Well since I am stuck here in our house recovering from the infamous dengue fever while everyone else gets to go out and play in the jungle I suppose I will write a blog post catching up on all the stories and little anecdotes that I have been neglecting to write down, mostly due to laziness I guess.

Life in Trinidad has been quite interesting. We get some chance to interact with locals, whether it is with Mahase and Jogie, our neighbors and landlords of sorts; people at the grocery store, people at the bar or just random acquaintances. We learn bits and pieces about the culture of Trinidad from all these people. The country is made up most basically of two groups of people, Indians and blacks. The Indians are mostly descendent from the time in Trinidad’s history when it was a British colony. The British would have Indian indentured servants working on their farms, and when their servitude was up, they themselves became farmers. The blacks, like in most of the Caribbean, are descendent of the time of the slave trade. The striking thing about this though, is that white people are basically nonexistent. It has been a very interesting experience living in a country where your race is the distinct minority. It is such a departure from what I have been used to at home. I feel like I haven’t really been able to take full advantage of the juxtaposition of my situation, mostly because I live and work and recreate with 9 other white people, and we rarely have the opportunity to travel outside of our little circle. Which on one hand is fine because they are all good people that I enjoy being around for the most part, but when one goes to the grocery store or to town to do whatever, it is a bit annoying walking around in a pack.

Anyway, that is neither here nor there, except some interesting situations arise from our whiteness. One, is that we are often asked if we are enjoying our holiday in Trinidad, and I can say with confidence that outside of Arima 99% of the populous just assumes we are tourists. Which is, when you live in a place for months at a time, a little annoying. At the same time it is totally satisfying to be able to say that no, I am not a tourist, and yes I live just outside of town, I have been here for a number of months and I probably know way more about some things in your country than you do. Another interesting situation that arises is that I am often referred to as “White Boy” or “Whitey.” This occurs especially when I am in the car driving through town. I have found through numerous experiences is that the best way to deal with the situation is not to ignore the cat caller, but to respond in the most nerdy American white-boy voice I can muster and inquire as to how the civilian’s day is proceeding. In addition, Trini men like to show their appreciation for women, especially white women, by making an extraordinarily loud kissing noise as they walk or drive by. I have also found that the offenders are usually quite surprised when a male in the group of women returns fire with a kissing noise of his own....

Tropically Diseased

I have a real excuse for not posting for a while. I swear. For the last week and a half I have had Dengue Fever. It was without a doubt the most miserable week of my life so far… and I really, really hope I never have a worse week. It started out as just feeling really tired. We had just returned from the mall and a movie (Megamind 3D, which was actually fairly entertaining), it was around 7:00 pm and I just wanted to go to bed. Which was quite opposite of my recent norm, as I had been staying up until at least 1:00 or 2:00 am and getting usually around 5-6 hours of sleep. So at first I just thought that it was just the night-owling that I’d been doing catching up with me. And then I started getting a bit cold while wearing jeans, shoes and a long sleeve shirt in our house. Which just doesn’t happen. So I went to bed. I woke up the next morning with a terrible headache and feeling pretty worn out. I pretty much stayed in bed for the next three days trying to wait out a fever that was ranging from 99.5 F to 102.8 F. It was three of the worst days ever. My eyeballs hurt like hell, my back hurt like hell, my knees, shoulders, head and all my muscles just plain hurt.  I would go to bed sometimes feeling quite warm then wake up freezing cold. And sometimes I would wake up freezing cold with blankets piled on top of me but I would be sweating uncontrollably. It was weird. And quite unpleasant. The worst part about it was I would have dreams that I was feeling great, then when I awoke I would feel worse than ever.  Finally on the fourth morning I woke up and took my temperature and the thermometer read 103.6.

So it was time to go to the hospital. I had to wait for the truck to get back from the field in the early afternoon, but then it was on to the emergency room. I got to the ER, signed in, got triaged, and sat. For 3 hours, all the while alternately freezing and burning up. In that time a total of 4 people were called to be seen. The rest gave up and left I suppose, because when the head nurse finally came out with the doctor to see the patients who were waiting there were only 5 of us. And I happened to be first in line to be seen, which was cool, but also it meant that I had been waiting the longest, which was discouraging. I told the doctor my symptoms and he said that he suspected it was Dengue, which didn’t really surprise me. So I had a blood test (Yes mom, the needle was sterile. Despite the less than amazing conditions they still run a real hospital). Which came back positive. (Surprise!) I got this cool paper with the results on it.

So I was referred to the Dengue Management Unit at the hospital in the morning where I was to have another blood test, this one to measure my platelet levels. The reason being that if my platelets were to drop too low as a result of the Dengue I might start bleeding from places including, but not limited to, my gums eyes and ears. Luckily my platelet levels were fairly normal even though I still had a fever and was pretty achy. But at least now I knew that I wasn’t going to bleed out. The doctor wanted to see me again the next day, and so I went for another blood test feeling great, at least comparatively. And I was discharged since I was on day 8 of the illness and I was feeling alright. So I will spend the next couple of weeks in Trinidad, my last couple, sitting around the house and helping to process. This illness and my pending recovery mean that my field season is effectively over. Which is a bummer. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks I’m afraid.

Tobago, and Farewells

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind! We finished up our FIBR guppy mark-recapture, celebrated the Hindu holiday Diwali with our village, vacationed on beautiful Tobago and then began and finished the Funk guppy mark-recapture. Not only that, a new crop of interns have arrived, and a few of the veterans have left.

I don't have time to elaborate on the happenings currently, but here are a few pictures to tide you over until I write again.

Halfway

So yesterday marked my halfway point, and things are going swimmingly here in balmy Trinidad. We've been working extra hard the past couple of weeks (hence the lack of blogging activity) in order that we get an extra day off to make a trip to beautiful Tobago! Work has been going well, we did indeed gain an extra day off, and thank God we were ahead of schedule because Hurricane Tomas passed right by our little island, and showered us with a steady rain that would have certainly put us at least a day behind schedule had we not been working in the lab instead of in the field like we were previously scheduled to do. So Tobago is on. Except not how we had anticipated. We actually are sticking around an extra couple of days in order to participate in a celebration with our neighbors. We live in a Hindu village of about 50 people, and this week marks the end of their holiday, Divali. So we'll stick around and participate in the lighting of candles, busting of bamboo and fireworks. Which is really exciting, I think it will be great. The preparations look amazing so far. Pictures will follow.

We have also on our couple of days off done some great stuff. We went to Caroni swamp and saw some great birds, mostly the Scarlet Ibis, of which I have a few pictures. This bird is really quite striking.

Also I have been spending some time up at our other house, called "The Duchess's" (it is owned by a supposed wife of some duke in Norway... no one really knows...). It was a very relaxing time, as there is no electricity, and very few people. It is nestled up in the Northern Range of Trinidad, and is very hard to get to, seriously the SUV we have could not make it up the hill carrying four people, so half of us had to get out and walk.

                                           

Internet time is at a premium so I am finding it harder to and harder to make posts here, which is unfortunate, because I really do like blogging. I will make more of an effort to write posts (I swear this time. Really.)

Bird Photos

Here are some photos of birds that I took from on our front porch.

Liming Time

Wow, long time no post! It has been quite a while since I had internet, and quite a bit has happened between the last one and now! First of all I completed my first session of guppy mark-recapture, which is an achievement. It was a great experience- two weeks of guppy fishing and processing. I’m fully in the swing of things here now, I pretty much know the drill and can pretty much do everything now.

One big thing that happened is that we had our first time off. We utilized it well, taking full advantage of three days of relaxation. After work the last day of our mark-recapture we all showered (thank God) and piled in two vehicles (there were ten of us in two super small vehicles that actually were only supposed to fit 9 people) and drove east and then north to a sleepy little town called Grande Riviere where we had made reservations at a little beach-front hotel. The place was perfect; we were the only people there, there were good, comfortable beds with clean sheets and AIR CONDITIONING! The air conditioning was seriously so nice. I was actually cold at night and had to use a blanket. It was the perfect few days, we just hung out on the beach during the day, and limed at night, drinking beers and run drinks made with fresh coconuts. We also invented the Trini version of the Irish car bomb.... the Trini Maxi Bomb. (Maxis are these mini-buses that are sort of like a makeshift public transportation system.) The drink consisted of local Trini favorites--- Mackeson, an OK stout beer, and a shot of half creme de cacao, half White Oak rum. It was pretty awesome. I hope it catches on.... (it's not going to)

We had one more day off after the beach, and utilized it by heading to the mall and seeing a movie and soaking in a last bit of A/C. We saw Dinner for Schmucks. It was awful. seriously the worst movie I have seen in  a really long time. I wanted to walk out at multiple points in time. But it was still fun to see a movie.

And then it was back to work. Not having internet has made me a bit lazy in preparing posts, so I'll have to try a bit harder in order to have some more profound thoughts. 

BEACH DAY!

Well, lots of exciting things have gone on since the time of last posting. Immediately after the previous post most of the group went to see a movie. We all paid TT $22.00 (around US $5.50) to see “The Town.” It was a pretty good film, and we all agreed we were at the least entertained. And there was air conditioning. And the ticket was really cheap. So it was a good experience.

The next few days we did the usual work routine, catching guppies and processing them in the lab. One day we went out in the early morning as usual, got to our stream, unpacked and had about ten minutes of fishing time before it started a total downpour. We are in the wet season here, so it is normal to have rain, and indeed we have at least a 5 or 10 minute shower every day. This particular downpour though lasted much more than 10 minutes and was particularly intense. Will, the person I was fishing with told me after 10 minutes to watch the water level in the stream, if it went up an inch, then it was time to go, as a flash flood would be coming. So after 15 minutes or so the water was up an inch, and we packed up and headed out, and as we were doing so, the water was steadily becoming more and more brown and rising quite quickly. By the time we were leaving half an hour or so after the rain had started the river was a torrent, and the water level was up at least two feet higher than normal. At this particular site we have to hike up and back in the stream because the walls of the ravine are so steep, which presented a particular problem… If we walked in the stream, we would assuredly be transported swiftly downstream and over rocks, trees and waterfalls. So we inched our way along the side of the what I will now call a river, climbing on rocks that were out of reach from the stream bed just an hour or so before, but were now at the water’s edge. At a few points we had to cross from one side to the other due to particular impediments, and the four guys basically made a human chain across while the girls inched across using us for support. More than one person lost their grip and was swept a ways downstream. We eventually made it to our trailhead and out of harm’s way. Everyone in the group used their heads and stayed safe, working well as a team. It was quite an experience, and actually kind of fun.

The next couple of days we worked frantically to catch up from our flood-out. We had a day off on the calendar and we wanted to keep it there. On the second processing day/fish release day I got sick. Which is the worst. I was really looking forward to going to release the fish and have a swim in the river. Unfortunately I was not the only person who was sick. Two others dropped out as well, which meant that four people had to carry all the fish bottles filled with water back to the stream. (I/we average about 18 liters when we have 6 or 7 people, so having only four people is really a stretch) Anyway, I stayed home to rest and basically slept all day, I didn’t even know that the other people were sick and in the house even. Luckily the next day was our day off, to be spent at the beach. Miraculously, I recovered enough to feel like I could make the trek north to the coast.

The beach day was great, but the sun wasn’t out much, which was just fine with me, because the medication I started taking to combat the sickness makes my skin super sensitive to sunlight. We spent most of the day in the water just messing around, body surfing and such. I brought a small fishing rod and reel with me as well, and we had fun tossing a lure in, although we didn’t catch a thing, or even get a bite. I’m still hopeful that I’ll get a chance to do some real fishing sometime.

After a few more days of working, I had to go into Port of Spain, the capital city in order to try to get my visa extended (see the previous post about that fiasco). We woke up around 5 am in order to drive to the city and be there around 7:00 am, get to the immigration building, take a number, wait, and then get called to the desk. At the desk, I simply filled out a paper, and handed it to the worker. She told me “Come back on the 22^nd”. So I have to go back and get my visa officially extended. But we took the time in Port of Spain to get a smoothie from this little shack. It was a delicious combination of sea moss and pumpkin. I have no idea what sea moss is… I guess it is some sort of algae maybe. Also we walked around a bit and brought back roti for everyone for lunch. Roti is a sort of Indian dish, two layers of dough with some egg in between, then wrapped and stuffed with curried meat, and sides. I had goat with pumpkin and potato/channa (channa is chickpea). Goat was ok, a bit tough though and I probably wouldn’t get it again.

Things are rolling along here! I’m having a great time so far.

Bieber Fever

So I’ve been here in Trinidad for nearly a week, and I’m beginning to settle in. I’ve had 3 full work days at the time of this composition, and probably more by the time that this actually gets published. The rest of the group returned from their vacation on Tobago and our party of two here at the house quickly became a party of nine-plus. Stephanie, stayed home from Tobago to pick me up from the airport, Erin, Katie, Corinne, Nicole, Katherine, Will, Mike, and I have all been working on the Guppy mark-recapture project, and Brett, Karen, Keely and Andy have been working on other parts of the project. I’ve started to get to know everyone a little bit, feeling out personalities using my standard barometer of the poop joke. In my 23+ years I’ve found that you can find out a whole lot about a person by their response to a poop joke.

The living arrangement here is typical of a developing country in a tropical location, with our house having lots of large windows with screens and steel bars, mostly concrete/cinderblock construction. I share a room with two other guys, and I have a large mosquito net above my bed, which I haven’t used to date, but I think I am going to start, because I think that I’m getting a little bit up during the night. And speaking of getting bit up, I’ve pretty much come to terms with the fact that I’m going to get Dengue fever. There isn’t any prevention and there isn’t really any cure except to wait it out. But I’m getting bit a lot during the day by the type of mosquitoes that carry it, so it might just be a matter of time… I hope not. We have a nice view of the ridge across the river, and although our view is a little limited it is really nice to see the jungle trees and some nice tropical birds. Sometime soon I’ll try to take a few photos.

On a side note, someone just turned on “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira as I am writing this. I just thought that everyone should be aware.

Anyway, here’s a little bit on what I’m doing here in Trinidad. I am part of a team who goes to a number of streams and catches guppies. Yes, the same guppies that you can buy at the pet store, although these are a bit less colorful, but I think that some of the ones we catch are way more impressive than the ones you can buy in the store. Once we catch the guppies, we put them in bottles and bring them back to our lab (just a room off the side of our house) where we mark each fish with an injection of colorful plastic under its skin, weigh it, measure it and take a photo. Once we do that, we take the fish back to the stream where we caught it and release it in order that we can catch it again. The most basic point of our project is to track the life history of the guppies over generations. I’m still a little fuzzy, but if I understand the most basic point of the project, it is to demonstrate that evolution can happen very quickly. We see the evolution in the changing of life histories. Females will have lots of small babies in an environment with high predation, and in areas of low predation they will have few babies but they will be large, with a better chance of survival. In biology this is known as R selected vs. K selected. (just the jargon for two strategies of reproduction). I’m getting the hang of what is going on, and I’m feeling not so lost during field days and in the lab preparing, which is good I think. It’s been a while since I’ve been the new guy and not had any company.

While adjusting, I’ve found it hard to have my camera out and taking photos, although I did get to the field and take a few.

Bill Gates, Donald Trump.... LET ME IN

Whew. Well I’m here. It was quite a long day. It really was fine except for a McDonald’s filet o fish replacing a double cheese mix up in Dallas. And of course the immigration fiasco in Port of Spain…

I started my day off well, I got to the airport in St. Louis in plenty of time, said goodbye to Mom and headed off toward security, where I was sure that they would make me take my camera out of my bag and explain to them what it was. But they didn’t, thank God. And I was on to my first flight of the day, St. Louis to Dallas. No problem. I got to Dallas, had to take the “Airtrain” to another terminal, and decided to pick up some lunch. This is where the Filet o Fish fiasco happened. Actually not that big of a deal, it probably didn’t ever really reach fiasco status. And then I was on the next plane, this time a 777 instead of a MD80, and on my way to Miami. I liked the 777… it had a bit more room than the other two. I got to  Miami, had to do a quick terminal change, no big deal, and then I called a few people and said some goodbyes, as telephone is probably not happening for me for a while. I was on the plane, a 757, bound for Port of Spain, Trinidad. 757s suck if you’re taller that 5’4” by the way. The flight was fine. It was actually pretty cool to fly over Puerto Rico and see all the lights. There were a ton of baseball diamonds lit up. (cue grandpa voice) It reminded me of my playing days.

We touched down in Trinidad, and I was feeling pretty good, but then there was a bad omen. The health inspector was not there to meet the plane to collect the proper paperwork. So we waited at the gate for 10 minutes. Minor in the scheme of things to come…

I went to the line marked visitor at immigration, waited, and waited, and waited. And it was finally my turn. So I went to the officer, gave him my passport and slip, and told him what the purpose of my visit was. He looked at the slip, saw I was staying 88 days, and decided to have his supervisor call the place where I was to stay. Which, as it turns out, is not actually where I am staying. But anyhow, they took my passport and told me to wait. So I waited. And waited longer. And longer. And longer. And finally the guy told me that he needed someone from the University of the West Indies (located on Trinidad) to call and tell them I was legit. Which is a problem, because I only had one name of someone from the University of the West Indies, and it I only had her office telephone number, and she has no idea who I am…

So after making frantic phone calls via skype, (thank God I had my computer and there was some sort of free internet), I got a hold of the person who was picking me up (thank God she didn’t leave) and showed the immigration people that I did indeed have a return ticket to the US in December, and dropped a couple of names, the let me into the country.

But only for two weeks.

I have to go back to immigration and show them the proper paperwork, and to be honest, I am not really sure what the proper paperwork is. So hopefully they do not kick me out of Trinidad in 2 weeks.

Bed time.

View from our front porch

Home Sweet Home

So I've been back in the good ol' U.S. of A for about a week now. Which seems like a long time sort of. Mostly because I have gotten quite a bit of stuff done while I've been here. Except putting away the clothes from my suitcases, that is... Yes, they are still half full / half spilled on the living room floor. Instead of putting the clothes away, I have begun the daunting task of cleaning my room and closets. This is quite an undertaking, because I don't think I have done anything like this since we moved into this house when I was in 5th grade. So needless to say, some cousins will be getting some hand-me-downs and Goodwill will likely see a windfall. I am already on day 2 of this operation, and I foresee it totaling 3-4 days. So why waste my time on this while at home for such a short time? I guess I don't really know when I will have another chance to do anything like this, so I thought while I had the time it would be a worthwhile thing. I won't post any pictures of the carnage in an effort to save myself some embarrassment.

I've quickly been ticking things off the list of things I was going to do here. One of the first items to go was a having a steak. mmm mmm! It was nice to have some real beef. That's neither here nor there though. I got some yard work done for mom, and went swimming one day. Also, I invested (ok, I blew half my summer salary) in a new lens for my camera. I got a super-telephoto lens that I can take some pictures of wildlife and such with. The impetus came when I was in the woods taking some photos, and I saw a really nice pair of indigo buntings, and I tried to take a photo of them, but they were just so far away that they were tiny in the frame. If I wanted any bird photos to turn out in Trinidad, I would have to have something different. So I broke down and got it. Here are a few photos that I took with it.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Archilochus colubris

Wild Turkey, Meleagris gallopavo

I also have been seeing a bit of wildlife in the woods and in the yard around the house. These are various creatures taken using various lenses that I have.

This Five-Lined skink, Eumeces fasciatus

'

Eastern Box Turtle, Terrapene carolina carolina

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucus

Things I will do when I get home on August 17th:

Hug my parents.

Eat a big fat steak, medium rare.

Have a real beer.

Listen to “Empire State of Mind” and “Young Forever” by Jay-Z.

Watch TV.

Not be surprised when a stranger waves.

Marvel at how cheap food and beer are.

Ride my bike.

Sweat my ass off.

Make gratuitous numbers of calls on my cell phone.

Wear shorts.

Go swimming.

Get a tan.

See some stars.

Shave my beard.

Listen to insects at night.

Go fishing.

Miss Iceland.

The remnant population

Today is my last full day in Iceland. I have spent the past three days here in Reykjavik, and the few days before I arrived here were spent in Mývatn frantically finishing the processing of our samples, taking down our sites, saying goodbyes and cleaning up the house, barn and field station. This frenetic pace is certainly to blame for my recent lack of posts. I will do a bit of recap of our last days in the North.

About 5 or 6 days before we were to depart Mývatn we were informed that another scientist on our project and his family were to arrive at Kálfaströnd. This usually would be welcome news, but with 3 children already in the house and 3 more arriving we began to be a bit concerned. We three interns and Jamin were asked to move to the field station. Which sounded OK when we discussed it before the arrival, but when the time came it became a bit of a hardship. We kept asking ourselves if we were really to pack our things and move to the field station when we had only 5 nights left in our house? Bre and I had just gotten used to our new quiet space in the attic. And we would come to the house just for meals? And there would be another group cooking in our tiny kitchen? 14 people in our house at meal time? It just didn’t make sense. So we didn’t pack, hoping that we could convince them to go to the field station for a few nights at least. It didn’t work. So we moved. And it turned out to be ok, but at the time none of us were too happy. The field station became a bit of a refugee camp, as the four of us threw all our possessions into bags haphazardly and dumped them on the floor when we arrived in our new home.

Our final days working in Mývatn were quite strenuous. We scrambled finish our samples, and worked ~14 hour days for nearly a week. And while all this was going on we had become addicted to the TV show “Mad Men,” which Kyle had on his computer. This meant we would watch episodes from when we stopped working at 23:00 until at least 1:00 or 2:00. We didn’t exactly get much sleep. Also during these days, I celebrated my birthday, complete with cake and ice cream! I can’t say it was the most special birthday ever, really it was just another day that we were working really hard, but it was certainly nice to be in a beautiful place with people that I like.

We finally finished all our field sampling on the 11^th. Which left the morning and early afternoon of the 12^th to pack up the lab and clean everything. Which we all thought was never going to happen. But it did. Just in time to drive to Akureyri and pick up our rental car to drive to Reykjavik. The drive south was nice, but the landscape in the west certainly is not as scenic as the drive taking the easterly route. We made it to our temporary home, Oli’s apartment. Which also became something of a refugee camp, as there were 6 people (Oli’s cousin was visiting as well) crammed into his studio. Which incidentally has a single air mattress and a single chair. And a really hard floor. We had a fun night in Reykjavik though. It was great to be there again with good friends. We did the usual bar-hopping, hitting some favorites like Bakkus and Boston. Bre even left a souvenir, which I have passed many times as I walk back and forth from downtown.

The next morning it was time for the crew to take off. Bre, Jamin and Kyle’s flight left four days before mine did, so we said our goodbyes and I was left to hang out with Oli and his cousin Dave for a few days. We also did the typical Reykjavik Friday night, visiting some friends at a “house party” and then heading downtown for some bars and eventually ingesting a hotdog to cap the night off.

The following day I ventured back downtown to walk around and hit a museum or two. I ended up at 871+/- 2, which is the settlement museum. Basically this place is a preserved archeological dig of what is probably the first settlement in Iceland. The museum is really quite well done and it gives some indication about what life was like in the 9^th century in Iceland. After this, during my rambling about the city, I ran into Oli and Dave, and we contemplated what to do for dinner. Wit hit the Bónus, and decided on an Icelandic oddity, horse. It really was quite good. Much milder than I expected, and certainly it was not tough. The meat did have a distinct flavor though.

Yesterday I wandered about town again, this time stopping at the National Gallery of Iceland. There was some really great art from Icelandic artists, and a whole lot of it I just didn’t get. I guess that comes with the territory of being a scientist… There also was an exhibit of Edvard Munch, which was quite nice. It contained mostly lithographs and prints he made. Unfortunately “The Scream” was not present.

I returned home and saw Oli and Dave off, as they were heading eastward to camp. And now I am alone in the city, sort of just hanging out. I will hit a couple of more museums, and have a drink with my archeologist friend Frank, who is still in town, but it really is quite lonely. And with that, I am quite ready to head home.

Just picture whales floating by

My time here in Iceland is winding down quickly, I have fewer than two weeks left on this island. But just because our time here is becoming short, it doesn't mean that we have fewer things to do! There are a number of side-effects to the dwindling days. The signs of late summer are beginning to show in the vegetation and animals. Green, green grass is becoming a bit yellowed, most of the birds are off their nests and the ducklings are getting larger and larger. The length of the day too is shortening. No longer is the sun up for a full 24 hours. For the first time since May, there is darkness at night. The darkness is short, but increases by about 7 minutes every night. It was quite striking as we drove home from field work in the North to crest a hill see street lights on in the village below. We may even see some stars before we leave. A side effect of the waning of the midnight sun is the arrival of a real sunset. As of late, the sunsets have been spectacular.

A view from the mountain above Húsavík

As a result of our realization of our imminent departure we are scrambling to check things off our list of stuff we wanted to do while we're here. One of those things was to see a whale. Last time we went whale watching, all we saw were some dolphins, and while cool, they aren't whales. Luckily, we had reports from an acquaintance of ours who works for the whale watching company that blue whales had been spotted in the bay near Húsavík, which was quite fortunate, because Bre, Jamin and I just happened to be heading north to check our transects for the last time, and take down the sampling sites. We worked in the morning and at lunchtime we talked to our friend and got on the tour he was guiding. We were quite excited because it was a beautiful day, and we had a chance to see some whales. After about an hour and a half motoring out of the bay we spotted some dolphins going crazy! There were about 20 of them and they were doing these aerobatic jumps! We were really far away unfortunately, but it was still really cool to see.

We kept on going and finally we saw a whale surface. It was about 100m from the boat, and it surfaced about 3 times, and dove back down for about 10 minutes. We were a bit disappointed because there was no way that this was a blue whale. It was quite small, probably more along the size of a minke. But it was still cool to have seen a whale. 

And then this hulking mass of a whale surfaced 10 minutes later, and right beside it was the small whale. It was a blue whale and its calf. These pictures really offer no frame of reference as to the size, but this link shows a picture with a scale diver. The size of this whale and its calf was just incredible. Not only were we all able to check something off our list of things to do in Iceland, we all checked something off our list of things to do in life. We had seen the largest animal to ever exist. It was really breathtaking.

                                        

North to South

So a while back I mentioned that I had out some applications for jobs for after my stint in Iceland, and thankfully one came through! I was offered an intern position with a group mainly from University of California-Riverside who works on the Caribbean/South American island of Trinidad. I will be flying down to join the project in mid-September and returning mid-December. The project, as I understand it, is looking at guppies (yes the cute tropical fish that many people keep in home aquaria) and how they evolve to different rates of predation in tropical streams. So I will be catching and tagging many, many guppies. At this point I don't know a whole lot about the living situation, except that it is "rustic" which means living in a house in the jungle, but assuredly I will write more when I find out and when I arrive in Trinidad. I am very, very excited for this opportunity. It will be great to be in the tropics and there are lots of scientists on this project that I will have the opportunity to meet and work with. Here is the project's website http://cnas.ucr.edu/guppy/. And so I go from near the Arctic Circle to near the equator. The only problem is that I won't have much of an autumn. I was worried about coming home at the end of the summer from Iceland being all pasty white since the sun isn't very intense here, and I will come home pasty white, but I think I'll have the last laugh, because next time I come home in December, I'll be nice and bronze while everyone else at home is pasty white.

Road Trip Iceland

Oh how quickly the tables can turn. As soon as David got back from his trip south, the remaining members of Team Midge (Bre, Jamin, and I, along with Kyle and his girlfriend Suhani) took the car on a bit of vacation ourselves. Last Saturday, in order to be able to be caught up on enough work to get away we worked a marathon day at a frantic pace. Jamin and I braved the elements to collect lake samples. It was very cold (4C), and windy, which makes for less than ideal conditions to be on a small boat leaning over the sides, pulling our traps. But we got through. At the same time Bre and David collected our Mývatn transect samples. Not only that, we counted all our samples and even did dishes! It was a quite impressive day, if I do say so myself. After various delays in leaving (seriously, the fates were conspiring against us) we finally were in the car and on our way to the town of Seyðisfjörður where we were planning on seeing a concert with a few of our favorite Icelandic bands, Hjaltalin and Bloodgroup being among them. We approached the town, which sits at the apex of a beautiful fjord on the east coast of the country and saw the lights of an outdoor stage, as well as hundreds of young Icelanders just hanging out. The only unfortunate thing was that it was raining, the stage was outside and we were camping. I will tell you that it didn't stop us from having an amazing time. We made new friends, saw a great show from Bloodgroup (they put on one of the best live shows ever). Also included in our ticket price was a dance after the main concert by another great Icelandic band Hjálmar, who plays a mix of reggae and ska. I would bet that the five of us were just about the only non-Icelanders present at this music festival. There were lots of sweaters, as usual, and as usual we wore ours in an attempt to fit in. Overall it was a great time. We saw some familiar faces, debauched a bit and witnessed some debauchery by others.

As an aside, we finally made it to Egilsstaðir. (everyone is going there, and some will even pay ISK 10,000 to go to Akureyri instead)

The following day, after a much needed late start we began our drive to the south, and one of our main destinations, Skaftafell National Park. But first we took the long route through the beautiful East Fjords. We made it through two fjords before the fog became so thick that we couldn’t actually see anything and we were just wasting time.

Anyway, that evening we did make it to Skaftafell that night, which is the home of the giant glacier Vatnajökull, and the sometimes-home of our friend Oli who lives in Reykjavik when he’s not in the field doing science. One of the main goals of the trip was to pay Oli a surprise visit.

Once we got to Skaftafell, we gave Oli a call, but alas, he had returned home to Reykjavik the previous day, sooner than we had realized he was leaving. We bedded down for the night after seeing the utterly amazing Jökulsárlón, or Glacial lagoon. This lake, which is about half the size of Mývatn, where we work but this lake is squeezed between a giant glacier and the sea. As such, the glacier is constantly calving gigantic icebergs into the lagoon, which then flow out to sea. It is really an unreal sight, I cannot even come close to describing it, and few pictures really do justice, but I will include here a few that I took.

The following day, we went to the beautiful Svartifoss, which is the most-photographed waterfall in Iceland, and although beautiful, I have to say that it is a bit underwhelming after seeing the striking Aldeyjarfoss. Here are a few pictures of Svartifoss as well.

(Ok one picture of Svartifoss)

We continued on our journey and hit the town of Kirkjubæjarklauster (hahahaha good luck pronouncing that one), where the striking, but somewhat inauspicious Kirkjugólf lies. This basaltic formation confused the original Viking settlers, and they thought that Irish monks who had been in the area previously had built a church, and this was the ruins of the floor (Kirkjugólf means “Church floor”).

As we continued on we hit a few more waterfalls, all of which were impressive, and then on the ring road, we hit a large swath of gravel, and as we looked to our right we saw “THE VOLCANO.” It was a cloudy day, so the pictures aren’t fantastic, but we could see where the eruption had taken place, and up on the glacier a large column of steam was still billowing up. The large swath of gravel is where the volcano Eyjafjallajökull (Yes, I can pronounce it now) had melted the glacier sitting above it, which had then flooded the plain below it and washed out the road. It was quite special to be in the place where the eruption had taken place, although it was not happening at the time.

We continued driving around the Ring Road, Highway 1, and as we moved further and further and further west, we had a decision to make. Would we continue all the way around to complete the circle, or would we retrace our route and try to see the fjords we missed due to fog? We decided to return the way we had come, a much longer journey, but we also decided that the fjords were likely worth seeing. At the same time, we decided to test the limits of our trusty Pajero and venture into the interior of the country to a park called Landmannalaugar to camp for the night, and then return to the ring road by another road through the interior. These two decisions turned out to be the best ones of the trip. The interior of the country is a vast, rocky desert-like area with roads that are not paved at all, and are only accessible for about 3 months per year in the summer. Basically these roads are volcanic tephra that a bulldozer of some sort has come and just moved the large boulders from. There are no lanes, no bridges and no gas stations. Basically if you are on a road that few travel and your car dies, you are out of luck. You may not be picked up for days. We took one of these roads (although it was fairly well traveled for an interior road) toward the campsite. The area was quite something.

On the way out, we took another interior road toward the coast, and I drove this leg of the journey. It was quite a fun drive, on unpaved roads with probably 15 or so river crossings. We also stopped at Eldgjá or “Fire Fissure,” the longest volcanic canyon in the world. There was another beautiful waterfall here.

Finally we made it back to the ring road, and headed home back through the fjords, which were spectacular. We all agreed that we made the right decision by retracing our steps.

It was a fantastic few days, and a few thousand kilometers under our belts, it was right back to work. I could not have asked for a better way to spend a few days off, and now I have seen much of the country that I would have never seen had we just stayed in Mývatn.

One if by land, Two if by [water]

Hello patrons of the China Shop. It is once again Friday, which means that it has been about a week since my last post. I will try harder to post more often, but certain circumstances that are beyond my control (laziness) have kept me from posting frequently. Anyway, this has been an interesting week in the lives of Team Midge. David and Kyle departed Kálfaströnd on Monday and headed to the south in order to pick up their family and girlfriend respectively. This created an interesting situation for those of us left behind. We were seemingly stuck at our house with no transportation. Seemingly, but in reality we were mobile. We had our beautiful 14ft V-hull boat complete with 10 horse Mercury outboard in which to commute around the lake. And commute we did. We made a number of trips back and forth from the research station to work on our various research projects.The real crown jewel of the week though was Wednesday. We finished up our lab work for the week in the morning. We counted around 25 samples in less than 24 man-hours, which is really quite impressive. Our determination, as well as efficiency was quite high. Also our long awaited Myvatn Research Station apparel from Cintamani showed up! We all agreed that our legitimacy as biologists increased many-fold with the arrival and subsequent donning of this gear. Nearly all Icelanders wear Cintamani jackets, and with the research station seal on our sleeves (text in Icelandic) we are looking more like we belong.

So this is a picture of whale on a Monkey Plate, but it should be down below the next paragraph, and due to technical difficulties it won't move down there

Another component of our great day was when Erica and Bíbí came by to visit with us for a while. Eventually it was time for dinner, and as a treat to our homebound selves, we prepared some Minke whale and hamburgers that we had bought earlier in the week when we still had a car. The whale was quite good. I grilled it to medium rare over Kingsford charcoal with just a bit of salt and pepper rubbed on. The meat is similar to beef, but more dense, a much darker color and quite flavorful. There is a bit of marbling throughout, but it is in no way tough. In fact, it is quite tender. Eating whale is taboo throughout much of the world, but here it is a part of the culture, just as eating beef is in the States. I don't really feel bad about it. Minke is a quite abundant and it has a fairly short generation time, so with responsible management it can be an ok fishery.

The day was capped off by a boat ride into the fabled North Basin of Lake Myvatn. I say fabled, because we have never motored that far and we were told that passing the strait into the North Basin was a dangerous affair, fraught with perils like pirates and sharp rocks (ok just sharp rocks). We made it through the strait with no problem, and pulled up to shore just in front of the church in Reykjahlíð, disembarked in front of a number of gawking tourists and headed right to the concert. Hjaltalin was great again, this was the second time we had seen them, the first being in Reykjavik.

After the show the signed our map that we used to navigate to town. We headed over to the local hotel bar where beers were flowing, despite the steep cost (~$8.50 US) and the locals were just hanging out. It is fun to see lots of people that we recognize from the region, even if we don't really know them. After a few rounds, we headed back home, navigating through some pea soup, which added a bit more adventure to our trip.