Its better down where its wetter

I know that I am sadly no longer on Midway, but I still have a lot of pictures to share and stories to tell since I was busy actually working out there.

Probably the most exhilarating and exciting things that happened to me out there all happened underwater. The water out there is full of EVERYTHING you can imagine and dream of. I got to see so many things and here are just a few of the highlights:

The last rays of sun that had just enough strength to pierce through the water Eagle rays that decided to come and distract us for a while, we were busy doing a beach clean up and they stayed about 5-10 ft off shore for a good hour

Underneath the cargo pier was a hotspot for every giant and cool marine animal

The only lion fish I saw

I've already blogged about the dolphins, but it was pretty AMAZING

I found this huge starfish just washed up on North Beach one day

Almost everytime you would just walk over to the shore you had a 95% chance of seeing a turtle bobbing on the surface

I can only imagine how big the full lobster was. I found the top half on North Beach, it had been chewed on my a monk seal.

This was the best picture we got of the tiger shark we saw about 12 ft off shore one day while we were all just walking along the beach!

You can see how close he was to shore... and this was the beach where we swam!

This turtle we ran into one day has a disease called fibropapilloma, researchers don't know why turtles get it but you can see the huge tumors on the poor turtle's neck

No matter where you got in the water you would always run into huge schools of fish. Usually they were either goat or manini, these schools are manini

Pretty nudibranch

This is one of the huge ulua. There was always a school of about 5 or 6 underneath the cargo pier and the smallest one problably weighed 60 lbs and the biggest was around 90 lbs!

This video is of one of the monk seals that I got to swim with! I am still amazed that I actually did get to see and do all of this stuff

This is a video of an ulua the water here was around 4 ft, just so you can get an idea of how big these fish are with how much of the frame he takes up

I saved the best for last! For sure the coolest thing that I swam with was the 10ft manta rays! I really wanted to swim with them before I left, but it wasn't until the second to last week that someone spotted a group in the harbor. We had to wait until we got off of work so the lighting wasn't the best, but it was the coolest thing EVER!

Since it was dusk they started feeding, and it was so cool to see them go up and down in these huge circles!!!

Well life on Midway was certainly better down where it was wetter. I got to see, touch and swim with things that people pay a lot of money to do, plus some things that you can't even buy with money!

Goonies 2: "The Return"

So the goonies have landed! As of Oct. 17th the Albatross have returned to Midway. I have come to love these huge and stinky birds. For almost 2 months now I have been anticipating their return and it is crazy cool to finally see them alive and not just their rotting carcasses lying about.

The first to arrive were the blackfoots. One day while we were on beach clean up we saw HUGE footprints in the sand. Eric realized that they were albatross so we followed them up the beach through the naupaka over the volleyball court until we reached and ironwood forest. We all split up and searched through the forest into a field of bunch grass all while making albatross calls. We finally found what we were looking for...

Over the next couple days the blackfoots started to really show up and I quickly found myself crawling through the dirt and petrel holes to get closer to the birds

You can see how GIANT these birds really are, the blackfoots are a little bit bigger than the laysan

Just trying to add a splash of color to his wardrobe
The blackfoot dance

I couldn't resist a face like that

And neither could he

Well the 2 most important lessons I've learned on Midway are: 1. Always kiss an albatross with one eye open and 2. Never breath in while kissing one such bird because they taste EXACTLY like they smell! I felt like I was just getting to know the albatross when the laysan finally came in and stole all the attention away.

The fun thing about laysans are that they will dance and talk with you

The laysan have officially taken over the atoll now and are everywhere you can possibly imagine, but the bird that puts a cherry on top was the golden goony! There used to be about 5 million short tail albatross, but they were killed off for their gorgeous feathers and now there are only about 200,000. Most of them nest over in Japan, but Midway is lucky enough to be home for 3 golden goonies. I didn't think I was going to be able to see one just because we are leaving as the birds are arriving, but I can now cross the short tail albatross off my list of must see exotic and rare sea birds. Fish and Wildlife is really hoping for a nest this year because they had 2 juveniles actually dancing last year.


This is one of the juveniles, it is from 5-7 years old and eventually the whole head will turn golden. Even though it is a juvenile it is sexually mature so hopefully its mate will come soon
This was positively the biggest bird I have EVER seen. I thought the blackfoot was big, but you can see how it dwarfs the poor little blackfoot. I was pretty sad we saw 2 blackfoots start to dance right next to it so the short tail got all excited and wanted to start dancing too, but it only took .5 seconds for one of the blackfoots to turn and run away.

On eastern they have a short tail decoy plot and they have had one adult come back for a few years now. We had to trek some batteries over to the plot and while we were there we got to see the full adult in all her glory. It was crazy to see this bird the coloring and size make it look cartoonish and fake.

Birthday Bash

So I am very fortunate not only to be here, but I was able to be on Midway for my birthday!

It was a very special day. It started off with of course a big birthday breakfast at the buffet. Then when I got to work Cindy was so sweet and had made me an albatross barf lei. All the stuff in the lei she found inside albatross carcasses. Apparently she sells them and she was telling stories of even ambassadors and high class people wearing them. I was very happy and was able to wear it most of the morning.

Another special treat was I was able to handle and feed a laysan duck. Handling these cute little ducks is always fun and, lucky for the ducks, we haven't had too many sick to handle so it was cool that there was one on my b-day.

Putting the feeding tube in

Massaging the throat to prevent spit up while you take the tube out

All better :)

I was really worried that I would have to pull weeds on my birthday, but to my great surprise and happiness we ended up doing a dolphin survey the whole afternoon! Cynthia (the manager of Kure Atoll) and other Kure people have been down here visiting Midway on their way home to Honolulu. Cynthia has been doing dolphin surveys for a research project for years and years and wanted to do one here on Midway before she left. We were going to do it on Monday, but you have to have PERFECT weather with no wind, and so we just so happened to have PERFECT weather on my special day!

I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world on Oct 15th

There were a little under 200 dolphins surrounding us

I have never ever seen such beautiful water, it was mind blowing how clear and calm it was

22 and lovin it!

You have to have a permit to swim with them, but towards the end I was able to stick my camera under the water. It was hard to aim underwater not being able to see what your shooting while speeding by on a boat while leaning over the edge, but luckily I got a few really cool shots

Right before we left to go on the survey I ran into Kittypong. A couple of weeks ago I ran into him while looking for glass balls. This was before I found my beautiful babies, so he started helping me look for them. He is so sweet and told me that if you found one he would give it to me, I of course told him that that was too nice and not to do it, so I was very surprised when he pulled this beautiful ball out of his pocket and gave this to me...

After spending the day running around with dolphins, we headed over to the clipper for delicious birthday buffet. During dinner the cooks came out with a surprise cake and everyone sang happy birthday to me. It was a really nice surprise.


I was very sad to see the day end because I don't think I will ever experience a birthday like this one again. I got some amazing and unique presents and memories that I will cherish for a long time!

I've got the fever!!

So since I have been out here I have defiantly caught the glass ball bug. I didn't even know what glass balls were until the construction crew came out here for the last month. A couple of the guys were fanatics and would get up and comb the beaches at 4 am for these things. Well there passion was contagious because last sunday I went out to look for them at 4:30 am!

It is not as bad as it seems because I had to get up for general conference at 5 anyway. It just so happens that my computer was running fast that day so I had a little extra time before it started and I couldn't waste a perfect opportunity to scope out the glass ball hot spots before everyone else. So I got up and checked the harbor corners, but no luck so I went back home. But I still had an itch that I couldn't scratch so I went back out a 7 am in between sessions.

This time I walked from the cargo pier to cross point (which is called turtle beach), but since that beach is closed off I had to walk along the vegetation and keep my eyes glued to the beach so I fell into like 80 petrel holes. I still didn't find one so I was just going to walk on the road back home, but I couldn't give up hope so once again I trudge through the petrel holes. Then half way down the beach there she was just shimmering and shining in the sunlight. I ran over to her and picked her up and she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. She's not perfect...just special. It is this pale light blue and it has a couple of cracks plus it has this powder on the inside. I think it used to have a spindle but it got crushed up into powder, or it is cocaine and I will be able to pay off my loans when I sell it, either way is cool

My second child was a surprise baby when after dinner on monday I decided to walk down to Rusty Bucket before the sunset. So I get my ice cream cone and walk down and right there
shinning so brightly is another beautiful glass ball!!! It was right in front of clipper and it was right in the tide zone so it looked like it had just washed in. It had to be fate! I was not expecting to find anything on north beach because that is the only legal beach on the island so I thought that anything worth while would have been picked off already. This one is smaller and it is the classic blue green ball color, but it is really pretty and almost a perfect circle.

I am very happy with my new collectors items and can now hopefully return to normal sleep patterns now that the pressure of finding at least one glass ball has been lifted from my shoulders!

The glass is now half empty :(

Well I am officially on the down hill now. Friday was our hump day and now the time seems to be speeding by. To celebrate the event I decided to try and capture the beauty that I live and work and play in...

Verbasina

The birds called bonin petrels actually dig holes

This is the dump where they piled and burn some of the carcasses

Algae in the sunrise duck pond

We have now saved this fairy tern chick about 3 times

Poinsettia

The water is so glassy calm

Feel the pain, love the pain

Red tail tropic bird chick

All of this in one day, it is just amazing how beautiful this place really is!!