i've been back for two weeks, so this is getting slightly ridiculous, but here are the next photo installments from the cruise:
sealog 5 (equator party)
sealog 6 (more cool squid)
more sea & sky
adopted by a gannet
sealog 7 (Vampyroteuthis infernalis!)
the first green flash
i've been saving this one since september, partly waiting for the right moment and partly because i find i still have mixed feelings about it...
i bought a dead spider.
i normally give dead arthropod curios a wide berth, because i don't know where they came from, and i don't like the idea of collecting bugs just to stick in resin so someone can look at them on a shelf and go 'oooooh.' (or 'eeeew.') but in a moment of weakness at the camden markets (induced by hunger and the unbelievable throng of other people milling around), i ducked into a stall full of many-leggers encased in all manner of resins. there were tiny scorpion cell-phone charms, large hairy spiders flattened and framed, curled centipedes inside necklace pendants, brilliant iridescent beetles inside heavy paperweights. part of me couldn't help going 'oooooh' (and yes, i appreciate the irony), but i planned to get out empty-handed as i edged along a row of necklaces toward the shop entrance. the shop assistant approached me and asked if i were looking for anything in particular, and i mumbled in what i hoped were fairly unintelligible tones that i didn't see any spider necklaces, so i'd just be on my way...
semi-unfortunately, the guy had eagle ears and brightened immediately. 'wait right there,' he said. thinking myself immune to the (snort) charms of encapsulated spiders, but a little curious, i did wait to see what he had in mind.
and there she was.
luckily for my conscience, it appears that Gasteracantha cancriformis is a common enough beastie and rather widely distributed, although it is not, in fact, found in china (where he thought it came from). i know it could easily have turned out that this was something rare, and i certainly don't intend to make a habit of it. but... look at the amazing spines (hence the common name 'thorny orb-weaver' or 'spiny-backed orb-weaver'). she's so beautiful. and i promise to take good care of her and use her to further the cause of spider-kind whenever she attracts attention.
swoon.
just to ease back into this (especially considering it's not even the right day... is there such a thing as 'ship-lag'?), i'll kick off with some new photos of an old friend, Trite planiceps. i know we've had this one before, most recently in august, but (a) it's a jumping spider and you can never have too many of those; (b) this one just walked right up to me a few minutes ago and begged to be photographed, and (c) the results were good. voila!
i'm back on dry land! there will be news from cape town shortly, but in the meantime i can also start uploading photos. i'll add them to and between the sealogs over the next few days and add the links below for easy access. here are the first ones:
sealog 1
water & air
sealog 2 (sea owl!)
flying fish
sealog 3 (mid-air predatory action!)
new as of 7 december:
looking back, i see that i haven't really described where i've been
living for the past month. since i have ample time for meditating on
my surroundings now that the sampling is finished (actually, with a
week to go before we arrive at port, 'excessive' time might be more
truthful), here's a bit of info about our digs.
i share a cabin, about 3x6m, with a benthic biologist from uruguay. we
get along famously, having startlingly similar senses of humor and each
eagerly studying the other's language. i can't actually imagine being
randomly thrown into co-habitation with someone more compatible, and
i'm well aware that not everyone on the ship has been quite so lucky.
one of the other biologists, who has his own room, shares a bathroom
with a russian guy we have informally christened 'senor enojado' (mr.
angry) - among ourselves only, of course, so shh - because he never
smiles, and in fact meets any attempt at pleasantries with a heavy
scowl. apparently, he also mutters to himself constantly in a low,
semi-threatening tone, when using the shared bathroom. did i mention
that i love my roommate?
but i digress. the cabin is a little like a shared twin college dorm
room, with furnishings in shades of blond wood and a nice dusty blue.
there are two twin berths, each at normal height but with raised sides
(for sleeping security during heavy swell), and drawers underneath.
there's a desk under the porthole and a dangerously comfy sofa (site
of many a siesta, some unintentional). there are several small
bookshelves affixed to the walls, each with a bar across the front to
prevent sudden avalanches, and the three tall cupboards all have
similar bars across their shelves, plus locking doors. one corner of
the room is cut out by our 1.5x2m bathroom, a true 'water closet,'
which contains a compact sink, toilet and shower. the floor is
recessed a little so that the water from the shower runs freely over it
but not into the main part of the room; the ship's movement eventually
herds the slosh into the corner with the drain. mercifully, the
bathroom is also well ventilated - the floor is dry within about two
hours after a shower and laundry hung in there also dries quickly.
this ship, designed in part for acoustic work, is unusually stable and
quiet - we can't always tell without looking outside whether we're
moving forward or not. its normally gentle roll, perpendicular to the
beds, is actually rather soothing, and apart from the occasionally
noisy maintenance work during daylight hours, peaceful sleep is
possible at any time of day (and believe me, i've tried them all. the
only time i couldn't sleep was when a strange, rhythmic thumping
started up nearly exactly above my head - i figured it was some kind of
maintenance thing, as usual, but in fact senor enojado was on the top
deck jumping rope. go figure). we've had to address a couple of small
creaking issues in our room - carpentry, right-angle corners and
constant swaying don't seem to go together very well - but through the
cunning use of paper wads, bandanas and occasional blunt force, we've
won nearly every time.
and so we've spent four weeks in our little cubby in the sixth deck,
about 9m above the sea surface (on average). in our gently rocking
sleep, i think we've traveled about 2000km, which is kind of a strange
thought (plus another ~5000 during waking hours). we have floated
anywhere from a dozen meters to five kilometers above the seafloor and
doubtless passed by many unseen strange creatures, and we've traveled
over about 45° of latitude. (the chilly weather now certainly drives
home how far we've come from the tropics.) it's also odd to realize
that for four weeks, we've lived entirely within a 110m-long steel box,
and haven't seen trees, or cars, or dogs, or a newspaper. (our
newsless bubble was burst briefly when the pebbles slyly fed me a
rumor about michael jackson's death being a publicity stunt... my
credibility on board was shot for a few days after that.) it's odder
to realize that we haven't actively missed most of these things, apart
from our respective important people onshore (news hoaxes
notwithstanding).
i remember the culture shock of returning from my previous voyage in
2004 - suddenly on land, there were street lights, shoe shops, tall
buildings. we had just lived for three weeks without any of this; was
it really necessary? gradually we got used to city life again, and
bought cups of coffee and high-heeled boots and electronic gadgets, but
i think one of the things i like the most about time at sea is the
stepping back from these things for a while. for a few weeks, i don't
need any of them (well, ok, i confess, my music player has been
extremely useful during whale-watches); on future trips (if any), i
think i would only extend my packing list to include many more books
and several kilos of chocolate. it's a good life out here, and while i
will be very ready to be home by the end of six more days without any
work to speak of, i know that i will also look back on the weeks spent
in our little floating world as happy ones.
well, we've come a long way since the first squid report i made after
we completed superstation 1. now we're up to station number 9, and we
have just one left to go (although we've been collecting some extra
samples as the chance arises). we've found 40 species from 21
families, and a good mix of things from the surface waters and things
that live much deeper. our little friend Pterygioteuthis gemmata (with
the lovely photophores) has been present in nearly every sample, while
some other things we have only seen once on the whole trip. and nearly
every catch has brought in at least one thing we haven't seen
previously, so it's still exciting whenever a sample comes in.
our favorites so far, in addition to Vampyroteuthis and the
silly-looking cranchiids, have included some more cranchiids (one in
particular, Egea inermis, is just a beautifully clear sac of fluid, but
with huge golden googly eyes); a tiny, bright-red deep sea squid called
Bathyteuthis; several onychoteuthids in perfect condition (but i'm a
little biased); and a few different species of Histioteuthis, a genus
of particularly spectacular squids that are covered in blue-green
photophores, and have one huge eye and one 'normal-sized' eye.
and yesterday's trawls brought in some more bizarre and wonderful
things. the benthic sample contained two specimens of a small, round
squid called Heteroteuthis dagamensis, endemic to this region and not
previously encountered on this cruise; two other new records for the
cruise followed in the nekton samples. the first was a small squid
whose family we couldn't even decide on at first, but after some
research we think it may be Alluroteuthis antarctica (since we are in a
region where antarctic species occasionally turn up, especially in deep
water). the whole second trawl contained one single, lonely squidlet
(among the fish, crustaceans, jellies and pyrosomes) - but a very interesting one. it's a strange-looking thing, with almost perfectly
circular fins and a gladius (or 'pen') that extends in a thin spike so
far beyond the fins that it nearly doubles the animal's mantle length.
this seems to be a paralarva first described in 1920 (from the
sargasso sea) by s. stillman berry, who poetically called it
Enoptroteuthis spinicauda; more recent authors suggest that it's a junior synonym of Lepidoteuthis grimaldii, so we'll have to look at it closely and see what we can find out.
one thing i had hoped to encounter, especially in this particular area,
has not turned up yet. it's a species or group of species with a lot
of associated systematic confusion (their family status isn't even
certain), and it was first reported from here (the walvis ridge), so
chances of finding it here should be reasonably high. there's still
one station to go and i'm keeping my tentacles crossed, but even if it
doesn't turn up this time, there's plenty to keep me busy and i
certainly won't complain. i just wanted to officially let the squid
gods (or cthulhu, or whoever's listening on the cosmic ceph frequency)
know that if they feel like rewarding me for being a good little
teuthologist this year, a few specimens of Walvisteuthis in the next
net would really make my day.
i spent many blissful summers at a set of camps in northern minnesota
that teach foreign languages to kids through immersion. the kids come
for one, two or four weeks, and do all the usual fun summer camp stuff
(swim, play outside, get poison ivy, push food they don't like around
their plates three times a day), but while they're there, they only
hear the target language spoken by the staff. they are free to speak
english among themselves of course, but at the table, and when
interacting directly with staff, they are encouraged to use words and
phrases in the foreign language, and it works amazingly well. i
learned norwegian this way, two weeks at a time, for six years. later,
when i learned (much more) german, i went back and taught for five
years, and that too was incredibly good for my language skills -
speaking only german for six weeks a summer was like a mini
living-abroad experience, and i loved it.
but it's been a long time - 21 years, actually - since i had the 'new
villager' experience and tried to learn a language from absolute zero,
just by being immersed in it. yet here i find myself, listening hard
to the ship's announcements (all in russian), to see whether i can
catch anything at all. by studying a detailed wall chart of the ship
with labels in both languages, i refreshed my memory on the cyrillic
alphabet, by sounding out words that were similar and extrapolating the
letter sounds i didn't know ('tweendeck' is твеендек, 'tveendek;' 'elevator' is
лифт, 'lift' (i mean, er... what elevator? this isn't a luxury outfit, you
know), 'meteorological laboratory' is, well, 'meteorologiski
laboratoria' or something like that). apart from the really alien
characters, like the letters for 'zh' (ж), 'ts' (ц), and 'ui' (ы), i managed to get most
of them on my own. for the rest i entreated help from a friendly
kitchen guy, who has also been trading us some informal russian lessons
for some english and spanish ones. embarassingly, while we learn to
say 'good morning' and 'thank you,' he (an avid reader of english
detective and crime fiction) is perfecting phrases like 'i won't answer
your questions until i consult my lawyer.' (we do wonder what his life
on land involves.) he also used the word 'insalubrious' in casual
conversation the other day. but lessons in humility are always good
for the soul, so i can grit my teeth and soldier on with 'a little, and
very badly' (my hypothetical answer to the question 'do you speak
russian?', probably doubly useless in that (1) no in their right mind
will ever, EVER think i can speak enough russian to even comprehend
that question, and (2) a much safer answer would just be 'no'). and as
my understanding of the letters and sounds improves, he has less and
less occasion to laugh at my attempts to render the phrases i learn
into intelligible written form, although i think my handwriting will be
like a russian five-year-old's for a good long while yet.
with my newfound skills, i can have such meaningful exchanges as 'hello
/ goodbye' (at any time of day, i hasten to add), 'thanks / you're
welcome,' 'how are you? / well, thanks, and you?' (this last actually
occurred unprompted yesterday with one of the mates in the bridge -
apart from the ridiculous look of concentration and 10-second delay
between question and answer while i dredged the words out of my brain,
i was very proud. we won't talk about the fact that my russian
experiences must always be cheerful because i can only say that i'm
doing well), and i can ask how to say something in russian, probably
the phrase i use the most often but with the least effect, since i have
to hear the word/phrase at least five times before i can remember it.
yesterday's other big accomplishment was reading the names of the
countries whose flags are stored in wooden cubbies in the bridge, for
when the ship is in foreign ports - 'iapano,' 'nova zelandya,' 'avstralia,' 'urugvaya,' 'egyepto.' look out, next i might actually be
able to read the menu in the dining hall! ... although then i would
have to decide whether the joyful anticipation of, say, pizza, would
cancel out the dread of knowing in advance that we were having
liverwurst for breakfast (like this morning).
i don't think i'll be turning spy any time soon, or passing myself off
as a local if i ever make it to russia, but i've always loved foreign
languages, and i have to say i'm having fun with this one. the
pleasantly camp-like atmosphere probably helps, although the drawback
of being on a shipful of adults is that they dare to serve things like
aspic and tongue. luckily, i can now say, 'no, thank you' ... assuming
our friendly russian teacher hasn't taught us to unknowingly say 'my
buttocks are on fire' instead.
every morning (well, those when we aren't still in the lab at
daybreak), we are awakened by an announcement at 7am. today, it went
like this: 'good morning, everybody. ship's time is seven o'clock.
today is friday, the 13th of november. we are still drifting at the
station.'
two things about this announcement struck me, although i didn't think
them related at the time. first, it's friday the 13th. second, we
should have had two nekton samples, starting around 4am, and the
station should have been finished by now. yet here i was, still
happily in bed.
it turned out there may have been a connection after all, at least to
anyone of a superstitious nature. while reeling in the first nekton
trawl, just as the catch was being lifted from the water, the cable
holding the net snapped - literally, twang, ends flying and crew on
deck ducking for cover. this could have been completely disastrous, but
by extreme luck, it wasn't - no one was injured, and what's more, the
net wasn't lost. the seaward end of the snapped cable wrapped itself
twice around the top of the gantry used to deploy and retrieve the net,
securing itself in place in just about the most unlikely way possible.
so the net dangled, but in relative security, until an additional
cable could be secured to reel it in. (this was all related to me over
breakfast, just before i spilled my cup of tea over most of the table -
i'd like to say that that was also abnormal bad luck, but i should
probably just confess that i'm not the most coordinated person in the
morning.)
when the catch was finally brought in, we weren't sure what it would
hold, and what condition it would be in after all the morning's drama
and delay. but we should have predicted that if there was one day of
this cruise destined to bring in Vampyroteuthis infernalis, the vampire
squid, friday the 13th would be it. and not one, but two specimens -
both small (mantles about the size of a walnut and an almond), but in
quite good condition, relatively. Vampyroteuthis is an ancient order
of cephalopods, with a very gelatinous body and thin, delicate skin
that ranges in color from brick red to deep purple-black. it looks
like a small octopus, with eight shortish arms and a deep web, but it
also has paddle-shaped fins and two photophores (light organs) at the
end of the mantle, and two tentacle-like sensory filaments that retract
into pouches near the first (dorsal) pair of arms. our larger specimen
was in better shape, although its mantle was inside out (we gently
rectified this before fixing it in formalin). the oral face of its
arms and web were deep, solid, inky black and the tiny finger-like
cirri on the arms could still be seen. the eyes were perfect and some
shreds of delicate skin still clung to the mantle and fins, and both
photophores were present. although Vampyroteuthis is not terribly rare
in the oceans, specimens of it are rare, especially in decent
condition, so today we consider ourselves lucky indeed.
