Rota - Tropical Paradise

Aaaaahhhhh....

I'm currently breathing in the smells of plumeria, bougainville, hibiscus, and all these other wonderul tropical flowers that are in bloom everywhere. Add in some birds chirping (sorry, I don't know all the land birds around here!), the sound of waves crashing 500 feet from my porch, and the absence of TV, phone, clock, cars, tourists, people...you get the idea. Paradise!

Rota is this tiny (well, 85 sq km) island north of Guam. It's part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which is US territory or something (you need a passport to come here). Anyways, Rota is the CNMI "Nature Island" and I see why. It's one of those places still unchanged, for the most part. Island lifestyle, four restaurants in the main town - called Songsong - so fitting! The rest of the island is volcanic reefs, sandy beaches, and steep rocky cliffs covered in tropical foliage - perfect for all of the endemic and native birds. I'm not that much of a birder, but I have already seen the local kingfisher, Mariana crow, brown ground dove, and lots of noddies, terns, and herons! Ah, paradise.

I came up here for 2 days/1 night to get away, and I wish I could stay. This is the place people should (but for some reason don't because they haven't discovered it) come to get married and honeymoon. There's literally no one here! Amazing. Secluded beaches, the swimming hole, all ours for the taking...We each rented our own little bungalow (see below) and I had the best sleep of the last 3 months. Aaahhh...Okay, sorry I know most of you can't be in the tropics withe me, so I'll stop. Anyways enjoy the photos...

Our own personal swimming hole, with the ocean crashing over the lavarock reefs and forming these mirror-like pools with little mini waterfalls...

The east side of the island - the main road over here is one lane, dirt road bumping over the cliffs...and no other cars to veer away from!!

Strangling fig vines that took over this HUGE Tree

My little bungalow, where I write to you from. Just outside on the porch you can see the palms and ocean inviting me over. We're at the Coconut Village, and I think there's one other family here...

The plane we flew from Guam to Rota on - I think it may be an old Army plane or something...very boxy and old. They bring people (about 7 on my flight), food, mail, etc all on this little plane! It's the kind of plane where you can't change seats because they ask your weight before you get on and put you in a specific place to balance it out! But, ironically, I got more food on this 30 minute flight than any flight to New York! Well, not really, but juices and snack packs (without the mandatory charge nowadays)...

BAD Day...

BAD day...
3/7/07

You know when you have one of those days when it seems like everything in world is aligned to make your life collapse around you? Well, that was today for me. Nothing completely horrible happened to me, but everything that’s ever happened to me in the past that has been horrible came back to me today, as my life felt like it was crashing down. It felt (sort of) like the end of the world as I knew it...What really happened is that my computer died, mid-iTunes download. I decided to restart the whole computer, because it was being a little weird, and, well, it just never came back on again. Ever. Just gone, kaput, done-zo, dead. At first I was pretty mellow about it – I did like most girls would do in this situation, let my computer “rest” and went shopping for a couple hours. A hundred dollars later, and still my computer produced nothing but the gray screen of death upon my hopeful pressing of the “On” button. Still, nonplussed, I kept trying every couple minutes while sipping a smoothie at the internet café. Finally it dawned on me that something was wrong. And it was dire. Of course this was 5:00 pm, I was leaving to go back on the research cruise the following morning at 7:00 am, and the only computer store in Guam that services Macs was closing at 6:00 pm. Freaking out in the rental car in rush hour traffic in Guam (believe me, there is traffic here!), I finally made it to the store, where Andy the service tech told me, essentially, that my logic board was toast. Good news is that my hard drive was okay, bad news was that I couldn’t ever really access the hard drive again from my computer! Andy (service tech and savior), calmly told me that he’d keep the computer (currently in pieces on the counter) while I was on the third leg of my cruise and run through a couple tests to make sure it was the mother board. I just had to live computer-free for a couple weeks on a boat. No big whoop, right?

Fast forward 3 weeks, and we’re back in port again in Guam. As it turns out, living laptop-less is very, very nice. For the most part. There are some bummers, like not being able to update your iPod’s music or even charge your iPod (luckily I borrowed an old wall charger). And remembering that the computer that you left in pieces with Andy a couple weeks ago holds all the data, pictures, and final draft of your Master’s thesis on it’s apparently very vulnerable hard drive. Eh, details, right? In the interim, I read all I could about Mac issues, software, new laptops (why not??), backing up your files (should I repeat – backing up your files!) and other tidbits in the MacWorld magazines that had made it on board via another Mac user on the cruise. It all made me feel much better, and even though I no longer had my trusty iBook G4 with the Santa Cruz sticker on it, life as I knew it wasn’t over. Actually, my life was pretty nice. I found I had a lot more time to read books, write (with paper and pen), nap, and talk to people in person. It was still more difficult to write lengthy emails to people, but I knew most of the important people in my life know where I was and only needed the bare details in an email. And they knew I was computer-less. In short, it was an epiphany! Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far, but it was definitely a wake up call for me. To realize how many ties I have to the digital world, which is great, but then to realize how quickly they can go away. Forever. That said, I’ve written everyone’s phone numbers that are in my cell phone down on paper, email addresses are on paper, which will only go away in the event of a fire or really strong wind. Even water won’t ruin that backup! I know, some things are only digital, but you know what, most of it isn’t that important, in the end. And if it is, for God’s sake, back it up!!! I learned the hard way, that’s for sure...

So, with all of that, I’m actually typing this on my trusty old computer that almost gave up the ghost. It’s on it’s last leg, and I am very scared to turn it off (I just put it to sleep right now), but I picked it up from Andy yesterday, and he said it looks like a video card thing. Who knows, exactly, but while standing with him in the store I backed everything up to an external hard drive. I can’t get on the internet anymore, nor do I dare trying to do anything with big files, but at least I can type stuff, then transfer my writing to a computer with internet access. So there it is. I just had to share all this with you. No longer is my iBook my most trusty companion, but my notebook and pen, tucked safely in my cotton tote along with an old-fashioned book. I know, it’s cheesy, but true! And now I think I can really enjoy where I am a little more...that is until I buy the new MacBook Pro coming out this summer...(Hey I did come on this cruise to make money, which is meant to be used!).

Leg 3 - Take Two!

Cute little Melon-headed whale - with calf!

Melon-headed whales (peponocephala)

White tailed tropicbird coming to say hello!

Spotted dolphin checking me out (note white on beak)

Streaked shearwater in our wake

Leg 3 – “Take Two...”
3/8/07
We sailed back out of Apra Harbor from Guam once again, hopeful that the horrible weather we had seen 5 days before had passed through. We sailed the same route – up north around the west side of Guam, then cut east and then south. Right out of the harbor we came upon a big group of sperm whales, literally 8 miles from shore (out from Tumon Bay, no less, the most heavily populated area!). We were also greeted by lots of Streaked shearwaters “streaking” by us, flying to the north-northeast from their nesting areas. They’re cool birds, very big shearwaters, and mostly white (on the underside). The weather was interesting – really huge swell, riding the front of a storm, but the wind hadn’t caught up to us yet. So, the first couple days we had really calm conditions, but still huge swell. Then the wind arrived and it all turned to crap – we couldn’t even survey one day because of the danger of slipping!

The first week we saw striped dolphins, huge schools of skipjack tuna, bowriding Melon-headed whales – with cute little calves!, pseudorca, a Bryde’s whale, Sei whale, and some pomarine jaegers. Even though that sounds like a lot, spread that out over 7 days, and it gets pretty boring! One sighting per day, the rest of the time staring into a sea of emptiness...The most exciting thing was that we were joined by 1, then 2, then 4 Red-foot and Brown boobies! The front bow mast got too crowded after two boobies squeezed on and started squabbling, so the other two birds perched on the main mast above the flying bridge. Very fun to watch them swoop down and dive for flying fish, preen themselves, and just act like, well, boobs! They’re pretty silly birds – I picture them talking like surfers – “Hey dude, this is my perch, man...” and “Yo, did you check out that fish, man, it was huge!”...(Kinda like the turtles from Finding Nemo)...I know, I’m still a dork. Anyways, with the birds’ presence we were also blessed with, well, their bird poop! It’s dangerous when a bird is perched in front of you and there’s strong winds blowing towards you! I didn’t get pegged, but more than one of us did. Plus the whole front of the bow turned a lovely color of white over the course of two days. Luckily the big waves washed it all clear pretty quickly...

3/17/07
Oh man. Save the drama for your mama. That’s my new slogan. It’s becoming a bit like a soap opera out here – “As the Kahana Rolls” or “Days of Our Lives: At Sea”. Without going into all the details (those of you who really want to know will have to come visit me in Santa Cruz and buy me some beers), and without incriminating anyone, I’ll try to explain the last couple days...So much to tell! I think a lot of the drama is created by people who live on the same boat with each other for 3-4-5 months at a time. It’s also perpetuated by inherently dramatic (shall I say Drama Queen?) and egotistical people. Anyways, words like “idiot” (and worse) plus “usurption of power” have been used to people in charge of driving the boat, leading the cruise, making the decisions, etc. I can’t even believe some of it, but believe me there are going to be some good fireworks going off on the last leg – just in time for me to share with you when I return to CA! Lately, when I’m on watch on the flying bridge with Cornelia and Richard, we’ve taken to having “Gossip Hour” because it seems like daily (sometimes even hourly!) something new has happened that is pretty major. In the end it’s all pretty silly, as all gossip is, but I guess it adds to the experience out here...one I won’t forget for a while...

Other things we’ve seen so far is a mixed-species group of Pilot whales, Rough-toothed dolphins, and Bottlenose dolphins! Very cool to see...Also saw more sperm whales (no ramming this time around!) – with bottlenose dolphins playing around the sperm whale calf, spotted dolphins, more pilot whales...For the Bird nerds: saw long-tailed jaegers, Flesh-foot shearwaters, Mottled petrel (very cool bird), streaked shearwater in our wake, Matsudaira’s storm petrel, and little shearwater (very auk-like – and cute!)...

We cruised South all the way downswell to 10 degrees N of the equator, then bid adieu to summery weather and promptly turned around and headed back North into the wind and waves coming from Asia. We also ran into more smog from China – although they still say it was a volcanic explosion. Whatever it is, it’s pretty gross smelling and irritating to the throat, and pretty sad to see pollution in the middle of the ocean over the deepest trench in the world, with nothing within hundreds of miles to create the pollution. Just birds, mammals and fish absorbing it all...

We headed back into Guam, and I’ve been planning my trip to Rota, a quaint little island north of Guam. It should be nice to relax and get away, refresh for the grand finale of Leg 4...(!!!!).