Monday, September 8, 2008

Sad News

I think I finally managed to break my digital camera. The blog is on a hiatus until I win the lottery.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Also...

Kim just showed me how to stitch a panorama together in Photoshop. If you click on it it gets bigger.


In this photo I am standing with a "world famous" banana daquiri at some weird tourist trap called Mountaintop, which is, you guessed it, at the top of a mountain.

That's Magen's Bay down below, and you can see the side bits of some hurricane (Gustav?) blowing quickly through in the background. Magen's Bay, incidentally, is named after the daughter of some famous Florida guy named Fairchild (can't figure out his first name...). The Fairchilds, who created the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in South Florida, lived in St. Thomas, or had a house there, and have bequeathed a large swath of property to the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands to preserve in perpetuity. Alex said this land is actually totally neglected -- there is no management plan -- and no public outreach and education, which is sad.

Back, with Gills

I have returned from my trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands.


I visited my friend Alex, who lives on St. Thomas. She is a scuba instructor and got me my open-water certification!

Scuba diving is amazing. Breathing underwater and coming close to all of these otherwise inaccessible plants and animals is indescribably cool.








We also went snorkeling about three different times, once after we took a kayak out in a bay on a beautiful day.






It's unbelievably beautiful there.



Then I left. :(


Thanks, Alex and Ed!