Frigate bird

The male frigate birds have a red pouch on their neck, as you can see in this photo (by Len). The females have a white throat. They are definitely magnificent or at least great!

Santa Fe Island

Santa Fe Island is across a narrow -- and today very calm -- channel from Santa Cruz where we are staying. We took a walk to see wildlife, including a beach full of seal mothers and babies. We saw boobies, shearwaters, a Galapagos hawk, and lots more animals and birds.

Blue Footed Booby

The Eclipse, our boat, from which we also snorkeled:
in the water we saw the biggest school of fish we had ever encountered.

Two of many sea lions we walked among on the beach

Sea Lion Skull

A Land Iguana

Volcanoes and Earthquakes

Lava Tube, Santa Cruz Island

The lava formations here in the Galapagos are both beautiful and interesting. Like the Hawaiian islands, these islands formed as the mid-ocean hot spot spewed magma up between the earth's floating tectonic plates. Many volcanic features remain, though on this island they are eroded and changed by earthquakes and vegetation.

Today we walked part-way through a lava tube several million years old. In the lava tube, water marks, perhaps from the ocean entering the tube at some point, made stripes on the walls, and broken up rocks were on the floor. It went on for some distance past where we stopped walking, at a hole in the roof where sunshine lit the way.

The Crater on Santa Cruz Island

Near the lava tube, we also visited a gigantic crater with nearly vertical walls covered with vegetation and bright green water at the bottom. This is another volcanic feature in the alien Galapagos landscape. All volcanic cones, craters, and rocky outcroppings are very old and much affected by uplifts and fissures from later earthquakes.

Deep clefts in the shoreline make for interesting small lagoons and narrow waterways with vertical sides, where people swim and dive. I visited several of them on a boat ride yesterday.

"Las Grieatas" -- A deep crevasse between the cliffs

Deep channel between the rocks

On Floreana Island, where I visited on Monday, I saw several other types of lava formation in the highlands on the volcanic mountainside. Most impressive: narrow fissures between standing walls of lava rock. Pirates and whalers once lived and kept animals between these walls, making various grooves and square holes in the rock to insert fences and barricades. Nearby were lava caves, rather small, formed when the lava made a "bomb" that left a bubble in the molten rock as it cooled. In the 1930s some German families lived in these caves.

Pirate's Rocky Lair, Floreana Island

Lava bomb cave, Floreana Island

Galapagos Duck

After seeing many blue-footed boobies, noddy terns, finches, and other birds the last bird I saw yesterday was this Galapagos duck swimming in a salt-pan as we walked. We were on our way to one of many amazing deep clefts in the shoreline where salt and a bit of fresh water mix. This island was formed by volcanic activity over the hot spot where the magma comes up, but that was very long ago, and since then earthquakes have caused many rifts and uplifts.

Frigate bird drying its wings

Beach walk, more birds

With the same guide that accompanied us on Sunday, I walked through a wooded area and down to a beautiful white sand beach this morning (while Lenny is on a scuba trip). Finches, vermillion flycatchers, three species of heron, and other birds were everywhere. A few marine iguanas had walked up to sun themselves on the sand. All was peaceful and nearly deserted. For photos of a heron see: Eel for breakfast?

Cactus Finch

Self Portrait in Sand

Galapagos Dove

Underwater

While I was on the boat yesterday, Len was diving. He saw many sharks and other things like the puffer fish above. I had never heard of a batfish, which I couldn't even recognize as a fish when I first saw this photo:
He looks as if he's about to crawl up onto land, turn into a mammal, and remind us in one more way that Darwin was here.

My First Blue-Footed Booby

My first blue-footed booby.

After this one, I saw a whole colony of boobies on a small conical volcanic island. ON the lowest shore were crabs, sea lions, and marine iguanas. Above them nesting blue-footed and masked boobies. At the top, swirling around, were magnificent frigate birds, getting ready to nest. I spied the red and engorged throat on one as he flew past the boat.

Cruise on the Luna Azul

We had a very long and rough boat ride across to the next island to the north on a fine boat called the Luna Azul -- max speed 37 knots. Finally, we arrived at the dock:
At the dock, sea lions and marine iguanas were resting -- together!

Also a pelican --
Our walk through the high country was very pleasant with light warm rain. We saw volcanic formations and caves (once used by pirates and whalers). We saw another breeding station for the Galapagos tortoises. And we saw lots of finches.


This strange Easter-Island type head might have been carved by European visitors or residents. Or maybe if you stretch the imagination by mainland natives who came from time to time by ship to take tortoises for oil and meat --

The water part of the trip after lunch and a hike had its points, though I admit I had a snorkeling panic and had to be rescued on the first try. The second try, I swam with a baby sea lion and heard the sea lion families calling hoarsely back and forth.

A Galapagos Finch

Darwin Research Station

First, a beautiful bird photo by Lenny. We had a spectacular walk to the Darwin research and breeding station just up the street from our hotel. It includes several buildings with maps, photos, and other explanatory material about the wildlife, and we were also accompanied by a very good guide.

Workers at Darwin rescue baby turtles, land iguanas, and other endangered animals and raise them in a natural setting. When the animals mature and their habitats on other islands are returned to a good condition (especially without introduced predators) they are returned to the wild. Baby tortoises can be eaten by rats, for example. We saw a group of men on a truck taking a tortoise down to the dock for return to the wild. The area is also full of birds: we saw several of the famous species of finch.

On the dock, the crabs and marine iguanas are wild --



The tortoises are quite amazing --


We did not get to see Lonesome George, the last of his tortoise species, as he was hiding in his corral. However, these three huge tortoises of a safe species are thought to be around 200 years old --

Flying to the Galapagos

To our surprise, our seats on the flight from Guayaquil to the Galapagos were in first class. Very comfortable. From the air, we saw the city --

And we saw the harbor from which we expect our various boat tours will depart during the next week --

We are checked into the Hotel Silberstein. So far so good. We are going up to the Darwin research station in a little while.

Hello from Miami

We are spending several hours in the "Admiral's Lounge" in the Miami airport, waiting for our flight to Guyaquil. So far so good. Lenny claims this is the first time he has read an actual pink paper copy of the Financial Times (he says he's only read it online). I seem to remember having read it at some point in my life. In Cambridge? I never found it very compelling on or offline.

If all goes as planned, we will be in the Galapagos tomorrow by around lunch time.

Marcel Duchamp's Chess Partner

I'm always fascinated by Marcel Duchamp, who spent years secretly working on art projects while claiming he did nothing but play chess. So of course I liked the reference to him in the N.Y.Times obituary of Andor Lilienthal, Chess Grandmaster, who just died at age 99:

Coffeehouses were natural haunts for many of the best players. In his book, “Chess Was My Life,” Mr. Lilienthal described encounters in 1929 with Mr. Capablanca, in the Café Central in Vienna, and with Mr. Lasker and Alexander Alekhine, the fourth world champion, at the Café König in Berlin in October 1929.

At the Café de la Régence in Paris, once the epicenter of chess in Europe, Mr. Lilienthal regularly played with great players like Savielly Tartakower, but also people better known in other fields, including the artist Marcel Duchamp, who Mr. Lilienthal said was “the most talented French player,” and the composer Sergei Prokofiev, who was of master strength, according to Mr. Lilienthal.

Thanks, Elaine, for the suggestion that I read this.

My Bizarre Day

This morning I needed to hem a pair of pants for Len, for our trip later this week. The sewing machine gave me all kinds of trouble. Finally after I hemmed one leg, the machine quit altogether. If it had quit on the first one I could have done both by hand -- but now I had to find a machine or they wouldn't match.

I called sewing machine stores. They all have no interest in helping a desperate housewife with a sewing emergency. Plus one of them moved to Florida but kept the local phone number. Is sewing an in thing to do or out of style? Subject for another time.

I started calling neighbors. No one was home except one other retired woman whose machine is broken too. My neighbors are all at work at 10:30 on a Monday morning. And probably too modern to own a sewing machine.

Finally I tried my neighbor Kathy. Here is what I thought happened: she said her machine was fine, and that I could bring the pants over and finish them.

Here is what really happened. Neighbor Kathy's number is ONE DIGIT away from ANOTHER friend named Kathy. The digits are 4 or 9 so they even look alike. Yup. I dialed my other friend Kathy, whom I haven't seen in around 2 years. She has caller ID so she knew right away it was me. I thought the voice sounded a little different than that of neighbor Kathy, but I arranged to use her sewing machine.

Thinking I was all set, I walked down the block to neighbor Kathy's house. She let me in, and said she would finish the hem on the second pant leg. What she was really thinking (I know now) is how strange I was to show up at her door and assume she would let me use her sewing machine. However we had a nice conversation about what was new in her life (two kids graduating from U of M with Obama speaking last weekend) and she said she would bring the pants back to me in an hour or so.

A few minutes after my neighbor Kathy brought back the pants, my friend Kathy phoned and asked when I was going to come use her sewing machine -- she had expected me right away. At this point, we straightened out the mix-up and had a long conversation about our last 2 years. And about how this was such a coincidence that such an odd thing brought us back in touch.

Then I called neighbor Kathy -- dialing very very carefully -- and explained why I had showed up unexpected at her door with my sewing project that she had done for me. She was relieved (I think) that I'm really not as weird as I seemed. And agreed that it was a really funny coincidence.

Happy Mother's Day

This is my present. Miriam and Alice picked it out for me on a visit to the Smithsonian. I bet they are cooking something for Evelyn this morning! Such thoughtful little girls.

Japanese Pottery at the Freer Gallery

Stoneware Tea Bowl with Plovers

Water Jar for Tea Ceremony with Plum Blossoms

Serving Dishes

Porcelain Bottle

Bottle in Tea-Whisk Form

The Freer Gallery on the National Mall in Washington is one of my favorite museums. Each time I return the displays include somewhat different parts of their extensive collection of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and other Asian art. These Japanese ceramics were part of an extensive display of tea ceremony vessels. All date from the Edo period (1650-1670).

The Garden Grows

First (left), our garden last week; then, our garden in 2006. It was completely redesigned and planted in 2005. The trees have grown some, but it's pretty stable.

Absurdist Mona Lisa (maybe the best kind)

I always love it when they reproduce Mona Lisa in mirror image, too.

Fastest Mona Lisa

LARGEST Mona Lisa

According to "World's largest Mona Lisa appears at Shanghai Expo" 999 Chinese painters (who usually make copies of famous masterpieces for the export trade) created this 300 square meter work of gigantic art. Each small square is 30 by 20 cm. The work was unveiled yesterday.

"All the painters work in Dafen Cun Oil Painting Village, a famous village in Longgang District, Shenzhen, which produces copies of all kinds of art," the article explains.

Both the existence of the huge Mona Lisa and of the huge industry for copied paintings are amazing pieces of information.

New Car

Here is our new Ford Fusion. It has all kinds of great options like a camera that shows what's behind you. The image appears on one side of the rear view mirror. Very clever. We took a ride out in the countryside, where we took its photo.