Housemate in Antarctica photos: Penguins!

As I've mentioned before on numerous occasions, my boyfriend has been in Antarctica since October doing research for his PhD. While I've missed him like crazy, one of the perks of him being there is that he sends me awesome photos he's taken. Sometimes he even takes his computer out so I can video chat with the penguins and seals around the station. So I get to live vicariously a little through him. He's taken some pretty excellent photos, so I figured I'd share a few of them with you.

(Apologies for the watermarks. I don't care so much about my own photos, but these aren't mine, and I'm finding myself a little paranoid about them. I tried my best to be both obnoxious and unobtrusive...yeah, it was kind of difficult.)

Even though they can be found many places throughout the southern hemisphere, you can't help associating penguins with Antarctica. Four species of penguins nest in Antarctica, but unfortunately the most famous of the four, the majestic emperor penguin, does not nest in the region where the Housemate is living. So here are the other three.

Chinstrap penguins, or "chinnies", are probably my favorite. Easily identifiable by the chinstrap-like marking under their chins.

From his stories, they seem pretty cheeky; one jumped up onto the small boat the Housemate was on, and stood there for about ten minutes checking them out. I think many of the penguins in Antarctica are like that, though--without hundreds of years of hunting by humans, the animals don't have the same fear of us that animals on other continents have learned.

Adelie penguins. There's a whole colony of them near the station, so he gets to see a lot of these guys.


And in December, their eggs hatched!

Baby penguin! The chicks were hard to get shots of, because the parents were very protective. They had to be--if they slipped up, a skua would be there to swoop in and take off with the baby for its breakfast :(

Gentoo penguins have the white marks above their eyes.


On Wednesday: animals in Antarctica that aren't penguins!

My college roommate's visit: Hanauma video

Yesterday, I told the story of the trip my college roommate and I took to Hanauma Bay. Here's the video footage I compiled from the snorkeling adventure. I forgot to show my friend how to take video on my camera, so all the footage is mine. Since I was mostly swimming at the surface of the water (the inner bay is very shallow), I get knocked around a bit by the waves, so it's not very steady. But you can see the "good spot" that we spent a lot of time at, a fish eating/playing with one of those "sea pen" seeds, a parrotfish crunching away at the algae on the reef (most of the video's sound is just annoying noise, but listen for the scraping sound!), and yes, the beautiful octopus cruising along the reef.



I hope you enjoyed my recent Hawaii photos. Next week, I'll have photos that the Housemate has taken in Antarctica; they will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. First up: penguins!

My college roommate's visit: Hanauma

After finishing our hike up and down Diamond Head, we hurried over to Hanauma Bay. We got there maybe around 9:20, and there was already a long line. We didn't get in to see the required short video until after 10. But the wait went quickly enough, and it was all worth it. This was possibly the best snorkeling experience I've had in Hanauma Bay. Would have been even better if we'd seen a sea turtle, but we saw a lot of really great fish, and a wonderful octopus!

My friend and I were trading my camera back and forth, so I'm not sure who took some of these photos. But I'll give my best guesses.

I couldn't figure out what kind of fish this colorful guy is. It seems like it shouldn't be too hard, but I couldn't find it in my searches. Anyway, it's quite beautiful.

Photo by college roommate (positive)

Another one that I haven't identified yet.

Photo by college roommate (pretty sure)

This is a ringtail surgeonfish.

Photo by college roommate (or me...I'm really not sure here)

Another individual of the same species as above. I like that it's looking slightly towards the camera, but it's too bad I didn't get the whole fish.

Photo by me (positive)

OK, I have to share this story. My friend had the camera, I was just milling around a bit, looking at fish. Then I noticed a piece of trash floating in the water. I didn't really want to pick it up--if I were a guy wearing swim trunks with pockets, sure I'd stuff it in, but I had no pockets in my bikini. But the longer we stayed in the same spot, the guiltier I felt at not grabbing the trash, especially as the waves pushed me even closer to it. So I finally took it--it was the handle of a white plastic bag. I stuck it beneath the stretchy waistband of my bikini bottoms. Very stylish, I'm sure. But the next area of the reef that we swam to was spectacular. Tons of fish of many varieties, big and small. I felt like I was being rewarded for being a friend of the ocean.

I don't know what that long skinny floating thing is. I called them "sea pens" because they just float there looking like you're supposed to grab one and start scribbling. Fits quite nicely in my fingers, really. I think it must be a seed pod of some sort, floating to increase dispersal. You can also see some convict tangs here, among other fish.

Photo by me (sure)

The two cute yellow fish in the front are raccoon butterflyfish.

Photo by me (very sure)

These big guys are bluefin trevally.

Photo by me (very sure)

I think I'd caught glimpses of the big bluefin trevally before, but not anything like this, where a whole bunch of them just hung out right there.

Photo by me (very sure)

We stayed in that area for a very long time, just because more beautiful fish kept swimming by. We finally swam away to another area, then stood up (it was mostly very shallow where we were swimming) to discuss our next move. Then, we hear someone nearby say, "Look, there's an octopus over here!" More good ocean karma! My previous brief encounter with an octopus had taught me to hurry whenever there's an octopus sighting, so we swam right over to where the person was indicating.

But this one was in no particular hurry. It wasn't phased by our presence. It was just minding its own business. That purple fish, though, seemed to be even more interested in the octopus than we were. I'm not sure why. Maybe they were chatting. I love the way the octopus has its arms here, like a poofy gown.

Photo by me (positive)

Totally unconcerned by our presence. But see, that purple fish is still there! The colors on the octopus were really cool--it could change its colors, and even its texture a bit.

Photo by me (pretty sure)

We hung out with the octopus for a good long while. I'm still amazed it didn't swim away and hide from us. We finally decided to leave it, but before doing so, we called over another nearby group of people so they could appreciate it. And we made our way back toward the shore.

Tomorrow, see the video I took at Hanauma Bay. I got footage of the octopus going for a stroll, a big colorful parrotfish gnawing at the reef, and more!

My college roommate's visit: Diamond Head

We'd actually wanted to climb Diamond Head on Tuesday afternoon, but we got there only to find that the path is currently closed in the afternoons so they can do renovations on it.

We snapped this shot outside of the crater (on the side of the road), then went to spend our afternoon in Waikiki/Ala Moana (see yesterday's post).

Koko Head, from Diamond Head

The next morning, we got up early. It was her last day in Hawaii, and we had to do both Diamond Head and Hanauma Bay, both of which are best to do early, first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, we couldn't do both things first. Fortunately, the Diamond Head hike only takes one hour.

Looking out over the rim of the crater. I love the morning light on the water, and the rain visible on the left.


Usually I think of Diamond Head as being very dry and brown (look at the rim/ridges of the crater in the photos here). But the huge amount of rain we'd had recently made it surprisingly green.


The lighthouse by Diamond Head.


Well I had my photo of Diamond Head from Waikiki, now here's Waikiki from Diamond Head. You can see the pier that I took the photo from the day before, as well as the famed pink hotel of song (the Royal Hawaiian).

They paved paradise and put up a parking
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot

Tomorrow, see our photos from Hanauma Bay!

My college roommate's visit: Waikiki

For many tourists who come here, Hawaii is Waikiki. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, after all--a parking lot for all the tourists and the tourist business. Hotels, boutiques, restaurants, bars, and ABC cheap souvenir stores on every block, it's an area locals generally try to avoid when possible (but there are reasons even for locals to go down there). Since it was my friend's first time in Hawaii, we had to make at least a quick stop to Waikiki.

Boogie boarders catch waves near a pier at Waikiki, with Diamond Head in the background.


We spent less than an hour in Waikiki. It's so crowded, and I prefer other beaches. We made our way to Ala Moana beach park, which isn't too far but is less crowded. The water is also very calm because of an offshore reef. It's a very pleasant place to swim.

I was impressed by the reflectivity of the building, which caught the setting sun so strongly that it reflected the light onto the water as if it were the setting sun itself.


The sunset cast lovely colors on the clouds.


My footprints, just for fun.


Tomorrow, see my photos from Diamond Head!

My college roommate's visit: Waimea Valley

I got very busy in December and didn't write very many blog posts, so the fact that my college roommate came to visit me in Honolulu was pretty glossed over. But she was here for five fun-filled days the week before Christmas. We hit up all my favorite restaurants (e.g. Spices, Shokudo, Legend Seafood, Kua 'Aina burgers, Kaka'ako Kitchen) and dessert spots (Waiola Shave Ice, Bubbies Ice Cream, and Dole Whip from Dole Plantation). And we went to many of the major Oahu tourist spots, as it was her first time in Hawaii.

We spent one day touring the North Shore, visiting Haleiwa, Turtle Bay, Waimea Valley, famous surf spots Pipeline, Sunset Beach, and Waimea Bay, and of course stopping at Dole Plantation for Dole Whip on the way home. The whole day was cloudy and most of it was rainy, but we made the most of it. My beach photos from that day were pretty drab (I have better photos of the same spots here, here, and here), but Waimea Valley, with its botanical gardens and waterfall, was still lovely in gray.


They had many varieties of hibiscus in the gardens. The dim light made most of my garden photos come out blurry, but this one managed to be clear, which made me really happy.


I don't remember what these flowers are called, but they're really cool. Soft, red, and about the size of a golf ball (maybe a little bigger? well the small ones were golf ball sized).


There's the waterfall up in the valley, going at full capacity. We'd had a LOT of rain recently (just the day prior, we got about 5 inches), so there was a lot of water flowing in that river with a lot of sediment, making the water brown.

In spite of the pool being small, it drops very quickly to 30 feet deep. There are lifeguards stationed there, offering free rentals of various flotation devices. We passed on the floaties and headed in, my camera strapped securely to my wrist (and clenched in my fist, just to be doubly safe, since I didn't have my floating wrist strap with me). The water was cold (by Hawaii standards...maybe 70F?), and the current was very strong due to the high volume flow. We had to work hard to swim to the waterfall--normal swimming only kept you in place!


But we fought the current and made it to the waterfall. We didn't go right underneath the waterfall, since we didn't quite feel like taking that kind of a pounding. But we did get underneath the fringes of the fall. It was very loud, which you just can't capture in a photo, and unfortunately I didn't think to take video at the time.

Admission to Waimea Valley is $13 for non-locals, $8 for locals, but I think it's worth it for the variety of interesting and beautiful plants and the well-maintained pool and waterfall. Maybe more worth it on a nice, sunny day, when the water isn't so brown and the current so strong. But we were still glad we went.

Tomorrow, see my beach photos from Waikiki and Ala Moana!