DAY 11 on MIDWAY

Monday December 26
           We are starting at 8:30 today instead of 8am so here is a quickie before the morning shift.  I have added a link to Dan's blog on "friends and links."  He is a volunteer here for three months and he tries to put in two new photos a day with a blurb.  Excellent photographer,  funny guy, mixes science with humor - worth reading.
           Here is the plot map as of Saturday's input.  They are saying we have done the easy part and now we will really get into it.  

Completion through 12/24/11

           After breakfast we completed one confusing section shared with another group.  We all realized that a day off just tricked our bodies and they were not happy with climbing through scrub.  They weren't kidding about "harder."  This means we started last week with knee high verbesina and graduated to chest high before Christmas.  

           Today it was over our heads, even Gil's. That isn't so bad on its own but we were also in ironwood down fall, sometimes climbing over 2-3 waist high logs and still trying to avoid dropping into burrows.  It was so thick the mice ran on branches rather than on the ground and after circumventing large downed tree trunks we had to hold our guns in the air to find each other and make sure we were still in line.  We weren't complaining, just laughing  that a day off had been almost cruel to our legs!

The leaders figured out where to go next while we rehydrated

           After lunch we did two more small sectors, got hot, tired, and tried our best not to be grumpy.  The white terns always make us smile, flitting in the forest.

White tern observing our work

Laysan Ducks at the Ballpark Seep

           The leaders are great.  It was planned that we would finish by coming out into the open where we caught a breeze at last and were reminded once again that "Midway is for the birds."

           We actually quit early and headed home to throw our clothes (filthy again) in the wash and headed to the pier for another snorkel.  We had heard visibility was great this morning.  We went all the way out to the end of the pier this time (200 yards) and got to see the husky big eye jacks about 3 feet long as well as many smaller fish.  Two turtles came through to check us out on their way to haul out.  Cooled and healed in the salt water, we quickly had dinner, bought our delayed Christmas t-shirts, and went to an informal talk about seabird flight.  Whew!