Havana Part 1

The stunning street in front of El Capitolio

I've been really lax about the blog, as some people may or may not have noticed. Between the various other projects at home and work that won out, this blog just fell to the side. But today is a mellow day, we have a strong windstorm going on outside, I have a cat curled up in a ball on my lap, and I have a cup of my favorite smokey black tea in hand. Seems like a perfect time to tell you a bit about our time in Havana. 

We loved it! Our original plans were to spend all of our time in Havana when we arrived....but we ended up arriving during the mourning period for Fidel Castro - no booze, no music, no nightlife (although we are old farts and don't usually stay out late). Because of this we decided to cut our time in Havana short at the beginning and add more time on at the end when there might be music in the streets again. I'm glad we were there to see pre and post-mourning period because Havana was like a different city when we came back.

We couldn't help but get suckered into the touristy-tour in an old car in Havana. Don't worry - I wasn't actually driving this beauty...the driver was cracking himself up when he decided to put me there for a photo, so I went along with it. The tour was great though because it gave us the lay of the land in about an hour and after that we wandered Havana mostly all on foot with an occasional cab (also usually old cars like this without the shine). This photo was taken in Revolution Square. Yes, the Revolution Square.

Driving along the Malecón with Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes Magnos del Morro in the background.

Water trucks distributing water to Cubans in the street. I never really figured out if this means that many Cubans in Havana don't have access to running water? I'm guessing it might? I'm not sure I have the time to go into everything we learned about Cuba and communism. It sure was a different communism than the communism in Vietnam (which really is more capitalistic). Both countries were similar in that they still seemed to love displaying lots of propaganda! 

We arrived shortly after Cubans were given the ability to purchase property again. And open private restaurants. And so, to us, it became obvious that there are "haves" and "have nots" in this society..... something Castro didn't want (if I understand him with my relatively average knowledge of his history). Anyway, email me if you want more information on this and our impressions of Cuban politics - it was fascinating seeing and learning about this country.

Remember Obama? Oh man, this makes me want to cry. I wish I had bought that poster so I could stare at it and dream. But I also loved the one of the Statue of Liberty in an old car above Obama.

Don't judge me, but I'm not usually the kind of person who travels for architecture. Jay isn't really either. We travel for wild places, to see things that might go extinct in our lifetime, to hike in forests, and dive on threatened reefs. To put our money into sustainable tourism. But in Havana, the architecture was amazing and we were quickly sucked into the gorgeous squares, crumbling or restored buildings, and wonderful people. We actually spent days just walking around staring at buildings and reading about their history in our guidebook. This is Cathedral de San Cristobal de la Habana - finished in 1748 and known for its asymmetrical towers.

Gran Teatro de La Habana from Parque Central

Cuban, including Havana, is incredibly safe and you can happily wander the streets at night....even the unlit streets. This is great because this is a cash economy and you always have a fair amount of cash on you (probably compared to the average Cuban). By the way - no credit cards and no ATMs work for Americans; you have to bring all your cash for the entire trip and it should, preferably be Canadian because there is a surcharge on the US dollar.

The wonderful view from our bedroom in our casa. Casa particulars are homestays and they are a wonderful way to get to know a Cuban family and see their way of life. We loved every casa we stayed at.....this one in Centro Habana was run by a funny man named Rossell - he didn't speak a lick of English and our Spanish was rough (Jay is infinitely better than me). But Rossell had perfected hand gestures and loud/funny expressions in order to get the point across to his quarry. I loved him!

I so, so, so wanted to see a performance at Gran Teatro de La Habana (Grand Theatre in Havana). But all performances were cancelled due to Castro's death and performances were up and running when we were back in Havana about 10 days later, but nothing fell on the nights we were there. =( Sad. But a great excuse to go back...I would do anything to see a ballet or an opera in this stunning building.

We spent an entire day walking and wandering around Centro and Old Havana....including hanging with all the Cubans along the Malecón....who were doing nothing but staring at the view along with us. Well, some folks were fishing or smooching partners but most just stared....taking in the view. Jay was ready to jump in and snorkel when he saw this water. Not knowing a damn thing about the sewage treatment in the area, I told him he was insane and we stayed dry. Thankfully.

Wonderful modern sculpture in Plaza de San Francisco de Asis

Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes Magnos del Morro at dusk

Our last night in Havana brought the booze back! Here is a passionfruit mojito. I think I had a few mojitos every day. I was Cuba right? Soooo wonderful...actually some of the mojitos sucked, but others were made properly and were as refreshing as a cocktail can get in the tropics.

The Granma - the yacht that took Fidel and other revolutionaries from Mexico to Cuba in 1956.

Cars on the street from our balcony

Our shared taxi to Trinidad....the blog I will write in a few months the way things are going right now. =)

Carrie Bow Cay Field Station

Green Heron

Jay has been going to Carrie Bow Cay Field Station, run by the Smithsonian, for about 12 years now (13?). He has helped our friend Randi with her PhD research, he works for the Smithsonian on their reef monitoring program (described here with Jay's photo: http://ccre.si.edu/reef_assessment.html), and now he is doing his own PhD research at Carrie Bow. Throughout these years I've always been a bit envious of my tropical biologist husband, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that I love temperature marine science and, heck, I even got to dabble in polar marine science while diving under the ice in Antarctica (go here and read blogs around this dates for those stories). But I still really wanted to go with Jay to Carrie Bow and see this island that had become so special to him. So this year, finally, Jay decided he could use some help on the island with his research. We booked our flights and the lab space and we were off. On election day. Noooooo. Flying to Belize to do research on a remote tropical island when your country just let you down by electing a man who is threatened by science and who doesn't understand the scientific method....well....let's just say that this turned out to be a really tough week for both Jay and me. It is hard to motivate to be a scientist when science is going to be undermined by the new administration. We powered through Jay's research thanks to unwavering support and encouragement from our families via email and chats. But there were no other scientists on the island to commiserate with and the station managers (typically older retired couples) didn't want to talk about the election (I have my opinions about why). So my first visit to Carrie Bow wasn't exactly how I imagined it happening.....but I am so glad I was there with Jay so we were together during the disheartening news of the election. And I really did love Carrie Bow - it is a gorgeous research station that is perfectly situated for all kinds of amazing science. Maybe I should study tropical crustaceans? Or snails? Or clams??

Carrie Bow from the dock

Carrie Bow from a wide shallow reef that runs far off the island

We spent our first day setting up a coral torture, I mean thermal tolerance, experiment. Three bins, two experiments, two temperatures, and lots of cute little beakers that held the individual corals in place (not in this photo). I'm not going to get into the real details of what Jay is doing for his research, I'll leave it up to him to chat with folks about that. If you are curious, ask him because it is really interesting work!

Jay does all his work in water so shallow you can stand up, but it helps to have a mask and snorkel. Here he is collecting some coral for the thermal tolerance experiment.

We cut the tips (called nubbins - how cute!) off the coral and used some marine epoxy to fasten the nubbins to these tiny petri dishes. Each coral was assigned a number and experiment and then placed in the appropriate tank.

You can see the one tank with a water heater in it..... looks great right? Well, we ran into problems from the start with this experiment - which luckily wasn't the main reason why we were there. The corals were already stressed in the field before we brought them into these controlled conditions.....but they bleached within a day. Jay wanted to be in control of when they bleached, but they had their own ideas. If your subject is already stressed, it makes it hard to determine what might have created changes in the epigenome of a coral because we were not in control of the stressor that caused the bleaching! Make sense? And we also had issues with other things like problems with controlling water level, wind, etc... So in the end this turned out to be a great pilot experiment that can be better conducted at Shannon Point this summer with anemones instead of coral. The experiment wasn't a waste, however, it was a great learning experiment and Jay still got some data out of it. This is science folks...sometimes experiments work and other times things, like stressed corals, are out of your control and the experiments don't go as planned.

Thankfully Jay had other experiments going on that we were going to finish up during our week-long stay. Last year Jay had taken some coral samples and moved half the colony to the reef right behind Carrie Bow while keeping the other half of the colony at the original collection location (again, all in extremely shallow water). Here is my man driving the boat to one of those sites.

One day when we were feeling especially bad about the election we took a break from science and went out freediving for fun. Found this cool jelly with lots of cute little fishes in the mantle.

Here I am with a Caribbean roughtail stingray

Back to the research.... even though all of Jay's transplanted corals were in super shallow water, the visibility wasn't always great and they could be hard to find after a year of fouling organism growth. Here is an example of the little subsurface buoy tied to a piece of dead coral next to the chunk of coral that was Jay's colony.

  The look of a man who is happy to find his transplanted corals. 

Jay almost always found his corals before I did.... but I found this one (in my hands)

Our trusty boat

Back in the lab each coral had a special photo shoot with the tag (this one is #13) and three rings of color standards. Jay can use photos like these to determine symbiont levels in the coral tissues.

Happy coral collectors in the wet lab

I wasn't kidding when I said you could stand up (which is what I'm doing taking this photo of Jay). This is the reef right behind Carrie Bow where the temperatures are warmer and the transplanted corals may have undergone genetic or epigenetic changes to adjust to the temperature (we don't know yet, that is part of what he is testing right now).

Pretty much the same photo but underwater.... you can see lots of little green blobs, those are actually his corals.

Once you devote some time in your life to a particular creature, you end up loving them wherever you go. That is the case with me and sea cucumbers. I was in love with this turd-shaped sea cucumber immediately. I later learned the common name was.....no shit (pun intended)....the donkey dung sea cucumber. Nuff said. I'm in love.

We spent one night in Dangriga before flying back to America. Through Texas. After the election. This was difficult. But I loved being back in Dangriga....I had traveled around Belize in 2002 by myself and I stopped in Dangriga and Tobacco Cay for a stint. It was fun to be there again, even if we didn't have much time to explore.

Back in Washington we had some much needed time with friends that think like us for Thanksgiving! Ralph and Alana came up to Anacortes and we cooked up a storm! I think our dinner fed all four of us for days.....

Yum! 

And, because we haven't done this for years, we decided to put up a Christmas tree. Who cares that we were gone for most of December? Not me. I've enjoyed having this tree for the two weeks I was around to enjoy it.

Happy holidays everyone!
November photos are here: https://goo.gl/photos/YWL2qoEV5RazPNoc7

Taipei and Sorong

Paul, Julie, & Lydia at the Coffee House in Antarctica 2010

Our trip to Indonesia started with a flight from Vancouver, BC to Taipei (Taiwan). Normally long layovers in airports can be a bit of a drag when you are already super tired from lack of sleep....but while we were waiting in line to go through security in Taipei I noticed that there was one other tall white couple in front of us (most airline passengers were shorter and Asian so us white folk stood out).... I thought "boy that guy looks familiar" and shit....he was familiar! Imagine that. Travel to Taipei on a random day in the year and run into a scientist you befriended in Antarctica in 2010. Man. I love life when things like this happen. I wish I had some photos of Paul and I together on the real ice in Antarctica, but alas, we were on different research teams so all of our photos together seem to have been taken in the evenings after we stopped working outside and grabbed some wine in the bars (yes, there are bars at McMurdo Station). Fast forward to 2016 and Paul just married a wonderful woman, Louise. They were headed via Taipei to Vietnam for their honeymoon. I wish they lived closer to us, we would have so much fun together! You can imagine that our long boring layover was suddenly interesting and fun. We had some awesome dim sum in the airport and walked around marveling at all the whiskey for sale in duty free (apparently Asians really know their whiskey.... certainly more than I do!). After walking past random Hello Kitty breastfeeding rooms and rainforest rooms (what an odd airport) we hugged Paul and Louise goodbye and saw them off to their gate. Our flight to Bali followed an hour later.....a GREAT start to our trip!

One of the moments I savor the most when traveling is the time when you step out of the airport into the air of the country where you have landed. You are slammed with so many differences - hot temperatures and all the smells and sounds of a new place. Even though we have been to Bali once before and to Indonesia twice - this third entry back into Indonesia was no different. The wonderful assault on your senses when you depart the air-conditioned airport is awesome. This is how I know I have arrived. The scent of clove cigarettes mixed with fragrant tropical flowers, honking horns, taxi drivers harassing you to take a ride, sweaty heat, different languages, and crazy traffic. I love traveling for all these reasons. I love leaving America.

Bali was just a stopover for us on this trip but we were thrilled to spend one night here before our next flight to Papua. The first thing you should do if you ever find yourself in Bali - pig out on the amazing Indonesian food. I had been dreaminggggg of tempeh curries or satays and mango shakes.....so the first dinner I had after we landed was a tempeh curry and a mango shake. Jay got the Bintang, which is a classic tasteless tropical beer, but a necessary addition to any meal on a hot island and admittedly, pretty tasty in this heat.

 Bliss is Indonesian food

Our arrival in Bali was just a stop in the middle of a ton of flying. To get to Papua we then had to fly to Makassar (on the island of Sulawesi), spend the night, and then fly in the morning to Sorong in Papua (the island of New Guinea). Our dive resort met us at the airport and took us to a hotel where we waited for a few hours before taking two hour boat ride to our dive resort. Finally. We arrived. We flew Garuda Indonesia on these domestic flights - where I happened to notice this blurb in their magazine stating "a woman holds up the morning catch....where shark meat is believed to have powerful medicinal benefits." First of all - she is holding a BABY shark. This means the shark has never had a chance to reproduce.... which means no more sharks in the future. Who knows how old the ray or skate is in the photo. Damn it people. These animals need a chance to reproduce if you ever want a sustainable harvest! If I had my way, no apex predators would ever be harvested, but I know that will never happen. In the meantime, I can't say I'm impressed with Garuda Indonesia for publishing this photo as if it is something to be proud of. They should be ashamed.

 Flying to Papua we saw so many tiny atolls..... 

Spotted a whale on the boat headed to the dive resort..... we think it might be a Bryde's whale. Too big to be a minke....pretty awesome! 

Arriving at Papua Explorers was a strange experience for us, since we usually travel on the fly and cheaply. But we actually booked this place months ago and planned on a week of diving in Raja Ampat. We had a nice room! Without bed bugs! With a toilet that worked! A shower that drained! And our own private balcony right over the water! It was a bit much for us but we lapped it up.

 

Within hours of our arrival in Raja Ampat, we were diving. The visibility isn't anything to write home about in these islands, but poor visibility = lots of marine life so we didn't care. And "poor" visibility here is awesome to us Washingtonians. This was the first photo we took underwater here....the second, taken by me, was of a clam. What can I say. I'm obsessed with bivalves.

 Wobbegong shark snoozing (?) on table coral - Dive 1

 View from our pondock (known to us as a bungalow). The buildings in the photo are the dive center and the massage center. Yup. Massage center.

 Palm cockatoo, seen on our first morning at the resort. 

 My favorite sight in Raja Ampat - glassfish

 Stay tuned - I'll post a photo or two from each dive. We are no National Geographic photographers, but we have fun anyway!