1) I have a photo site http://www.flickr.com/photos/hewhocaves out there.

2) I’ve gotten the PhD back on track. The spring / summer has been a bit of a derailment, but things are back together now. The downside of course is that being original research, it would be bad science to talk about it before its all been peer-reviewed. Oh well. I will, however, post when the presentation is. Wish me luck Or at the very least, competency.

The Center for Biological Diversity – an organization with far many more lawyers than scientists – is a “environmental advocacy group” of the worst kind. The modus operandi of these lawyer-intensive organizations is to flood the legal system with frivolous lawsuits to the point where the defenders cannot afford to defend themselves. A lot of the more suspect legal commercials on television are like that.
Recently they’ve turned their meaty hooks on the White Nose Syndrome problem (WNS). WNS is a bat-bat disease that has been devastating bats across the eastern seaboard. Waaay back in the beginning, there was concern that people were transporting the disease, but there’s no data supporting that notion and a lot of data in direct contradiction. But like UFO nut jobs and bigfoot spotters these lawsuit factories will grasp at any straw to further line their coffers.
So its a great victory when we’re able to defeat them in their own arena – the courtroom. Science will inevitably marginalize organizations like the CBD, someday. Until that day, we need to keep fighting the war on ecoterrorism.

Oh and if you want to contribute to actual science helping to understand and eventually defeat WNS, consider giving to the NSS’s WNS Rapid Response Fund. We actually do science and not lawsuits.

http://www.caves.org/WNS/Rapid_Response.shtml

What a way to run a railroad!

You know what else is terrible? The fact that Civ V – the biggest disappointment this side of Daikatana is releasing a “Game of the Year” edition. Seriously. Its the same game bugs, terrible AI, oversimplified rules, et cetera that they released six months ago – only now with the DLC they just charged everyone for separately . Price for this turd? Supposedly $49.99…

On the plus side – there may be a decent tablet with stylus coming out this year.. I’m looking at YOU, Asus MeMO.

We’ve moved from jungle to scrub desert. Though we are more north, the air is cleaner, the sun is stronger and my skin is red again (though that may be from the cider). We’re at the tip of the peninsula which will lead us to San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco some 900 miles away (i think). The place looks North African in its architecture (well, sort of.. not really. Its hard to look like anything when you have a "Hooters" and a "Costco" prominently displayed.

I just walked around town today, taking in the sights and visiting the local Natural History Museum. A museum of any kind is a rare treat on these tours – a natural history museum doubly so. And despite it’s small size I was not disappointed. How could one be disappointed when the first exhibit is called "Le Big Bang".

Cabo is a very friendly town. Almost too friendly. The women standing in front of the innumerably massage parlors wanted to be my friend… and for $25 USD they’d be my bes friend ever. I demurred.

The scenery reminds me of Arizona.. or really dry portions of Montana. Friendly foothills rise up in the distance and a line of rock pinnacles, each with little beaches forms a line out to sea. Giant resort complexes rise up above the beaches and the tiny marina is packed with expensive yachts. The Wonder couldn’t possibly fit into such small accommodations, so we anchored far offshore and small boats "tendered", that is ferried, us into harbor. That was a fun ride, punctuated by the occasional seal popping its head up in the harbor.

Tomorrow is the last day at sea and that means packing. Part of me does not want this trip to end, but more of me is longing for my own bed and the return to the everyday.

Puerta Vallarta was a pretty good port. I can’t say I did much there aside from baby-sitting little kids while family and friends did the zipline. Its Mexico, its the jungle and it’s lots of neat geology that would be a trip unto itself. The city of Puerta Vallarta was the first real city (by real I mean tall buildings, wide streets and American corporate logos everywhere. Also everywhere was the Mexican armed forces. It says something about the USA that people with machine guns don’t greet you as you get off a ship or a plane. Oh, they’re there.. they’re just not "in your face".

The zipline was neat, if you are into that. I am most certainly not. The jungle was cool… the mountain stream that cut the valley through some igneous (or possibly metamorphic) rock (I’ve been in WV too long.. too many sedimentary rocks there.) and kept the stream very cold. The kids (ages 5 and younger) found out I was a geologist (guy who likes to look at rocks) so they would hand me one to keep every minute or so. About ten minutes later my hands, pockets and feet were covered in pebbles. (They have small hands). Note to self: little kids don’t really care about biotite. They’re just humoring me.

Come to Mexico and you are greeted by the navy.

Jeez. Talk about paranoid people. You’d think we’d taken half their country or someth— oohhhhh…

Manzanillo (that spelling may be wrong) is a nice industrial city. Smog hovers over the port and hangs in the foothills. But these people do something that none of the other ports do. They work. Not at tourism, at actual jobs. For an ex-New Yorker, this was a welcome change of pace.

The mountains come right up to the sea and the city is built into that nonexistant space between the two. House foundations go right into basalt. (Basalt? hmm.. hard to tell with all the soot on everything).

So, with few touristy things near port, the resorts too far away and a working city, I decided to photograph some of the wildlife of the area (no dog photos – though there were lots of dogs, like in every other Carib town). Here are two photos:

One’s a bird and one’s a fish.

I skipped yesterday because it was day one of the last real long sea leg. When we land in Manzanillo tomorrow afternoon it will be the first of 3 stops along the Mexican coast. I believe that at least part of this is the "Mexican Riviera". The three stops are Manzanilo, Puerta Vallara and Cabo San Lucas. I have a jeep excursion in Manza but the last two ports of call are just to stretch my legs. I look forward to Cabo in particular. I have long thought of setting a short story in Cabo… From what I’ve read and seen Baja California should be beautiful. I believe the Wonder will do some Mexican trips after this so there may be opportunity to return.

Right now we are at N 15 12′ and W 97 02′ sailing NW at just over 20 knots. This puts about even with the bottom of Mexico. Its still about 80 degrees outside and sunny. The Pacific was anything but, yesterday. But it is back to its usual calm self today. The monitors say that we have travelled over 3200 miles since we left Port Canaveral, with about 500 miles left until Manzanillo. I think we may surpass 5000 miles before this trip is over. Wow.

Because we were crossing open ocean we didn’t have much to look at yesterday. I did happen to see something awesome though – a school of flying fish. They were playing in the ship’s wake all day yesterday (and likely will be, today). Later in the day someone said they saw a whale far out to sea. I found them very difficult to photograph and the resulting pictures aren’t worth showing. It’s possible. I also saw what could have been a whale later in the day. It was very far off the port side – nearly at the horizon. Just a dot occasionally shooting water into the air. If it weren’t for the spouting I doubt any of us would have seen it.

I wanted to send a couple more Costa Rican pictures along as well.. one is of the mountains near sunset – the other is of some bananas (I think). I will leave it to the viewer to try to tell the two apart.

The attached pic, btw is me at the crater edge in a driving rainstorm. I mean South-Dakota-call-it-a-day-at-field-camp kind of rain. Coming down in sheets, wind so bad the rain gets underneath you and into everything. It was awesome. Costa Rica is definitely someplace I’d like to visit again.

And I got to ride on the Pan-American highway.

More pics, et al… later. We have two more days at sea before we stop in Mexico.

Right now (7:55 EST) we are at about N 7 31′ W 82 29′. This puts on almost at the Panama – Costa Rica border. A few hours ago we passed the most southernly portion of the journey. Last night we got to look at the sky a little bit and saw some constellations not normally visible from Morgantown. I brought my laptop onto deck to indentify them. Sadly, the ‘Southern Cross’ wasn’t visible until after 1am and I wasn’t able to stay up that late – having been up since 6am for the canal. We did see a lot more of Puppis (the ship) than I could usually see. The southern sky is generally not as impressive as the northern – the exception being
the two Magellanic Clouds. And while the larger one may have been visible from a dark sky at the horizon last night, the ship’s lights were too bright to be able to see it.

Today I’ll be catching up on sleep and generally keeping a low profile. The journeying part of the cruise is nearly complete. Next is the adventuring part!

We have the western locks to go through and then we’re into the Pacific Ocean. Then it’s celebratory mixed drinks and Tron Legacy in 3-D.

The included pic is us about to go under the bridge – my mom is on the top deck just to the right of the center pole. My sister, bro-in-law and Jack are in the pool in the bottom right. Jeff is holding Jack