Video – Ryan's Journal

The Night of Many Mantas

Posted from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii at 10:38 pm, September 4th, 2022

I’m doing a poor job of writing daily entries, so here’s another catch-up of our time on the Big Island thus far.

We arrived on Thursday, and booked a full day of scuba diving for Friday. The two morning dives were fun but mostly uneventful – a few sea turtles, a bunch of morays, tons of reef fish. The evening dive, however, was the one we’d been looking forward to. At sunset we were moored near the airport, and the divemasters gave us instructions before we descended forty feet into darkness. Immediately two huge rays were gliding over us, and as we settled into our place around the underwater “campfire” of dive lights, more and more giant manta rays began appearing. For the next forty-five minutes we were treated to a show with a cast of over twenty different mantas, some of which were nearly sixteen feet across. Having giant rays glide by close enough to touch (which we didn’t of course, although the rays bumped into people on multiple occasions) was a magical way to spend an hour. After getting out of the water we were told that the average night sees 2-3 mantas present, so we got an amazing show.

Our next day we had scheduled a pelagic snorkel, where we headed out to deep water looking for sharks, whales, or whatever might be around. The company we booked through initially had boat issues, so they re-booked us with Wild Hawaii Ocean Adventures, and we somehow found ourselves heading out to sea at 9am aboard an 11m long Navy SEAL assault vessel, cruising in mile deep water looking for sharks to swim with. Sadly it seems we had used up our good karma with the mantas, so our four hour adventure did not include any big animals, but we did get to do some short snorkels in both shallow and deep water, and cruising around at 35 mph in a fast attack boat is not the worst way to spend a morning. Finishing up our 48 hours of activities, we closed out the night with a luau at the resort, where I ate and drank enough to last for several meals.

Today was a rest day, and after a late (6:30am) wakeup we lounged before doing a loop up to Hawi and Waimea, where we had a great view of the summit of 13,796 foot Mauna Kea volcano, as well as some amazing coastline views.

Audrey’s manta ray video.

Island Hopping

Posted from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii at 8:40 am, September 1st, 2022

Yesterday, after waking up and feeding the koi with Audrey, I picked up Aaron and we snorkeled with the world’s friendliest butterflyfish and a tiny eel for just over an hour before heading back to the hotel for a trip down the lazy river, ten rides of the waterslide (the kids were mostly not upset to have to share with grownups), and a loop around the saltwater lagoon. After failing to act our age all day I took Aaron home, and then the day finished with Audrey and me enjoying a fancy dinner at sunset.

Today I got up to see the sunrise, came back to wake Audrey up for breakfast, and now we’re off for one last chance to feed the koi before heading to the airport for our next adventure after five excellent days in Kauai.

Underwater koi in Kauai.

The Garden Island

Posted from Poipu, Kauai, Hawaii at 7:41 pm, August 30th, 2022

My parents are back in Kauai for their biennial trip, and Audrey, Aaron and me are here to join them. Today is day four of our trip, so I’ve obviously been terrible about writing journal entries. To remedy that, here’s a recap of the trip so far:

Day one saw us arrive and purchase obscene quantities of seared Ahi from the Koloa Fish Market. If you ever visit Kauai, put this place on your list, the Ahi is ridiculously good. From there we checked into our hotel and I spent more time in the lazy river and waterslide than is generally acceptable for a man in his forties.
On day two we jumped in the sea to do some snorkeling over at the reef near the Beach House restaurant. There was a bit of current parallel to the coast, and I made the unfortunate decision to exit the water onto some rocks rather than fighting the current back to our entry point; I’ve got a few new battle scars on my foot, hand and ribs to show for it, but we nevertheless had fun seeing an array of fish including an oriental flying gurnard that Audrey spotted. My parents arrived in the evening after a delayed flight and a myriad of other misadventures, so we joined them for rum drinks at sunset to help them forget their troubles.
Day three Audrey joined me for a morning scuba, leaving my parents to enjoy the massive breakfast buffet that is included in our hotel rate; my dad seemed to at least temporarily forget about the trip’s problems when faced with an omelette bar and a few dozen other breakfast choices. The currents were strong on our first dive but we still saw a few sharks, many turtles, and a bunch of other neat critters. After a rough surface interval that saw a couple of divers returning their breakfasts we jumped back into the water at Sheraton Caverns, which I previously referred to as “sea turtle wonderland“. That moniker held true again, as we saw dozens of turtles resting in the collapsed lava tubes as we swam around.
Today was an opportunity to go on an adventure with my brother, so based on a recommendation from the dive master we set off for the Nu’alolo trail, a 7.5 mile round trip that descended from the forests above Waimea Canyon down to the turret-like buttes of the Napali Coast, two thousand feet above the Pacific. We’re pretty sure “Nu’alolo” is Hawaiian for “slippery mud”, but the views at the end were definitely worth it.

Video from Audrey of a sea turtle heading for a nap at Sheraton Caverns.

Another of Audrey’s video of a moray at Sheraton Caverns.

The Andy Show

Posted from Isla Guadalupe, Mexico at 7:45 pm, September 29th, 2019

Unfortunately I was sick with a migraine yesterday, too nauseous to eat, and only able to make two trips to the cages in the morning before crawling back to bed; now that we’re heading back to Enseneda I’ve fully recovered. I managed to rally for one more dive this afternoon after the pounding in my head had reduced to where the thought of compressing my body in neoprene and descending underwater sounded only slightly terrifying, and while half the boat was a no-show for dinner due to rough seas I was ravenous after not eating anything yesterday, so overall being out of commission for a bit didn’t impact the trip too negatively.

Catching up on all of the action during the past few days, it was a really unique trip. We spent the entire three days in the same anchorage in a bay on Guadalupe. The boat is 130 feet long and has two surface cages and two additional cages that were lowered down 30 feet below the surface, but surprisingly the surface cages seemed to be more fun – there were usually two baits made of tuna heads or tails thrown from the back of the boat, and with the sharks going for them regularly the action was better closer to the surface. Over the two days we met several different sharks, but “Andy” was the star of the show. This 13-14 foot male was the alpha for the area, and he spent hours with us every day, to the point where Audrey started referring to the good dives as the “Andy show”, and cheered whenever he could grab one of the baits before one of the boat’s “shark wranglers” could yank it away. While it obviously would have been a dramatically different experience without cages, from the safety of a cage we were able to watch the sharks stalk the baits, interact with one another during the times where two or more sharks were at the boat, and also just kind of sit back and gasp every time a giant fish with rows of razor-sharp teeth swam by.

It’s gratifying, and a little bit terrifying, to know that places like this one exist in the world. Looking out from the top of the boat and seeing massive shadows and fins in the water is a reminder that Earth has a primordial and savage side that humans mostly don’t see anymore. It’s also gratifying to have gained that knowledge from behind the safety of reinforced steel cages.

Full-speed and slow-mo versions of a great white attacking the bait behind the boat. The sharks had all sorts of different attack strategies; this video shows the scariest one – hard and fast from directly underneath.

Songs in the Forest

Posted from Culver City, California at 8:48 pm, February 29th, 2016

After two postings about heavy metal bands and Donald Trump, the journal is overdue for some nature. The video below is all about the whale-like song of the lemurs, so turn on the volume before playing it and ignore the picture – it’s just Audrey, our guide and me walking through the forest. The sound of the indri lemurs is unlike anything else and still gives me chills when I listen to it, remembering what it was like to be roaming the forest with families of lemurs calling out all around us. Recorded September 2014 in Andasibe National Park

The indri lemur’s song carries for several miles through the treetops. Supposedly if you record them singing on an iPhone and then replay it later they will sing back to you, but I wouldn’t know anything about that…

Moving Pictures

Posted from Bonaire at 5:22 pm, January 30th, 2016

I’m not so much with the words when it comes to describing the beautiful underwater environment here, so I’ve done my best to condense down an unwieldy amount of video into something that is hopefully borderline watchable. We saw a lot of cool things under the sea this past week. Part of what made things even more amazing on this trip is that on five of our seven dives we were on our own and got to find things without the aid of a divemaster, and without having to share them with a big dive group, so each moment with a fish or turtle was just for us and lasted as long as we wanted to hang out and the animals were willing to have us there. Bonaire will be high on the list of places to return to for future trips.

At the end of the week I had more than forty-five minutes of GoPro video. This is the condensed version, but it’s still five minutes long. Five minutes of underwater awesomeness long.

Under the Sea

Posted from Red Hook, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands at 11:36 pm, January 17th, 2016

After not diving since October 2014 I jumped out of the boat today only to come swimming back to shamefully admit that I’d forgotten to put on a weight belt. Adding insult to injury, the guy on the boat reported that the BCD had pockets for weight and that I was wearing 14 pounds. They still let me dive, but I’m pretty certain they did so with the assumption that I was brain damaged.

The dive sites were shallow so running out of air wasn’t a concern, thus both dives ended when the divemaster got cold. Scuba diving is always a nice way to relax, and the soft corals pulsing in the current just made it moreso. After diving I also wanted to do some snorkeling at the nearby Coki Beach, but when I got off the boat the beach was a total zoo – apparently a cruise ship had just landed and dumped the equivalent of a mid-sized American city onto the narrow sand. I fled, but returned a few hours later to a spot where they sell “fish biscuits”, so upon entering the water you are swarmed by schools of begging reef fish. Sadly I didn’t realize that the GoPro battery was dead, so while I got a short video of some rays, the hungry reef fish and two cuttlefish sightings will have to go undocumented.

I’m still trying to figure out underwater video, so I’m gonna wait a bit longer before submitting my awesome parrot fish footage to GoPro in hopes of getting a sponsorship.

Ending with Purring Cheetahs

Posted from London Heathrow International Airport, United Kingdom at 7:55 pm, October 9th, 2014

We were struggling to find a decent activity to fill our last half day in Johannesburg, and finally settled on the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve, which wouldn’t have made the cut had there been other options, but given the activities available seemed like the best way to pass a few hours before our flight. Adding to the list of borderline–questionable animal activities that we’ve participated in while visiting South Africa, we ponied up a few extra rand and got five minutes of petting time with two lion cubs (useful advice given by the park staff regarding the lion cubs: “that one is gentle, and this one might bite you”) and an adult cheetah, in the process discovering that cheetahs purr when you pet them. The girl was happy, the cheetah sounded very happy, and based on everything I read the place is actually doing some good in the world so I was happy that we weren’t violating any wildlife ethical standards by passing the time there. In addition to hands-on time with cats, the park contains thousands of acres of open space with animals roaming about happily, and our drive through that area was quite nice.

Now we’re waiting in London Heathrow airport, with one eleven hour flight done and another to go before we get back to Los Angeles. With the trip at its end this will be the last journal entry about our world travels, so here are some statistics on the trip, since I’m an engineer and engineers like statistics:

Total trip duration: 87 days.
Five countries visited (Turkey, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Madagascar). Four continents visited (North America, Europe, Asia, Africa).
Twenty-two flights.
Days spent in countries that drive on the right side of the road: 41. Days spent in countries that drive on the wrong side of the road: 44.
Ostriches ridden: 1
Number of trip photos currently on my laptop: 3,324.
Number of times I barfed while in foreign countries: zero (unprecedented).

It will feel odd to be home again after such a lengthy adventure, although it will also be nice not to be living out of a backpack for the first time since July. Thanks to everyone who read along as Audrey and I roamed the earth – hopefully there will be more adventures to share in the future.

Update: video of Audrey and the purring cheetah. Make sure your volume is up.

Diving at Night

Posted from Nosy Tsarabanjina, Madagascar at 3:45 pm, October 4th, 2014

I did my first-ever night dive last night – the clown fish from the daylight dives were replaced by lobsters and a basketball-sized crab walking around with a sponge on his back (apparently wearing sponges is a thing), but for the most part it was much like a daytime dive except with different animals and less light. The divemaster was a bit of an unusual case – sort of a control freak, which to a small extent is a good thing in a divemaster, but this perhaps carried too far: he insisted on having our BCDs buckled for us, was explicit that we not put on equipment until he gave the OK for each item, required I wear a dive computer in case we got separated from the group despite the fact that our dive was only to a depth of eight meters, etc. Perhaps had we already done one hundred dives things might have been different, but with credit only for thirty dives we earned the kindergarten treatment.

Today we did two more dives, this time at two of the four “Brothers”, which are pinnacles that rise out of the sea about fifteen minutes from Nosy Tsarabanjina. The ride out to them was beautiful, with crystal blue water and birds flying through the sky. On the first dive I was using a different wet suit from the night dive, thus changing my buoyancy, and when the divemaster told everyone to descend I deflated my BCD… and nothing happened. I tried everything that had been taught during certification – pressing my BCD to force out any remaining air, exhaling, rolling in the water to remove any air pockets on my back – but nothing worked. The divemaster was disappearing into the depths, so I started swimming towards the boat to get more weight, at which point the divemaster finally noticed me and angrily gestured for me to descend. Not knowing the hand signal for “not enough weight”, and not wanting to use the hand signal that jumped immediately to mind, I held up my dump valve to indicate that I was empty on air, at which point he surfaced and yelled at me for swimming in the wrong direction. He called the boat and more weight was procured, after which he again scolded me, told me to kick to the wall, and I finally descended short of breath and using up too much of my precious tank of air. I pride myself on being able to keep a fairly even temper, but had a cartoonist drawn the moment there likely would have been a tiny storm cloud over my head and wavy black lines next to my temples. The end result was that the first dive seemed nice, but the voices muttering in the brain prevented enjoying the experience properly.

After finishing the dive, returning to our island for a surface interval and new tanks, and then departing again for the second dive I spotted a small whale just offshore and only a short distance from our boat, and any bad feelings somehow instantly departed – seeing an animal that big in the water at a reasonably short distance is a wonderful way to cure cartoon storm clouds. The second dive was tremendous – we swam through schools of thousands of small yellow fish, a sea turtle wandered up to me to exchange pleasantries, birds were nesting on the cliff walls, colorful sponges and corals filled the seascape, and all was again well with the world.

Tomorrow we have to depart Fantasy Island late in the morning, and sadly from that point onwards we’ll mostly be in transit. It’s tough to believe that a three month odyssey spanning five countries could ever come to an end, but all good things have their conclusion, and the beginning of the end is (unbelievably) approaching.

“Helllloooo!” says that sea turtle.

Life is Good

Posted from Nosy Komba, Madagascar at 7:00 am, September 30th, 2014

Imagine swimming in a gigantic fish tank owned by an eccentric billionaire whose sole passion in life was tropical fish and coral. In such a scenario there would be every type of fish imaginable, a huge variety of corals, and a weird little sea cucumber, urchin, or other oddity under every rock. Now, instead of a giant fish tank, imagine that setting can be found in the actual ocean, and you can get a sense of what our day was like yesterday. The waters around Nosy Tanikely feel more like something that is too perfect to be natural, with warm temperatures, sea turtles, somewhere around ten gazillion fish, and all sorts of other stuff that keeps you in the water long enough to turn a bright shade of red, despite multiple coats of sunscreen. Judged by any metric other than UV exposure, yesterday was a very, very good day.

In addition to its amazing waters, the land portion of Nosy Tanikely is home to a small group of introduced brown lemurs that came running down from the trees when the guide called them and held out some fruit. There are giant fruit bats, white sandy beaches, and just about everything that one would include if creating the perfect tropical island. We even got a gourmet lunch on the sand at noon – the locals apparently sail out and cook up kabobs and fish and rice and salad each day, and then build makeshift tables in the sand where lunch is served to sunburned tourists. It was a far cry from the mud and rough terrain of Mantadia National Park, and showed yet another side of this incredible country.

This morning we’re off to get Audrey her last chance for lemur hugging in the morning, and after that we sadly have to move on from this incredible lodge to our next stop on the main island of Nosy Be. Nosy Komba will be missed.

Snorkeling with sea turtles is yet another activity that will never, ever get old.

Covered in Lemur Spit

Posted from Andasibe National Park, Madagascar at 9:24 pm, September 11th, 2014

Audrey had two very specific (and difficult to fulfill) requests for the Madagascar trip – she wanted to hug a lemur, and she wanted to see them do the sexy dance; after today, one of her two requests has been fulfilled. Vakona Lodge, located just outside of the park, has an island on its property that is aptly named “Lemur Island” that is a home for lemurs that were formerly pets and thus cannot be released back into the wild. No sooner do you arrive on the island than lemurs are literally leaping on your shoulders to get to bananas that the guides hand out. The girl was beyond happy as she got to hug one of the furry little guys, and I was a fan of interacting with the little beasties and getting to see them so close up. They have soft little hands with giant fingers, and for whatever reason found me delicious, so I was licked repeatedly by lemurs and had to take a long shower when we returned home (for the record: there are far worse things in the world than to be licked by lemurs).

Prior to visiting the island of lemurs, we did a long hike through Andasibe National Park, a walk that started with a family of common brown lemurs. Yesterday’s wildlife lesson was that you can photograph diadem sifakas from four feet away, and today’s lesson was that the common brown lemur is fine with two feet of personal space. We would have been sitting there with wild lemurs on a log next to us for the better part of the morning had a grumpy indri not leaped over and scattered his competitors by turning their log into his toilet area – luckily we were out of range at the time.

When not forcing us to dodge their poo, the indri continued to impress as the various families sang their songs throughout the morning. They’re easy to find when singing, but at one point things went silent and the iPhone was used to “cheat” our way to indris, with a recording of the singing played back at full volume in order to entice the local family to join in the song and reveal their exact tree. We photographed that family, including a tiny baby, until our necks were sore from staring upwards – our morning was a good one.

The day finished with a night walk (chameleons, frogs, and four types of nocturnal lemurs, for those not sick of species lists yet). Tomorrow is our last day at this park, so we’ll have a morning walk in a private reserve that borders the park before making the three hour drive back to Antananarivo in preparation for a flight in a tiny plane on Saturday.

Common brown lemur in Andasibe National Park

Wild common brown lemur in Andasibe Natioanl Park. The journal may be all lemurs, all the time for a while. For those upset by this development, you may want to tune out for a couple of weeks.

As a rule I don’t take out the big camera for captive animals, but the iPhone was fair game for getting video of my new friend today.

Noodles and Waffles

Posted from Kambaku River Sands Lodge, Timbavati Game Reserve, South Africa at 9:50 pm, August 27th, 2014

I managed to mostly not get killed by elephants or crash the car while driving on the left, although there was an interesting moment where an elephant in front was giving me the staredown while another moved in behind to cut off retreat; so far as I’m aware I made it out alive.

The morning activity was a four and a half hour drive through the dirt roads of Kruger, highlighted by two separate rhino sightings and all manner of hoofed creatures. From there it was a three hour drive north to my fancy private lodge for the next three nights – the entire route was paved until the last few kilometers, and aside from the aforementioned elephant misunderstanding no one seemed too bothered by my attempts at driving on the left. The lodge itself is beyond luxurious – my shower is the size of my entire bathroom at home, and there were like twelve different towels in the room; one is for in front of the shower, one is for drying off, but I have not yet cracked the mystery of what the purpose of the other ten might be.

The activities at this lodge are a morning and evening game drive each day, but the highlight for me thus far has been a herd of fifteen elephants that recently started coming by to drink from the pool. The pool is on a raised platform, so they have to reach their trunks up to it and can only reach the last few inches into the water. I watched the grey trunks slinking up and over the edge of the pool from about ten feet away, which aside from a couple of vehicular encounters is by far the closest I’ve been to the colossal animals. I told the staff that they need to put a video of the elephants on the internet, and after people see what’s in store for them here they’ll be booked for months.

The game drive seemed to be more tame than those elsewhere, with the passengers seated, the driver starting out along a paved road, and the route directly to some lions he’d found in the morning. That said, Timbavati is home to some very rare white lions, and one of the two cats tonight was a ghostly color. The last bit of the game drive was after sunset and featured an owl and three huge porcupines, so I’m confident in saying that the next three days will continue the trend of awesomeness that has been a hallmark of this lengthy adventure.

Warthog in Kruger National Park

Nearly a month after arriving in Africa and seeing warthogs almost daily, finally one stood still long enough to get a decent photo. He knows he’s a stud.

Because the local elephants have found a new favorite watering hole no one is going to be using the pool anytime soon. The lodge guests have no complaints, but the guy responsible for cleaning the pool is less than thrilled.

Crossings

Posted from Mara Serena Safari Lodge, Masai Mara, Kenya at 10:04 pm, August 17th, 2014

Doug and Gail got their crossing today, and it was a grizzly one for the wildebeest – a herd of at least 3000 animals took their time choosing a spot to cross, and finally picked a spot with steep banks and a few crocodiles in the water. Our vehicle was on the wrong side of the river to see them going down, but the dead animals that floated by us downstream were a testament to how something we take for granted like crossing a river can be a life-and-death endeavor in the animal kingdom.

Aside from the carnage at the river, today was a very pleasant day. Everyone in our van agreed early on that we didn’t want to rush around chasing wildebeest, so we went at a slow pace and watched the herd make their way down to the river, then sat on the banks to observe while other vehicles raced to the bridge to get a good viewpoint on the other side. As the drama unfolded, our driver showed an incredible ability to anticipate exactly what the beasties would do, and accurately predicted their meandering path, including selecting the exact tree that they eventually wandered to along the river bank. The afternoon was a similar slow pace, which allowed time to sit and enjoy the animal behavior at length.

Tomorrow we’re off early (of course) to see parts of Kenya further north, so today is my last day in the Serengeti, at least for a while. It’s a great place, and hopefully I’ll be back again.

Wildebeest stampeding at the Mara River after their original path was blocked by a lion. Yeah, it was awesome. The video is a minute long (and overexposed, oops), but it took probably five minutes for the entire herd to run by us.

Waterbuck in Masai Mara Game Reserve

Waterbuck are apparently only rarely preyed upon by lions or other predators because they taste very, very bad.

Plenty of Yum Yum

Posted from Mara Serena Safari Lodge, Masai Mara, Kenya at 9:10 pm, August 16th, 2014

While watching two crocodiles try to figure out how to eat a dead hippo (side note: how awesome is it that I can start a journal entry with that?!?!) I asked our guide why there weren’t any vultures on the hippo carcass. He answered “probably they don’t find it yet”, then gestured to the surrounding Serengeti and noted “also, there is plenty of yum yum for them”. Point well made, as the vultures here aren’t hurting for selection.

The Cheesemans remain somewhat obsessed with getting everyone a glimpse of the wildebeest herds crossing the Mara River, while the wildebeest remain obsessed with the crocodiles in the river and thus far haven’t obliged Doug & Gail by taking a plunge. Given all the time spent at the river today, other wildlife sightings were limited, although we did get some time with a cheetah and her juvenile cub, and a day with cheetahs is always a good day. Heavy rains at the end of the day caused a cancellation in tonight’s night drive, although that may be a blessing in disguise as exhaustion was setting in, so a bit of extra rest will be much appreciated.

One other random story from safari thus far: typically when a vehicle spots something exciting the driver radios the other four drivers in our group so that anyone nearby can drive over to see it. The drivers speak in Swahili, and often won’t immediately tell us what the radio chatter is about because they don’t want anyone to be disappointed if the animal wanders off. However, at this point we’ve learned a little bit of Swahili so that we can sometimes figure out what is causing the excitement by picking out key words like “simba” (lion), “duma” (cheetah), “chui” (leopard), etc. Yesterday the word “barabara” was being repeated numerous times during a particularly enthusiastic exchange, so after conferring with the other passengers to see if anyone knew what it meant, a lady from Taiwan timidly asked the driver “what is a ‘barabara'”? “Barabara means ‘road'” was the answer from the driver – apparently one of the drivers had radioed for directions.

Wildebeest in Masai Mara Game Reserve

Wildebeest always seem to have somewhere to go.

Two crocodiles eating a dead hippo, for those who have gotten sick of cute baby animal pictures.

Several Thousand Geese-a-Flying

Posted from Merced, California at 10:06 pm, December 27th, 2012

After a bird-themed Christmas, waffles, a game involving trains (a recurring activity this holiday season, apparently), and hiking in the mud with Aaron I took leave of Ma & Pa’s house and returned to the road. Today’s stop was at the Cosumnes River Preserve, home to (literally) tens of thousands of geese and numerous other feathered critters. Having flocks of thousands of geese and the occasional sandhill crane passing overhead as the sun set was not a bad way to finish the day.

Several thousand white-fronted geese take to the skies as the sun sets. Turn up the volume for maximum enjoyment.

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