Hello from England!

Am here to visit the Queen!

OK.

Not really.

It's 4 degrees out here but its not that bad. To be honest, its quite warm indoors, with the heating on and all. In fact, the lab's even colder. And I'm well prepared. Jumpers, cardies, scarf and gloves.

Just chilling out for the moment, but have a party to go to tonight. I wonder what Chinese tapas are. Maybe it's just dim sum turned nocturnal and given a fancy name?

I shall find out.

Île de Longue - Island hopping part 2

The second lot of pictures from my day on land is up (Best viewed as slideshow, by the way)! Île de Longue (or Long Island to the rest of us non french speaking folks) has a rather different avian fauna composition from Loop Island. Instead of boobies galore, this island is a frigate paradise. And Long Island is a green turtle (Chelonia mydas mydas) nesting site too! On our approach to the island, we saw at least eight out in the surf, waiting to clamber on shore that night. If there is no connection yet. 16th October is one day ahead of full moon. Marie-Catherine and Pierre jumped out on the boat as soon as we reached and ran towards one of of them for a photoshoot while I took my time to organize myself, finish my sandwich and Coke. Jean-paul drives a boat like a typical french man - very reckless. We were getting splashed all the way! Christian was much gentler.

Anyway, the nice close-ups in the set are all courtesy of Marie-Catherine, while the later shots (with a turtle splashing off) are by yours truly.

We did lots of beach combing and came across a huge empty carapace stuck between some branches. The poor creature must have been so exhausted after her egg laying business that she couldn't extricate herself out and died a very unpleasant death. It was a lucky find for us though. Cos it was just what we needed for the other project. But we weren't prepared for that find cos all Bertrand had was a filmsy trash bag. So after some reorganising, we had everything squared away, but only barely. To cut our losses, we decided to cut across the island back to the meeting point cos there was no way we would be able to circumvate the island without the bag breaking at some point....and not a moment too soon either, cos that bag gave up when we got back and Bertrand had to use his rain jacket to keep it all in.

More pictures from the cruise proper coming up soon!

Your worst nightmare

One of the scariest modules I took up in my undergrad days was Parasitology. I remember, after an hour of jaw dropping revelations in which Prof Ip regaled us with the evil doings of Schistosomiasis, Leshmaniasis, River blindness, Elephantiasis and the ubiquitous tape worm accompanied by disturbingly graphic pictures of inflated scrotum as big as a sack of rice, tape worms several metres long etcetera etcetera, I headed straight to the pharmacy after classes for a de-worming dose, just to make sure. And I suspect I wasn't the only one freaked out enough to do so either. Since then, this knowledge had stuck on to me enough to prevent me from jumping into less than pristine rivers and streams (especially in Indonesia, where the same stretch of river is used for washing, cooking and crapping in), but not enough for me to avoid them altogether, since the nature of my 'work' means that I do have to wade into knee high freshwater bodies once in a while.

Furthermore, it is no consolation that I actually do know somebody who have had a brain operation to take out a tape worm cyst lodged in his noggin. It is unfortunate, since the cysticercus (the term for the cycst forming larval stage) had definitely wandered up there by mistake. In the first place, humans are not the natural host for the larval cystic stage (pigs are) , and secondly, cysts are usually found in muscle or subcutaneous tissue. This is a case of a double boo-boo, or extremely bad luck I suppose. I've had the experience of gingerly putting my fingers on his head to feel his brain (The bit of skull that used to cover it is in a -80C freezer somewhere). It is a strange feeling, to touch a soft warm brain underneath a thin layer of scalp and hair, and it fills me with morbid fascination. And if he tilts his head to one side, I can actually feel his brain 'ooze out' (eeeks!). That is one helluva cool party trick, if you ask me.

Anyway, I bring this up today because I got re-acquainted with the wonderful of parasites again the last couple of days. LHam finally returned to me my book, 'Parasite Rex' (author: Carl Zimmer) after holding on to it for moons. Infect (hahaha), I think I might have had a close call with Leishmania before. All this cavorting around on tropical beaches with sandflies as constant companians (sandflies are vectors for L. major). I am nursing a hideous scab on my foot at the moment, and while I'm very sure it wasn't a sandfly kiss, alarm bells are ringing and I'm doing myself no favours by reading the book. Gah.

Go read Parasite Rex. It will entertain and certainly educate you more than any Hollywood Alien/Predator type movie. And unlike Hollywood, these horror stories are real. Guaranteed conversation pieces for anyone who likes to gross other people out.

Île de Loop - Island hopping part 1 aka the post with the nice boobies

Having to mark those pain-in-the-arse assignments means that I have to look for something else to amuse myself while I'm at it. And also because I spoke with Ivan of Recent Runes' 'fame' last night that I'll put up more pictures soon.

Pictures are from the 16th of October, first day I've stepped on land since the 3rd. So you can imagine how very happy I was.


In case you were wondering, no, your computer screen has not suddenly gone dusty. It's the sheer amount of avian life on the island as seen from the boat. On our initial approach to the island, we found ourselves downwind of the island. Needless to say, the pong of bird guano had us sit up and covering our nasal orifices. But we got used to it in a jiffy and spent a couple of hours happily wandering around the island, beach combing for dead birds, shells, feathers and taking pictures of unsuspecting bird families. The little ones look so cute in their puffy down feathers!



This was a prize find. A whole dead bird! With feathers and bones intact! Woohoo!


More birds.. live ones.




A family unit of Masked boobies Sula dactylatra



Red-foot boobies Sula sula



Sula sula in flight
Last two pictures taken by MCB

That's all.. gotta get back to work now. Will refine this post when I've sorted out the names of the birds.

Want more? head to my flickr set.

Enjoy yerselves!

Lanterns

Lanterns
Originally uploaded by island_girl.

Walking along the 5 foot way one night, I passed this display in Chinatown.

I've been trying to get hold of these for Celine and Enzo, but not much luck so far, since the Mid-Autumn festival is long over. I should go back to this shop again when it is actually open. But I think by this time, the entire shop will be over-run with Christmas and Chinese New Year decorations.

Idle nights

Note to self, and a warning to all - DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT trust The Voice of Reason aka Mary to make G&Ts. She must be closely supervised at all times. We had two each last night, but it feels like at least six today. I broke the towel rack in my bathroom last night cos my legs got a little wobbly and I fell, taking the poor thing with me.

Chilled out night. Inaugaral screening of the MP movie season, playing lightning reaction, loads of guitar strumming on the porch of a lovely colonial house. No pictures though. Left the camera at home. But here's the plan. Next house party at Alan's? Please? I'll cook!

Just as I was going to give it up, this finally came in through the mail today.



Yay! Thanks to fatfreddy, I now have one more time wasting distraction when I should be working on my dissertation! Mingko thanks you too. It will serve us well for Friday Movie Nights.

*******

In other news, my hard disk has died. Its a good thing everything is backed up. Will have to send my baby to the hospital, but it will take 2 weeks, which is impossible since I am going to be away soon. Am using my external hard disk to do work on now. Need to mirror that too in case anything happens. *knocks on wood*

Baby update

The debate's over
Originally uploaded by island_girl.

Me and my cute little darling at 10 weeks old. He's looking a tad grumpy cos he wants to sleep, the lazy bugger. He came into the house fast asleep in his spiffy McLaren pram - talk about travelling in style. Woke up a while later for milk and water, a spot of I'm a little teapot sing-a-long and now he's tired again!

And his going ga-ga aunt keeps picking him up and cuddling him and speaking to him in baby talk. Sigh. A baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do! In the end, I got shooed off by his mommy. :P

Especially for Cécé...

Pictures from our whale bone hunting episode are up on Flickr!



This was our last stop before heading back to Nouméa. The sperm whale carcass was reported by a geologist from IRD about 2 hours from Nouméa, near Boloupari, in one of the many deserted lagoons of New Caledonia.

Luckily for us, (but not so lucky for the whale i guess), the poor whale had died a long time ago and all was left of it were several lower jaw bones (no flesh nor maggots! phew!). And even then, they were HUUUUGE! I have no idea what bit of the bone I was sitting on in the picture. Maybe someone has a clue?

Back again

Hello from Singapore again! Yes.. I've been back for about four days now, and have been stuffing my face non stop with Deepavali and Hari Raya delights. Also back with a mountain of back log in work too, but have not had the energy to get started.

Noumea is as hot and sunny as Singapore, but it is the humidity in Singapore that killed me. I was walking from the bus stop at AYE to lab on Thursday and almost fainted (!). Another contributing factor was the fact that I had no exercise at all for a whole month. I realise now, so much for a weight loss plan on the ALIS. All these times getting sick, it was merely so that I would remain the same as I was. sigh.

The jeans never lie.

Ok.. so what have I been up to during my six days in Noumea. Having lots of fun of course! But only in the evenings. I was drained physically and mentally after the cruise. Despite clocking ten hours of sleep everyday on the boat, I was exhausted. I guess you never really rest on the boat, what with the boat rocking al the time, so the body has got to be tensed in bed so one doesn't roll off the bunk. And also the constant background noise of the engine. In any case, I stayed with Celine for six days which was truly a good way to relax. On a typical day, I'd sleep till the mid morning or aftternoon, while she leaves for work at the IRD. Then I'll chill out in her lovely garden, just being by myself (the joy of solitude after three weeks of none!) or reading. Sometimes Annick (her housemate) will take me out to downtown Noumea and drop me at the museum or we'll go to the IRD to have lunch with her. It's nice to have these kind of holidays. I really don't see the need to rush from point A to B packing as many sights as possible. In any case, Noumea is a small town. I had seen all there is in six hours.

Its really in the evenings that I'm bright and chirpy, but Celine the poor girl has to go to bed early, cos unlike me, who is on holiday, she still has to work! So that's where her friends come in. We'll go somewhere, have kava at the Nakamal, or a drink at the bar and when she decides she's gotta go, leave me with her friends to take me back. We did spend the weekend out out camping in the 'real' New Caledonia.

Out of Noumea, New Caledonia is really a rural country, filled with nickel mountains, scrub bush, rivers and isolated lagoons. Out of Noumea, there are no street lights, only one main road on each coast leading from North to South, and three roads trasversing the width of the country. Tribes still live nestled within the hills, even though they are now 'modern'. We headed down south, to Thio on the east coast, where the soil is so toxic that the only kind of vegetation that is able to thrive there is endemic, not only to New Caledonia, but also only to the southern bit of New Caledonia. Imagine that!

I've checked out all four night spots in Noumea, packed to the gills with orange ang mohs. Military folks or expats from the nickel mining companies who are paid the earth to be persuaded to relocate to New Caledonia to work. It's like a perpetual holiday here for them.

The beach (Anse Vata) across the road from IRD is packed with french surfer boys. Loads of eye candy for both sexes! I can hardly need to point out that the average middle aged french woman is gorgeous. But not the above 50s who had largely spent their youth sun worshipping. In a word, they look erm... scary. Seeing them, I really take sun protection seriously now.

Anyway, I am waffling. Go to my flickr page and have a look at my holiday pics! Loads more pictures coming up, the scientific ones from the mission, and my trip to the islands.

Akan Datang!