We're motrin! We've had an unbelievable two days. It was nearing dusk with soft light, calm seas, and Chagulak in view. We had a break in the fog just in time to see the cratery peak. It looked pretty volcanic. Without realizing, we were slowly being swarmed by birds. Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds" had nothing on what we were about to see. Thousands upon thousands of Northern Fulmars surrounded the boat in rafts. It was pretty neat once we took notice. Every inch of the sky was covered by avian invaders.

The hills moved and squawked and squeaked. There were strange things happening in the water too; there was a distinct boundary separating upwelling and downwelling currents with birds lined up right down the middle. It was really neat. We were exhausted after a few long nights and days and anchored at Herbert Island that evening. We awoke to a distant grumble. I thought it was either Bob fumbling with the water maker or somebody flushing the head.

Bob alerted the crew about an eruption in the distance, which we sort of expected from the Okmok Caldera, (it has been erupting for nearly a week now), but it was strange that we could hear it so well. Okmok was still pretty far away. We motored closer to the ash plume towards Chuginadak and called a landlubber via sat phone to check the latest volcano news. Absolutely nothing except for Okmok. Gathering from the local marine radio, it was definitely Mount Cleveland erupting ... [more]

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Baja 2008 Photos: ... [more]

The last uh... month? two months? have been captivating and exciting no doubt. I helped my senile father go from Mexico to the west coast of Panama via Grand Cayman, Providencia (Colombia), Colon and San Blas Islands (Panama), and through the Panama Canal (Panama). I left the Minnow shortly thereafter. It may have had something to do with the senile father being lactose-intolerant.

Mexico was neat. I took the senile father tequila shopping even though he doesn't drink (...it was close to my birthday). As a sign of gratitude I think, he had me help him keep the Minnow afloat with 70 Mexican children aboard. I'm sure it must have been a hoot to watch. I've never spoken Spanish so much/so quick in my life. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun, especially with the sousaphones and piano. At the end, we gave away all of the toy airplanes that I had smuggled into my carry-on (the airport security guards thought their scanners were broken). ... [more]

In between my current compulsive internet house hunt, I've managed to upload some photos from the past 6 months. Here they are: ... [more]

New Zealand! ... [more]

Arriving in Chile started out as a minor culture shock. The finale to the S. Pacific trip was an overnight in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Santiago. Far more flashy and ritzy than anything I can handle. Women wearing cocktail dresses like in the movies where they’re at classy parties sipping martinis and smoking those super long cigarette holder thingies. Men in slick suits, combed-back hair, holding a glass of $5000 liquor. I just stayed in the room and watched rugby and ate sushi in my pajamas. That’s classy.
The next day’s mission was to buy bus tickets to Puerto Montt and catch a ferry which we’d bought tickets for. Done. Now we could relax.

We came to the bus station the following day, loaded our bags into the bus, and proceeded to get on. The conductor looked at our tickets and was SO close to letting us on board but shook his head. Our tickets were for the following day…. well. Hm. That couldn’t be possible because we bought them for today, and well, we had to catch the ferry the next day at 4 pm. So we pleaded and asked for help, but nada. We were basically screwed and pretty grumpy about it (I was anyway). ... [more]

The South Pacific trip began in Papeete, Tahiti where I boarded the National Geographic Endeavour a little jetlagged. I couldn’t tell you if Tahiti was as pretty as old world war II posters or not because I arrived during the night. They gave us lais though, so that stereotypical part of the S. Pacific might be true (but only in the Papeete Airport).

The following days were filled with island bouncing as we visited Bora Bora, Makatea, Fakarava, Ravahere, Raroia, Henderson Island, Pitcairn Island, Easter Island, and other hard to pronounce places. The ultimate places worth mentioning are Ravahere (I think?), Pitcairn Island, and Ducie Island. Ravahere (I think?)… probably a place I shouldn’t have seen being such an amateur diver, I’ll probably be disappointed 98% of the time I go again. The coral reef was a sharp sloping ledge that gave way into the unknown, which you could see 150+ feet into... [more] ... [more]

I DID survive the trip and it was a very wonderful trip at that. Hopefully this large note can sum up what happened or didn't happen. This hoopla began in Quito at approximately 10 something p.m. and me being in a slightly confused state (normal) wandering off of an airplane, not remembering my spanish vocabulary. Was it raining? Wait, no. It was raining in Tulsa. Or was it Miami? Donde esta ... mi cabeza? mi cerveza? Much to my huge relief, the scruffy kiwi came through and escorted my confusion throughout the majority of the trip. Maybe all of those death-threats to show up really did work? View my blog! ... [more]

Merry Christmas! I still dont believe that its December but I guess theres nothing wrong with that. Yesterday we all took a little dip at deception island, it was actually waaaaay too hot for people to stay in but it was still a nice photo opportunity. Today we went kayacking around some glaciers/ice/penguins/crab-eating seals. Of course, we had to go ALL-THE-WAY to the boundaries just to see if we could get ourselves into trouble. We ended up getting pretty stuck in ice because the current/wind pushed us/ice together in a nice compact sheet. Luckily, I have legs & I used them to kick our way through. And I only got mom and my camera a little wet in the process.

Ive been sleeping & eating all day after that, I think Im still a little asleep. As for previous boat plans, we were cruising as far south as we could go but had to turn around a few minutes ago. The ice was thick, blah blah blah, BUT this trip has taken the boat the farthest south its ever traveled. I can get gps info on that tomorrow probably. Future boat plans: We have an extra day since we were just so darn fast at the beginning of the trip so I think there will be some fun landings on the way back. Tomorrow: no idea; everything depends on the ice now & how far we manage to go. ... [more]