2010 in pictures

Here is our year summarized in a few tiny photos. If you click on the picture, you can see a larger version of the image!

Merry Christmas!

For those who celebrate this holiday - Merry Christmas!
For those that don't celebrate Christmas - Happy Holidays!

We are back home and I'm loving being back with my kitties and my man. Life is good. Enjoy it!

Diving in the tropics is a piece of cake

Sunrise from the dive boat

We have been having a blast the past few days - despite all the attempts from the nasty rain gods to cramp our style. We have been diving, snorkeling, beach bumming, driving on crazy narrow roads, waterfall searching, blowhole watching, and bird watching. Now I'm going to bed! But here are a few pictures from our holiday in rainy Maui. More stories will follow when I'm not falling asleep. But I will note - it is awesome to wear 12 pounds instead of 46 pounds of weight when diving. And one thin hood (to try and stay warm in these not so hot waters) instead of two thick hoods and a latex hood on top of that. I could flip upside down in a second here and listen to whales singing. But I could only see maybe 100-150 ft. In Antarctica I could see forever.

See the frogfish?

Julie inspects an artificial reef

Jay discovers the 'Iao Needle

Rocky coastline of West Maui

Pale white Washingtonian

J&J back together again!

Finally - J&J have started up adventures together again. =) I loved Antarctica, in fact the only thing that sucked about it was being away from my man. So we are happy to be together again on Maui! Yesterday and today we just sat on the beach and did nothing at all. It has been fantastic. Tomorrow we are ramping up the tourism and going to check out some cool places in Maui. We booked ourselves for a dive on Sunday with a dive shop that seems really interested in biology. That sounds pretty exciting to us!
More stories to follow....

Oh yummy passionfruit how I love thee

View of Diamondhead from my flight to Maui

Dunedin

Two albatross bid me farewell! A great way to leave Stewart Island....

The train station in Dunedin

Breakfast with Heather at a lovely cafe called "the good oil"

I leave lovely New Zealand tomorrow and head to Hawaii to see my man! I can't wait!! But I have been enjoying my time in this awesome country. I spent last night with Heather, a friend of ours who just moved from Auckland to Dunedin. This worked out well because I would not had have time to get to Auckland to visit her and our friend David. (If you go way back in the blog to around March or April 2008 you will find our blog posts about staying with David and Heather)

I haven't done much except ride buses since I last posted! But some more photos from NZ are posted under my older picasa account - the link is on the right side of the screen - click on the link that says "globalscents"

I have big plans for tomorrow. I still get US postage rates as a polar program participant. So I am going shopping! I plan on buying a ton of vegemite and shipping it home to last me for years in America, land with no yeast extract spreads. I might get some manuka honey while I'm at it. Yum.

KIWI

Well people. It finally happened. I saw a kiwi in the wild. Not one kiwi, but TWO. And we saw the same male twice. So three sightings in one awesome awesome evening. I love Stewart Island. This is such a cool place to be if you are a birder. I've seen albatross, mollymawks, one yellow-eyed penguin, little blue penguins, two kiwis, tuis, kereru (NZ pigeon), tomtits, kakas (a big parrot) and just wait because the list will get longer tomorrow! I'm heading back to Ulva Island. Jay and I visited this island when we were here over two years ago. There are no rats, stoats, cats, etc.... on the island. Hence the birds, which did not evolve with mammalian predators, thrive here. I plan on spending the entire day staring at birds.

I've gone hiking every day in the forest. I love listening to the birds, especially the tuis. I've also heard kiwis twice (imagine a woman screeching and you've got a kiwi noise). It is magical being back in these strange and ancient forests. I knew I loved New Zealand, but now I know how much I loved it because hearing, seeing, and smelling the forest is like a homecoming. What a place!

Buller's mollymawk

Lee Bay

Here he is! My second kiwi sighting (I didn't get an image of the female we saw first)

Tui

Of bubbles and birds

Just before leaving Antarctica Kevin, Kamille, and I scrambled up Observation Hill for one last view of McMurdo Sound and McMurdo Station. It was a clear day and the views of all of the mountains were fantastic. But mountains were not the only treat we received on the climb. While climbing up Ob Hill, I noticed some bright white dots moving quickly over the top of the hill. We all wondered if those fast moving dots were snow petrels, but dismissed it because they are a rare sight to see around McMurdo. But when Kevin and I were chilling out at the top and taking in the view, a snow petrel flew by! And then another one! And another one! They kept coming….. our jaws were on the rocks beneath our feet. What gorgeous birds and what a fabulous way to say goodbye to the Ice.

Snow petrel

Julie on top of Observation Hill with Henry and Jackson's water drop!

Our flight back was scary, as usual. But landing was interesting because it was warm and raining and almost dark in Christchurch. These were all natural things we had forgotten about temporarily. It felt awesome.

I put all my stuff into storage at the US Antarctic Program office that I didn’t need for traveling around New Zealand. Then we all headed off to the bar. We (Paul, Kamille, Kevin, and I) had a crazy last night together in Christchurch. That story will be told in pictures below. Holy moly.

We had only been in the bar for a minute or two when I started talking to a Kiwi. He noticed that I was talking to Paul about getting a bottle of bubbly to celebrate a great season in the Antarctic. This Kiwi didn't approve of the bubbly that the bar had to offer and told us so. Then he said, "hold on, let me go to my place and bring you some real champagne." O.K. So he returns. He returned holding a box with a 2002 bottle of Dom Perignon! Ummmmm. I am not kidding. Next thing I know we are all sitting around a small table in the empty bar with this guy we just met (nickname = "Grumpy"), the bartender ("I can't believe I'm serving this"), and four scientists from the Antarctic. The photo above shows how unhappy I was about having to try this champagne from Grumpy.


In case you don't believe me here is the bottle. So we have great conservations about how awesome Kiwis are and Grumpy tells us how awesome Americans are, although we all have a good rant about Republicans. Next thing we know, the champagne is all gone. Damn it was good. Grumpy says - "would ya like another bottah?" Silence around the table.... of course we do, but do we dare say yes? Grumpy takes off to his place - just one building over, and reappears with ANOTHER bottle of Dom Perignon, same 2002 vintage. And not only does Grumpy appear with the super expensive champagne, he is carrying a life size cardboard cutout of Obama. He just wanted to make his point to us that he loves Obama. He should know, he got loaded in the US owning some big transportation company named Target (not the superstore). I have a great image in my head of Grumpy walking down the sidewalk with a box containing Dom Perignon in one arm and Obama in the other.

Here we are! Grumpy, Julie, Obama (he needed a drink more than any of us), and Paul

Paul cracking up

Obama, Kamille, and Kevin. Taking in the night.... sooooo after we hung out with Obama and drank our second bottle of crazy expensive bubbly Grumpy invited us up to his pad next door. He had been telling Paul about some of the artwork he owned and wanted to show us. Next thing we know we are in a lovely apartment (suite?). Rich folks in NZ don't go and buy the biggest house possible and waste tons of energy in the process. This place was small, very tasteful, and filled with warmth. We loved it. The artwork was amazing.....and I recognized one piece in particular that made the night even more unreal. He had a piece hanging in his kitchen that had been painted by an Asian elephant. I recognized it because Jay and I have been to Chang Mai (Thailand) and watched elephants painting. Pretty neat. Turns out that Grumpy loves animals (this got Paul really excited). Grumpy bought an African elephant and rescued her and brought her back to a happy and healthy elephant. She lives on the North Island. Pretty neat eh? So Grumpy gave all of us printed out pictures of his pet elephant. Then he walked us all the way back to our B&B before saying goodbye. I'm pretty sure Kiwis are the most generous, honest, fun, and loving people in the world. The next morning Kevin said to me "was that real?". Or maybe Paul said that...we were all in a daze. How cool is that story?

I got up early the morning after that awesome night and said goodbye to Kevin. I missed Paul and Kamille and I was very sad about that. I hope I see all of them again. What a great team. I hopped on a bus to Invercargill with plans to catch a ferry the following day to Stewart Island. I don’t have a ton of time in New Zealand, so I have opted to spend pretty much all of it on Stewart Island. I loved this island when Jay and I came a few years ago and I dreamed of coming back. This is one of the few places in New Zealand where you can try to see a kiwi in the wild! You know me and my birds. After two long days of buses and a ferry ride, I’ve arrived on this gorgeous dot south of the South Island. How suiting that an albatross greeted me. I left Antarctica on the wings of the snow petrel and arrived on Stewart Island escorted by an albatross. I could only be happier if Jay was with me. This island is grand.

Heading off the Ice and back to New Zealand!

Team IceAged
David, Bob, Kevin, Stacy, Julie
Kamille, Paul, Jennifer, Tina, DJ

I am leaving the Ice today! We finished our work early, packed up our stuff, analyzed data, and had a lot of fun these last few days.

Here are a few funny pictures from the last week of work here! I'll write more once I get to NZ! Yipee! Only 10 more days until I see Jay in Hawaii.

Jennifer, Julie, and Kevin near Little Razorback Island after a dive

Speak, See, and Hear no evil - at Bratina Island