ND fans around the world are raving about the great upset the Irish pulled off over the weekend, tripping up the favored Blue Devils of Duke. The Dukies were obviously overconfident due to their higher national ranking but the Midwesterners had a completely new strategy for the game; they scored some points. The early going was neck and neck, scoreless until just before halftime; then the Catholic Coaches received advice from on high that they could not win without points on the scoreboard. The new strategy seemed to work when the Irish went ahead 7-0 late in the 2nd quarter. Notre Dame then tried an innovative new concept, reminiscent of Knute Rockne's invention of the forward pass, when they actually tackled a Duke ball carrier. In the ensuing melee, surprised Irish defenders found themselves in possession of a brown ovoid leather object which referees assured them they now had the right to use to try to score again. Against all tradition they did.
At halftime coach Weis decided that the new game plan was working and they would try it again in the second half, where it was successful two more times. Luckily the Duke team was not videotaping the ND signals; had they too figured out that scoring points can lead to winning games it might have been close.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Back To Reality
Well I’ve had a few weeks to adjust back to the real world - things like cold temperatures, traffic, work - and I thought I’d put together some final thoughts about Wake, as well as finally get around to posting some photos.
Temperature – that was really an adjustment at first. I’ve had the experience of going south for a week in the winter and coming back to the cold reality, but after 6 weeks it was really a shock. I think I’m almost ready for winter now.
People – it was funny for the first few days getting used to seeing people you didn’t recognize and know. And no one waves back.
Patients – there are sick people all over the place here. No wonder I can make a living doing this.
Almost nobody has ever heard of Wake, unless they are from the WWII generation. Sometimes after I explain a little they think they have heard about it. A few people saw the History Channel show about the return of the Wake defenders to the Island a few years ago.
It’s amazing to think how much money our government spends keeping that one little island more or less functioning, and then to realize that there are dozens (actually probably hundreds) of similar installations all around the world that require similar expenditure. It makes it easier to understand how our government manages to spend TRILLIONS of dollars, if not why.
I still can’t imagine people spending years out there, but then I guess if you don’t have a family it is a good place to jump in and be part of one. It really is the “Island of Lost Boys” in a lot of ways.
People ask me if I would go back. I think I would actually enjoy it every now and then, but not for 6 weeks; that was just a little too long for me. I don’t think Nora would think much of the idea either.
Overall it was an interesting and enjoyable experience, if not professionally challenging. I had an opportunity to think about the priorities in an isolated facility like that and how it should be organized, not that those are likely to be major issues for me in the future. The Thais I met were universally warm and friendly, polite to a fault, great people to be around. If you don’t mind being totally separated from the opposite sex you can spend time in a tropical paradise and get paid for it. It was a pretty sweet deal for me.
I am going to try to keep up with the blog, for a while, see how well it works as a way of keeping in touch with people.You're all still welcome to comment as you see fit. I am glad to be home and hope to be actually speaking with folks but maybe this will fill in the gaps. God knows we have to find something to do with the time we used to spend watching football.
Groundhog's Day
I know I’ve been home for a month now but I did have a few last comments I wanted to make about my time on Wake, if only for the sake of closure. I have been on several different treadmills since I got back, and having a hard time sitting down to write.
I did get a couple of dives in the last week on Wake; I went with one of the rat team guys, Peter, who is a very experienced diver. He grew up in Rhode Island and worked diving for shellfish as a teen. We went out on the wreck of a tanker which sank just outside the marina about twenty years ago. (One of the standing jokes on the island is everyone wants to know whose idea it was to hire a tanker named the “Stoner”. the other has to do with hoping that the “Hooters” plane has an in flight emergency over the mid- Pacific.)
The wreck was pretty cool, the near end in about 40 feet of water and the far end in about 60-70. After we went around the wreck for a while we swam out about another 50 yards where the depth was 90 feet, and then we came to the edge where it drops precipitously; so close to vertical as makes no difference. You can look straight down over the edge and see nothing at all. It is a very eerie feeling. The Captain told me later that the Air Force has radar depth charts for all around the island. The contours go 20 feet, to 40 feet, 80, then 3000.
When we swam back in from the edge we were followed by a solo Bumphead Parrotfish. He seemed to be curious and just stayed behind us until we got to fairly shallow water. He posed well and I got some decent pictures.
Friday night the 26th we hung out at drifters; I had a few more beers than my usual two so that explains why I felt so crummy when I got up at 5am to check in for the flight to Honolulu. The plane arrived around 8 and we had a few hours to get the regular island doc and the new medic introduced and oriented/reoriented. The medic spent the last year at McMurdo (Antartica, for those of you who don’t recognize the name). I think he made a good move. I don’t know much about the beer supply or male/female ratio at the South Pole, but an increase of 100 degrees in the average temperature has to be good for your outlook on life.
The plane took off at 11am Saturday carrying me away from Wake and back to Hawaii where we landed at about 5 pm on Friday. I decided since I had another shot at it I wouldn’t have any beer on the Friday night repeat. I just went to bed early.
Thanks to some vacillation on the part of the Air Force with the biweekly flight schedule I missed my original flight from Hono to home and couldn’t get rescheduled until Sunday night the 27th, so Saturday and Sunday a small group of us who had just escaped from Wake did a little touring around the area. The local biologists took us for a hike into a nature preserve. They say that unless you hike up pretty high into the mountains you won’t see any native flora or fauna. We got up far enough to see a few things although the birds that we hoped to see eluded me. We also hoped to get out to Pearl Harbor but ran out of time.
I flew out of Hono Sunday night, arriving in Minneapolis on Monday morning, then a flight to BWI arriving around 3pm. The shuttle home was very welcome; I don’t think I could have driven myself. I was pretty exhausted but I guess the torture of the long flight did tire me out enough to spare me some of the jet lag. I was a little out of synch at first but got adjusted reasonably quickly. Good thing – I was off Tuesday and Wednesday, then on at Milford (local home hospital) at 7am on Thursday. Back to reality.
I did get a couple of dives in the last week on Wake; I went with one of the rat team guys, Peter, who is a very experienced diver. He grew up in Rhode Island and worked diving for shellfish as a teen. We went out on the wreck of a tanker which sank just outside the marina about twenty years ago. (One of the standing jokes on the island is everyone wants to know whose idea it was to hire a tanker named the “Stoner”. the other has to do with hoping that the “Hooters” plane has an in flight emergency over the mid- Pacific.)
The wreck was pretty cool, the near end in about 40 feet of water and the far end in about 60-70. After we went around the wreck for a while we swam out about another 50 yards where the depth was 90 feet, and then we came to the edge where it drops precipitously; so close to vertical as makes no difference. You can look straight down over the edge and see nothing at all. It is a very eerie feeling. The Captain told me later that the Air Force has radar depth charts for all around the island. The contours go 20 feet, to 40 feet, 80, then 3000.
When we swam back in from the edge we were followed by a solo Bumphead Parrotfish. He seemed to be curious and just stayed behind us until we got to fairly shallow water. He posed well and I got some decent pictures.
Friday night the 26th we hung out at drifters; I had a few more beers than my usual two so that explains why I felt so crummy when I got up at 5am to check in for the flight to Honolulu. The plane arrived around 8 and we had a few hours to get the regular island doc and the new medic introduced and oriented/reoriented. The medic spent the last year at McMurdo (Antartica, for those of you who don’t recognize the name). I think he made a good move. I don’t know much about the beer supply or male/female ratio at the South Pole, but an increase of 100 degrees in the average temperature has to be good for your outlook on life.
The plane took off at 11am Saturday carrying me away from Wake and back to Hawaii where we landed at about 5 pm on Friday. I decided since I had another shot at it I wouldn’t have any beer on the Friday night repeat. I just went to bed early.
Thanks to some vacillation on the part of the Air Force with the biweekly flight schedule I missed my original flight from Hono to home and couldn’t get rescheduled until Sunday night the 27th, so Saturday and Sunday a small group of us who had just escaped from Wake did a little touring around the area. The local biologists took us for a hike into a nature preserve. They say that unless you hike up pretty high into the mountains you won’t see any native flora or fauna. We got up far enough to see a few things although the birds that we hoped to see eluded me. We also hoped to get out to Pearl Harbor but ran out of time.
I flew out of Hono Sunday night, arriving in Minneapolis on Monday morning, then a flight to BWI arriving around 3pm. The shuttle home was very welcome; I don’t think I could have driven myself. I was pretty exhausted but I guess the torture of the long flight did tire me out enough to spare me some of the jet lag. I was a little out of synch at first but got adjusted reasonably quickly. Good thing – I was off Tuesday and Wednesday, then on at Milford (local home hospital) at 7am on Thursday. Back to reality.
Friday, October 19, 2007
One Week To Go
Okay I know I haven’t been very diligent about keeping up with the blog. No excuse really, just lazy I guess.
Not a lot happening over the last week; we did have a plane come in last weekend, so there’s fresh eggs, fruit and salad back on the menu. We played volleyball Saturday night on the beach behind Drifter’s. The sand is full of big chunks of coral so lots of people were complaining of cut feet and scraped knees the next day. That seems to be the most common injury we see. I actually have a fair amount of experience with ocean related injuries, like jelly fish stings, and sting ray envenomation, but those don’t seem to come up much, either in my experience or historically from what I can gather.
The Air Force sent a crew to do some kind of sampling and testing on the water supply; with them is a young woman, so the odds have improved 100% for the men. Now when you go to Drifters there are two clumps of guys, instead of one.
The mystery rat has been identified. It is rattus tanezumi, the “asian house rat”. Speculation is that it came with the refugees from Viet Nam who were housed here after the Saigon evacuation. They are still working on the e”rat”ication plan. The problem seems to be that the rats are too well fed. They don’t like what they’re being offered and there isn’t an approved coconut flavored rat poison. I know I’ve felt like I would die after drinking Pina Coladas; we should just ship the rats to a Sandals resort.
We took a walk on Wilkes Island this afternoon. It’s the southeasterly most part of the atoll, and a bird sanctuary. There are zillions of birds nesting there and they were none too pleased with our presence..The main characters are black footed boobys and red footed boobys, as well as a frigate bird I got a lot of cool pictures; also collected some bird dropping specimens.
Tonight was the big Wake Island Ping Pong tournament. I watched some of the Thais play –it was pretty scary. I did not enter.
Only a few more chances left to dive. We’re going to do a lot this weekend if we can. I also want to do a little more kayaking around the lagoon before I leave. I might even try to take the catamaran out. I’m definitely a short timer now.
Not a lot happening over the last week; we did have a plane come in last weekend, so there’s fresh eggs, fruit and salad back on the menu. We played volleyball Saturday night on the beach behind Drifter’s. The sand is full of big chunks of coral so lots of people were complaining of cut feet and scraped knees the next day. That seems to be the most common injury we see. I actually have a fair amount of experience with ocean related injuries, like jelly fish stings, and sting ray envenomation, but those don’t seem to come up much, either in my experience or historically from what I can gather.
The Air Force sent a crew to do some kind of sampling and testing on the water supply; with them is a young woman, so the odds have improved 100% for the men. Now when you go to Drifters there are two clumps of guys, instead of one.
The mystery rat has been identified. It is rattus tanezumi, the “asian house rat”. Speculation is that it came with the refugees from Viet Nam who were housed here after the Saigon evacuation. They are still working on the e”rat”ication plan. The problem seems to be that the rats are too well fed. They don’t like what they’re being offered and there isn’t an approved coconut flavored rat poison. I know I’ve felt like I would die after drinking Pina Coladas; we should just ship the rats to a Sandals resort.
We took a walk on Wilkes Island this afternoon. It’s the southeasterly most part of the atoll, and a bird sanctuary. There are zillions of birds nesting there and they were none too pleased with our presence..The main characters are black footed boobys and red footed boobys, as well as a frigate bird I got a lot of cool pictures; also collected some bird dropping specimens.
Tonight was the big Wake Island Ping Pong tournament. I watched some of the Thais play –it was pretty scary. I did not enter.
Only a few more chances left to dive. We’re going to do a lot this weekend if we can. I also want to do a little more kayaking around the lagoon before I leave. I might even try to take the catamaran out. I’m definitely a short timer now.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
photos at 12kbaud
I’ve decided to try to post a few pictures; I’ll let it run while I go for my after dinner walk. If this works ok maybe I can add a photo or two each night and let them upload through the night.
... okay, well that ain't gonna work; tried it about 6 times and it just won't fly. So it goes. Nothing else new. I did notice ND managed to get a win. Rah, Rah! The echoes are still snoring.
... okay, well that ain't gonna work; tried it about 6 times and it just won't fly. So it goes. Nothing else new. I did notice ND managed to get a win. Rah, Rah! The echoes are still snoring.
Rattus Indeterminus
The rat guys are really an interesting group. I’ve been following their efforts; never really had much contact with real life field biology, even though that was my early life choice for a profession. They are actually having some fun with a true scientific challenge. They thought they were coming to deal with just one kind of rat; then they thought they had rats and some kind of mice. Now they have determined that what they have is two different species of rat, the common Polynesian rat that they were expecting to find, and something that they have not been able to identify as yet. They are doing all kinds of measurements of feet, ears, teeth, tails and organs to try to make a taxonomic identification, but they have reached the limit of their library on the island, and of course the internet is ridiculously slow for sending (and receiving) pictures which they are trying to exchange with colleagues who are experts in Asian rats that they may not have seen before. It makes a difference in knowing what kind of bait to use for the critters as well as what kind of traps or poisons to try. They are quite enthused by the challenge and I can appreciate that.
The clinic remains boring, weather remains hot and clear, except when it is hot and raining, and all is well but I do miss home. I don’t see how people do this for a year, or as in the case of many of the Thais, many years. One of them has been here for 21 years, going home to see his family for 6 weeks every year. It is very good money for them, so I guess that makes it worthwhile, compared to living in Thailand where they say jobs are scarce and pay much less. I suppose you make your choices based on your circumstances; I’m glad I don’t have to make that kind of choice.
The clinic remains boring, weather remains hot and clear, except when it is hot and raining, and all is well but I do miss home. I don’t see how people do this for a year, or as in the case of many of the Thais, many years. One of them has been here for 21 years, going home to see his family for 6 weeks every year. It is very good money for them, so I guess that makes it worthwhile, compared to living in Thailand where they say jobs are scarce and pay much less. I suppose you make your choices based on your circumstances; I’m glad I don’t have to make that kind of choice.
Guess Who’s coming To Dinner
I had never of “bonefish” before last spring when Ralph and I went to Belize, but fishing for them was the big thing down there. Apparently it is all the rage because they are good fighters. According to the guys here who are really into it this is one of the best places in the world for bonefishing. Bonefish are a fairly uniform and widely distributed variety of bottom feeders that occupy salty and brackish shallows in the tropics, so this certainly is their kind of place. They are a little tricky to hook because they are good at hitting and taking your bait without you getting the hook set. If you do hook them however, they fight like crazy for a relatively small fish (most of them are in the 14-24 inch range, with some up to about 3 feet).
I borrowed some tackle and went down to try my hand at it the other night and it was just as described. I used some of the rainbow runner we had caught on the fishing boat and froze and just started casting in the place these guys said they had such good luck. I started getting hits almost immediately but it took a few minutes for me to hook one. They do fight like crazy. I fished for about and hour and caught 3 of the bonefish, a large thing that looked like a sea bass but with a lot more (and bigger) teeth than the ones at home, and one of the smaller silvery blue fish they call a papillon. I let them all go.
Later I was talking with a couple of guys who had been fishing in the same spot; they had set up a small standing height table of scrap materials in the shallow water and one of them was cleaning a fish he had caught when the other guy yelled and pointed out about a 5 foot shark swimming right toward him in the shallow water. He slapped his fishing rod at it and it swam away; then they threw a bloody piece of cut fish in the water and it came right back. They hooked it and fought it for a good while before it broke the line. I thought they said there were only small sharks in the lagoon.
I borrowed some tackle and went down to try my hand at it the other night and it was just as described. I used some of the rainbow runner we had caught on the fishing boat and froze and just started casting in the place these guys said they had such good luck. I started getting hits almost immediately but it took a few minutes for me to hook one. They do fight like crazy. I fished for about and hour and caught 3 of the bonefish, a large thing that looked like a sea bass but with a lot more (and bigger) teeth than the ones at home, and one of the smaller silvery blue fish they call a papillon. I let them all go.
Later I was talking with a couple of guys who had been fishing in the same spot; they had set up a small standing height table of scrap materials in the shallow water and one of them was cleaning a fish he had caught when the other guy yelled and pointed out about a 5 foot shark swimming right toward him in the shallow water. He slapped his fishing rod at it and it swam away; then they threw a bloody piece of cut fish in the water and it came right back. They hooked it and fought it for a good while before it broke the line. I thought they said there were only small sharks in the lagoon.
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