Henry Malmgren's escapades around the globe.

Isla Genovesa

January 7, 2010 Posted in South America, The Galapagos Islands

The third stop on our trip was at Genovesa Island. This was the longest sail we’d have to do on the trip, and was the worst nights sleep any of us experienced. Our boat was comfortably sized for the 16 passengers plus crew, however during long open ocean crossings, the engine noise and the rocking made for a challenging night. Even the icebreakers I’ve spent time on in the Antarctic were much smoother than this!

Once we arrived it was immediately obvious why this was nicknamed “Bird Island.” Just on the beach alone there were hundreds of boobies, gulls, frigate-birds, and of course the famous Galapagos finches. We spent about three hours walking around the beach, probably not more than two kilometers total, but never for a second felt bored. I was really enjoying myself, playing with all the settings on my camera, getting up close to the birds, and just smelling the salt air. We went snorkeling again before lunch, and spotted another black tipped reef shark, along with our first Galapagos shark. Pretty cool!

After a quick trip back to the yacht for lunch, we came out to another landing called “Prince Phillip’s Steps.” Apparently if you’re a prince, people tend to really be impressed by where you walk. No one really seemed to take my suggest to rename them to Henry Malmgren’s steps very seriously…

The steps led to the top of the island, where we spent a couple of hours looking for the rare short eared owl. The surface of the island was pretty spectacular..it was all old lava flows, and had huge cracks and crevices running everywhere. The soil was extremely poor, and the vegetation was pretty sparse. It was surprisingly hot, but we got to see the cooling behavior of the birds as they vibrated their throat pouches to generate a breeze. We’d just about given up on seeing the owl and were on our way back to the boat when our guide spotted one way off in the distance. None of us would have ever seen it, and it took my longest lens to even come close to getting a shot.

That evening after dinner we started sailing back towards our next destination…another mostly sleepless night, punctuated by a bit of excitement as we crossed over the equator.

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Santa Fe Island and Caleta Tortuga Negra

January 6, 2010 Posted in South America, The Galapagos Islands

Our second stop was small islet called Santa Fe off of the larger island of Santa Cruz. This one was similar in geography to yesterday’s stop, but it had the largest variety of prickly pear cactus I’ve ever seen. Normally they grow on the ground like shrubs, but these had evolved into tree like plants. Their only predator on this island are the land iguanas that populate the island, but can’t climb up to reach the high succulent leaves. Our guide said that the only islands where the cactus grow so tall are the ones that have tortoises and iguanas, both herbivores who treat their leaves as a favorite snack. This has developed into an evolutionary arms race, where the tortoises evolved longer necks, and the cactus keep getting taller. Unfortunately all the tortoises on this island were hunted into extinction by the 1800s era sailors, so it appears that the cactus have won this battle…at least until there are sufficient tortoises raised in captivity to repopulate the island!

After lunch we went for our first snorkel of the trip..the water was cool, but with a rented wetsuit pretty tolerable. It didn’t take long at all before some of the local sea lions came over to investigate the new people who were hanging out. They’re pretty curious creatures, but easily distracted…they see so many people on a daily basis that they don’t hang out very long. I guess chasing crabs or relaxing on the beach is a lot more interesting to them than swimming with some pasty white tourists! A highlight of the diving was our first shark encounter of the trip. I’ve been fortunate enough to do more than my share of diving in a lot of different oceans, but these were the sharkiest waters I’ve ever been in. I don’t think there was a day that we didn’t see a shark of one kind or another.

The final activity of the evening was going for a panga ride in a mangrove swamp. It was pretty close to dusk, and we were on the lookout for sea turtles. I figured we’d see a couple of individuals…never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we’d stumble upon a turtle orgy of bacchanalian proportions! We’d apparently come during the hight of mating season, and the turtles were going at it everywhere we looked. It was crazy…one on one, three on one, we even saw one poor female trying to get away from five very determined males who were chasing her like she was this year’s Sports Illustrated cover girl!

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Isla Lobos, Galapagos

January 5, 2010 Posted in South America, The Galapagos Islands

The first stop on the Galapagos trip was a small little island just off the coast of Isla Santa Cruz. It’s not the most spectacular island, but for a group of tourists who are very eager to get their first wildlife experience, it is in just about the perfect location. After leaving the harbor, it took about 20 minutes of sailing to get there, and then it was off to the beach.

The name literally translates to “Wolf Island”, but our guide kept calling it Sea Lion Island. Whatever the real translation was, there were plenty of sea lions to be found. It is also a nesting site for the Blue Footed Booby, and the frigate-bird. I’m really glad that we stopped here, as this was the only place during the entire week that we’d see Frigate-birds displaying their inflated red pouches. Apparently we’d just missed prime breeding time, and we were very fortunate to see the last poor unchosen males still desperately trying to find a mate.

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Baghdad’s International Zone

September 14, 2009 Posted in Iraq, Middle East

After months of sitting in the same location in Victory Base, I finally had the opportunity to get out of the office, and make a brief trip to the International Zone in the center of Baghdad. The IZ was once the main hub of the US occupational government, but has been slowly turned back over to the Iraqi’s. There are two FOB (Forward Operating Bases) still over there, and to get between them you have to drive in an unarmored truck on roads whose legal status can be described as “murky” at best.

Seeing the sights was a nice break..we ended up at most of the “tourist” places…Assassian’s gate, the Hands of Victory monument, the roof of the former Republican Guard palace. Lots of fun, and on the way back home to Camp Victory, we got caught in the first thunderstorm of the season…very cool…at least till I found out about the mud!

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Hluhluwe Umfolozi Game Reserve

August 28, 2009 Posted in Africa, South Africa

Our final stop after leaving Swaziland was a lesser known park back in Zululand in South Africa called Hluhluwe Umfolozi. To be honest, at this point in the trip I think a good many of us were starting to suffer from “Africa Fatigue”, where things that got us excited on the first few days wouldn’t even get us to turn our heads. Another zebra? Yawn…wake me up if you see a leopard making a kill. Despite that, this park had quite a few things that kept our attention at peak performance for the entire day.

The terrain here was quite unlike any other game park I’d ever been to. Most parks are in the “veld”…fields of grass, trees, almost always flat. This park was so much more! Hills, ridges, streams running down valleys..lots of interest and a good challenge for photography. There were fewer places for tourists to stay in the park, but if I ever come back with someone “special”, I’ll definitely be staying at the Hill Top lodge..amazing views, beautiful furnishings, and what looked like a very fun bar.

From an animal spotting perspective, two events really stand out in my memory of this park. First we spent about two hours stalking and following a large herd of elephants, trying to intercept them around the terrain to get us into perfect photo distance. We eventually succeeded, but unfortunately the light was at the worst mid-day height. Still, for a fun experience this couldn’t be beat. Our most impressive encounter happened on our way out of the park…we ran across several rhino’s, two of which were large males fighting over a female. We watched the battle for about 45 minutes, with the animals getting increasingly more tired and bloody. Eventually the loser ran off in defeat, and we bugged out with the evening closing time right on our tail.