Back at Midway

I'm a little behind on my posting since I've been really busy lately, but now that I'm riding the ship, I've got my evenings free. It was really great to get back to Midway. Most of the people are the same, and there have been a few improvements, but overall it feels like I just went on a short vacation. The food was still great, the views were still great, and there were still a lot of birds. I was busy a lot of the time with computer training, but I got some time to go out on the boat with Cynthia Vanderlip (who normally lives on Kure Atoll) to do a dolphin survey. She was taking pictures of all of the dorsal fins of the dolphins for identification while I took GPS and depth measurements. We were out with the pods for a couple of hours so you'd think I'd get some really great pictures, but I only got a few decent ones. I also helped out with some plant work, and pulled a little verbesina for old time's sake. The island looks really good. Greg has some more help from the Thai guys (Sam & Moo) with spraying verbesina and they are almost keeping up. Really, things are so similar that I don't have much to say. It's pretty musch the same as I have on my "Pete at Midway" blog, but I'll put up a few pictures anyway.

Here's a ~10 ft tiger shark that we passed on the way to the dolphin survey. I put my small underwater camera over the side as we were going by. It didn't seem to mind.

See, there are still a lot of albatross chicks on Midway.

I got this picture the same way as the shark picture. That little Olympus is handy to have sometimes.

Here's one of the spinner dolphins jumping.

The mini-golf course is now open for business. We were working on this last spring.

The hydroponics greenhouse is up and running also, right now mostly for salad greens. The person running it got there the week before I left last year.

The cable houses are falling down pretty quickly now that there is absolutely no maintenance done on them right now.

I went snorkeling on Sunday morning and saw this little frogfish under the cargo pier.

Gary, John Klavitter, and Steve are extirpating the one cactus plant from the island.

The Laysan ducks had a bad year last year. Many of them died off due to botulism. The problem seems to have run its course and the ducks are doing well again. These ducks are getting snapped at by the albatross chick.

Here's a gratuitous white tern chick picture.

Here's my ride back to Tern. The "Oscar Elton Sette" is pulling up to the cargo pier. I'll either be back on the 19th or 20th after stops at Kure Atoll, Pearl & Hermes Reef, and Lisianski Island to drop off the monk seal crews.

Vacation Pics

Finally! Here's a few pictures of my time off of the island. They've got nothing to do with Tern Island, but it's something to look at. I should be on Midway next weekend, so I'll do my next entry from there.

Spring crocus in Cleveland.

The beach at Lake Erie is a little different than the beach on Tern Island.

I went to a couple of battlefields on my time off. This is at Antietam in Maryland.

This is a memorial at a battlefield in Czech Republic where Napoleon's army was defeated.

This sign is telling you that you are at the border of Czech Republic and Germany. The tree is in Germany.

This is Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany. It was bombed in WWII and finally rebuilt a few years ago. The dark bricks are from the original church.

This is the view of Dresden from the top of Frauenkirche.

Random people on a sidewalk in Dresden.

Zwinger Palace in Dresden.

Zwinger Palace has a great art gallery in it.

This is the St. Wolfgang chapel near Krupka, Cz. Rep. This was built in 1700.

This church is in Most, Cz Rep. It was moved on rails 841 meters to make way for a coal mine. It was built in 1594.

We went on a few hikes. One place we went is called Milešovka and it's an old castle converted into a weather station.

We also hiked up a mountain called Bořeň. It was hazy the entire time I was in Cz. Rep.

This beautiful castle is called Karlstejn. They started building it in 1348.

View of Prague castle.

St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague castle.

Here's a view of the castle from the crowded Charles bridge.

Changing of the guard at Prague castle.

There was an Easter Market in the Old Town Square in Prague.

This is called Powder Tower because they used to store gunpowder there.

This is the national museum in Prague.

It was kind of odd to see these plastic penguins against the Prague backdrop.

We also went to a couple of soccer games in Dasha's hometown of Teplice.

These sculptures were in a town called Kutna Hora.

This is the Sedlec Ossuary where they have the bones of 40-70,000 people. Many were plague victims. A monk started arranging the bones and it's one of the weirdest places I've been. All of the decorations are human bones.

No Pics this time

I'm in Shepherdstown, West Virginia for training right now, so no real blog. But in the mean time, if you want to see what's up on Tern Island, you can check out Mary Gibson's blog. She writes a lot more than I do, and she's got a new perspective on things so it will be a lot more interesting reading than my blog is. Go back and start reading at her oldest post (it's only once a week, like mine) for seeing what it's like to come out to these islands for the first time. It's good!

welcometoternmaryg.blogspot.com

Back in Honolulu

I wasn't sure that I was going to do a blog this week from Honolulu, but I've got the time. The plane made it on schedule, and I gave the island back over to Dave. We also got a maintenance volunteer named Jim and Josh who'll be a short term volunteer to work with Melinda on her albatross tagging work as well as other stuff. I'll be really busy this week picking up the supplies for the island. I sure don't miss the traffic when I'm out on Tern. I miss the birds already. The tropicbird chicks are starting to come out now, and the boobies and frigatebirds will hatch while I'm gone too. I guess they'll make it without me though.

It looks like I might be going back to Midway in May on my way back to Tern. There will be some boat rescue training there that would be good for me to have on Tern. At the moment I'm scheduled to fly out with the Coast Guard on one of their C-130's (you can see a picture of it on my Midway blog). Then I would take the NOAA ship "Oscar Elton Sette" back to Tern (you can see that one on my Midway blog too). I'm hoping it will work out because I'd really like to get back there for a couple of weeks and see everyone. I'll try to post some pictures from my trip to the Czech Republic in April. It may be a few weeks before I post again.

Here's the volunteer group that's still out taking care of Tern. Cindy, Jim, Mary, and Melinda. They just came back from counting all the frigate bird eggs on the island. Thanks guys (and gals).

Here was my parting view of Tern island from the plane.

This is where I stay while I'm in Honolulu. There are 5 other people here at the moment, 1 budget person here on detail from D.C. (Hi Kathy!), and 4 new people for Laysan Island. A couple new Tern volunteers will be showing up this week also so the 7 beds in here will be full.

Bunkhouse living room.

Bunkhouse yard. There's a very busy street just past the fence.

The garage is getting full of supplies for both Laysan and Tern. The Kahana will be taking everyone in a couple of weeks.

Last Week

The plane was a few days late, but Jim, Cindy, and Mary made it out here. And Brie, Kelli, Kevin, and Sarah all made it back, and Melinda is still here. These 3 are a lot busier since they have to learn all the ropes and jump into things at full speed, but it will settle down a little on Thursday when 3 more people come. I'll be going back to Honolulu, but they'll still be +2 on the help.

I haven't got to do anything fun with this group yet either. The weather has been overcast and really windy. They'll get their chance though (I hope).

I'll be doing some training in West Virginia, then going back to Cleveland for a week and a half. Then my wife (Dasha) and I will be visiting her family in the Czech Republic for a couple weeks. I'll be back here in May. I'm not sure what dates yet, but I'll try to do an update when I get back from CZ.

Here's an out of focus black noddy. I almost deleted it, but decided it looked cool enough to keep.

I got a couple more pictures of the barracks. Here's the common room where we watch our TV series and movies. Right now we're doing the 3 seasons of "Arrested Development".

Here's one of the unoccupied bedrooms. It's got a great ocean view, but that's too hard to get a good exposure. Nothing fancy, but it works. People usually find some sort of decorations out on the beach.

Here's a the baby red-footed booby that I showed you last week. Now it's about 3 1/2 weeks old. It's on the ground because it's nest disintegrated. I hope the parents keep feeding it.

Here's Mary. She'll be leaving the day I come back to the island. I was showing her how to catch and band tropicbirds under the warehouse building. She's obviously enjoying it so far.