Ryan's Journal

"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell

The One Where…

Posted from Isabela Island, Galapagos Islands at 6:40 pm, May 11th, 2006

Day six, henceforth to be known as the one where we swam with the whale shark OR the one where we saw the pod of a few hundred dolphins. I’ve been hoping for at least one moment on this trip that everyone would remember for a lifetime, and today we got it twofold. The day started out with a late wakeup so that we could snorkel first thing with marine iguanas as they were feeding underwater. Unfortunately the marine iguanas didn’t get the memo, but several sea turtles drifted to within inches of people while feeding on sea lettuce. A borderline aggressive group of sea lions also followed us for nearly the entire snorkel, repeatedly swimming up to people and turning away only inches from their masks. Following the snorkel we went ashore and communed with the thousands of marine iguanas at Punta Espinosa. While wading out to some tide pools I managed to slip, and given the choice between getting the camera wet or cutting up my leg I saved the camera and earned the nickname of “shark bait” for the day. An octopus that was chasing crabs through tidepools was the landing’s final highlight before we returned to the ship for lunch.

Following lunch we motored to Tagus Cove for the Bataan Death March through blazing heat up to Darwin Lake. Sukh and Greg continued on a bit further while saner members of the group returned to the boat for a quick (and more importantly cool) swim. We then spent the next couple of hours out on deck looking for whales and dolphins as we motored north, but both creatures were in hiding so we arrived at the northern part of Isabela Island a bit disappointed. It was just as we were getting ready for a snorkel in the “Icebox” that one of the panga drivers shouted “whale”. We didn’t see a whale, but in record time everyone had their gear ready and was in the panga, and we motored over to a young whale shark that was hanging out on the surface. I was first into the rough and murky water, and had to swim within only a few feet of the shark just to be able to see it. The tail was huge, sticking a couple of feet out of the water and slicing through the ocean like a scythe. As more people got in the water the shark made a u-turn back towards us, and it swam back towards me, showing me the entire side of its body, before turning right at me, swimming to within a foot, diving, and then disappearing into the ocean.

Still high from the whale shark we motored over to a cave in the island and did a quick snorkel amongst sea turtles and an utterly massive school of salema before getting back in the boat. Glowing over the whale shark experience we all watched the sun go down, and as we were getting ready for dinner the captain shouted out that there were dolphins outside. A school of probably 100-200 common dolphins was surrounding the boat, leaping insanely high out of the water with the sunset in the background. No one had any complaints after all was said and done, except for Scott who was heard to mumble that we had already done everything, and there are still five days left.

Common dolpin near Isabela Island

Common dolphin near Isabela Island.

Turtles

Posted from Isabela Island, Galapagos Islands at 6:10 pm, May 10th, 2006

Day five. The day began at 6:15 AM with a kayak through one of the coves at Elizabeth Bay to look for sea turtles, penguins, “tree” lions and rays. While the rays disappointed the other animals were out in force, and JB and I (the 2003 team reunited) took advantage. The crew scared the hell out of us on the return as they were yelling and waving all of the kayaks towards the stern, convincing JB and I that a killer whale was chasing us or some other danger was imminent. Turns out they just thought we were racing and wanted to cheer. Oh well.

The highlight of the day, and possibly of the trip, followed when we snorkeled with about forty sea turtles in a pool in Peppys Cove. It was one of my favorite experiences from the 2003 trip, and while there weren’t as many turtles this time around it was as amazing or better. Floating in a pool that’s perhaps sixty feet across and no more than twenty feet deep while sea turtles glide by on every side is pretty awesome. I stayed in the water for as long as I could handle the cold, got out to warm up, and then snorkeled some more. Given the chance I could have stayed all day.

The remaining activities for the day were a panga ride to see more penguins, blue-footed boobies, flightless cormorants, frigate birds, and sea lions, followed by transit time up to the next site. Aaron’s and my attempts to search for whales and dolphins turned into a siesta instead, but the whales and dolphins seemed to be hiding anyhow. The day’s final activity was a walk near Alcedo Volcano to see land iguanas in an area that was underwater until the 1950’s when it rose fifteen feet in two days due to volcanic uplift. Amazingly the trip is now halfway done, althought tomorrow holds another highlight as we visit Fernandina Island and its many marine iguanas.

Galapagos Penguin in Elizabeth Bay

Galapagos Penguin in Elizabeth Bay.

Demon Horses

Posted from Puerto Villamil, Isabela Island, Galapagos Islands at 6:45 pm, May 9th, 2006

Day four. A late (5:45 AM) wakeup was followed by a 7:00 AM landing in the town of Puerto Villamil where we met trucks that took us forty-five minutes up into the Highlands of Isabela Island. From there the fun began as seventeen horses were trotted out to take us the remainder of the way up the Sierra Negra volcano. From the early moments it was clear that these horses were going to do whatever they wanted, which in my case was to sprint to the front of the pack and then slow the pace to a crawl, blocking the other horses from moving quickly and therefore allowing my horse to move slowly without fear of getting a switch in the tail from the gauchos who were accompanying us. An additional insult occurred when my stirrups came unhitched near the end of the trail just as the horse broke into a canter, resulting in a textbook example of blunt testicular trauma; that horse is not one that I will remember fondly.

The hike that followed provided great views across the baking hot lava, and we returned to the horses several hours later quite tired. On the ride down Sukh’s horse distinguished himself by continually abruptly stopping in close proximity to other riders, forcing the knees of those riders into an orifice of the horse that no one wants their knee forced into; Scott, myself, and several other people will probably be burning our pants later today. The day finished with some relaxation in town and on the beach, including cervesas, ice cream, and great bakery food near the jetty. After a long and likely choppy boat ride tonight it’s on to another side of Isabela to chase turtles and penguins for a day.

Bifurcated Flippers

Posted from Floreana Island, Galapagos Islands at 8:05 pm, May 8th, 2006

Day three. A 5:15 AM wakeup was followed by an early landing on Flour Beach to look for nesting sea turtles. The turtles disappointed, but the soft sands were great, and the flamingos in the nearby lagoon put on a show for us. Breakfast was followed by not one but two snorkels, the first one at Champion with schools of fish and some really playful sea lions, and the second with the currents, sharks, octopus, and giant schools of fish at Devil’s Crown. It’s a tough call as to which one was better – the sea lions were a blast, following people around and obviously curious, but Devil’s Crown is a just a great spot with lots to see. Aaron managed to avoid killing himself diving in the caves this year, although Scott filled in nicely by failing to clear his ears while diving.

Still in the morning we did a kayak over to Post Office Bay, seeing sea lions and our first penguin enroute. Since another group was already at the post office barrel, and since in Greg’s words “it’s such a young group” we made a brief hike over to a lava tube cave before returning to the barrel. Lunch followed, after which we got into a truck/bus onshore (Aaron: “wow, this thing is so safe”) and headed up into the Floreana Highlands. I braved at least five attacks from a rabid, man-eating giant tortoise – it was only through sheer cunning and with ninja-like reflexes that I avoided an early demise. Scott and Aaron were later scared by endemic cows, Anna found several of the infamous snails and pre-empted the reason for Greg’s Snail Hill hike, and much of the group still chose to hike up the hill in the sweltering heat and then hike back to the settlement. Audrey and I reached the settlement shortly after sunset, grabbed a quick shower (cleanliness is a beautiful thing) and then joined the rest of the group on shore for a barbecue. A hunt for hermit crabs with Scott and Aaron ended the evening, and tomorrow we’re off to Isabela Island to visit the Sierra Negra volcano.

Birds and Lizards and Sea Lions and Stuff

Posted from Espanola Island, Galapagos Islands at 8:15 pm, May 7th, 2006

Day two. I made the comment at lunch that we’d been in the Galapagos for twenty-four hours and everyone’s eyes boggled since it feels like much longer with all of the activity. The water was choppy last night, and the (only) downside of having the owner’s cabin became apparent as Audrey and I got tossed all over the place. Luckily everyone else has rooms in lower cabins and awoke in good health this morning to the sounds of Kenny G on the ship’s speakers. We snorkeled immediately at 6:00 AM, ate breakfast, roamed the beach near Isla Tortuga, and then did two more snorkels with fish and a group of playful sea lions. As always the sea lions were ridiculously fun, and Gene came away with video of a sea lion repeatedly swimming at him only to blast away at the last second in a puff of bubbles. At the end of the snorkel I was given the option of returning to the boat by panga or by swimming – not being able to face the possibility of any downtime on the trip I opted for some exercise. We still managed an hour-long siesta after lunch during the voyage to another location on Espanola.

The afternoon’s landing on Espanola is one of the highlights of the archipelago. During the landing we watched marine iguanas swimming out to sea and sea lions surfing in the waves (quite literally). Marine iguanas, sea lions, blue-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, and waved albatross all made appearances as we traversed the one and a half mile trail through the area. The evening meal featured Aaron and Scott’s expletive-replacement phrase “Mother of pearl!”, with interjections to discuss how the gun show could best be fit on a Galapagos t-shirt. Tomorrow promises a 5:15 AM wakeup and a visit to Floreana Island and its infamous Snail Hill.

The Beachmasters Will Eat You

Posted from South Plaza Island, Galapagos Islands at 6:25 pm, May 6th, 2006

Day two started out with food poisoning on the plane – an important note for those flying Tame, there are no barf bags in the seat pockets. As quickly as it hit my time getting to know my breakfast was over, and we arrived in the Galapagos to meet Greg and board the boat. A bit of choppiness during the voyage to South Plaza Island allowed a couple of other passengers to join the upchuck club, but once we arrived on the island everyone was feeling fine and most people jumped in the water for a quick snorkel. Aaron and Scott of course literally jumped in the water, and a photo exists somewhere of the two of them doing tandem ninja kicks off of the boat’s second deck. Greg refused to even call this a snorkel, and instead described it as a “swim”, but a few sea lions playing with banana peels and several fish made for a good time. The day’s only hike was a three hour jaunt around North Seymour where the red-billed tropic birds wrecked havoc on my sanity by refusing to stay in focus, and the sea lions and land iguanas entertained everyone else. A good start, and everyone seems primed for tomorrow.

Land iguana on South Plaza Island

Land Iguana on South Plaza Island.

Imbibing

Posted from Quito, Ecuador at 12:35 am, May 6th, 2006

Day one has brought with it little sleep, good times in first class, an enormously enjoyable (and late) evening at the hotel’s bar, and not one, but two lost luggages. With luck American will come through and get the bags to the boat quickly, but aside from this snafu the trip is off to an excellent beginning.

The Lizards Can Swim

Posted from Culver City, California at 7:55 pm, May 4th, 2006

Galapagos III kicks off tomorrow with a 4:30 AM wakeup followed by a flight to Miami and then on to Quito. It’s a bit of a struggle not to get too excited already since the last two trips have been such good ones:

As always I’ll keep a daily journal, but it will probably be a couple of weeks before ‘net access is again available and everything can be uploaded. Should be fun.

Son of Suby

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:40 pm, April 25th, 2006

Almost exactly seven years ago my Geo Prizm chugged up the Dumbarton bridge in rush hour during the height of the dot-com boom. She never made it back down. The backup supposedly went eighteen miles, three traffic helicopters were eventually circling, and I’m told I was on the evening news. It was a fitting end for my first car – we drove across the country together, the speedometer broke and I drove for six months with no idea of how fast I was going, and I learned about car repairs since I didn’t have the money to fix things at a shop.

The Prizm was replaced in 1999 by the Suby – I picked the car out based on the fact that I could stretch out full length in the back to sleep. During our time together the Suby and I took a 13,000 mile roadtrip to Alaska, we traveled all over the western United States, and as of yesterday we’d spent over 145,461 miles together. The Suby took great care of me and deserved an end at least as glorious as what happened to the Prizm, but I’ve gotten older, and the idea of breaking down in the middle of the desert a hundred miles from civilization was too extreme for my 31 year old sensibilities. As a result the Suby will soon be in a new home, and the Son of Suby is parked in the garage. More than likely SoS and I will be off on our first road trip shortly, and hopefully junior will live up to the grand legacy of his predecessor.

The Suby and me on the Dalton Highway

The Suby and me on the Dalton Highway in Northern Alaska.

More of the Same

Posted from Culver City, California at 8:30 pm, April 22nd, 2006

I just pushed a bunch of updates onto rodplanck.com, specifically several new photo galleries. Rod and Marlene are best described as super-awesome, and Rod’s photos are pretty special and definitely worth checking out – I was standing next to him for a bunch of his recent Antarctica shots, so looking at his stuff provides a great example of how beautiful the place really was and how the photos should have been taken.

The Galapagos trip sets sail in just under two weeks, so a new batch of stories and photos on this site should be forthcoming. I may also try to head out on a short road trip just to get back into travel mode, although I’m mildly concerned that the Subaru, with just under 150,000 miles on it, may be getting ready to explode, so that’s putting a bit of a damper on the prospect of heading hundreds of miles out into the desert. Only a bit of a damper.

Same

Posted from Culver City, California at 5:55 pm, April 6th, 2006

Not much excitement recently. Final details for the upcoming Galapagos trip have been taking up a good deal of time, and I’m writing a lot of code trying to update a software package called VQWiki to work a bit better and do some things I’d like to have on this site.

The “big” events during the past week or two took place in Hollywood. LA obviously has good film options, and the Arclight is probably my favorite theatre in the country. Every few weeks they show a movie and then have the director or someone else involved in the production answer questions afterwards, and so Audrey and I caught a showing of Lonesome Jim and then listened to Steve Buscemi and three members of the cast answer questions. Unbeknownst to us, the other perk at these showings is free drinks and appetizers, so for $9.75 we saw a movie, listened to one of the weirdest character actors in cinema history, and then joined the cast across the street for drinks.

A week prior to seeing Steve Buscemi we went out for drinks with one of Audrey’s old friends who had done some recurring TV work. I love repeating old lines from movies and such, mostly because I’m not funny enough to come up with original material, but it’s way cooler hearing the actual actor fake like he was smoking and then deliver a line like “Oh dark mother, once again I suckle at your smokey teat.”

And for anyone who’s never seen a bulldog ride a skateboard, check out Tyson, the Skateboarding Bulldog, originally discovered by Aaron.

Tyson the Skateboarding Bulldog

Skateboarding in Huntington Beach, taken from skateboardingbulldog.com.

Hoosiers

Posted from Culver City, California at 1:40 am, March 27th, 2006

Having made the brilliant move of picking UCLA to make the Final Four, my ranking in ESPN’s NCAA Tournament Bracket has risen from it’s low of being in the bottom 2.7% to my current ranking in the bottom 16.2%. The meteoric rise from the gutters stops there since I don’t have any other teams still alive and I’ve picked UCLA to lose their next game (to Duke), but at least now I can mock all of those people in the bottom ten percent for their lack of basketball knowledge. Amateurs.

I Was Thinking… In My Head

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:25 pm, March 20th, 2006

The ongoing series of memorable Audrey-inspired experiences continued this past weekend, with a trip to see Safari Arnie. When she was a kid she was co-anchor on a show called Elementary News, and Arnie was a weekly guest who would show up with snakes and lizards and whales and stuff. We visited him at his home in the hills on Sunday, and it was a pretty unreal experience – walking up to the guy’s house is like walking through a rainforest, with giant palm trees, vines, and even a huge stand of bamboo planted outside. As soon as you enter the house you cross a small river with fish on one side and turtles on the other, and a giant cave bear skeleton stands eight feet tall to greet everyone. He’s got vines, bones, and all sorts of other wackiness on display, and is a really cool guy to boot. There were several highlights to the evening, but foremost amongst them was his story of how a robbery of his home many years ago was thwarted when the six alligators he was keeping in his yard started roaring. I only wish I could make something like that up.

Call My Bookie

Posted from Culver City, California at 3:45 pm, March 17th, 2006

Despite knowing almost nothing about college basketball, I put together an NCAA Tournament Bracket. You can win $10,000 if you guess right, so why not? As of right now, I’m ranked #2,423,844, placing me squarely in the bottom 9.4%. I’m guessing that there’s probably a group of monkeys in the San Diego Zoo, a blind Pakistani two-year-old, and fourteen people currently in persistent vegetative states that are ahead of me…

Holy Schnike Edition

Posted from Culver City, California at 5:25 pm, March 13th, 2006

There is a “Holy Schnike Edition” of the Tommy Boy DVD. It is truly a wonderful world in which we live.

There hasn’t been a lot worth noting lately, although on Saturday Audrey took me out to help with jobs at two of her client’s houses in Malibu. I am forbidden from naming names, but the first house was unreal — huge, tons of land, and a private beach. The guy was turning the basement of a second house into a giant studio, so I got to play lifestyles of the rich and famous while Audrey took measurements and chatted with the recording engineer. The second visit was to another Malibu home to deliver and install some stuff, and we did so while the studio’s owner fooled around on the piano and sang a bit. A cool guy, and a very surreal experience.

My own work is much less interesting at the moment as I’m playing around with a couple of software packages and making some updates to Rod Planck’s web site. The Skipper suggested adding the ability to change the delay in the slideshow in my photo galleries, which is now done — anyone else with suggestions, please let me know. And for no reason at all, here’s another penguin picture:

King Penguins in St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia Island

King penguins in St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia Island.