The “cultural tour” to a local Yapese village today was a lot of fun. I chewed my first betel nut! Man, is that red spit gross. I did, however, feel a bit dizzy after chewing it.

It was neat to see some of the same kids from two years ago performing in the stick-fighting dance. When I have time, I’m going to dig up the old photos and see how the kids have grown.

Yapese stick-fighting dance celebrates hardships of WWII

Yapese stick-fighting dance celebrates hardships of WWII

I wish I could post more photos from here, but the internet is a bit slow to be image greedy. :)

My Dad wrote over email that he was proud of me for “walking through the Stargate (to another planet in a far away Galaxy).” Obviously, it was impossible for me to take photos of myself on stage at Gatecon; luckily, others in the audience were there to snap a few.

Here you go, Dad — two photos of me on stage at Gatecon! (read more »)

a manta ray in goofnuw channel, yap

Hello! I’m in Yap.

Manta action has been fair over the past few days. We’ve had pretty rough weather so far, and because wind blows water over the barrier reef, the tide has been eternally outgoing (and outgoing tide = green, mucky water).

Still, we’ve had multiple mantas every day on the cleaning station at Goofnuw Channel. They’re wonderful to watch — so graceful…

male mandarinfish, yap

I did a dusk dive today with the mandarinfish, but none of us saw them mating. MATE, you stupid fishies!

Luckily, mandarinfish are pretty regardless of whether they are in the process of mating, and I managed to shoot a couple good portraits.

I just received an automated message in a call from 207-674-2609. It looks like a lot of other people are receiving calls from this number (although the CallerID is probably spoofed). In my case, the recording was a man saying something about a free digital satellite system. Other have reported that calls from the number also advertise factory warranty renewals.

This seems similar to the Great Atlantic Warranty calls that I used to get. As before, my solution will be to report abuse to the FTC.