchids from the Singapore Botanic Gardens, they have a really great orchid garden along with a lot of other beautiful plants. It’s a very relaxing place to go when you get tired of the ‘city’ of Singapore. 🙂
Today was another busy day. I made it to Costa Rica yesterday in time to start the blogging workshop I’ve been so excited about. We had our first class session yesterday and had a chance to meet everyone.
This morning we all left our hotel at 0700 for a day at the Rincon de la Vieja National Park. It took a couple of hours to get there and another couple to get back to our hotel. We spent all day there so I didn’t get a chance to get any photos online yet.
I got all mixed up when we got there. I thought we were going to take a ‘short walk’ through the forest to a waterfall for photos and then a horseback ride. Well, I took a walk, but it was NOT a short one!
Somehow I got off ahead of everyone else, thinking they were all ahead of me! I kept on walking and walking, thinking ‘damn! how the HELL did they all get so far ahead of me??’.
It was a really beautiful walk. It was really breezy up there (up the slopes of the volcano) and so it was pretty cool. Lots of interesting plant life. Huge trees with buttress roots and all kinds of bugs (but no mosquitos- too windy). 🙂
I didn’t see many animals (maybe because I was making too much noise huffing and puffing up the slopes?). The others saw some monkeys.
I did see some gorgeous big metallic blue butterflies, blue dragonflies and lots of other butterflies. Also some pretty birds and some big lizards (I think collared lizards but they ran away before I could tell for sure).
I saw a couple of pretty waterfalls, a few fumaroles (hot, steamy, sulfer-smelling volcanic vents) and a bunch of bubbling mud pots. After seeing 3-4 of them, I quit turning off the trail to check them out. The photos I took didn’t seem to do them justice. Plus, I was starting to worry about the others I was with worrying about me. I was trying to hurry up and get back to the beginning of the trail.
Every time I saw someone on the trail I asked ‘how much further is it to the exit?’, they would say ‘not far’, something like 300 meters. So, I kept on going. The longest 300 meters I’ve ever walked!
I did finally make it to the end of the trail. Thank goodness it was a loop! Seems like I didn’t hold them up too long after all. Glad of that, since we still had lunch waiting and the promised horseback riding after that. 🙂