Friday, November 16, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Update
We've been enjoying our time in SC. It's great to be back. I'd probably post a few times, but I've been too busy fishing.
I bought a new telescope for 'the kids' and thought I'd share a few photos of our searching. Sometimes the kids are excited, and other times, they complain and want to go watch TV. What can you do?
I bought a new telescope for 'the kids' and thought I'd share a few photos of our searching. Sometimes the kids are excited, and other times, they complain and want to go watch TV. What can you do?
Saturn in motion - 30 sec exposure
Half moon from the trailer-porch!
Sky probing in Texas.
17 day old Texas moon.
Saturn...hopefully more impressive with my next telescope!
Distant storm from the trailer park.
Jupiter and 4 of it's moons
Friday, August 17, 2012
The best, shitty trip home from Djibouti!
So…it’s way overdue, but I promised I’d explain my fantastic
trip home from Djibouti…
The trip started like any good day in Djibouti. Sweaty. The
sun gave no indications that it was the best day ever in Djibouti. It was still
hot. The day before had been spent packing and there was still one package left
to send. I had planned to stay up super late and start getting adjusted to the
new time zone. I woke up late, ate breakfast and got my last packages to the
post office.
After a spending the day sending goodbye emails, shipping,
cleaning and getting packed; I was ready for the flight home. I had an average
steak-night in Djibouti and sat around 11DN. After a beer it was finally time
to get ready to go sit at JIB for 3 hours.
Security was awesome and I got in quick. I was dying of
thirst and didn’t know what to do. I remembered that I had been given 5 euros
by some random guy for trading seats on the flight to Paris (on the way to
Djbouti). I insisted that it wasn’t necessary, but he said he was grateful and
I needed to have a beer on him. I
thought I would just have a souvenir but it turns out that I would indeed have
a beer on his dime. It just took 6 months to get it. After a beer I made it
through the next part of security and snuck into the first class lounge.
We boarded the plane and I was fortunate enough to get the
seat that the movie screen didn’t work. Great! I swapped seats for the trip to
Jeddah, but had to go back when the plane filled up. I was starting to feel
gross. I assume that it was something from the pizza the day before or
something, but it was not good. They sprayed the plain with ‘non-toxic,
non-harmful to human’ insecticide when leaving Jeddah. By the time I got to
Paris, I was completely miserable. I stopped in the bathroom and instantly knew
that this trip home was not going to be pleasant.
After 3 hours and at least as many trips to the bathroom, it
was back onboard for another 12 hour flight. This flight, however, I was the ‘seat
buddy’ from hell. I probably made 8 trips to the bathroom. It was terrible!
We arrived early and I finally broke the news to Katie. I
was dying (not literally of course). I rode the shuttle to the Embassy for what
was supposed to be an afternoon and evening full of happy hour, BassPro and
BBQ. What we had instead, was TV, bathroom exhaust fans and Katie going on a
trip to get some Pepto Bismo. I think this point, Katie thought I was dying.
The next day, I felt better, though it would take a few days
to get back to normal. I can’t believe that I managed to spend 6 months in
Djibouti without getting some stomach issue, just to arrive back in the US
unable to get more than 20 minutes from a bathroom.
It’s still great to be back! I’ve spent the last couple months spending time with Katie and the kids, fishing, and enjoying the fact that it’s not quite as hot in SC (it’s pretty close this time of the year though). We’ll be attending to the usual Labor Day weekend dove slaughter this year! I’ll try to post more, but no promises.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Back in South Carolina!
It's been an interesting, busy and fun 2 weeks. My laptop's motherboard was killed by a couple drops of Listerine that happened to leak out of the bottle AND the Ziploc bag after re-arranging everything so Paris' security guys could take away my dive multi-tool...Hence the lack of a finale post for my time in Djibouti.
After 24 hours of miserable but on-time/early flights back to Texas, a week of good times with friends and family, and 27 hours of driving (including 3 hours of sitting on the highway); we're back at Parris Island AND WE HAVE wifi! That means we should make a few posts about our adventure full-timing.
It's late and I'm tired from the drive. More to come soon!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Memorial Day Overnight Dive Trip and Beach Camping
It is finally approaching the time when I will be able to
remove the temporary label from the blog and I will finally return home to my
family. But, before that happens, I must spread the word of my last adventure
in Djibouti.
For my last adventure, I went on an overnight dive trip.
After weeks of flopping back and forth over what I would do for our great
two-day weekend, an opening for the dive
trip came about and I jumped in.
We left Camp Lemonnier Sunday morning and headed down to the
fishing pier. There, we loaded up on the Farragallah and set sail for our first
dive site. It took a couple hours to reach Shark Island which got its name from
the shape of the pile of rocks that make up the island, not from any sharks
swimming around the island. It’s located on the windy side of Ras Eiros and is
a nice reef surrounding a tiny pile of rocks. This trip we mostly dove from the
mothership rather than skiffs. At the far end of the reef there was an enormous
school of tightly packed Ehrenberg’s Snapper. The dive ended and we headed
towards Lake Ghoubet.
At Lake Ghoubet, we anchored at our dive destination and
camp site. We made a sunset dive and a night dive with sleeping turtles before finishing up the
evening with drinks, food and sleeping on the beach. I think I can speak for
everyone when I saw that we were sleeping on cots rather than fighting for sandy
beds with the crabs. I was also pleasantly surprised the temperature was
bearable and by early morning the wind shifted and had an occasional chill to
the air.
A small group of us headed towards The Crack to set the buoy
and check the conditions. Along the way, we saw a pod of dolphin playing on the
glassy water. With the lack of wind, I could tell that this tour of The Crack
would be much better than the last trip. We dived down and found our buoy tie
off point. After a quick swim through The Crack, we surfaced to find the
Farragallah waiting for us. We briefed, suited back up and made another dive
tour. We found a giant Eagle Ray and a Manta Ray waiting for us. The dive was
great and I followed it with a quick trip to search for a lost weight belt and
a knife while getting the buoy. No luck with the search and we headed to one of
the best dives in Ghoubet.
It was a great trip and I could not have asked for a better
way to spend Memorial Day. Or…at least spend Memorial Day over 8,000 miles from
home…in Djibouti.
Here are a few photos from the Farragallah. The wind block you see at the front of the ship is the galley (cut down 55 gallon drum full of charcoal).
Monday, May 7, 2012
busy
Sorry for the lack of posting to the few people that actually read this. It has been busy (work) the last couple weeks. I did manage to lose $80 at the Casino yesterday. No millionaire dream come true for me.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Volcano Hunting in Djibouti
So, for the next adventure I decided to do something
different. We had been to Lake Asaal and Lake Ghoubet many times. Between the
two locations is a vast wasteland full of sand, lava flows, gypsum and no
shade. While ‘google earthing’ the area I came across a photo of a volcano. So,
I spread the word that I wanted to find a volcano and didn’t know exactly where
it was. That was enough, because I managed to convince 12 other people to drive
for an hour and a half and wander across this wasteland in 100+ degree weather.
The plan was simple; I grabbed a couple GPS coordinates from
Google Earth. One point of where to turn off of pavement and another point of
the best idea I had for the ‘volcano’. We headed out and made our usual pee
break at the Djibouti Grand Canyon. We waited for the third vehicle to catch up
and were hassled to buy more geodes and obsidian. The third vehicle showed up
and shortly after we were on our way.
After verifying that what I thought was the road was in fact
the road (also known as turning around), we drove down and started our journey.
I knew we would have to hike anywhere from one to three miles because I did not
know the condition of the ‘road’ heading towards our destination. We made it
about 300 yards before we decided that the van in our caravan should probably
not have left the pavement.
So, we started on foot. To my surprise, a large group
started down the road. The only thing they forgot was the person who studied
the path on Google Earth and the guy with GPS. So, after grabbing one last
bottle of water to compliment the three liters on my back and swapping the GPS
batteries, the rest of us started the hike.
Once we got a higher view to compare with the printout I
had. I asked Q what his GPS said we should do. We were both in agreement and we
decided that taking the road was definitely not the fastest way to our
destination. Of course the other group was about ½ a mile down the road at this
point so we figured we would show them why it’s a good idea to wait for the
guys with the map/GPS.
We headed over a hill and across a gypsum and sand flat.
Once across that, our destination was easy to see. Not to our surprise, we
arrived at the volcano long before the first group who had stopped and waited
for us before finally realizing that we probably went straight there rather
than following the winding road.
We toured the rim of the volcano and a few of us climbed to
the bottom of the crater. After many photos and some lava scraped hands and
knees, one of us had the idea to climb down the volcano and go check out this
stuff a mile away. After some uneasy thoughts, everyone followed the lead like
good lemmings and down we went.
The only flaw in our plan was not realizing that the 460
foot descent would be followed by a 460 foot ascent. Well…maybe there were
several flaws if you add the heat and amount of water carried to it. Down we
went and everyone explored some new areas. By this point we were around 230
feet below sea level. Though I do not know what the exact temperature was, we
had two readings from 96 to 109F. My internal thermometer read: 'really f'ing hot you idiot!'.
We were finally ready to head back. We had made it about 4
miles to this point. Now all we had to do was hike back. That is where it
started to get uncomfortable. The wind was probably blowing about 30 miles in
our faces most of the way back. Add that it was 100+F wind full of sand and it
was not quite ideal conditions. We made it up to about sea level before the
first break. Though shade was nowhere to be found, there were plenty of hot
rocks to sit on.
We made a few more stops along the way and ate some Nutter
Butters and drank water…Lots of water. We made one last stop finding the only shade in Djibouti before making the final push. We chose the more direct return route
and finally made it back to the vehicles. The last obstacle was getting the van
out and heading back to CLUville. In the end it was a great trip and it turns
out that we probably would have been able to make it a 300 yard hike by driving
our Escapes close. But, it was a great way to spend a Sunday in Djibouti and
burn a few thousand calories at the same time.
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