A Killer Start for a Trip

Heading off to Boulder for the weekend, flying Southwest Airlines, and for the first time, I get to ride on one of their specially-painted planes:

It's kinda cool. The inside is heavily decorated with SeaWorld advertising, too. Like all the overhead compartment doors are blue and watery looking, with either a SeaWorld logo or a picture of Shamu in action.

But this is the one I really want to fly on. I have no idea who sponsored it (or whether anyone did; they seem to have them for many states).

One of the things I appreciate about Southwest is their sense of whimsy. It's just more fun to fly with them (although I do miss the comical safety briefings they used to do...I assume the FAA decided it wasn't safe enough).

You're Doing It Wrong

Yet another clever comic from xkcd.

Oh, it's about electronic voting machines.

Oh, Dear...

There's a disconnect in here somewhere. My fortune cookie from lunch today reads

You would do well in the field of computer technology.

Now they tell me....

Breaking Ties

The summer of 1968 was a most exciting and memorable one in my family. Not so much because of all the assassinations, protests, riots and such, but mostly because we got to see it all in color for the first time. You see, in the summer of 1968, my grandfather bought himself a new color television, and gave us his old one as a hand-me-down.

The TV itself was a marvel to me, for all sorts of reasons I entirely take for granted nowadays. Not only were the pictures in color, but it had a remote control that could change the channel, volume, color and tint. I'm unclear which was more exciting: the discovery of channel surfing or the ability to make all the faces pink or green while sitting across the room.

Wow. Just wow.

The coolest thing from a modern, digital perspective was the way the remote control worked. The TV still had dials and knobs for changing channels and such, and the remote activated servos that turned the physical controls on the TV, so channel surfing still had the satisfying "clunk" of the old TV, plus you got to watch the knobs and dials move when you pushed buttons on the remote. Endless fun, really.

Two things we watched that summer probably shaped a lot of my future life: political conventions and the Olympics. I know there was other stuff on, but those are the ones I still remember vividly.

I certainly didn't understand much of the conventions, but the color, the bunting, the balloons, the big signs, the roll call of states with each delegation chairman trying to outdo the next with lavish praise for his home state before eventually casting the votes, the cheers: all made huge impressions. The sheer spectacle of American democracy at work was thrilling. I was also quite oblivious to all the protests and riots going on outside the convention hall. It was just the color and pageantry, the ritual, the excitement. I was hooked.

I'm sure that all had a lot to do with my later involvement in politics and government. By 1972, I was volunteering at the local party headquarters, and the substance of the convention and the nominating process was of interest. But every four years I still get quite a charge out of the memory of my first glimpse of a political convention.

The Olympics from Mexico City were something else altogether. In many ways, I think they were the first sporting event I was ever aware of. Neither of my parents ever gave a damn about sports (although Dad eventually paid attention because I was a sports nut; kind of a weird reversal of the way that usually happens, I think). But every four years, there they were, glued to the set, watching and following and rooting.

As with the conventions, I think it was the spectacle of the Olympics that caught my interest. I don't remember any particular events, just all of this weird, unaccustomed stuff on the TV, and my parents sitting and watching it, making time in their lives for this big event. Again, by 1972 I was actually interested in sports and the content of the games. But in 1968, I was hooked.

All of this is a very long-winded introduction to the topic that prompted me to write today, which is the current foofaraw over scoring in Olympic gymnastics. It always sort of amuses me that the two most popular Olympic sports on U.S. television, gymnastics and ice skating, share (at least) two things in common: almost no one pays any attention to them outside of the Olympics, and all these fair-weather fans seem to have strong opinions about the arcane and subjective scoring systems that govern the sports.

As far as I can tell, the one constant in the Olympic universe is controversy over the scoring of those two sports. The recent fuss over the tie breaker in women's gymnastics is just the latest example. And everyone seems to have their own opinion as to what must be done.

I come at this from the perspective not of an athlete, but as a former competitor and coach/administrator in forensics (speech and debate). The issues are similar, if not as much fun to watch on television. From the competitor's standpoint, you need to know what the rules are, and you want to know that they are applied fairly. As an administrator, you sometimes need to be able to break a tie score, as you sometimes need to come up with a particular number of winners at some stage in the competition.

As my wife and I discussed this last night, we both recalled instances when we were competing and tie-breakers came into play. In both cases we remembered being eliminated from competitions on the basis of tie-breakers. And I certainly remember applying tie-breaking rules a number of times when I was running tournaments. It's never desirable, but sometimes necessary.

This brings to mind two points about the gymnastics controversy:

1. As far as I can tell, the tie-breaking rules were followed fairly and appropriately. Most of the issues I heard discussed had to do with the quality of the judging that produced the weird tie, and a little about whether the tie-breaking formula was a good one. I heard no indication that the tie was improperly broken.
2. Perhaps more importantly, it is entirely unclear to me why the tie needed to be broken (other than the fact that the rules said so). Other sports allow ties in the Olympics, and there seems to be no harm in awarding two gold medals in a particular apparatus. It's not as if a single winner needs to advance to another level of competition or something.

Anyway, all very interesting. The memories come flooding back. I'm sure gymnastics will revise its rules so that in four years, all of us who have ignored the sport in the interim can once again criticize a system we don't fully understand or appreciate. But as with politics, that's one of the great joys of the Olympics. We can all sit on the sidelines, thousands of miles away, and opine to our hearts' content.

Brilliant!

Laura is very right, as usual. I want one, too!

Appalling. Sickening.

Came across this transcript of Bill Moyers' interview with Jane Mayer.

There are plenty of disgusting bits, but here are some lowlights:

JANE MAYER: Well, I think they knew they were being asked about torture. I mean, they danced around the question. They've redefined the term "torture" so that what was torture before 9/11 they say has not been torture since.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

JANE MAYER: Because they wanted to interrogate people in completely brutal ways. And they wanted to avoid being accused of war crimes. So one of the witnesses there, Doug Feith in particular, who was the number three in the Pentagon, argued right after 9/11 that the Geneva Convention should no longer apply to anybody that was picked up in the war on terror, that was a terrorist suspect. And so they took away the rules of war, which were the Geneva Conventions, which America really pioneered in many ways. And they also said that the criminal laws didn't apply to the same suspects. So they were left with kind of a legal limbo. And they made up the laws as they went along on it.

Yup. Making up the rules as they go along, and obfuscating their tracks. Sounds about right.

And what happens when you start trying to make excuses and exceptions?

JANE MAYER: Well, there are a couple of things I want to say about this. One is to say that there's a special exception here: We won't torture except when we will torture, is a legal problem. The convention against torture, which the United States Senate ratified, has no exceptions. It's a major felony. There's no excuse for doing it for war. There's no excuse for national security. It doesn't have exceptions. So this is a serious legal problem.

But it's not just the legality, it's also what it does to the moral fiber of the society:

BILL MOYERS: Torture can become an accepted way of life for a society. I mean, you can get used to it. Or you can know it's going on and realizing that it doesn't affect you, so it doesn't matter to you. Do you is there a possibility that that's happening here?

JANE MAYER: Well, you know, there's a great book out called, "Torture and Democracy," by Darius Rejali, which is about how torture has worked over the years. And one of the things he writes about is that it has a very corrupting effect on a society and also on military discipline, on anybody involved in it. There's this tendency to get rougher and rougher. You don't get the answer you want? You up the level of aggression. It also has a horrific effect on the outlook of the people who were involved in this program there and I do describe how one of the interrogators in particular who did waterboarding with the CIA is wracked by nightmares now according to one of his friends. He - you can't go to that dark place without it affecting you.

I've said it many times before (and I'm tired of it, but it's important): torture is wrong. It's always wrong. And every justification given for it inevitably reflects the corruption that such mistreatment engenders.

Having Fun While Dying

Randy Pausch died today. Cancer claims another victim, and as usual, one much too young. This one hits very close to home for me, as he was almost exactly my age. And that is, by definition, much too young to die.

By now, probably everybody on the Internet has seen Randy's last lecture or one of its derivatives. It was a wonderful performance, and one that I hope will be meaningful to its intended audience, his children. But I know it touched a lot of people, including me.

One of the many nuggets I retained from his lecture was his notion about having fun every day, even while dying (and after all, we are all of us dying, every day, in some respect). It's a lesson we should all remember.

Take care of yourselves and your loved ones, and live strong.

Energy Independence

OK, time to write something that isn't about vacation!

Forgive me if I ramble a bit. I see that Al Gore has thrown down the gauntlet on energy independence, or at least on the electricity front. His proposal to stop using fossil fuels (other than "clean coal") to generate electricity has merit on a lot of levels. It would free fossil fuels for potentially better uses, or at least ones that are harder to substitute.

I assume he intentionally timed his challenge to coincide with the anniversary of Jimmy Carter's famous address on energy independence (hat tip to Jonathan Schwartz for pointing that out). Jimmy made some amazing statements at the time:

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation.

Yeah, that worked out real well.

When Carter delivered that speech in July of 1979, I had just graduated from high school, and during my senior year, as a member of the debate team we had debated the question of how the U.S. could increase its energy independence.

Interestingly, my partner and I spent the first half of the year advocating increased use of nuclear power, claiming it was far cleaner and safer than fossil fuels when you consider the entire fuel cycle. Then came the exciting convergence of Three Mile Island and the movie, The China Syndrome. Suddenly advocating nukes wasn't quite as palatable. So we turned 180 degrees and argued for banning and decommissioning all the nukes and replacing them with thermal energy generation retrofits on existing hydroelectric facilities. That was a bit esoteric, and probably not truly feasible on a national scale, but it was a lot of fun to debate.

Ultimately, the case I found most convincing (and hardest to defeat) that year was advocacy for energy conservation. There are very few good arguments against being more efficient in our use of existing energy sources.

And by far the most fascinating part of the energy debate to me was the argument over energy use and its effect on global climate. My research on the topic ultimately led me to major in Environmental Science and pursue (briefly) a career in public policy and government.

And now, nearly 30 years later, climate change is a common topic of conversation. Go figure.

What's amazing to me is how badly we've slid backward on energy. When Carter made his speech, he wanted to cut oil imports by half, "a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day." So imports were on the order of 9 million barrels per day. The CIA reported in 2004 that imports were running around 13.15 million barrels per day, and the U.S. Energy Information Agency now says that in 2006, net imports ran to 12,390,000 barrels per day.

Now, those aren't all equivalent numbers. The U.S. exports around a million barrels of oil a day, too, so the CIA and DOE numbers are pretty close. In any case, we're now importing on the order of 50% more, not the 50% less that Carter set as the goal.

Heck of a job, guys.

Footnote to Yucatan Trip

Back home safely. Can't say I was terribly impressed with Mexicana Airlines or their budget domestic buddy, Click. But they got me home, and that's what counts.

While we were staying at Xamach Dos near Tulum and the Sian Ka'an biosphere preserve, we heard news about PROFEPA, sort of the Mexican version of the U.S. EPA, seizing and closing a bunch of local hotels for reasons that were not entirely clear. Speculation ran to all sorts of possibilities ranging from actual environmental degradation to land grab.

I found some local discussion today, so thought I would link to it. Sounds like the locals don't know much, either. We had met some nice folks who were staying at the Diamante K earlier in the week, and I hope they were gone before the place got closed down.

Exciting times, but I gather this is one of the ongoing issues when foreign people "buy" property in Mexico.

Festivities and Shopping

Free advice: If you stay at the Hotel Dolores Alba in Merida, don't eat the 50 peso breakfast buffet. 'Nuff said.

We set out last night in the rain to get dinner. Found a recommended restaurant called Pancho's, with sort of a Pancho Villa theme. Although it seemed to cater largely to Americans (and what business here doesn't?), it had quite authentic flavors, and the food was universally excellent. We tried their tuna ceviche, beef quesadilla, pepper steak, and chimichangas, and all were delicious.

By the time we left, the rain had stopped, and there was some outdoor activity, but nothing to the degree that would be normal. Some clowns on the zocalo gave my daughter a fancy balloon animal, but that was about the extent of things last night.

This morning we went out in search of hammocks. The recommended stores are closed on Sunday, so we looked at a few other places. We eventually bought a huge blue one made of silk. It's quite lovely, and easily holds the whole family. The negotiation process was interesting, but that is something my wife is very good at. She thinks we could have gotten an even better deal if we'd had more time, but I needed to get to the airport.

So here I am, sitting in the departure lounge with an hour to spare, trying to figure out the wifi system where all the pages seem to be in Spanish. I was hoping to do a little research on the web while I wait, but perhaps I'll just get started on my reading (and this writing, of course).

Ruin and Rain

Last night we stayed over at the Hotel Dolores Alba in Chichen Itza. This evening I find myself writing at the Hotel Dolores Alba in Mérida, the capital of the state of Yucatan. We headed here, rather than staying at Chichen Itza another night, since Margo at Xamach Dos raved about how great the Saturday night fiesta in Merida is. Sounded good to us, so here we are. Just as we arrived at the hotel, having found our way through Mérida, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. With some lightning and thunder thrown in for good measure.

It has largely let up now, but the streets are wet, wet, wet, and we're uncertain whether we want to brave that. Looks like we'll head out for some dinner first, then decide. I suppose it is worth noting that this is the first significant rain we have encountered. Lots of little, brief squalls, especially at night, while we were in Sian Ka'an, but this was quite heavy and prolonged.

But back to Chichen Itza, as promised. We went back to the park this morning, fully intending to wander around without a guide. Having done two other Mayan archeology sites yesterday, read the guide book on Chichen Itza, and gone to the evening light show, we had the notion we could see what we wanted, then hit the road.

The first guide to hit us up for business really rubbed us wrong, so we moved on, paid for our tickets, and entered the gates. Then another guide asked if we wanted one, but we declined again. He said fine, but if we were hungry later, to go to his wife's restaurant in nearby Piste, and gave us her card. He was very nice, and eventually we decided to hire him. Good choice.

Javier turned out to be a fine guide, and rather than regurgitating all we'd heard at the other sites and read in the book, he took us around relatively quickly, showing us nuances we might miss otherwise, such as places where there are interesting echoes or remnants of original paint. He emphasized the Mayan aspects of Chichen Itza and downplayed the Toltec aspects (perhaps because he's Mayan himself). As he finished our tour he made suggestions for how we might want to proceed to see other parts of the site he hadn't taken us to. As a result, we had a really good visit to the site, and feel we got a lot out of it.

I have to say, at the end of a week of touring, that I have immense respect for these guys who do tours in English here in Mexico. Many of them have relatively little formal instruction in English, but do a great job presenting their practiced pieces as well as answering questions. Nearly all of our experiences this trip have been very positive.

Leaving Chichen Itza park, we still had to checkout of our hotel, then rushed over to Balankanche Cave for the 1:00 pm tour in English. The cave is quite nice, but there was a big crowd, most of whom spoke Spanish, and therefore ignored the recorded story in English. This (along with marginal recording quality) made it pretty difficult to hear what was going on. As near as I could make out, it was a dramatization of a Mayan father taking his son down into the cave for the first time to see the offerings that others had made, and explaining the history and traditions behind it all. Might have been pretty interesting, but as I say, it was largely unintelligible.

The cave itself is spacious and easy to get through. Nothing uncomfortable or claustrophobic. Some of the limestone formations are quite lovely, and there are plenty of cute little bats flying and hanging. The various offerings are somewhat interesting, though again, I couldn't make out much of the explanations. All that said, I've been in better caves, and it gets very hot and muggy down inside this one. I wouldn't put it at the top of my list of things to do here.

As a footnote, we did, in fact, head over to Javier's wife's restaurant before leaving for Mérida. It's kind of at the far end of Piste, away from the tourist hotels, and seems to be more of a place for locals (or at least Mexicans) than American tourists. But we introduced ourselves, said that Javier had told us to come by, and we had a very nice, tasty, inexpensive meal. If you're in the neighborhood of Chichen Itza, you could definitely do worse than dining at the Loncheria Fabiola. It's on the main highway, opposite a big restaurant called the Atrio.

Tomorrow I have to head home. The rest of the family is staying to see some more ruins and things on this end of the Yucatan. But I need to get home to do some work.

My Day in Ruins

Hit the road early this morning, because we had a lot to cover. First stop, the archaeological site at Tulum, which is just back up to the main road, so 32 km from Xamach Dos. So after a quick breakfast and a good-bye to Margo, we embarked.

The Tulum park opens at 8:00 am, and we got there just after that. Before, it turns out, any English-speaking guides had shown up. But shortly after we started walking on our own, they sent Santiago after us, and he was worth waiting for. Tulum was an important Mayan trading center, right on the coast. It was one of the first Mayan cities spotted by the Spanish, in fact, because the walled city was clearly visible from the water.

Many of the ruins within the wall have been restored or at least uncovered, and you can kind of get a feel for what the layout of the city was like and why it mattered. Santiago told us a lot about Mayan culture and social structure that would reverberate later in the day. Highlights of the tour included great views of the big ruins, the view out over the Caribbean Sea, and several tie-ins with things we'd learned from the Mayan guides from Community Tours earlier in the week.

Then back on the bus for a couple of quick errands in the town of Tulum before heading out to Coba.

Coba wasn't on our original itinerary, but after a friend strongly urged that we should go there, even over some of the other, more famous sites, we added it in today. Great decision (and thanks, Steve!). Coba is a neat site, and unlike some of the others, they haven't cleared the jungle out, so among other things, there is some shade that keeps things cooler. Also, they let you climb to the top of the second-highest Mayan pyramid (the highest being at Tikal in Guatemala) anywhere, and you get a spectacular view over the jungle canopy. Very cool, and well worth the climb.

We also got to rent bikes to ride around between some of the more far-flung ruins, which is definitely more fun than walking in the midday heat. We got a pretty good look at a couple of ball fields, where they used to play the ritual Mayan ballgames. We had seen the demonstration at Xcaret earlier, but this gave a better sense of the context of the games within Mayan society.

After a quick bite of lunch, we climbed back aboard the van and headed for Chichen Itza, by far the most famous Mayan site, at least in Mexico.

First stop was our hotel, where we immediately hopped into the pool for a dip and then luxuriated in the showers for a bit. (For all its beauty, Xamach Dos was very rustic, and the showers were a bit weak.) After a week, it felt good to have a strong shower again! Then a very quick bite of dinner, then off to Chichen Itza park, where they do a light and sound show. It was spectacular, of course. The ruins are very beautiful and well restored, and the grounds are lovely and well kept, so the bright colored lights make for quite a show. I didn't really learn anything that I hadn't already read in the guidebook, but I now have a good feel for what to see tomorrow when we go back in the daylight.

We went for the “simultaneous translation” option, which was OK when it worked, but very direction-sensitive and a bit fussy. Add to this that some of the family stopped to watch at a spot that turned out to be an ant hill, and you have some hilarity. My wife moved from the ant hill to stand on a log, and found herself being surrounded by flying bats (very cool!).

After the show, my daughter found a trail of leafcutter ants, and we tracked them for a ways with a little penlight. Those are some hard-working little dudes!

So it was a very busy day, with three major sites and a lot of transit, but it was fun and worthwhile. We got some insights into Mayan class structure (hint: it's good to be the king!) and history.

More on Chichen Itza after tomorrow's visit.

Farewell to Xamach Dos

Today, my daughter and I are both feeling under the weather, so we're staying home while the rest of the gang goes off to tour Punta Allen, farther down into the Sian Ka'an reserve. They've gone with the same Community Tours Sian Ka'an group that we went with to Muyil earlier in the week. The agenda involves snorkeling on the reef, walking through (or perhaps near to) a bird nesting area, more cenotes, and some discussion of the hydrological system of the Yucatan (and perhaps how it affects the local manatees). That last I would particularly have enjoyed, but my sinuses are in full revolt, so reading in a hammock and tending to my ailing daughter are about my limit.

On the plus side, this being our last day and night here at Xamach Dos, we got a reprise of everyone's favorite breakfast (banana pancakes with fresh shaved coconut and maple syrup). (And yes, I know that maple syrup is not indigenous to this area. But it's so good on that meal!) And for dinner tonight, we revisit the lobsters, which were so tasty the other night. So no complaints.

I suppose I should try to summarize my reactions to Xamach Dos. In short, I enjoyed it a lot. It's not fancy, and it's quite remote. There are many, many hammocks, plus lots of beach chairs. Coconut palms, nice clean beach (with land crabs), friendly puppy (Sally) and cat (Meow-Meow). Margo and her staff are quite accommodating, adapting to meal preferences and schedules.

I really appreciate the fact that all the electrical power comes from solar panels and batteries. Goodness knows they get plenty of sunshine! And the owners have placed a number of little solar lights around the resort to make sure one can find one's way in the darkness.

If I have one complaint, it might be that there isn't very much water. I forgot to ask whether it comes from a well or from some kind of desalination plant, but the flow of water in our cabana, at least, was a little feeble. I'm looking forward to a good strong shower at a hotel this weekend!

Oh, about the name Xamach Dos: xamach is apparently the name of the pan used to cook tortillas, and just south of where we are staying is Punta Xamach. So apparently this is the second tract of land in the area. Or so Margo tells me.

Downtime and Adventure Play

Yesterday we went to a lower-key adventure park called Hidden Worlds. Built around a system of cenotes and related caves and such, they've created a park in which one can snorkel, rappel, ride a zip line (two different ones, actually, including one that ends in a spectacular splashdown in an underground cave), and a “sky cycle” through the jungle. Not only is it much closer to our base camp, but it also does things in a smaller, friendlier atmosphere than Xcaret. The whole setup is run by maybe a couple of dozen people, and since the “crowds” are small, they manage very personalized, hands-on service. Things go at rather a more relaxed pace, but that's OK.

And today, more downtime! Hammocks, dozing, and playing in the water.

But first, we went over to look at the ruins across the road. They're small and not terribly distinguished, but they're interesting and easy to get to. It's amazing how hot and humid it is just a few hundred meters away from the beach.

After lunch, my wife and I borrowed a two-seat sea kayak (my first experience on a kayak) to paddle out to the barrier reef that protects our little bay, where we anchored it and snorkeled around a bit. The reef is not spectacular (there might be spectacular parts, but not where we ended up), but we saw plenty of little fish, interesting corals, and a couple of small lobsters. I spotted a number of the little flamingo-tongue snails that live on gorgonian corals.

All in all, a very pleasant way to spend the day. That's what vacation's all about.

Xcaret and Lobsters

Yesterday's adventure was a trip to Xcaret, which is sort of a theme park built around some Mayan ruins, a cenote (fresh-water spring/cave) and some other items. They've made it into quite a nice place, not at all as tacky as I'd been imagining.

First stop in the morning (after driving two hours to get to Xcaret) was the desk where we could arrange various specific activities for the day. As it turned out, the only one people wanted to do was the dolphin encounter. My wife, our daughter, and my mother-in-law all decided to go swim with the dolphins. Having had some fine, natural close encounters with dolphins on our recent Galapagos trip, I decided to forgo this.

They seemed to enjoy their swim. They certainly got up close and personal with the dolphins, but I had to feel that the animals weren't having much fun. I watched them playing with each other between groups of tourists, and they seemed quite pleased with that. During their human encounters, one definitely had the impression they were much more interested in their fish bribes than in whatever was going on with the visitors.

Xcaret has a number of quite impressive animal exhibits, including a natural bat cave, a manatee lagoon, a tapir, some spider monkeys, and a very nice aquarium that features terrific sea turtles, from very small to very large. And as usual in non-U.S. parks, you get a lot closer to most of the critters, which is nice.

At dinner time, we went to the big production show, covering some of the local Mayan history and culture, the Spanish arrival, and the breadth of the blended Mexican culture. The Mayan portion was quite good, including demonstrations of traditional Mayan ballgames, including one much like field hockey or lacrosse, other than the fact that the ball is aflame. Very cool. They kind of gloss over the details of the Spanish-Mayan "cultural exchanges" that eventually produced modern Mexico, making it all sound very easy and peaceful. But they do paint quite a picture of the rich variety of modern Mexican culture.

Today, downtime. I had to beg and plead to schedule a couple of days where we would not plan side trips and excursions, just rest and enjoy this lovely place where we're staying. This goes against the nature of my wife and her mother, who arranged the trip. But they have grudgingly allowed me a small amount of time to enjoy the hammocks on the beach.

So it's a lovely day of sitting and/or lying in various hammocks, reading books, walking on the beach. And then the much anticipated dinner: fresh, local lobsters! Absolutely delicious, grilled to perfection, and served with a tasty cheese pasta. Days don't get much better than this.

Working for The Man

Yesterday was tour day within Sian Ka'an. We were picked up by our guide at 7:30 am, which is notable because it takes about an hour to drive down here from Tulum. But these guys are locals. In fact, they live right around here. Alberto said they used to work through travel agents and tour agents, but realized that they were basically working for The Man, giving away a lot of the proceeds to outsiders and not necessarily promoting the environment.

Our tour took us to Muyil, a complex of restored Mayan ruins within the biosphere, and from there on to a freshwater lake, on a float down a canal, and then later floated through a cenote, one of the many freshwater caves cut in the limestone that makes up the Yucatan peninsula.

Alberto was a wealth of cultural information. For example, when I asked him how they made the mortar that holds the stone ruins together, he gave me a detailed description of the process, from how they cut and stack the poisonwood frame to how and when they burn the rock, to how much lime they add. Quite comprehensive.

Lunch consisted of delicious tamales made by a local Mayan woman, part of the community plan to keep the business in the community. And the cook who made the fruit salad and other side dishes is an artist they hired away from the tourist hotels. He carved a watermelon into a gorgeous centerpiece.

Can'Tcun

We flew in to Cancun on our way to Sian Ka'an biosphere preserve, where we're based this week. Just hanging out at the airport waiting for the rest of the family, I was struck by the nature of the place.

I've written about Americanized Mexico from my last trip to Cozumel. Big difference between Cozumel and Cancun is that Cozumel grew fairly organically from a small tourist town that served primarily scuba divers, where Cancun was created out of pretty much nothing in the 1970s, specifically to attract American tourists.

As a result, the ”city” of Cancun consists of resorts. Hotels, condos, bars, restaurants, sure. But there is no town in evidence. As we ate our Haagen Dazs ice cream in the wildly over air-conditioned airport terminal while the techno-disco music blared, I was reminded of a terrific song we like by Jim Hoehn called “Can'Tcun,” about a couple trying to plan a vacation where she wants a luxury hotel, and he wants a simple tropical vacation. Watching the tour groups with their enormous luggage, I had to recall the lines:

They measure their fun by the pesos they spend
Montezuma extracts his financial revenge
Gringo history I refuse to repeat.

And then standing outside the car rental agency, I was struck by the environmental impact of the tourism business here. I saw fleets of tour buses idling in parking lots with their air conditioners running to cool the buses while they waited for their passengers to arrive.

I realize our visit isn't exactly zero impact, but all seven of us are driving in one van, and at times we won't leave the place we're staying. Xamach Dos, where we're staying is quite environmentally friendly, using solar panels to generate electricity, only the natural breeze as air conditioning, and minimizing water use. The manager even told us not to bring plastic water bottles (we were bringing reusable metal ones, anyway), as she doesn't want them around.

Xamach Dos is located inside the Sian Ka'an biosphere preserve, 32 km down a bumpy road from the entry of the park, down the road toward Punta Allen. It's a lovely spot. We have two cabañas for the week (there are a couple more, but one seems to be under construction, and Margo, the manager, is living in the one the call the tree house right now. Accommodations are somewhat spartan, but hey, we're living on the beach in a biosphere preserve. Can't complain at all!

South of the Border

I'm about to upload all the posts I wrote while on vacation (again!) in Mexico. I'll try to keep things in reasonable order, and will tag everything with "Yucatan" so you can find them easily.

Sadly, I wasn't able to locate my camera before departing, so I have little in the way of pictures from this trip. We did have relatives taking some pictures, and bought some taken by professionals at one or two locations, so that will have to do.

Mostly, you'll have to settle for me painting verbal pictures for you. Heh.

Close to Home

I have, thankfully, not had to blog about cancer much lately. But it's never far from me.

Recently, a friend and coworker lost his mother to cancer. He posted the eulogy he delivered for her on his blog. Not that you need to be reminded, but I guess sometimes it helps to remember that these are not just statistics. Real, wonderful people are losing their lives to cancer, and every one of them has touched the lives of countless others.

Cancer affects us all, in one way or another. Stay strong, help out, and stay healthy.

Snow Bunny, Revisited

I meant to post this when I saw it a couple of weeks ago, but I just remembered today.

Tom Stienstra, who writes the Outdoors column for the San Francisco Chronicle, recently reported on a study of outdoor sports injuries. I was quite surprised, not so much by the fact that snowboarding appeared on the list, but more by the fact that it was far and away the leading cause of trips to the emergency room:

Twenty-six percent of all outdoor injuries reported by hospitals were snowboarders. This is stunning since snowboarding is not available across vast swaths of America, yet the sport creates 1 of 4 injuries in the outdoors.

Really: 26%. Next highest on the list was sledding, at 11%. The snowboarding number is just stunning. Hiking comes next at 6%, followed by mountain biking and personal watercraft at 4% each. My decision to stick to skiing seems better all the time.

The other thing that caught my attention in the column was Stienstra's recounting of his first snowboarding lesson, which sounds much like mine:

I took my first snowboard lesson two year ago with a group of a dozen 7 to 10 year olds and fell 53 times. Over and over, it felt like I was in pro wrestling and King Kong had just hoisted me over his head and slammed me to the canvas on my back. At least I didn't land on my head. An emergency room doctor told me that snowboarders show up with more broken collar bones than anything else, along with concussions, broken wrists and, in catastrophic cases, spinal injuries.

Ouch. Get outside, but play safe.

Smart Appliances

The era of smart appliances is upon us. And for the most part, this should be a good thing. The ability to adjust your thermostat remotely, or enable your air conditioner to adjust to power availability and pricing is just good sense. And even the ability of vendors to remotely diagnose problems instead of sending repair people makes great sense.

On the other hand, it behooves one to be smart about making smart appliances. This notion apparently didn't occur to the makers of the Jura Impressa F90 coffee maker. This is, in fact, the big techie nightmare: that some relatively innocuous, non-critical system opens a huge hole in the security that can lead to wider problems.

The fact that someone can reprogram your coffee maker to pour too much water in the cup is annoying, but can be fixed. The fact that your coffee maker can compromise your computer and therefore potentially your entire home network is downright frightening. Attacking the larger network via consumer commodity products is insidious and potentially devastating. Recent stories about vulnerabilities in wireless routers (you have changed your admin password, haven't you?) and digital picture frames highlight the social engineering aspect of this problem: taking advantage of naive customers to gain access to their systems, from where further mischief can be launched.

Caveat emptor.

A Two-fer!

There's an old saying about baseball, that if you go out to the ballpark every day, you'll see something you've never seen before. Well, tonight I saw not one, but two things I'd never seen before.

The first was a very cool play where Omar Vizquel stole home with two outs and the bases loaded. I've seen a steal of home before (not often), but always as part of a double steal. This was just a case of an alert base runner catching the pitcher asleep at the wheel. Good video in this clip. Better one here.

And the second new thing was that with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, just as A's closer Huston Street was winding up for a pitch to Fred Lewis, the infield sprinklers came on. It took a couple of minutes for the grounds crew to get them turned off again, at which point Street made quick work of Lewis. It was a weird little moment.

Really not a very good game, overall, but definitely worth going to for those unique events.

Cancer News

I just saw this post over at Pharyngula. It's a wonderful article about how scientific medical research is making a huge difference in survival rates for children with cancer.

As I've said many times, cancer is a horrible thing, and we need to work hard to make sure fewer people get it and make sure those who do can get better. And the answer to that is research.

Support it.

And for my Next Trick...

Excellent! Where is our next big dive trip? Komodo. Home of komodo dragons.

I trust that our dive boat will be a little more attentive. It sure is pretty, anyway.

In Memoriam

[Updated with link to Commonwealth Club panel discussion.]

I interrupt my postings about my Galapagos vacation with a sad note.

One of the first e-mails I opened when I got back in Internet range was an announcement that a friend had passed away shortly after I left. Rory Root was not a close friend of mine, really more a friend of some of my close friends, but I liked him a lot, and had developed great respect as well as fondness for him.

Highly unconventional (like many of my friends!), Rory was a college dropout who owned and ran a comic-book store called Comic Relief in Berkeley. But to dismiss him as some kind of marginal social character would be grossly unfair. Rory had a passion for comic books and their newer relatives, graphic novels. And he made that passion work for him, building a strong, successful business and a great network of friends. We were all surprised (and proud!) when Rory was invited to speak on a panel at the Commonwealth Club last year (MP3 of that here).

In addition to the very nice postings on the Comic Relief website, there was a very good obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle this past weekend, and a lengthy posting on the Comics Reporter site as well.

The outpouring of stories and memories speaks volumes about the number of lives touched by this kind, passionate, gentle soul. Rory will be sorely missed by many.

I will resume my Galapagos postings, back-dated into May, shortly.

The Middle of the World

Today we're off to the middle of the world. That is, not the center of the Earth (not the novel, not the movie, or the upcoming remake). Quito, the capital of Ecuador, sits just south of the equator, also known as "Mitad del Mundo." It's about a half-hour cab ride from Quito, and since some of our group wants to do some other sightseeing first, we get kind of a late start.

We've been advised ahead of time that there are two destinations that purport to be the equator. One is a monument erected by some French engineers around 1980, and it contains an ethnographic museum. There is a pathway leading up to it decorated with mounted busts of individuals I presume were the founding fathers of Ecuador (yet another instance where a little knowledge of Spanish would likely have enhanced the experience). And of course, the obligatory souvenir and t-shirt shops. The whole thing is known as Ciudad Mitad del Mundo.

And then there is what is locally known as the real equator, about 200 meters north of the official monument. Here, some of the indigenous people have put up their own museum called Intiñan Solar Museum, where they not only have some educational material about their culture, but also some demonstrations that purport to prove that they straddle the real equator.

I will leave it to others to debunk the demonstrations of things such as Coriolis force swirling water down the drain in opposite directions on either side of the line or balancing a raw egg on a nail. I find it somewhat more convincing that they say GPS devices indicate that it's really the equator. In any case, it was interesting. I've always wanted to know how they make shrunken heads or use blowguns, for example. The sundials and solar calendars were cool, too.

This was not our first flirtation with the equator, of course. Several days earlier, back in the Galapagos, we did a couple of dives at a location known as Cape Marshall on Isla Isabela, which is right about at the equator. Sitting at breakfast on the boat that morning, one of the other divers on the boat had his GPS-enabled cell phone out, and we watched as the boat swung on its anchor that the GPS indicated we were swinging across the equator.

The last adventure of our trip involved getting back to Quito to pick up our luggage and catch our flight home. Leaving Intiñan, we flagged down two cabs, but neither driver seemed very clear on how to get back to our hotel. And just as we got in the cabs, it started to rain. So we're driving back to Quito in the rain, trying to explain to the driver in halting Spanish where our hotel was. It seemed like our map should be helpful, but it turned out our cabbie didn't have his reading glasses. And apparently, the cab didn't have a defogger, either (other than the handy red rag he used periodically to wipe the windshield).

Needless to say, we were a bit concerned about making it back in time to catch our van to the airport. As luck would have it, the other driver stumbled onto a street we recognized, and we were only about 15 minutes late (and the van driver had waited for us!).

Civilization Far from Everything

It's been a little jangling these last two days, as we ease off the diving and back into time on land, so see parts of the Galapagos Islands where people actually live. Yesterday we spent some time in Puerto Ayora, by far the most populous place in these islands. Walking around there, one could easily be in any number of towns in the tropics that cater to tourists: restaurants, bars, art galleries, and t-shirt shops. And oh, yeah: people making a living.

We had a lovely time at the waterfront in Puerto Ayora yesterday, watching pelicans trying to steal fish from the fishermen, and fishermen cleaning their catch and tossing unwanted bits to aggressive sea lions and pelicans. We bought a few souvenirs here and there, and looked into a lot of the shops.

But after over a week of seeing mostly desolate islands and a few other dive boats, it's odd to see groups of tourists and the trappings that follow them everywhere. People dressed up for a night out. Internet cafes. Plastic shopping bags. Drinking straws. Fountains. Boardwalks. Buildings!

All these things that never catch my eye as I walk through my home town or the place where I work seem oddly foreign in this place. And I suppose the fact that the scavenging birds are pelicans, not pigeons, is quite stark. Or the fact that the sea lions just fit in, flopping for a rest on the dock, on the sidewalk, wherever. It's not like they've taken over a part of the town like San Francisco's Pier 39; they're just part of the town here.

The main focus of our stop in Puerto Ayora was a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station. The bits we could see were mostly the visitor center, but we did get to walk through some of the areas where they incubate Galapagos tortoises. These are perhaps the iconic creatures of the islands, but this is the only chance for us to see them. They tend to live quite high on the larger islands, and are not easily accessible in our limited time on land. So unlike the other creatures we've gotten to observe in their natural habitats, we see these only in pens.

The tortoise breeding program is terrific. They rescue eggs from the various islands when they are laid, because they are vulnerable to introduced predators such as rats and pigs. They take the eggs to the research station and raise them for about 5-6 years, then release them back on their native islands. This is key, because all the tortoises on all the islands (and often on different volcanoes on the same island) represent different, unique subspecies. They're adapted very well to their particular environments, so it is important to return them to the habitat that suits them.

Although it was nice to see lots of tortoises (and the young ones are quite cute!), seeing them in this way just wasn't all that satisfying. Maybe it's because I'm jaded by having grown up near a zoo that had a captive tortoise (that we could touch and climb on – yikes!). Or maybe it's just the realization that this is the only practical way to conserve these magnificent creatures. If they didn't raise them in protected pens, more or even all of the subspecies would be extinct or closer to being so.

Animals at Play

One last post about our diving in the Galapagos. Over the last couple of dive days, as we moved back to the southern islands, we encountered wonderful wildlife. In particular, on some of our last dives at a spot called Cousins Rock, I had sea lions playing all around me.

First, as we swam along one side of the rock, one young sea lion would swoop down and dance around me. She would pause right in front of me, make eye contact, and then swim over, around, and in front of me. Then she'd head back up to the surface for air, and come back and do some more. Must have happened about 8 times, and it was great fun to watch!

Then, as we came around to the other side, we stopped by a big boulder, and a whole group of six or seven sea lions of various sizes came by. There were large adults and several juveniles. A couple of them just came down to the bottom and scratched their backs and heads on the rocks, wiggling like very happy critters. Meanwhile others chased each other, danced in the water, and generally celebrated being sea lions. It was quite an extraordinary show, right there, just feet or less from us.

But even more remarkable was the scene at Cape Marshall, where we were nestled in some boulders as the current ran by, and a group of sharks swam through repeatedly. I didn't have the best angle, but my wife had a front-row seat, wedged behind a rock as the sharks swooped right in on the current. She said she counted at least nine white-tip reef sharks, and they were clearly doing something I'd never seen sharks do before. The would swim in from the side, then sort of slide sideways on the current toward the rocks, hang for a moment in the current, then swim off to do it again. Truly, these sharks were playing.

I've never seen anything like it, and I've swum with a lot of sharks in a lot of places. Everywhere else, they were either feeding, hunting, or resting. Sometimes they just swim by. But I've never seen them do anything frivolous before. It was wonderful. I had no idea that sharks had a capacity for play, but that was clearly what they were up to.

Chalk it up to one more incredible experience in the Galapagos. It's hard to go home after all that, but it makes me look forward to further diving this year. We haven't been doing nearly enough of it.

Climatic Anomalies or Climate Change?

We tried one more dive this morning at Darwin's Arch, hoping for better conditions, but it was not to be. Same kind of murky water, lots of green slime covering the sand and reef, and little or no current. So instead of two dives at Darwin, we'll head down to Wolf Island and do an extra dive there instead.

One of the things that makes the Galapagos so incredible and full of life is that the archipelago sits at the convergence of three major ocean currents. The warm Panama current comes down from the north; the cold Humboldt current comes up from the south, and nutrient-rich deep water wells up along the equator from the west.

As a result, the underwater environment is highly changeable. As we were diving, we would often feel rapid changes in temperature as the current shifted direction, getting several degrees warmer or cooler all of a sudden, and often distorting the vision as the different currents mixed. It's a phenomenon we know well from all our diving in California, but very regular and very pronounced throughout the Galapagos.

It's a little unnerving to hear the dive guide saying that he's never seen dive conditions like this at Darwin Island. Apparently Darwin is consistently quite warm and clear, with easily 100 feet of visibility all the time, and currents running consistently and predictably. Yes, it's the change of seasons here, with the hot, wet season giving way to drier weather. But apparently that usually doesn't impact the diving at Darwin.

So one is left with the question, is this just an anomaly, or does is foretell of real, long-term changes driven by global climate change? It's the same question all of us are going to be asking for some time. Does this year's dry winter in California represent a normal, expected drought cycle, or does it portend a shift of climate? The answers to those questions are really important and probably not knowable with certainty for some time.

In any case, it is a thrill and a privilege to get to see this place, even if it's not at its best. If you want predictable conditions and animal sightings, you go to the aquarium. When you venture out into the real ocean, you are at the mercy of nature and the whims of the animals. And that's what makes it worth coming out here.

The Doldrums

After yesterday's excitement, today we had a pretty nondescript day of diving. We're still diving at Darwin's Arch, but the currents have been either in unusual directions or entirely absent. As a result, we've seen almost no interesting animals at all: a few hammerheads, a couple of Galapagos sharks, some turtles. But nothing like the last few days.

Patricio, the dive leader, says he's never seen it like this here. Darwin's water is "always" clear, with predictable currents, he says. We're hoping for better tomorrow, before we head back down to Wolf Island in the afternoon.

It's amazing how the currents and conditions affect the life around the islands. The smaller bits of life on the reef go on. Poking around, we still see all the usual little fish going about their business, crabs, lobsters, morays, and so on. And there are still schools of fish in the water, especially creole fish. But the big critters are just not in evidence at all.

One of the striking things about diving here has been the abundance in the ocean. Big schools of fish, big schools of sharks, big creatures like the whale shark taking advantage of the rich plankton brought in by the currents. Indeed, one of the reasons we're here is to document that abundance. A group I work with, the Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research, and Education (COARE) is here shooting video to help educate people about what a healthy ocean should look like. We can then contrast it with overfished, overused areas elsewhere.

But with the currents calm, much of that life seems to have gone elsewhere. We speculate about the effects of global warming on currents. Maybe it's just the change of seasons. Only time will tell.

Very, Very Special Big

Falling asleep tonight, I was thinking about an incident years ago when our daughter was still learning how to talk. We had taken her to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, in part to celebrate the impending reopening of Fenton's Creamery, a local institution that had been closed for some time by a fire.

As part of the festivities, Fenton's had provided ice cream (naturally) and their mascot, Myrtle the cow. I had never seen this mascot costume, just pictures of Myrtle on the menu and such. Neither had our daughter. Late in the day, she saw Myrtle go by and pointed, indicating that she wanted to follow. We hadn't seen Myrtle pass, so wanted to know what she was so excited about. She couldn't come up with a word for the creature she had seen (truly, the upright-walking Myrtle doesn't look much like a cow), so all she could muster was “Very, very special...big...!” Finally, we followed her, and figured out that it was Myrtle she was trying to evoke. We explained that Myrtle was a cow, and all was right with the world.

I'm having some of the same issues with getting my head around the whale shark we saw today. It's almost impossible to express the grandeur of such a huge, living creature. It is tempting to compare it with another experience with animals of a similar magnitude, when we swam with humpback whales three years ago in Tonga. Unfortunately, the experiences are almost entirely different!

Swimming with a whale, even briefly, engenders a connection. You make eye contact, and you catch a flicker of the intelligence and interest there. The whale may not choose to interact with you and swim away, but you get the clear feeling that it made a choice. And its movements are supple, dexterous, and elegant, often surprisingly quick. With the whale shark, there is no sense of contact, virtually no indication of anything going on inside. The animal moves slowly, steadily, seemingly inexorably, almost like a machine. You don't feel any sense of acknowledgment, much less engagement. But for the fact that it moves at all, you could easily classify the whale shark as non-living. It could almost be a machine, like a Disney animatronic creation.

Yet it truly qualifies as the most incredible encounter I've ever had in the water, in part because with the whales, we spotted them, engaged, and then entered the water. With the whale shark, it was a more chance encounter where we were in the water, it swam by, and we joined it for a while.

All that said, the whale shark did slow or pause several times. Was it giving us a chance to catch up or checking us out? It's impossible to know. It came, it swam with us, and it departed, leaving each of us to impute our own interpretations on its Sphinx-like mien.

My final thought, drifting off to sleep, was of Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Rendezvous With Rama, in which an ancient alien object passes close to the Earth on one of its long orbits around the sun. In the brief time it is within reach, men land on it, explore it, and draw some conclusions before it heads off into deep space again. So it seemed with the whale shark. We intersected minutely with its passage, but seemingly affected it not at all, yet it left a lasting impression on all of us.

It was very, very special. And big. And I'm sure I'll be projecting all sorts of things onto the creature and the encounter for a very long time.

Marine Megafauna

The whale shark is sort of the Holy Grail of scuba diving. They're relatively rare, living only in certain, mostly tropical, waters. They tend to be solitary, and they just...swim. So it's quite rare to run into one. In the group we used to travel with and dive with, it was kind of a running gag: if someone would elect to skip a dive, those who went would return saying they had seen multiple whale sharks or something.

Today we saw one. The real thing. It's hard to put into words just how magnificent these creatures are. The one we saw was female, about 30-35 feet long, and mostly gray with the typical spots on it. And it was beautiful, graceful, and seemingly either unaware of or at least unconcerned by our presence.

It was the third dive of the day at Darwin's Arch, near Darwin Island in the northern Galapagos islands, right after lunch. We were all hanging at the edge of the reef, watching and waiting at around 50 feet. We'd seen a few sea turtles and maybe a shark, but no big show. Then suddenly behind me, I hear noise: human noise. Hooting and hollering and general excitement. Someone tugged on my fin to get my attention, and I see pointing and kicking, as everyone headed off to see this creature.

And there it came, out of the murk, swimming a bit above us. We kicked up to get a better view, then all started to kick alongside, trying to keep up. We kept bumping each other and the rocks in our excitement and effort. The whale shark was swimming into the current, so we had to kick hard and sometimes pull ourselves along the rocks. At some point I realized that I was between the rocks and a slowly moving tail that was considerably larger than I was. One good flick, and I would be a Chard pancake.

It was hardest for the divers with cameras, as they are generally less hydrodynamic, but it was quite an effort for all of us. Besides the adrenaline rush of seeing a creature of such magnitude, there is also the realization that this is unique; you may never have another chance like this, and time just ceases to mean anything. At least two of the guys shooting video got great shots, and several of us managed to keep up with the creature for about 10-15 minutes, until it dove to a depth we could not follow.

After kicking so hard for so long, I was exhausted, my head throbbing. We moved up to shallower water on the reef to catch our breath and try to enjoy the rest of the dive. And indeed, we were visited by a couple of hammerhead sharks and at least one very inquisitive sea turtle. But this will always be the whale shark dive.

The Hand of Man

I suppose I should point out that in this idyllic place, there are still signs of human intervention. Today, motoring back from a dive to the main boat, we noticed a buoy in the water with an antenna on it. Moving closer, we found it was tethered to a fish attracting device (FAD) under the water. This itself is not a danger to sea life, but it indicates that fishermen from the mainland are trying to attract and exploit the abundant sea life, fishing in this marine preserve.

Needless to say, we cut loose the buoy and disabled its antenna. It will be turned over to the park authorities. Interestingly, we were chasing and admiring a big pod of dolphins when we spotted the antenna. It seems possible that they were intentionally leading us to this device, but I try not to read too much into that. It could certainly be a coincidence. Or maybe the dolphins were attracted to the fish at the FAD.

But there are certainly signs that people are exploiting and damaging the resources here. The dive guides tell of sites where they used to see hundreds or thousands of sea horses, and now they have to poke carefully to locate any at all. In the book Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man in the Galapagos Islands, we read about commercial fishing of sea cucumbers. Formerly abundant, now there are areas completely void of them. It's like strip mining, but for living creatures. The ironic part about the sea horses, in particular, is that they are easily bred in tanks; one doesn't need to harvest them from the sea at all, much less decimate the population.

I'm not suggesting that people should be here (That would be the height of hypocrisy, wouldn't it?). But it is unconscionable to come to a unique and pristine area like this and devastate even a part of it. One can at least make the case that early visitors who killed and ate tortoises, for example, had no idea what they were doing in the larger sense. But in modern times, to come to a place and systematically strip an entire population is criminally short-sighted.

Animal Encounters

Just a few notes on the diving here in the Galapagos. We started with our initial dives in the southern islands, close to our arrival point, then overnight motored north to Wolf Island, whence we will go further on to Darwin Island. The diving has been quite amazing already. In addition to frisky, inquisitive sea lions under the water, we have also seen other big animals: hammerhead sharks (a first for us), Galapagos sharks, yellowfin tuna, sea turtles, and perhaps most remarkably, dolphins.

My only previous dolphin sighting in the water came some years back in Hawaii, where we spotted some a great distance away (one benefit to the amazing water clarity there). Today, however, we had spotted some from the skiff before dropping in the water, and for the first fifteen minutes we heard lots of clicks and squeaks from the dolphins still in the area. That alone was very cool, but we also saw a fair-sized pod of dolphins go by, not very far away.

After that, the noise settled down to just a single, repeating sequence of squeaks, which sounded like a dolphin trying to express some message. We then saw a rather large dolphin swim by us very close, maybe ten feet away, after which the squeaks changed slightly, but kept repeating. Eventually, the squeaks stopped and we completed the dive. As we were ascending nearly an hour later, we again heard clicks and squeaks and saw dolphins quite close by as we broke the surface and rode back to the dive boat. It was quite a remarkable encounter of a sort I've never had before. I've seen lots of dolphins from boats, but none nearly that close in the water.

Hammerhead sharks seem mildly interested in us, at least when they're traveling in small numbers. Schools of sharks just pass by; they have other things on their minds. But mostly, the sharks seem to come near, see that we're not food, and head off somewhere else. The Galapagos sharks seem indifferent to us. They go about their business pretty much as if we're not around.

Sea turtles, on the other hand, will often come to check us out. My wife and I have both had turtles come right up and look into our faces, and Josh, one of the trip leaders, seems to attract them with his yellow fins. He's had turtles nipping at his fins more than once!

The other animal we're seeing a lot of is moray eels. However, unlike most places where you just see their heads poking out of the reef, here they just seem to lay about, often with just their heads tucked under a rock, and the rest of the eel draped out in plain sight.

Land Excursions in the Galapagos

One of the great parts of this vacation is that we get to both dive in the Galapagos and also venture onto some of the islands to explore on foot. Today we got to do that twice. First thing in the morning we dove next to a small island called Isla Mosquera, near Baltra and North Seymour islands. Afterward, we got to go onshore, where we got face-to-face with some of the Galapagos unique creatures. Mosquera, by the way, is quite tiny; we could easily walk around it all in less than an hour, even stopping to take pictures. It's mostly just sand, although there are rocky bits, especially along one side. It's a fine haul-out for sea lions as well as a nesting spot for some birds.

The first animals to greet us, before we even landed, were sea lions. In fact, the skiff drivers had to navigate very slowly and carefully to avoid hitting any. Although they are related to the California sea lions we see near home, they are different in some ways. For one thing, they seem a bit smaller, although that may just be because we saw mostly juveniles. At home we see a lot of bulls and adolescent males, but here we had lots of very curious youngsters. Also, they seemed inquisitive, but not territorial. We encountered only one bull on the island, and he objected (slightly) when we got a little too near for his taste. But all the others, including the females who seemed to be babysitting the youngsters, seemed largely indifferent to our presence. I realize this isn't a great picture, but you get an idea of how many pups there were (you can see parts of 8 or 9 in this shot), and how close I got with my puny point-and-shoot Nikon Coolpix L5.

I should note that nearly all of the animals we have encountered are largely unconcerned with the presence of people. Some call them “tame,” but that's not the right word. They are unafraid of people because they have no reason to fear. They are protected from hunting or physical contact, so they have no reason to consider people a threat.

So we had all these young sea lions approaching curiously and playing within mere feet of us. Similarly, we were able to approach the marine iguanas on the island. The only ones that seemed to really notice us at all were a few that I startled when I stepped on a nearby rock. Otherwise, they just continued to sun themselves, even when I crept up close to take pictures.

It was really quite remarkable to be able to walk right up to and among these wild animals and photograph them in very natural aspects. The whole relationship with nature is very different here. I have experienced similar things in marine preserves, such as Point Lobos in California. The fish there are very approachable, largely because they feel safe. It's a wonderful experience to be able to relate to animals on that kind of level, rather than one of fear and mistrust.

The second land stop of the day was on North Seymour Island, where we saw frigate birds (both magnificent frigates and great frigates) nesting as well as blue-footed boobies, lava lizards, and the wonderful land iguanas. Again, none of them really seemed to pay us any mind at all.

Most of the frigate birds were nesting in trees that seemed to be almost dead sticks. Our naturalist guide explained that these were palo santo (“holy stick”) trees that bloom in the rainy season, but in the dry drop all their leaves and appear almost dead. On the mainland, they burn palo santo as an incense. We found a little piece, and you could easily understand that use: It's quite pleasantly aromatic, reminding me somewhat of tea tree oil. The frigate bird pictured here is a juvenile (with the white head), but it shows the palo santo pretty well.

Quick photo note: these are not my best pictures, by far, but they illustrate my points and I'm willing to put them out on the blog. Better pictures are available via other means.

Islas Encantadas

I'm about to start uploading the posts I wrote while we were in the Galapagos Islands. I will endeavor to tag them all properly with "Galapagos," but no guarantees. If I succeed, you should be able to find them all by clicking here, or on the Galapagos tag over in the margin.

I may not have mentioned this previously, but this Galapagos trip is really sort of the dream trip of a lifetime. Not only do I have the degree in Rhetoric mentioned elsewhere on this page, but I double-majored in Environmental Science. And it seems like for any environmental scientist, a trip to Galapagos is rather like a pilgrimage to Mecca, almost a duty, certainly a great desire.

The shadow of Charles Darwin certainly lies heavily over the islands (and not just the one named for him, shown in the attached image). But the islands truly are a wonderful laboratory of science: biology, geology, oceanography. Just fascinating.

I want to go back!

Notes on Quito

Turns out I have a few minutes tonight, so I'll write up soome things we did today.

We got up this morning and had breakfast at the hotel. I guess officially this would be a bed-and-breakfast, but it seems more like a small hotel. The staff are very friendly and helpful. After we ate, we got directions on some fun things to do. Since we couldn't do them all, we chose to walk around the center of Quito.

It was interesting walking through the neighborhood we'd seen the night before. On Sunday, most everything was closed down, and there was none of the club/bar/disco traffic, of course. We walked over to the park where they have a weekly art market, with artists displaying and selling their work.

The items that caught my eye the most were some stylized pictures of the local landscape (it looked vaguely like Quito to me) with a red train going through the sky above, with apples, fish, baskets of flowers, eggs, an balloons falling down into the city. We saw that several artists had portrayed the same general theme, so we figure it must be some local story. Unfortunately, our Spanish wasn't good enough to get the scoop.

My other favorite was a series of variations on da Vinci's "The Last Supper," where Jesus is still the central character, but is surrounded by a collection of modern figures. One had various political figures, from Hitler to Castro to Hugo Chavez to Nelson Mandela to Ghandi. I'm not quite sure what that meant. Another had some of those, plus Albert Einstein and some others. Another had Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Mick Jagger, and other figures from entertainment. I dunno, but I liked them.

We spent an hour or two at the cultural museum across from the park where the art market was. They had very interesting, very accessible displays with explanations in both Spanish and English.

Later, we went to lunch in the old part of the city. We ate at a nice little restaurant in what used to be the archbishop's residence on the Plaza Grande caled Hasta la Vuelta, Señor... The name comes from a local legend about a libidinous Franciscan monk who used to climb over the monastery wall by scaling a large crucifix until Jesus started asking him "Until when, Father Almeida?" It was a good story, fun to read while we waited for our food.

After a brief trip back to the hotel, we met up with the rest of the group we'll be diving with in Galapagos at a nice restaurant called Café Mosaico, which has an amazing, panoramic view of pretty much all of Quito. It's quite stunning, and the food was good. After dinner, we chatted with Alex, the owner. He's from New York City, but his mother is from Ecuador, and he's lived here most of his life.

We're looking forward to flying out to the Galapagos tomorrow morning, and really can't wait to get started diving.

Straddling the Equator

Just a quick post from Quito, Ecuador. We're here for a day before flying on to the Galapagos, so we got to do a little bit of sightseeing.

Turns out our little hotel has free wifi, so I get to sneak in a post or two!


On our way back, we'll be stopping at a place that lets us literally straddle the equator, both the pace where some French scientists marked it andthe place where the indiginous Ecuadorans marked it, 200 meters away. Meanwhile, we got to go to a weekly Sunday art market, which was great and to the cultural museum.

We flew in fairly late last night, so when we went out to find dinner, most of the restasurants were closed or closing. We found a 24-hour cafe that had good food and drink, so that was fun.

Probably the last post for a while, but we shall see!

What's Up?

Sorry for the dearth of posts. Been a busy month at work, plus I've started taking taiko drumming classes the last couple of weeks. Great exercise, and lots of fun.

My wife and I are off on our first extended scuba trip in several years tomorrow. The rest of the family gets to stay home and go to school and such. Awwwww. My plan is to write up blog entries updating you on our activities, and upload them when we get back.

Destination this time: the Galapagos Islands!

Talking to a Banana

On a much less serious note: While Googling about for references to "cognitive surplus" (which is a fairly hot topic among bloggers, as you might imagine), I stumbled across a posting about this fine-looking product.

This seems much cooler than one of those Bluetooth headsets!

Cognitive Surplus

Just found a link (on Pacific Views) to this rather fascinating talk last month by a fellow named Clay Shirky, discussing the notion of cognitive surplus, which really amounts to the amount of brain-time we waste doing passive stuff like watching TV. The amounts he cites are staggering.

It's about a 15-minute video clip, but you can also read a transcript if you prefer.

Or you can probably get a lot of it from this couple of sentences:

However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

And I'm willing to raise that to a general principle. It's better to do something than to do nothing.

How much better? You need to check out the rest to find out.

Outdated and Outrageous

From The Left Coaster, I see that my home state of California is still requiring all of its employees to sign a loyalty oath, per this report from the LA Times:

The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses.

As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom.

Oy. I had long forgotten this bit of McCarthy-era paranoia in the state constitution. I suppose I must have had to sign it myself, back when I was teaching classes while in college, but I must not have taken it all that seriously. And of course, those were different times, at the tail end of the Cold War.

Looks like it's time to agitate for an amendment. Although there has apparently been a move in that direction before, to no effect.

The good news is that the more onerous provisions of the original oath have apparently been removed. Ultimately, I don't really have an issue with having people affirm that they will uphold and defend the constitution, but not allowing personal variations is just wrong, as long as they don't negate the meaning of the agreement.

After a version of the oath was added to the state Constitution, courts eventually struck down its harshest elements but let stand the requirement of defending the constitutions. In one court test, personal statements accompanying the oath were deemed constitutional as long as they did not nullify the meaning of the oath.

Now, the University of California advises new employees who balk at signing the pledge that they can submit an addendum, as long as it does not negate the oath.

But I still think it's time to clear this up. Such regulation of beliefs is inherently unfair. As one dissenter put it,

"The way it's laid out, a noncitizen member of Al Qaeda could work for the university, but not a citizen Quaker," she said.

I'm sure that's what they had in mind when they created this mess.