Wrote this up earlier but never got it out due to final reports etc. so it's a week late, but hey it's Ecuador and there's no such thing as a deadline.

I've gone back to Quito where it's freezing... speaking in terms of Galapagos.  I adapted to not having AC or fan in my house in San Cristobal so I became like an iguana, able to withstand a lot of heat.  Now that I'm in Quito, I need a heater!  The hostel I'm living in is pretty sweet, tucked away at the base of a mountain with avocado trees, lime trees, mora plants, other fruit trees/bushes I don't know the names of, some chickens, 3 dogs, and a llama.  Leaving Galapagos was hard, and had a few tears running down my cheeks saying goodbye to my host mom.  My last night in Galapagos I went hard breaking my record of tequila shots (yup hey dad), getting one hour of sleep, surprisingly not chuchaki the next day, managed to do the whole airport jig with an over-sized suitcase and surf board and dive bag and snorkel and only pay $20 extra, get bombarded by altitude sickness, and go out in Quito the following night.  In addition to the lack of sleep from that whole week of going out for most of the nights.  One night I met a famous Ecuadorian film director at the bar who invited me and my friend to go snorkeling in Leon Dormido with him and his team as they were shooting.  Stoked about doing this, we got up at 5 am after only 2 hours of sleep to meet the director at the fisherman's pier only to find out that some unanticipated people had shown up first and there wasn't enough space on the boat, so we couldn't go.  Instead we decided to make some use of our early morning and head out to Loberia for a dawn snorkel where I swam with a male and female lobo who were nose butting my camera (video to come when I'm back in the USA where there's actual Internet).  So for the beginning of this week in Quito I've been feeling tipsy despite being sober from the lack of oxygen and might have passed for one of those daytime drunks.  The week has gone by fast and soon I'll be on my flight back home just in time for Father's Day with a surfboard, suitcase, duffel, and backpack.  Weird with so many city people all dressed up along with the more typical Ecuadorians everywhere.  I'm living in one of the richer suburbs of Quito with people who are clickety clicking in their high heels, dolled up faces, perfected hair, and fancy clothes (since this is my ungraded blog where I make up the rules, grammar has been thrown out the window this whole time).  While my greatest wish was to travel to the Amazon this week, research reports and presentations did not permit a few days of escape to make the truck out there.  Since this was one thing on my bucket list that didn't get accomplished I guess that means by the rules of bucketlisting that I have to go back.  So now I'll go back to the states, return to my wickedly awesome research position at the Coastal Studies Institute, and succeed in being a beach rat.

Now that all the other students in the hostel have left, the dogs think they're entitled to jumping on my bed with the chewed up fruits they've chomped off the trees...

Also, call out there for if anyone wants to practice their spanish with me because it's gonna suck to lose it all when I get back to the states.


The 3 year old puppy half golden retriever half German Shepard is Panzone (pan spanish for bread & panzone meaning big belly because this dog is huge with a head bigger than a cement block!  and yes that's the bottom of a flower pot he ripped off under him), the 1 year old bull dog whatever mix is T-Bone, and the small 2.5 year old mutt is Chomparizo.  These are also the water bottle thieves always snaking behind my back to steal my plastic bottles to play with.

El Dia de Los Muertos

A week and a half has gone by with me working on this sea turtle projects and it's been mostly tagging which entails going out on a panga boat (where we reach what is probably max weight with only 4 people) and swimming after turtles.  When the opportunity arises that you can get close enough to a sea turtle and grab them before they swim off, you have to fight them to the surface (unlike sea turtles, we can't hold our breaths for 30+ minutes) and swim with them back to the boat.  Then haul them into the boat (they weigh between 25-100 kilos, or 55-220 pounds) for tagging (aka fin piercing), skin samples, carapace (shell) samples, weight, body measurements, and photos.  We do this about every other day and get about 10 turtles/day.  We'll also do a census while we're out there using a technique called shark fishing.  Despite the name, it's pretty fun holding on to a towrope behind the boat and getting dragged around.  Every time a turtle is spotted underwater, the 'bait' lifts their head up and hollers whether it's a male, female, or juvenile.  And on the off days I am in the lab prepping the fresh samples for genetic analysis, while we wait for the materials to arrive so that we can actually do the analysis.  Catching turtles is more difficult than what meets the eye and the shorter you are, the smaller a reach, and hence more of a disadvantage.  But it is easier to catch turtles when they are nesting in the sand or preoccupied on something else so that they don't notice you as much which allows you to get a little closer.  I'm not very good at catching turtles and it's not something I take pleasure in because I have a hard time with my conscience knowing that I'm about to inflict stress on the animal.  Even when I'm a foot away from a turtle feeding on algae, I'll wait till it stops eating or go after another turtle or wait till it sees me and swims away.  Because really, who wants to be kidnapped (or should I say turtlenapped) while they're eating?!  I saw in the logbooks that someone had taken a turtle while it was mating... is this the point where science surpasses its boundary doing more harm than good while interfering?  And this is one of the reasons why I love being a Physical oceanographer.  It's a type of science that will always be there as long as the earth is spinning and won't die nor be negatively impacted by scientists.

Now today/yesterday (breaking up the writing and publishing of this post) the horrible news that my very 1st dog and 2nd 'real' pet ('real' meaning it lived longer than a week and not including the hamster whose fate had always been doomed from the beginning), Jake, who I use to give bear hugs to and massaged his ears and used him as a pillow and repeatedly pat the sweet spot just above his tail to make him squat then sit and gave kisses to (not the most sanitary but hey I love him), but who had the stinkiest farts I've smelt and would wait till someone momentarily left the kitchen to jump up and put his paws on the table to scarf down a grilled cheese or a whole plate of turkey bacon or sleep on the beds when everyone left the house (only occurred in his older years) or get chased around by cats and sometimes suffer a scratch on the face after stealing the neighbors' cat food.  So yes I am very very sad and if anyone wanted to send me a cheer up package I would super appreciate it.  Also if you know me super super well (probably this only really classifies my family since I try to hide it from others), you know that I don't deal with emotions like sadness or rage very well (a character flaw of mine) and usually these emotions manifest themselves into other matters in my life affecting those too making it more pronounced to other people despite my efforts to keep those emotions hidden.  So further support for a cheer up package to maintain my sanity.

IF that wasn't one way to start off a day, too damn bad it doesn't get any better.  Today/yesterday was one of those turtle capturing days except the PhD guy, whose project this is, didn't go out with us so it was 3 twenty-one year olds, 2 of which are new to the project (1 of those is me), and a twenty-year old whose first day it was volunteering on the project.  In total 2 gringos and 2 locals.  So we go to this shallow and rocky surf break, Canyon, to catch turtles and me & another student are out snorkeling for the turtles, meanwhile I'm keeping an eye out for the sets which weren't that big, only waist-stomach high, but with a bit of juice behind them.  Well I finally get a turtle and bring it back to the boat and a guy lifts it up and gets it over the railing but then drops it on my head and I get whacked by the turtle's carapace which knocks my mask off.  A little while later we've got 2 turtles on deck and we're taking all our samples and such.  So I'm jumping back and forth between these two turtles writing down measurements for one and taking pictures for another when I ask someone to hold the turtle up for me so that I can get a picture of the plastron.  [Side note:  We place black mesh bags over their eyes to keep the turtles more calm, but it can easily fall off while the turtle is moving around.]  As he takes off the black mesh and lifts up the turtle I notice the lank neck, open eyes, and open mouth.  The look of death.  I tell the others, but they don't believe me at first.  Wasn't hard to convince them.  So what do we do with a turtle that was alive when we brought it on the boat and is now dead?  I called 'the boss' who told us to bring the body back with us when we return and continue catching more turtles.  Great.  If my dog's death isn't already enough.  And the whole time after this kid is teasing me saying I killed it (which I had no part in, didn't catch it or take samples or measurements, only photos) which started out just a nuisance but really upset me seeing as my dog died and now this turtle and he couldn't read when to quit (same kid who dropped the turtle on my head).  Once we finished we had to dump everything out of one of the crates to put the body of the turtle in and then cover it up to smuggle it to the dock without anyone noticing.  This made me question the legality of our actions.  Also the tone of the boss gave me suspicions too.  After returning to the university we cleaned up the equipment and dragged a metal table outside to begin the turtle autopsy behind the university with a couple of kitchen knives and a handful of disposable razors.  As they cut open and enjoyingly hacked around the inside of the turtle, I notice a slight ring of foam leaching from the turtle's mouth.  Curious about this, I open up the mouth to investigate farther and notice some algae in there.  Taking this for sampling I then get the person with the knife to cut open the throat only to discover that there is more algae shoved in there.  We follow this down to the stomach where there again is even more algae and I take this for sampling also.  Seeing how there were no boat strikes nor carapace problems and the turtle looked perfectly healthy, I throw out the hypothesis that the turtle choked.  After the dissection we cleaned up the blood and guts, disposed them in the woods behind the university, and tomorrow we will dispose of the body.  So I go home around 6 and have to get ready for a surprise birthday party for my bro-in-law who is a park ranger.  But his wife and a couple of other people are over when I get home so I have to wait till I'm alone with my mom to ask her about the legality of what happened earlier today.  It would also suck to get arrested by my bro-in-law on his birthday in front of the family.  I finally get a little bit of time late at night after returning to the house to ask her what you can and can't do.  No surprise that she said what we did was illegal, but we have park permits for our research (which I've never been shown nor have been given to read but know exist somewhere) but I don't know what this allows us to do for such scenarios like the one we're facing.

Jakey

Back to business... or rather not

All the students have left to return to Amurica minus a handful of us from UNC who are staying to do research in Ecuador and Galapagos for an extra 6 weeks.  So since I'm working on a Tortuga project, I've got 5 weeks in Galapagos and 1 final week back in Quito where I plan on traveling to as many places possible... this also translates to tacking back on the "smart traveler" secret fanny pack under my shirt to hold the most valuable things, because yea that shit happens.  Now about this sea turtle project, I'm like the cream in the middle of an Oreo cookie.  On one side of me I have a professor who believes that mammals (including sea turtles) have feelings and maybe even theology, and her approach to research is taking a passive "let's not harm the sea turtles" strategy of snorkeling and taking pics of the carapace and both sides of the turtle's face.  The other cookie is a young PhD candidate who has turtles fleeing when they hear his name, applying a more hard scientific approach with tagging, extracting scutes (scales) off the turtle, and taking blood samples.  As their disagreeing views on science suggest, the 2 scholars are not amigos.  The professor has asked me to do an independent project on my own and the other has asked me to come in 6 days a week for 8 hours a day to work w/o pay, w/o scholarly recognition, and w/ only 3 hours of academic credit.  Since communication is obviously minimal b/w the 2 and neither of them are here on the island I've been hokying around the past couple of days.  The candidate asked me to meet with him on Monday (this past Monday) to begin working (after asking me 6 times when I could start and what my schedule was for the next 5 weeks).  However on Sunday I received an email from him saying that he and the project team were going to Darwin and Wolf for the week and I would start the following Monday.  Normally this could be one of those things you can just shrug off, but this is different because it's Darwin and Wolf (and also the tone in his email was like a taunting child who has something desirable but isn't going to share).  Darwin and Wolf are the 2 islands way up in the north of the archipelago (upper left corner of the figure below) surrounded by the richest marine life:  sharks, whales, turtles, fish, rays, EVERYWHERE!  I think the best way to sum it up is like this:  the reputation Galapagos has to the rest of the world as unique, isolated, and dream destination is how Darwin and Wolf are to the rest of the Galapagos.

Only 3 boats have permission to visit these islands, which I may add are very expensive boats.  Hence the opportunity to go here is like winning the lottery and the message saying this guy and the team are going this week but I'm not invited is worse than going a school year w/o surf and watching perfect warm water rights come in but can't go out.  He's def not scoring brownie points on this gal with that move, and it's his PhD that he wants help with, not mine.  Yea, ok, so in the meantime just snorkeling with sea turtles and reading anything I can get my hands on in the university library (mind you it's just a couple of shelves w/ mainly discarded textbooks students didn't want to drag back to the states) which happens to be a good amount of cheesy-romance-tragedy shore stories. 

Took a small break from writing this to go to a spot called Tijeretas to snorkel for tortugas.  Didn't find any sea turtles but did do flips and spins in the water playing with a sea lion pup as he was following me around on my search.  Needless to say I got a little sidetracked, but it's impossible to resist the innocent cuteness of a sea puppy.  This afternoon:  more reading, eating the leftover croissant w/ cheese & guayaba marmalade from my plate from breakfast that I couldn't fit in my stomach but successfully stowed away from my mom while she wasn't looking, I've got dimes, nickels, and pennies saved up to buy an ice cream, and maybe another swim.  Sometime this week I'm going over to a local friend's house for dinner w/ his fam; hopfully I'll have one of my better Spanish moments then. 

ps. limited to uploading only the shortest of my videos so this will have to do

Shenanigans

Curse those moments when you write something really long and you're feeling good about it and then you've lost internet or your computer crashes and it's like the world crashed instead.  Well here goes attempt number 2 at writing a new post about my dad's birthday voyage down to G. Islas.  So I had 1 week to sum up my island, San Cristobal, as best as I could to my dad.  Like most of our tropical trips, our activities are scheduled around surfing so we surf when there's surf and when there's not we roam around like gringos finding other excursiony stuff to do.  In the late afternoon on the day the burro (aka my dad) got in, we got some waist to chest high surf at Punta Carola, a right point break that peels off a headland on a NW swell and breaks into a bay.  A fun little sesh to get wet, w/ the every day turtles swimming about along with sea lions who were also trying to catch a few waves themselves.  The next few days weren't as fruitful on the surf so instead we snorkeled, hiked, went to the highlands to see giant ass land turtles (Saddlebacks, which is English for Galapagos), fished offshore, hung with my host family, and drank cervezas while listening to some good old music and watching the sun set spectacularly behind the boats from our view over the harbor.  Properly suited with an ultra high tech mask and snorkel, my dad was ready or action.  We went to a couple of different beaches and swam with an assortment of rocky reef fish, sea turtles, rays, and playful yet devious sea lions.  However we didn't have time to fit in a boat ride and snorkel out to Leon Dormido, a vertical volcanic rock that is a source of local upwelling providing nutrients for many animals in addition to providing a substratum for larval recruitment and growth (contrary to the California coast where upwelling resides in larval dispersal away from the coast, and downwelling like north of Cape Blanco in Oregon maintains larval populations adjacent to the coastline).  But the cool thing about this site other than there being a greater diversity of fish, fish population density, sea turtles, and occasionally whales (orcas & whale sharks have been spotted there since I've been living here) are the sharks like white tip, black tip, Galapagos, and wickedly cool scalloped hammerhead.  Anyways we couldn't get this in but we hiked all over the island (just to get to Carola from my dad's place was about 15 minutes, from my house like 22ish minutes), since transportation is mainly foot, brakeless bikes, if you're lucky you have a motor bike, or if you speak bribe then you got yourself a car here.  But most vehicles are either taxis, owned by the police, or the occasional tour bus for the older crowd of visitors.  The foremost we took to get to the highlands to a place called Sierra Colorado wherein lies a protected reserve, La Galapaguerra, to restore the Saddleback turtle population.  The sizes of turtles here range from just hatched to 80-year-old adults that are the size of boulders.  While it would have been epic to get a pic of my dad riding a Saddleback, the park folks wouldn't take it too kindly.  So since the surf continued to be flat we took advantage of this to go fishing for wahoo and yellow fin tuna.  We brought my host mom and host bro-in-law with us since we were going out on some relative of ours boat.  The fish gods weren't quite smiling down on us that day and while we had a couple of knock downs and even had a "catch-and-release", or it touched the liter, but in all only brought back with us a small yellow fin which we made fish bites out of for dinner that night in my mom's house with the rest of the fam.  But Sunday, the borro's bday, was approaching and we did get some sunny rays smiling down on us along with the surf gods.  The 2 of us paddled out in the morning at Carola w/ clean conditions and head high to a foot over head sets and nobody out.  We enjoyed this all to ourselves before a few locals came out, and to them every wave is a party wave.  But we shared the peak, with the locals only dropping in on each other and not the 2 of us.  Needless to say we spent the whole morning out, and only paddled in when there was too much tide on it, so about 3 hours later.  I think this along would have made my dad's bday, but throughout the week I had been planning him a surprise party at my mom's restaurant with some fam, friends, and my boyfriend (yes, what are adventures without a bit of romance entangled, but this is all you're getting).  All of this was done in front of him but in Spanish, so yea he didn't really get any of it.  But the whole thing was so sweet, we had dinner followed by a tres leches cake w/ strawberries & peaches that my sister had made and presents to follow.  This was the one night my dad stayed up past 10 (till midnight!) hanging out in our place and talking w/ my boyfriend.  We caught a couple of more surf seshes in the mornings before my dad's spring break was up and he had to fly back to the states where he just missed our tsunami warning.  Super stoked he could make it, and was spoiled with sunset cervezas, hot water, and internet that week (hence the blowing up of facebook with pictures taken weeks and months before)!  Hope his time down here was all and me that he had envisioned!

More recently, I spent the whole afternoon 3 days ago kayaking in the ocean with another naturalist guide who's a friend of mine.  We left land at Playa de Oro, pirated a boat where I had a standoff with a sea lion for the helm, dispatched to claim another buoy, then sailed back ashore to Playa Mann to drop off some booty before faring to Tijeretas, a lagoon like area tucked away from town and the ocean.  Our adventures continued under the water playing with 2 sea lions and chasing sea turtles around.  The latter as part of my research investigating sea turtles.  When I got what they call "piel de pollo", or chicken's skin, we climbed back into the kayak and slowly made our way back.  Just outside of the lagoon we stopped to spy upon blue footed boobies along the cliff face.  On our trek back the sea was roaring at us and we roared back with forward speed in to oncoming wind, waves, and current.  Now there ain't no rest for the wicked, cause rest would've meant being shot back erasing any progress made.  But conquering the elements means rewarding ourselves with a pre-dinner snack of giant hot brownies with vanilla ice cream and chocolaty drinks to match.  And what I've learned is that a full belly of food is a belly full of love hence the fashion of big bellies around here.

As I've been writing this I snuck from the freezer a homemade bolo de coco to suck on and devour, while partaking in the home-run family business of selling ice.  Which I just got cleaned out of so gonna have to make some more after this. 

 

 

I guess it's customary for me to have to go to the hospital here since I had to go to the one back in Quito.  But at least this time it wasn't bad bacteria, an intestinal infection, or a parasite, but instead a whole new experience for me.  So here's how my day went:  took the 3ish hour boat ride from Isabela to San Cristobal (my home island) where I was curled up into a ball resting for most of the trip, returned to my house for some vegetable rice & of course jugo, sprawled across my bed & slept for another 3 hours, then in the evening went to the beach with my family, and lastly returned home to shower before church and dinner.  My family doesn't normally go to church but the day was the 8th anniversary of my host mom's dad's death so most of the family was going including my mom's 7 siblings and their kids.  So about almost an hour in to the Catholic service the priest starts burning sage or some other kind of plant as a purification process to cleanse the church of any evil, I think.  At this time we were all kneeling, when suddenly a more noticeable pain arises in my stomach and a weird sensation rapidly grows in my head with blackness edging in to encompass my vision.  Later I opened my eyes to hear people yelling my name, "Carolina Carolina!"  I was picked up by the shoulders with my hair flipped over in my face & seated on the bench behind me.  However I fainted again and woke to my mom on my right side & a man on my left holding me up to stand.  We walked to the hospital and that helped me regain consciousness.  I won't go into detail about the next 4 hours in the hospital, but at midnight I was able to leave.  As I got up a wave of nausea hit me and yeah....  Through all of this though half of my family was thinking I was pregnant (it's customary for people here to start having kids around 17-20 years old) and the other half thought I was possessed by demons since I fainted as the priest was in the cleansing process, moving the burning plant up and down like he was painting a wall.  So while I was in the hospital in and out of sleep, I was murmuring, "no estoy embarazada y no estoy con diablos".

Now as part of my recuperation, my mom has me on a strict diet of lentils, fish, and eggs to help with my anemia since during spring break I wasn't able to get protein & iron rich foods thanks to the poor planning of our wonderful & super helpful coordinator in Galapagos, but I will do my best to not elaborate on her charming aristocratic American personality.  So anyways my mom has been keeping a close eye on me making sure I get plenty of rest & drinking up her all natural jugo de remolacha and te de manzanilla at meals.  The 1st drink is another Harry Potter potion but not quite as delicious as the other one I talked about in my previous post.

                          jugo de remolacha         te de manzanilla            manzanilla plant

 

Testing the Limits

As part of my spring break I went to Santa Cruz, and on one of those days we took a panga boat out just beyond the harbor and slowed the motor down to a rumble.  Then the captain threw a pair of old gym sneakers in the water and instantly there were Galapagos sharks buzzing around getting at the shoes.  Any guesses as to why this erratic behavior?  Think about the location, the island's main harbor for boat trafficking which thus includes fishing boats.  Bingo!  The fishermen clean their fish here and throw leftovers overboard where the sharks have learned from repetition to listen to the sound of the motor, watch the boat slow down, wait for droppings over the side, and CHOMP!  These Galapagos sharks look similar to bull sharks and were about 6-7 ft long and say mmm 10 of them in total.  These are some waters you don't want to swim in.  After seeing the aggressive behavior of these guys, we hopped over to a place called Shark Channel which hosts some much more tranquil and lackadaisical white tip reef sharks.  These guys were about 5.5-6 ft in length and say in total 15 that were hanging around the mouth of this narrow channel.  Now this was awesome, going face-to-face and having sharks swim up behind me and swim around me.  At one point my guide grabbed me and took me to where a sea turtle was chillin w/ some sleeping sharks under the rocks, and then the captain dragged me over to a shy but persistent octopus hiding under and holding on to the thick shells of his last couple of meals despite how hard we tried to pry away the shells.  A little while later we boarded the boat and began removing our snorkel equipment.  As everyone was putting their gear away, a humongous sea turtle floated up out of no where.  Before much could be said, I threw back on my goggles and jumped over board in search of this mammoth creature.  Scared by all the noise, the turtle disappeared.  So I returned back to the panga boat but was keeping hawk eyes out for the moment the turtle would have to surface for air.  That moment didn't take too long and I made a 2nd escape from the boat.  This time I was in luck, executing a more sly approach while swimming to the turtle keeping my disturbance to a minimum and then succeeded in getting snapshots.  Once again I reboarded the boat to be taken to our last cite of the day.  As everyone was disembarking, the captain held me back and the 2 of us stayed on board until the others were all off.  We proceeded to return back to the place where we saw the sea turtle, and snorkeled some more spotting 3 sea turtles and 2 marble rays.  So half an hour later we decided to get back to the rest of the group before our absences were noted and as we began pulling the anchor up it got stuck.  There was a slight entanglement of the anchor line in the props, so the captain jumped in the water for a better look as I lifted up the motor.  It was a quick fix and we raced back to where we dropped the others off.  As the captain pulled up to the dock, I lept off, tied the boat up to a makeshift cleat, and we took off towards the trees.  The was a bizarre site, us running all on ankle-breaking rocks, me in my bathing suit and sneakers alongside a guy who's barefoot in his underwear.  After 15 minutes of running on rocks through shrubs and a muddy kind of sediment, we caught up to a cliff where the group was swimming in a peaceful lagoon w/ rock ledges on either side.  But the excitement wasn't over yet, the captain again dragged me to a rock about 33 ft up on the cliff and persuaded me to jump off.  He did it flawlessly, and the students below were cheering me on with a "sweet Caroline bum bum buh".  That sealed the deal and I took a leap of faith as far out as I could from the cliff, past the death defying rocks below me.  I plunged into the clear translucent water and bobbled to the surface like a cork with only a slight sting on my butt.  So a little bit of bragging rights here as I was the first (really second to the captain, but hey he's a local) and one of the only ones from everyone there to jump at that height.  One time wasn't enough so the captain then took me to another rock even higher!  This one at say 37ish ft took a longer time for motivation, but pressured by the call that we would be leaving soon and the fact that the rock I was standing on was pretty hot, once again I found myself plummeting downward making sure to point my toes and keep my surface area to a minimum (aka staying pretty straight which helps with the impact into the water).  The stinging itself wasn't as bad on the 2nd jump since my technique was better, but I also got the experience of some unwanted seawater in places it didn't need to be.  If you've every had a gnarly wipeout from surfing and managed to get seawater all the way up your butt crack then you know about the sensation that I'm talking about.While the others preferred to keep to the shallows, the thrill and rush of jumping off a cliff is incredible!  On the other hand this got me some respect from the guides haha. 

I made a spontaneous decision to go night diving last night at two places, one called Tijeretas and the other Caragua, a 90 year old sunken ship modeled similar to the Titanic.  I was desperately hoping to witness a small but controlled feeding frenzy of sharks, but unfortunately that didn't happen (there may have been sharks but our dive lights only permitted us to see 15 ft in the direction in which its pointed).  But there were tons of cool organisms that welcome the darkness of night to slither out of their daytime hiding spots.  There was only a handful of us diving, half of us working on dive certifications and the other half just for the thrill, and we got pretty lucky I'd say on the conditions:  26 degree Celsius water (although I was braced with a 5 mil on top of my dad's sharkskin & underarmor, but also brought gloves, hood, & spring suit to put on top of the 5 mil just in case), some wave action (but only noticeable at the surface), a little bit of current, and very little suspended sediment.  So we get in the water and we each turn on our lights, and somehow as the only person who hasn't done a night dive yet I naturally get the "stubby" light, aka the light that is barely kickin.  But whatever, I just used that as an excuse to get really close to everything like the 4ish sea turtles (green and black morphs), red eyed octopuses, an eagle ray, Pacific mutton hamlet, scrawled filefish, Panamic graysby, breeding Panamic sergeant majors (different from other b/c of their dark blue wash), a couple of timid mottled soapfishes, Panamic soldierfish, three banded butterflyfishes, a shit ton of Pacific creole fish, among others.  Also there's the sponges and ahermatypic corals that come out to feed like black corals, polychaete worms, and zooanthids but I focused more on the fish.  During this incredible dive me and my dive buddy (which also happened to be her birthday & lived with my mom and host family last semester, so my mom threw her a party earlier that day where we all gorged on wine, juice, and all sorts of vegetarian goodies (we're both vegetarians), and lots of cake & sweets; only to be followed by hanging outside the house nursing our full bellies and filling the air w/ our laughing) separated some from the group & turned off our lights.  We found ourselves floating in a sea of stars, lights dazzling all around us.  This light is from the tiny creatures that migrate up from the depths at night emitting a self-produced light called biological luminescence, or bioluminescence for short.  Drifting all around us, they dotted our outlines allowing us to be temporary constellations in the sea.  With every movement, a new constellation.  Not wanting to get to far from the group in the pitch blackness and after sharing this experience, we rejoined the others and could now cross this off our bucket lists.  The rest of the dive was just as enlightening and while I'd like to write more, I have to go pack for my boat which leaves in an hour.

Shark stories at Leon Dormido:

Leon Dormido, aka Kicker Rock, is the most popular dive site in San Cristobal with its abundance of life, particularly the sharks.  To the Galapagenouns this rock that shoots out of the water looks like a sleeping lion, the English translation of leon dormido, and to some Americans it looked like someone kicking a rock hence the name.  I've had 2 good days of diving here, the most recent this past Thursday.  The first dive involves going down 20 m to the sandy bottom of a channel that cuts through this ginormous rock about 3 or so miles off the eastern coast of the island.  The first time I did this dive I felt like I was swimming against a wall of water while wearing a 5/4 wetsuit; the current was that strong.  But the second time there was less of a current and better vis.  With my underdeveloped hobby of fish identification, I could include a detailed list of all the fish I saw with their latin names But I'd rather not bore those reading this.  Awaiting for our descent to the bottom are Galapagos, black tip reef, and white tip reef sharks between 4 & 5 ft long.  During my most recent dive, AGHHHHHH!!!!!!  It was one of the most thrilling experiences I've had!  Not only was I swimming after these sharks, but others would swim right towards me and get crazy awesome close  (from this frontal view their heads look a little like a bull shark's)!  I guess they could sense my inner fish, fearing me less than the other divers.  It was very tempting to reach out and touch them like all the other animals here, but again you're not suppose to disrupt the wildlife here.  The sensation around these guys is incredible, no fear.  Instead of fear or anxiety, I was amazed but very relaxed & wanted to get as close as possible to the sharks.  I think a balance of emotions w/ swimming technique allows a closer interaction among divers & sharks.  Sharks have neuromasts for electrical sensing and pores covering their heads and lateral line which are glycoproteins that aid in the detection of muscle contractions and heartbeat among a few other functions.  So I proposed that maintaining a steady heartbeat by controlling my emotions & swimming smoothly in an energy efficient way would optimize my opportunity to engage in a closer interaction.  I put this hypothesis into action and it worked for me, hopefully also with future dive encounters w/ sharks.  Ok, but for each day of diving we do 2 dives, so the 2nd dive was along a vertical rock wall where you can see hammerheads.  Unfortunately the vis for this dive wasn't as great and I only saw 7 at a distance.  But the apex of this dive is swimming in the middle of a giant bait ball of black striped salema.  A word of caution goes out to those who stray too far, you may get engulfed and isolated in a maze by these small fishes and lose your sense of direction.

Other good uses of large cruise boats:

This time of the year here is pretty popular for tourists to visit by boat and plane (the only 2 ways to visit).  But the beach across from my university has direct access to the harbor so there are usually boats anchored just beyond the no boating zone (that restriction is taken with a grain of salt, as I almost became sushi once while snorkeling).  So on Women's Day (yes, such a thing exists here but thank goodness it's not a replay of Valentine's day) a couple of friends (mostly chics) and I swam a little more than a half mile out to a small can buoy.  Once we were out there we decided, "hell it's a holiday, why not jump off the top of this small cruise ship?"  So we climbed up on the boat's zodiac, to climb up on to the boat (only inhabited by a few workers at the moment & no tourists), only then to climb up to the top floor.  This was a good opportunity to check the surf at the next headland over, Punta Carola, which by the way was a few feet over head.  But to fulfill our half-joking comment, I looked for a suitable spot to jump from, one where the floors beneath didn't jet out too much from the third floor.  Quickly after searching I found a good spot on the port side just behind the bow where the floors below only exceeded 1 or 2 feet farther out than the top floor.  So naturally the only guy with us wanted to be the first to jump, immediately after selecting this spot without so much as saying a word.  Followed by me and another gal (me holding down my top), and after some persuasion we were able to convince the last two gals to follow.  Its about a 30 ft drop of sheer awesomeness plunging into the clear tropical water below.  This was followed by me demonstrating several backflips off the side of the zodiac to try and teach the other gals, and a while later the setting sun forced us to swim back to the beach to rejoin the others.  Sadly I don't have any documentation of this, but maybe next time I'll remember to carry my underwater camera with me.

And now I'm drinking a drink that my mom made, but is normally drinkin (is that even correct grammar?) on November 12 for Day of the Dead.  When I first looked at this giant bowl, it looked like it some kind of thick, purply potion with chunks of something that could have come straight out of Harry Potter.  Not wanting to be rude, I took her mug full of this saucy drink and took a gulp closing my eyes not sure what to expect.  My first swig was like taking a crappy shot of tequila, very very quick in case I wasn't too hip on the flavor.  Despite the look and somewhat alcoholic smell, this drink wasn't too bad and after my 2nd sip my mom preceded to give me a few ladle fulls more.  From what I can get from this drink is that it has purply pineapple, peaches, and cinnamon but I think there's more. 

Anyways this Friday I leave for island hopping to 2 other islands, Santa Cruz and Isabella, for my spring break.  Eventually I'll blog about it when I get back.  Until then salud y chao!

Galapagos shark

 

Black striped salema bait ball

 

Female Pacific Green Sea Turtle

 

Galapagos shark again

My Galapagos niece handing me my mug of Day of the Dead potion

GALAPAGOS - SAN CRISTOBAL - A WHOMPING SLICE OF DARWIN HEAVEN

Yikes!  I haven't written in 5 weeks, but (1) there's lots to do to enjoy the special place I'm in and (2) the Internet takes me back to the 90s when we all had dial up connection.  The Internet could compete with a tortuga.... my money is on the tortuga winning.  So yea also explains the lack of pics.  If it's not already on there, you should add Galapagos to your bucket list, the flora and fauna are endemic and the interaction with them is surreal.  Especially for me in the water, I go beserk with all the fish!  Being able to identify most of them definitely adds to the thrill and whether I'm getting nibbled by them (tiny territorial damselfish defending their algal patches), or having fish swim so close to me that I can just reach out and touch them (like Spinster wrasse of Mexican hog fish), or best yet diving around the bottom of a rock enclosed channel with sharks (white tip reef, black tip reef, and Galapagos), which I've gotten to do twice now, is wicked sweet!  Being in the water with these guys is an inspiring feeling, a connection to nature and a realization just how talented these creatures are in simplistic ways (whenever I swim with sea lions they make me feel like a tortuga next to them embarassingly lacking their graceful, agile, and swift swimming technique or when I place my hand on the carapace of a sea turtle to swim alongside it and feel how mellow these dudes are).  While I won't go heavy into all the fantastic marine animals, although I could in a heartbeat, I'll list just a couple of the cool and some endemic creatures hanging around this joint:  Galapagos sea lions, Galapagos fur seals, Galapagos penguins, a plethora of whales, sharks, and fish, marine iguangas, blue footed boobies, red footed boobies (haven't seen the Nazca booby yet), frigate birds (yes, those that blow up their red chests to attract females and are kleptoparasitic so they steel food from other birds), sea and land tortugas, rays, and lots of other birds.  Conveniently I met a guide who helps me build up my knowledge arsenal on species identification, behavior, and habitat when my professors and id books have reached their max limit.  This info also helps in those occasional moments where I'd rather not be attacked or stuck in a crossfire between animals, like when I'm at the beach and get surrounded by young but big and hormonal male sea lions who are on the verge of fighting each other.

And by host mom is absolutely great!  They have a strong accent here on the islands so it makes interpreting a little difficult, but she's able to manage my pescatarian diet and is a chef at one of the restaurants here.  One of her favorite things to say to me is, "Carolina gordita es bonita", thus always giving me enough food for 2 or 3 of me.  We have a simplistic humble home that she keeps well tidied and is perfect for me.  She's taken me to her land up in the arriba which are the highlands of the island for a picnic where we roasted whole fishes over a fire and stuffed ourselves full till we had to be rolled down the road back to town.  We've also gone to the only fresh water lake in the archipelago and the land turtle reservoir where the tortugas range from the size of an egg (literally) to the size of a boulder.

This is all I can write about now, have a fear that if I include too much stuff I'll have probs uploading.

Galapagos shark at Leon Dormido

Hawksbill sea turtle 

 

view of Leon Dormido from the arriba

 Mexican hogfish

So this past weekend I spent Saturday in a quiet town called Mindo which is pretty close to the Equator.  It was a midnight-planned trip the night before with me and a friend so very last minute and pretty much winging the whole thing.  But out main objective was to zipline in Cloud Forest, and if there was time:  go tubing, check out the butterfly museum/garden thingy, and take a chocolate tour.  However none of these other things happened.  As you can imagine, since Mindo is in Cloud Forest, that it is cloudy and rained while we were there, but it wasn't too heavy.  Anyways we hopped off the bus as it passed through the town and conveniently jumped off next to the zipline company where we then proceeded to buy our tickets and hail a taxi out to the zipline base station.  We ended up timing it so that we got the whole mountain to ourselves in that we were the only ones who bought tickets.  We had 2 guys our age who were the guides, which translates to:  them intensely trying to persuade us to stay the night and go salsa dancing with them.  When you're out in the middle of a forest, you must pick your words carefully, even the spanish ones.  So after we finished up with that, we strolled the small town with handfuls of melting ice cream.  The town's not too exciting, but there are these small insects that like to hand around your calves and suck your blood.  You can't feel them at all, but they leave tiny blood spots.

Sunday I took a bus out to Papallacta for some hot springs and more.  The more being a good long butt kicking uphill oxygen deprived hike straight up a mountain.  The town of Papallacta itself is hardly really a town, just a couple of buildings.  But the hot springs up the mountain have varying temps but mostly pretty warm, which was awesome after hiking.  So we spent a couple of hours lounging around, before trekking back.  Since this place is kinda out in the middle of nowhere, we had to wait some time before another bus rolled by.  We snagged the last few seats and made it back before it got too late.

 

 Papallacta

Spending the past week along the Ecuadorian coastline has been a welcoming change from the cooler and rainy Cumbaya.  The first five days were exploring the rambunctious and salsa loving town of Puerto Lopez.  Here I got my 1st dive of the year in at a spot called La Plata, a blue-footed booby's island of paradise.  As I learned from my classmate, this island is lined with white circles of guano, aka poop, that encircle a blue-footed booby's nest.  I also learned that only about 1 in 3 babies live because the oldest/biggest chick will push the other ones out of the nest and off a ledge or something like that when the parents are out searching for food.  But the dive around this island was incredible despite the shallow depth.  Because this place is legally protected, the marine species are massive & fearless of divers compared to their relatives in the Virgin Islands.  But since I didn't expect this, during my 1st dive I set the zoom on my camera when I shouldn't have since I could get so close to all the fishies.  The next couple of days in Puerto Lopez involved intertidal madness, and my 1st observation is that one of my professors is part mountain goat, creaming us in adventuring on the algae-covered, slipper rocks, while the rest of us are falling on our asses & stained with green algae.  So the intertidal field work contained 3 components:  quadrants, whelks, & biomass.  In the .5 x .5 m quadrants students estimated percent coverage of sessile organism and algae types, counted the number of mobile invertebrates, and a couple of other things.  Biomass students scraped off algae & other organisms to save for later investigation.  And saving the best group for last... WHELKALICOUSNESS!  Me and my partner tramped through high, mid, and low tides to collect, measure, & record the length of 3 different types of whelks.  In total, I probably caught circa 300 whelks!  Other creatures I scrounged for were a gazillion types of slugs, polychaete worms, 'hieroglyphic' crabs, urchins, and hermit crabs.  These tasks were pretty simple but done at multiple sites and tidal levels for us to do comparisons when we return.  Some of the things we'll be looking for is if there's any correlation between whelk size and tidal zone & whelk abundance with respect to north/south position of site along the Ecuadorian coastline.  In addition to spatial differences, we also have past years of data to see what changes occur temporally at each site.  We continued to do this intertidal work in Las Esmeraldas, and I also installed sediment plates all over a colossal rock to set up a new experiment.  During this part, the ITCZ winds and rain were pounding me as I tried to work in my bathing suit and handy dandy reef booties.  The sediment plates were either black or white, and the experimenter's objective is to test algal growth.

Panamac Green Moray

Yellowtail Surgeonfish

Trumpetfish

Tiger Snake Eel

ps.  The late response was due to my 1st Ecuadorian parasite, keepin me laying low.  I'll die another die.

It's been a long day, well so really like two continuous days with two hours of sleep in between.  So I set up and planned a trip for me and some chicas to Otavalo, a small town 2 hours north of Quito famous in South America for their handmade goods and also named after the indigenous indians who strike it rich making these alpaca goods and driving around shiny 4WD cars with their old skool traditional clothes.  While I was able to snag us a reservation for a room for a night, I was winging it on transportation.  I got so far as to definitely take a bus to Quito and find a bus that travels north along the Panamerican Highway which would drop me off on the outskirts of Otavalo.  Also not getting pick pocketed was something I was trying to make happen too.

So maybe I was a little nervous the night before hoping that everything would work itself out, but it was also time for me to take my weekly malaria pill.... du du duhhhh.   My personal side effects from this thing include no sleep, psycho dreams, dizziness, and loss of equilibrium in my ears leading to not the most enjoyable experience on crowded suffocating bus rides up, down, and around cliffs.  Unfortunately these symptoms last for about 12-14 hours and the only aid, water, I can't take because there's no bathrooms on the bus so once I'm on, I'm on.  But alas these symptoms receded in the afternoon.  Ok so back to transportation.  Taking a taxi from my house to the bus stop and then taking the bus to Quito bam ok no hay problema.  Pero unfortunately I need to travel to the very northern tip of Quito where there lies an international terminal.  While my trusty guidebooks have made me a brainiac about Ecuador and the Galapagos, they lack details on Quito's bus system only telling me the international terminal I need but not how to get there.  I don't think I've mentioned how big Quito is, but you really notice this when your face is pressed against the window of the bus while you're trying to keep your balance on a rickity ride meanwhile not getting pickpocketed.  Well we ended up having to get on three different bus lines for an hour to reach this international terminal to take the bus to Otavalo, naturally getting on all the buses that are not highly recommended.  On one of these buses I had a total pickpocketer standing next me being super obvious like checking out my pockets where my backpack and hands were and constantly glancing over to see where I was looking.  I pretended to look out the window behind him but was really keeping eyes on his greasy paws.   Estoy gringita pero no estoy stupida!  Eventually the crowd cleared a little and I could push my way to a less hazard zone.  

Finally reaching Otavalo, we trekked into town to practice our haggling skills.  This famous market is called Plaza del Ponchos and is a city in itself of tents and stands.  Vendors are coming up to you all the time trying to get you to buy anything, people are pushing past you, and you feel like you're being swallowed by alpalca blankets.  Nonetheless this is a great experience and you might be surprised with what kinds of steals you can make or rather goaded into buying overpriced goods.  A little of both happens, but don't forget you're in a crowded marketplace.  Know where your money goes and that it doesn't wander off by itself.  After getting presents for the fam, I got the biggest slice of pie in my life, a slice of passion fruit pie about the size of my head.  Since I couldn't eat or drink anything that morning to make it through the buses, I easily ate the whole thing.  I ended my shopping with buying an alpaca blanket.  I think I surprised some with my haggling tricks, but I surprised myself most by not getting pickpocketed, a huge accomplishment for a gringita.

Oh and on the bus ride back, they were fancy and playing the movie Taken, typical.  

 A piece of the alpaca blanket I bought.

I think I'm going to go hike a volcano tomorrow....or visit the Equator.....  

Sooo.... I HAVE ANOTHER NIECE NAMED AMELIA PEARL NORRIS!  I can't wait to meet this new little soon-to-be water bug.  This lil bundle of sunshine is a perfect addition to the Norris-Lowcher clan, and we couldn't be more blessed.

On the other note I am finally in Quito, rather just outside in a suburb called Cumbaya, stumbling my way around with my horrendous Spanish but it's getting a little bit better each day.  It's been cloudy and raining a-lot now that it's transitioning to their winter.  I'm still settling in and have yet to really visit Quito.  I am living with a mother and her two daughters (15 and 11), their grandmother, and their golden retriever pooh, pronounced as poo, like Winnie the Pooh.

Since the area around Quito has a good amount of crime, the town house I am in has a locked security gate and alarm system in and around the house.  So anyone trying to get into any windows or doors will send the alarm off.  This also includes going downstairs to the kitchen in the morning before the alarm system is shut off.  The instant one steps off the stairs and onto the first floor triggers a siren that can be heard from down the street... So as you can see where I'm going with this, yea it happened the first morning (only hours after I landed at midnight), but I was not the culprit.... this time.  Instead my roommate who is also a student happened to accidentally set it off.  And as these things go, the security company calls to see what happened etc.  However, while there's a phone in my room (or was, someone removed it now), I figured that the other phones in the house would go off too.  Wrong about that, so after the 20th ring I dug out from under the covers and answered the phone.  But I don't think I need to describe what happened next, I'm sure you can imagine how that went seeing as I don't have a phone in my room anymore.

Snapshot from the view in my neighborhood.   



Welcome to my first blog post!  So I'm starting this new thing as an attempt to share some of my thoughts, which I often struggle to express, and to give others a glimpse into my life for the next seven months while I travel around Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.  I am one lucky gal to "study" abroad (aka bask with marine iguanas, chase seals in circles, and perform sneak attacks on the gazillion species of birds), explore the intricate oceanic environment, and wedge myself into a local Ecuadorian/Galapagos-ian family.  In prep for that I'm digging out the ol' charade skills, gonna rely on those in the first few weeks with my new family.  Hopefully my attempts at speaking Spanish won't be too American sounding, for example:
 

Spanish word:  por favor       How Americans say it:  pour-favore

                 hola                                                      hole-la

                    los Estados Unidos                               ugh-merrrica ya'll

But until then just trying to keep up with everyone's life.  Things tend to come in three in our household and all at the same time, like when Jess studied abroad in Fiji, Ash was having her first baby, and I was valedictorian for my graduating class.  Except now I get to study abroad, Jess is hitting it large with her incredible photography skills booking weddings and engagement shoots left and right, and Ash is playing supermom with her new position as a Pirate (ECU) professor and blessing us with another baby.  To get ready for her baby shower, Jess and I made cake pops, or what Jess has come to call cake turds due to their stubborn personality.  Cake pops may look cute and fun, but after 4 trips to the grocery store, 6 cans of candied pearls, and 1+ days spent baking, these little balls are one of the most temperamental desserts to be decorated.

But after finishing these guys this morning, Jess and I stomped over to Nags Head Woods for some easy going shooting.  While I think that just about everyone of her pictures looks amazing, Jess's critical eye and perfectionism will only permit her to release a handful of pics of what she says is "OK".  To view just a couple of her amazing photos, check out

 http://jesslowcher.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/sisters-are-the-best-models/