sometimes the most mundane aspects of a travel experience make the
biggest impression, so i'd like to dedicate today's entry to food,
preceded by a brief weather report. neptune has continued to smile
upon us, with very gentle swells accompanied by light zephyrs, or
sometimes more refreshingly stiff gusts, as we move further into the
tropics. it is now decidedly muggy and the air conditioning is on in
most parts of the ship, although in our cabin we prefer to leave the
porthole open instead. conditions have been fairly good (in theory)
for whale-spotting, although the whales are not playing along. instead
we've had flocks of flying fish and visits from several birds,
including - of all bizarre candidates - an owl. before today i would
almost certainly have scorned the idea of a sea owl, but short of a
mass hallucination and some very weird camera tricks, i can't explain
it away. this should-be nocturnal land-dweller flew with us for
several hours this morning, in fact, and may return tomorrow, if it
decided to roost somewhere on the ship.
and it was far and away today's most exciting wildlife event. apart
from the whale-spotting efforts, the days until we reach our first
biological sampling stations are mostly revolving around meals. we are
fed four times a day, every four hours starting from 7.30, and all
other scheduled activities (plus naps, owl-spotting, and cards) are
meticulously slotted in between.
my biggest reservation about joining this cruise, after the
inconvenience of its timing and the nearly six-week absence from home
and the pebbles, was actually the food. i freely admit that i am a
picky eater, and i'm pretty sure the relief i felt when i started
cooking for myself was surpassed only by my mother's relief at the same
development. my usual list of don't-eat foods includes (but is not
limited to) onions, seafood (including fish), green peppers, ketchup,
and mayonnaise, plus a few more things usually too obscure to bother
including (but hey, what the heck: veal, duck, any kind of organ meat
or amorphous meat product including most sausages, and beer if that
counts as a food). the list of foods that don't appear on my home menu
but may be eaten as politeness requires is much longer; a small
sampling would include pretty much any bread other than white bread
(especially 'chunky' bread with any kind of seeds, or sweet bread
products like cinnamon bagels), peas, red and yellow peppers, things
with nuts or raisins in them (although i like both on their own),
anything with banana or banana-flavoring other than actual bananas, and
most savory-sweet combo dishes. you can see that the probability of
finding an entirely tintenfisch-approved meal anywhere outside my own
home is near zero.
luckily i married a saint who is both an excellent and accommodating
cook, and whose own don't-eat list is short and very compatible,
consisting of seafood and the easily omittable parsley and pineapple.
unluckily, my saint was not coming along on this voyage, and i would be
at the mercy of an entirely unknown russian kitchen crew for over a
month, who would be cooking on a scale capable of sustaining sixty
people four times a day (enough to give the strongest of constitutions
pause, i suspect) . i packed a few chocolate bars, and a bag of
cookies, resigned myself to probably suspending a few of the don't-eats
(fish, for example), and envisioned either making illicit friends with
some kitchen staff (a working knowledge of russian would have helped
here), and/or returning home in a nearly translucent state.
to no one's astonishment more than my own, i have eaten almost
everything put in front of me; i blame the constant motion of the ship
(it takes a lot of effort to stand 'still'), and the invigorating salt
air. the top-ranking meals so far would have to be the daily soups, a
delicious creamy rice pudding, and a couple of pasta dishes. the
'surprisingly palatable' list contains borscht; a bizarre salad of peas
and chopped pickles, beets, cucumber and carrots; and several kinds of
fish. the 'consumption ban temporarily lifted by necessity' litany (so
far) reads: fish, shrimp, duck, and some kind of salami that was
probably mostly made of blood. and until today i wouldn't have been
able to list anything i actually avoided/refused. but the honeymoon
period couldn't last, of course, and when we sat down to 'tea' (the
3.30 meal) and were faced with bowls of cold chopped chicken buried
under a 2-inch layer of cold chicken-broth flavored gelatine, i drew
the line. i did flop the gelatine layer aside and at least try the
chicken, but i really couldn't get over the resemblance to
jelly-meat-style cat food and had to give up pretty quickly.
it was then that the unlikeliest event of the day, and perhaps of my
lifetime, transpired. the other four biologists in my team watched my
chicken jell-o investigations closely (which i would like to say
stopped short of turning the bowl upside down just to see if it would
hold... but i can't; it did). when i put my fork down, perhaps a
little visibly green around the gills, they pushed away their untouched
bowls as one and shook their heads. and one of them said, in complete
seriousness, 'we know by now that if you won't eat it, we shouldn't
even try.'
well. anyone who knows me will realize how utterly ridiculous that
statement is. i chuckled to myself for the whole rest of today. and i
am considering calling for a helicopter to take me to shore right now,
because i can just tell - no matter how the sampling goes, and what
cool squid we find, i'm pretty sure that at the end of the cruise i
will look back at that statement as my single proudest moment.
hi. i'm in the atlantic ocean, off northwestern africa. in fact, this
morning we officially passed into the tropics by crossing the tropic of
cancer. but let me back up a little.
on saturday/sunday i traveled from auckland to the canary islands
(that sounds so simple... but it involved auckland, lax, heathrow,
madrid, and las palmas over the course of 36 hours). the ship departed
around 10pm (about two hours after i arrived), and by the following
morning we were well and truly at sea, out of sight of land.
so far the weather has been excellent - partly to only slightly cloudy
and very calm seas (although today we have gentle, but noticeable swell
- enough that if i sit back in the chair, squarely on the floor, at the
very farthest point of the roll it starts to feel precarious).
we spent the first day settling in, and all the biologists on board
(about 15, covering a range of zoological fields from plankton to
sponges to fish, squid and marine mammals) met yesterday afternoon for
our briefing about this expedition and our planned sampling schedule.
traveling at 10-11 knots, we won't reach our first official sampling
station (about 1600 miles from las palmas) for about another five days
(with one 'practice' station on the way), but in the meantime my group
is helping with a cetacean-spotting effort, with each of us watching
for whales and dolphins two hours a day. so far one pod of dolphins at
a distance and one pod of about 20 pilot whales have been spotted, but
neither by me. hopefully by the time i'm able to upload photos
(december) that will have changed...
but i did see something rather unique this morning, when i woke up at
4am (hello, jetlag! there you are!). a glance out our porthole
suggested that stargazing might be worthwhile, so i went up on deck and
watched the ship's antennae swaying through orion, taurus and the
pleiades for a while. when i stood up, i realized that something even
better than stargazing was on offer: our passage was disturbing
thousands of pyrosomes, which were flashing underwater like muffled
fireworks, sometimes one every few seconds, sometimes dozens at once.
pyrosomes look like glowing green cucumbers, and i saw them once on
the rainbow warrior, but didn't have the chance to watch them like
this. so i stood by the railing for about two hours, captivated.
and then the squid started flying.
among the pyrosomes, they popped out of the water for short, gliding
hops, each flight maybe 2m, with some individuals making several jumps
in a row. i didn't get as good a look at them as i would have liked -
the sides of the ship are partly illuminated at night but within a few
meters the light dissipates, so while i could see that something
roughly squid-shaped and about 30cm long was definitely jumping, i
can't be absolutely certain that they were squid. but flying squid do
exist (i studied a number of hapless specimens myself that were
originally collected from ship decks, following ill-fated jumps), and
these didn't fly like fish, so i'm going to stand by my first
impression, darkness, jetlag and glasses notwithstanding.
i realize this is sounding like a bad acid trip, but i woke up my
roommate and she can at least confirm that the pyrosomes were real.
i'm not sure whether the others believe me about the squid, since i
was the only one to see them, and we were talking about flying squid
just yesterday (probably seems just a little too convenient). the
conditions weren't exactly conducive to photography, but again, perhaps
by the time i can put photos up here, there will be some evidence. for
now i'll leave it to your imagination.
inkspotters, there is a chance that the entire month of november will be update-free. i am off on a five-week research trip as of tomorrow, to the south atlantic ocean. i hear that there will be email access (kind of counting on that actually), so i hope to get a few posts up here via the pebbles. but if that doesn't work out, i'll tell all when i return in early december. until next time, whenever it may be!
spider friends, in honor of hallowe'en this week (well... our hallowe'en party is tonight since i'll be away next week), i bring you a truly freaky spider. in fact, i consider this possibly the most creepy spider i've ever seen. (and alas, like most of the really cool exotics, i haven't actually seen it myself, so i'm borrowing someone else's photo again - and the credit was extremely difficult to find, so if anyone knows of updated copyright info, please let me know.)
this is an assassin spider, family archaeidae.
for further nightmates, check out this animation, one interpretation of how the archaeid may hunt and feed. on a related page (warning, more seriously creepy-looking bugs) there are lots more photos. and here's a really old one preserved in amber.
not a huge amount is known about these guys, and i certainly can't add anything. there seems to be consensus that the elongated 'neck' region of the cephalothorax is what gives them the height and leverage to support those jaws, so they can kill other spiders without being in range of the prey's own jaws. (mm, macabre.) but from what's been reported so far, they only appear to reach a few millimeters in length (but what about the height? ... eek), so at least if you came across one and weren't specifically out to see it, you probably wouldn't notice. see, there's a silver lining. ;)
oh, and the other silver lining, if you really hate spiders (and aren't just squicked out by this one), is that webnesday will be on hold now for six weeks while i'm at sea.
this weekend we celebrated our one-year anniversary. we still had an outstanding wedding present (outstanding indeed), a mystery weekend away, and decided to cash it in for a getaway in celebration of the past twelve months. (actually a week early, but who's counting? ... er, obviously, we are.)
our destination turned out to be a lovely bach on orua bay, at the northern tip of the awhitu peninsula. the bach was only accessible for two hours at low tide (by driving along the beach), so once we arrived on friday afternoon, we were in for the weekend. and it was blissful. we only saw other people from a distance, strolling on the beach. the manic rain-and-shine weather was perfect for reading, watching movies, beachwalking, and cuddling up on the old couch on the porch, sheltered by an overhanging roof and about 20m from the water's edge (depending on tide). tuis sang all day and kingfishers perched on the power lines, watching for their dinner in the waves lapping below. herons strutted and seagulls dropped unlucky seastars and shellfish on the rocks.
we discovered the long-beached hulk of a small sailboat, nearly snarled in the roots of an overhanging pohutukawa tree; under the roots was a cave fully tall enough to stand up in. we watched the sunrise on saturday morning, then went back to sleep until 11. we followed the decadent menu our friends had planned and provided for us, prowled the exposed seagrass beds and pools at low tide, napped, and lounged around in companionable sloth.
do we really have to wait one more whole year for the next one?
hi. hi! i wasn't very good with webnesday while i was away. but i'm back home now (briefly, more details to follow), and the world of spiders certainly hasn't stood still for me in the meantime. when i had time to look, i did find them in th uk, sometimes obvious against their surroundings (as in the previous edition), sometimes more subtle, like this.
before i wander off and start rallying material for a particularly good edition next week, i want to highlight a couple of gorgeous specimens that tomboy has encountered recently in australia - three lovely orb-weavers, one with golden thread, one with spectacular coloration and one with yellow knees - plus a nice huntsman. sigh, time to visit australia again i think!
when i made that simple statement at the end of the previous post, 'and then, at last, i was home,' it wasn't quite accurate. because, while many aspects of this trip were wonderful and i loved seeing spain and scotland and all the good people we caught up with, let us not forget that it was also the Trip of Woe (see exhibits a, b, and c). which is why it really shouldn't surprise me that, just to round it all out, i've had to compose the following letter to the long-term parking company at the airport. (you may be surprised to learn that i can use capital letters when necessary.)
- - -
Dear Company [name to be updated perhaps, depending how they deal with this],
Recently we parked our car with you for thirteen days while travelling in Europe. We have used your service many times in the past and always been pleased with it. However, on this occasion there was a serious problem.
When I landed on Monday morning (October 5), my flight had been delayed and I was unable to call and let you know due to a dead cell phone battery and misinformation from the people in the airport (who didn’t realize there was an 0800 number, which I also did not have – my own fault). When I arrived at your parking office, there was some confusion, and at first I was told the keys to my car had been misplaced, and then that my car itself was not parked where expected. In all, it took about 25 minutes for my car to be retrieved from the time I arrived, which in itself is not a source of major complaint given the delayed flight, although it was inconvenient as the weather was rainy and extremely cold, and I had been travelling for 36 hours.
However, when your driver brought the car around, he turned sharply into the lot by your office, dropping the left front tire into a deep puddle at the edge of the sealed road. There was an audible and rather terrible scraping sound as the undercarriage hit the edge of the asphalt. I did remark on this to the driver at the time, but he made a noncommittal noise and I did not press the issue, at that moment only wanting to get home.
When I climbed into the driver’s seat, the oil light was on and the oil warning alarm sounded as I drove out of the lot. (We had been aware of a very gradual oil leak, having found a few drops of oil occasionally, but not regularly, on the floor of the garage at home. My husband had checked the oil a few weeks before leaving and had noted that it was getting low, but not urgently so, and the oil light had not come on before he left.) I took the car straight to the Shell station near the airport to check the oil and top up if need be, and asked their associated mechanic to check that the car was all right before driving home. He refilled the oil (3.5 litres were required) and checked under the car, where he observed, entirely unprompted, that there was a brand-new scrape under the oil pan that had caused a significant crack, from which oil was now dripping at a steady and alarming rate. He explained that the damage had to be very recent (less than a day old), since the scraped aluminium had not oxidised at all and no dirt had accumulated over the scrapes. He was concerned at the rate at which the oil was draining and advised me to drive straight to my home mechanic, possibly not even dropping my luggage off at home, in case I ran out of oil again.
The car was duly brought to our mechanic, who has now (after three days in the shop, including one day when the buses were on strike) fixed the leak to his satisfaction. He confirmed that the rapid oil leak was due to very recent damage to the car’s undercarriage. Both mechanics are willing to be contacted and will stand by this information.
We ask that you cover the cost of repairing the damage done to our car by your driver. This includes the labour charge for the repair ($128) and the cost of the oil required to get the car home (4 litres, $97.02). We will happily provide the receipts if necessary and the contact details of both mechanics if you wish to follow this up with them.
Please
feel free to contact us if you require any further information.
- - -
and, update: no word from parking company, but there is still a slow oil leak, plus - bonus! - i found a fresh puddle of coolant under the car yesterday morning. awesome.
on our final full day together, we traveled from peebles to edinburgh, via carluke (to meet another friend from tonmo and see his amazing house-in-progress, a renovation of an old barn that will include one of the original stone walls as an interior feature wall... WANT). we parted company from the pebbles senior in the morning, and so were left to our own devices in auld reekie. upon arrival we checked into what was by far the flashest hotel of the entire trip, and spent a few moments admiring the four-poster canopy bed before setting off for the golden mile. we wandered up market and cockburn streets and made our way to the castle, then opted for a tour of the vaults to get out of the increasingly spitty weather for a bit. we had a great guide with lots of interesting stories (we went with a fairly historic tour, as the 'grisly tales of horror and torture in the darkness!' options didn't really appeal), including one about paisley close, which we later spotted for ourselves. back on the surface, we strolled down to holyrood house, pausing to drool over a tartan wedding dress (well - one of us was drooling) in a shop window, and taking a few detours down the closes. as evening fell, we walked back to our hotel via the rather sinister-looking scott monument, whose uppermost narrow spiral staircase apparently scarred the pebbles for life last time he was in town. we finished the day off with an absolutely delicious italian meal near our hotel (although i unfortunately wasn't able to subtly photograph our dining neighbors, one of whom ordered a calzone that - without exaggeration - was 18" long and 8" tall).
early on saturday morning we took the train to doncaster (and were treated to a spectacular sunrise along the coast, and the brightest rainbow i've ever seen, which stayed with us from sunrise until we arrived two hours later) for lunch with some relatives. the pebbles stayed on for a few more days (remaining in england an extra week for his nana's 90th - happy birthday, trudi!), while i was due to fly out from heathrow that night and so made my way back to london. my flights (via hong kong) went reasonably smoothly, apart from a plague of crying children (i admit that, as the flights wore on, my inner monologue changed from 'could you please comfort your child so the rest of us can sleep' to 'SHUT YOUR KID UP OR I WILL DO IT WITH THIS AIRPLANE FORK'), and a first officer who fell so ill after everyone was already seated for departure from hong kong that he had to be removed from the plane. but then, at last, 41 hours after leaving edinburgh, i was home.
