Sky Meadows with Steve

All the hikes I can remember ever having done at Sky Meadows State Park in Virginia start with a walk through the cow pasture (carefully tiptoeing around the cow patties) and then up onto the Appalachian Trail. It turns out there are some other nice hikes in the park, including a loop I hiked with my friend Steve. We were pointed to this hike by Steve's twenty year old hiking guide, which was a little inaccurate in the details (it appears they've reworked one trail junction since the book was written), but which generally steered us right. The hike took us past some magnificent views with valleys filled with pastures and hillsides alive with fall color. Yes, we eventually had to traverse the cow pasture, but coming at it from the other direction you realize that there's a splendid view from the top of it.

The day started out cloudy and rainy, and we delayed our departure hoping that the rain would move out. In fact it did, and the weather behind it was better than had been forecast, with blue skies by the end of the afternoon. A really nice hike with near-peak foliage.

View from George's Overlook

In the woods

View from the top of the cow pasture

Day hike in Shenandoah National Park

 One of the nice things about being self-employed/semi-retired is that I can do things like make a spur of the moment decision to take advantage of a beautiful autumn day and go hiking at Shenandoah National Park. In all honesty, I don't actually have total control over my schedule - I missed two meetings to do this "hooky day", but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I entered the park at Thornton Gap, and after a quick stop to take in the view at Tunnel View Overlook I parked at Hawksbill Gap and got ready to hike. I had watched the temperature drop by almost 15 degrees as I drove from the valley up into the park and I knew it would be yet colder up top, so I had packed lots of layers and a glove. Wait, what? One glove? Actually, I know for a fact I had brought two gloves since I was wearing them when I left the house, but one of my gloves mysteriously disappeared between home and the trailhead. Either it fell out when I stopped at Tunnel View Overlook (I stopped there again to look for it on my way out of the park, but no luck) or it has hidden itself very well in the car somewhere. So, I was left with a left glove and a pair of very lightweight fingerless sun gloves - I gloved up as best I could and kept my right hand in my pocket for most of the hike.

I hiked a loop up to Hawksbill Viewing Platform - up the Appalachian and Salamander Trails, then back via Lower Hawksbill - about 3 miles with 860 feet elevation gain. I am always chasing a peak fall colors experience like I had once when Valerie and I visited Ted at JMU and went for a hike. We must have hit the peak day of a particularly vibrant year, because it was spectacular and I've never since seen such vivid colors. In planning my park visits I even watch the NPS Fall Foliage YouTube videos - which aren't always that informative and can be hard to watch, since they're filmed outdoors and so have lots of wind noise, plus they feature several giggly young rangers taking fifteen minutes to deliver five minutes worth of information.

Anyway, for this hike it was already past peak at Skyline Drive and above, but the mountainsides down into the valleys were very colorful. Hawksbill has an actual viewing platform where you can stand and get an almost 360 degree view of scenery, plus there's a camping shelter nearby which offers, in my opinion, a superior (if only 180 degree) view. I spent quite a while at both spots, but it really was cold up there - water caught in crevices in the rocks was iced over, and there was lots of wind. I'm guessing it was in the low 30's up top. When I started to get cold I hit the trail again and finished the loop back to the car. 

On the way up to Hawksbill

Hawksbill View

Leaves along the trail

Little Stony Man View

I have to give a shout-out to the family of six - two parents plus four kids ranging from elementary school age down to baby in a backpack - who I saw (and volunteered to take photos of) at the top. It takes a certain amount of guts to shepherd a group of young kids up a mountain trail. 

The Hawksbill hike was less than two hours, leaving me time for more exploration. I did a second hike at Little Stony Man. I parked at Little Stony Man parking (milepost 39) and hiked up to the first viewpoint, then explored the Passamaquoddy Trail for a bit. I could have continued and done another loop (continuing on Passamaquoddy then back on the AT) which would have led me to two more viewpoints, but it was starting to get late (I wanted to get home ahead of afternoon rush hour) and so after taking in the view and once again doing photographer duties, this time for a young Scandinavian backpacker hiking from Harper's Ferry to somewhere in North Carolina, I retraced my steps back to the car. 

Trees at Little Stony Man

Color down the mountainside

On the way back I tried to stop at Rappahannock Coffee Roasters, but either they're not doing retail anymore or just weren't open mid-afternoon on a weekday. I then drove through Washington Virginia, which I had heard had quite a few stores these days (not just the Inn at Little Washington), but there still isn't very much there. My last stop on the way home was at the WaWa in Gainesville where I got a soft pretzel (yay!). They had no decaf coffee (what the actual F? C'mon WaWa) so I got a small regular coffee, which gave me that buzzy sped up feeling for the rest of the day.

Anyway, a nice little outing. Now, where's that darn glove? 

Overnight in George Washington National Forest

I took a trip where I was introduced to a type of camping I had never done before - call it wilderness car camping. When I think of car camping I envision something like a state park with a certain degree of infrastructure: defined campsites and conveniences such as water spigots and bath houses. And of course, you can drive your car to your campsite and so you go in heavy with lots of gear. In contrast, when wilderness camping (backpacking or kayak camping) the campsites are remote, have little to no infrastructure (maybe an outhouse), and you have to get yourself and all your gear to the campsite under your own power - in a backpack or a boat - so you travel light. Wilderness car camping sits somewhere in the middle.

For my friend Steve camping used to mean only backpacking; however, as his hips and knees have aged he's become more open to car camping. But, he still doesn't like the idea of going someplace as developed as a state park. What he and his usual camping buddies (economists all - don't get them started talking about economics) do is drive out to lesser developed places to camp. Our original plan was to go to Red Creek campground in Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia, but we made a game-time decision to head instead for George Washington National Forest (GWNF). 

National Parks are managed for preservation and recreation, and typically have the kind of higher camping infrastructure I described above. National Forests, on the other hand allow a wider variety of uses (hunting, cattle grazing, lumbering) and since they're not parks, their level of camping infrastructure is lower. The GWNF has well defined and blazed hiking trails, but there aren't many defined campgrounds or sites. Rather, it seems you can just pick a spot and camp anywhere in the Forest. Over time, I guess from use, obvious campsite locations have taken shape: maybe someone camped in a spot and built a fire ring, then successive users, by driving and walking around the site tamped down the vegetation, and a clear campsite emerged. Again, National Forests are not as concerned about maintaining nature in its pristine state and so they're fine with campsites being carved out ad hoc, But there's no infrastructure - no water, no outhouse, no nothing.

We met at Steve's friend Dave's house and discovered he had already prepared by loading his SUV with a ton of firewood - five or six of the bundles you buy in the supermarket. Then we added all of our gear. I was packed fairly light, since I mostly just grabbed the stuff I had recently packed for a kayak camping trip I dropped out of at the last minute due to coming down with COVID. But still, I had a pretty big amount of stuff (I packed a lot of layers!), and Dave and Steve had even more gear than I did. After loading everything into the car we really didn't have a square inch to spare.

A full car

Once we made the decision to go to the GWNF we headed for a place the two of them had camped before, which they claimed was almost always available, only to find that despite it being a Wednesday, there were already three different parties camped there. We could have squeezed into that area, but that would have meant a more crowded experience than we were looking for. Plus, Steve wandered into the spot where he and Dave would usually set up and noticed that whomever was camped there had a chainsaw and a half-empty magnum bottle of cheap gin. They had left a half-eaten meal out on the table (not a good idea in the woods), there were filthy kids' toys strewn about and their car was a decades-old beater filled with junk. We got a feeling that these might not be people we would enjoy camping next to, so we got back into in our car and continued up the forest road, where we found an unoccupied spot with a fire ring at the Scothorn Trail trailhead (Lat 38.691750, Lon -78.58007). There were really two campsites carved out there - one to the left of the trailhead, the other to the right. We set up in one and parked the car in the other, which turned out to be a good move. While we didn't see anyone else come by looking to camp, we had quite a few day hikers come by and the presence of our car on the right side cued them to use the right side for parking and stay away from our campsite on the left.

I have mentioned in the past that Steve is the least gear-headed outdoorsy person I know. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had finally replaced his 1970's A-frame tent, though he still had some of his stuff packed in a backpack of similar antiquity. He brought along his hiking sticks - which are actual sticks. Dave seems to be a more gear-oriented camper and in fact has all brand new gear as a result of having recently lost all of his camping gear in a fire (long story). Still, they were both impressed with some of my gee-whiz gear - particularly my beloved Helinox backpacker cot.

After making camp we hiked the Scothorn Trail (very convenient, since we were camped at the trailhead!), exploring a couple of side trails along the way. Eventually Steve's back started to hurt so he decided to wait while Dave and I ascended the rest of the way to the peak, where he and I were rewarded with a nice view of the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains beyond (Massanutten is a small mountain range - a monadnock, actually that pops up as an interruption in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, so valley views abound). At the summit our trail intersected with one which runs along the ridgeline. On the way up we had chatted with some hikers coming the other way who said the ridge trail along the ridge offered lots good views, but was rocky and difficult. Given the late hour we decided not to explore the challenging ridge trail and instead headed back. At the agreed-upon meeting point we picked up Steve who, in an only-in-Washington moment, while sitting in the middle of the woods at the trail junction waiting for our return, had fielded a call from a Politico reporter looking for a quote for an article on inflation and potential spillover effects of Fed monetary policy (Steve is a former high-ranking Fed official).

Scothorn Trail - likely an old forest road

The beginnings of fall colors

View at the top

I will also mention that we ran into another hiker on our way back - a young woman who was backpacking with her dog (which was wearing a little doggy backpack - adorable!). I noticed that she had a pistol within reach in one of the outside pockets of her pack. I understand why a woman hiking alone would feel the need for such protection, but I'm sad that we live in a world where this is the case.

Anyway, we got back to camp in time to relax with a cold beer then started making dinner. Steve's idea of camping cooking is, like his gear, mired in decades past - hot dogs cooked on a stick over the campfire, served with baked beans. That was dinner for the two of them; I had vegetarian chili I had brought along, knowing that Steve's food wasn't going to be to my liking. After that it was a pleasant evening of hanging around the campfire. Unlike my kayaking friends, who turn in super early, these guys stayed up almost to 11, and so I didn't have to resort to my usual group camping routine of reading and watching videos in my tent until it was late enough for me to go to bed.

Around the campfire

Different people have different camping ideas and rhythms. I'm used to camping with my kayak crew, who all rise early and immediately get started on the day. I slept pretty well, waking up only at midnight, 2 AM, 4 AM, 5AM, and then finally getting out of bed 6-ish. Once awake I got the stove going to make coffee (Starbucks Via Brew instant), then quietly began packing up some of my gear. When Dave and Steve finally rolled out of their tents about two hours later Steve was surprised to find me mostly packed. But we evened out the timing a little over breakfast. I happily lounged and had a second cup of coffee, and Dave's and my breakfasts (instant oatmeal and grits, respectively) took more time to prepare, eat, and clean up from than did Steve's Pop-Tarts. 

We stopped to enjoy another view on the road back

We broke camp and loaded the car, a task made easier by the fact that we had burned most of the firewood which had taken up so much space the day before. On the way out we stopped and did a short hike - an hour or so - and then headed back to civilization. When we got to Front Royal Dave and I had a good diner brunch at L'Dees Pancake House, while Steve, who is still very COVID-cautious, avoided going inside the busy diner and instead ate a sandwich in the nearby town square (I felt comfortable being a little cavalier about COVID since I presumably still have good immunity from recently having had it).

All told, a fun couple of days in the mountains with an old friend and a new one. Good hiking, and we saw a little bit of early fall colors.  

With Steve

With Dave

Robertson Mountain Hike

 On October 19th, hoping to catch something near peak foliage, I drove out to Shenandoah National Park to do some hiking. Looking at places to hike, I saw Robertson Mountain mentioned as a neglected gem - overshadowed by nearby popular hikes like Old Rag.

You can approach Robertson from the valley (here and here are listings for that hike) but I chose the somewhat easier (though about the same length) hike from Skyline Drive. I parked at the Limberlost parking area (about mile 43 on Skyline Drive) and started out on the Limberlost Trail, which it turns out is one of the accessible trails in the park - it's flat, smooth gravel. It was chilly when I headed out and I started out bundled up in my puffy jacket, wool hat and light gloves. After a little bit, Limberlost intersects with the Old Rag Fire Road, which, being a road, was pretty easy hiking by the standards of Shenandoah. I mean, the trail is wide and flat enough to drive a truck down - something I saw proof of when a forest ranger pickup truck passed by. I'm nervous about a lot of things when I hike, one of which is losing the trail. This is particularly true in autumn, when even the most obvious trail can get obscured by leaves. It's pretty damn impossible to lose sight of a forest road, so I was able to relax about that particular issue on this hike.

Pretty spot on the way up

The fire road intersects with other interesting trails along the way. If I had started earlier in the day or at a time of year when the days are long, I could see extending this hike via a side excursion down the White Oak trail or even bagging both Robertson and Old Rag mountains in one hike. As it was, I continued on my planned route, noticing many of the various trails that intersected the fire road but actually almost missing the Robertson Mountain Trail. There is a trail marker at the intersection of the fire road and the Robertson Mountain trail, but it's sort of off to the side - possible to miss if you're lost in thought while hiking.

The big vistas weren't quite at peak, but individual leaves were beautiful. My new iPhone 13 takes amazing close-up photos!

The trail up to the mountain is unblazed and fairly steep. According to my Strava log, you climb about 500 feet in a little less than a mile (in contrast, hiking up from the valley you climb 1,500 feet in 1.5 miles!). When I got to the top I found the expected rock outcropping at the peak. Here's another thing I worry about while hiking. I don't have a great sense of direction, and it's easy for me, while exploring the rocks at the top of such mountains, to get totally turned around and have no idea where I came in. If there are several trails leading to the peak I can get confused about which one I came in on. Because of this, I took out a red Buff I had in my bag and tied it around a tree right next to the trail I had come in on.

A marker to help me stay unlost

I explored the rock outcropping at the peak, but didn't find any vista. I felt kind of bummed - like maybe this is one of those views that's only good when the trees were bare. It was still a nice hike, but I was a little bit disappointed about climbing a mountain and not getting a view. I explored around the peak area some more; I didn't find any view, but I did find a campsite, where I sat down and had lunch. While I was eating my lunch I spotted a guy coming out of the rock outcropping at the peak. As far as I could tell, there was only one way in and out of the rocks, and I hadn't seen him arrive, nor had I seen him while I was up on the rocks - so he must have been on some part of the rocks I had missed.

After lunch I climbed back up the rocks to try and find where this other hiker had been, and lo and behold - I found an area I had missed before, with a lovely, expansive view of Old Rag and the valley below. The spot was warm and sunny, as well. I unbundled a bit and walked around taking pictures, then sat for a bit just enjoying the view.

View at the top

Bald on Night Mountain (apologies to Mussorgsky)

Shiny!

The hike back was just the reverse of the hike in - except that I stayed on the fire road all the way to the parking lot. On the way out I made a quick stop at the Skyland Lodge. I'm rarely in this section of the park and I wanted to see what the lodge was like (nothing special). I also wanted coffee, but the line was too long. I stopped at a couple of the overlooks on Skyline Drive, then headed home. I did eventually get my coffee, along with a soft pretzel, at a WaWa Market on the way home. Ted and I are big WaWa fans, and we both particularly like their pretzels. Coffee and a pretzel may seem like an odd combo - but not if it's WaWa.

Looking west from a Skyline Drive overlook

BTW, one thing I didn't worry about, but perhaps should have, was bears. When I posted photos from the hike on Facebook, a friend commented that she had been hiking that trail just a week earlier and had had a close encounter with a a bear!

Costa Rica Part IV - To Sea!

Sat 12/29

Basically a wasted day in between the land tour and the sea-based portion. Having spent most of the previous day sitting around I started the day with a quick workout on the elliptical, had breakfast, then packed up and checked our bags in for transfer to the ship. Valerie and I took a walk and browsed in a really cheesy souvenir shop then continued across to a shopping mall. The mall was pretty dismal - at least half vacant - but walking around was something to do. I thought about getting my hair trimmed, as at 1/8 inch long it was getting pretty unruly, but the barbershop charged 6,800 Colones (about $11) for a haircut and I was just too cheap to pay that kind of money to have someone spend 60 seconds buzzing my head with the clippers.

We ate lunch at the food court, where I impressed Valerie with my ability to order her a personal pan pizza combo in Spanish. My Spanish is very limited, but I do pretty well in restaurants. The conversation is very structured with a lot of context and my food vocabulary is pretty good, so I can generally make it through. Though I have to admit, when I ordered my sandwich at Subway I had to point at some things rather than asking for them because I didn’t remember the words for some of the veggies (cucumber? mushrooms?). Google has a really cool translation app, but a fast food order line is too fast-paced for me to be able to fumble with an app. Still waiting for the Star Trek Universal Translator - which may not be far away at this point.

Back at the hotel all the cruise passengers gathered in the lounge. One of the high points of any trip for Valerie is meeting new people, so she began to make the rounds. We met one family from LA, whom we immediately suspected were also Jewish. As I’m sure I’ve noted before, we have a minor obsession with spotting other Jews (which is not at all unique to us - I think that as a small minority it makes us feel a little less alone in a sea of goyim to encounter other members of our tribe out there). It turns out we were 2/3 right in this case - the wife and her mom were Jewish and they’re raising the kids Jewish but the husband and his brother were not. Plus, their son is named Jesse. In fact there were two Jesses and two Jessicas out of the 65 or so passengers. Very unusual and sometimes a little confusing when we gathered for daily outings from the ship (“was that Jesse cabin 219 or Jesse cabin 217 you called?). These Californian semi-Jews were just one of a large number of family groups on the trip, I guess because it’s school break week. There was a kind of rednecky (but it turns out quite accomplished and also quite fun) group of 11 from that corner where Delaware, Pennsylvania and top of the Chesapeake Maryland come together; parents and their three 20-something daughters from Chicago; and grandfather and grandson from Orlando (it turns out the grandfather is in the modeling & simulation business - we know people in common from when I was in that biz), the three generation family of six who were on our land excursion, and more. There other couples without extended families on board (the New Zealanders, the bicoastal Charlottesville/Oakland couple, etc.) but it felt like we couples were the exception rather than the rule on this trip.

All of us - families, couples, whatever - headed out at 2:30 PM for the ship. As I mentioned earlier, the previous day the ten of us who had done the land extension had driven several hours back to San Jose, driving right past Punta Arenas, where we would be getting on the boat. I guess mustering everyone at one hotel in San Jose was convenient for the cruise line, but it was damn rude to make those of us who had spent extra for the land add-on retrace the very same route back to Punta Arenas. All told, a waste of about half a day spent on buses negotiating Costa Rica’s winding mountain roads. Perhaps it was because we were on a bigger bus, or maybe it was that this driver wasn’t as skilled as Marco, our previous driver, but navigating the endless switchbacks on the way to Punta Arenas left all of us a little woozy. So our heads spun a little bit when we realized that we needed to transit via small Zodiac boats for a bouncy ride out to the ship. Valerie really wasn’t prepared for this. In Alaska, the skiffs had been bigger, with bench seats inside, whereas these were smaller skiffs where you just sat on the edge, feeling with every wave like you were about to get pitched over backwards into the drink. Fortunately, we made it to the ship unscathed. We boarded the ship via our first experience with the swim platform, a motorized contraption at the fantail of the ship which lifts the skiffs (or kayaks, or whatever) in and out of the water - no launching required.

Safely aboard, we found our cabin, settled in a little bit, then went to the lounge for a group welcome, abandon ship drill, cocktails and buffet dinner on the upper deck. Valerie was feeling the motion of the ship a little bit and so retired early. I wasn’t being affected as much (I actually think that time spent out on the water kayaking, while a very different kind of motion, gives me a certain degree of “sea legs”) so hung out in the lounge a little bit and had a cup of coffee before going to bed.

 

Here's our cabin

Preparing to abandon ship

Preparing to abandon ship

Oh, coffee! The lounge of the ship had a fancy-schmancy coffee maker which on demand would brew coffee, lattes, and cappuccinos - and it had decaf as well as regular! I was saved! That was, in fact, an indication of another difference between ashore and at sea. On land we were more immersed in Costa Rica. The food we ate had a Costa Rican flavor (as I’ve mentioned, rice and beans at every meal), and while the tourist industry accommodates English speakers, you were in a country where Spanish was the primary language and I felt obliged to sputter things out in Spanish when I could. Once we were aboard ship, the experience changed - this was an American company catering to American tastes. Rice and beans and other Costa Rican foods were largely gone from the menu. The crew, while partly local, spoke excellent English and there was never any expectation that you had to know any Spanish. And there was decaf coffee!

Sun 12/30

UnCruise ships offer a small wellness program including morning yoga every day (and massages!!!). Doing yoga at sunrise out on deck of a ship anchored in a beautiful location is a wonderful experience. Trying to balance on the rolling deck of a ship is another story ... as one of the instructors said, the ship is a great equalizer, as experienced yogis and novices alike were stumbling in and out of balance poses.

 

AM yoga on deck

Our morning activity was kayaking! Yes, sit-on-top doubles (though unlike in Alaska, they indicated a willingness to rig them as singles), but kayaking nonetheless! The group (about eight boats) didn’t have a formal leader, but the crew was out providing safety boat the motorized skiffs out and they pointed us into a the mouth of a small river. The river offered some really amazing scenery with otherworldly tree roots growing in weird directions (like bald cypress - but more so!). As we paddled back out of the river we spotted a large iguana basking on a tree branch above us. Lizard watching by kayak - is there a better way to spend the day?

Wild trees

Lizard spotting!! (see branch above Valerie)

Kayaking scene

Once we got fairly close to our the beach which was our ultimate destination Valerie decided to see if she could fall out and get back into the kayak. Without hesitation she heaved herself over the side into the water. I was just starting to instruct her in how I thought she should attempt to re-enter the kayak when one of the guys in the skiffs showed up and encouraged her to just climb up the ladder into the skiff to be ferried to shore. We got the feeling that they didn’t have a lot of patience for goofing around in the water attempting self-rescues and so Valerie accepted the ride and I paddled the boat solo in to the beach.

Valerie in need of rescue

Once on the beach I realized that we were at a well developed and fairly busy national park. The scene at the beach was in part familiar to anyone who has visited a national park - picnic tables, bathrooms, even a small gift shop (not expecting to be in a developed area, we hadn’t brought any money - so no Curu tchotchkes for us). What was most immediately distinctive, though, was the wildlife. The place was teeming with capuchin monkeys and the most fearless raccoons ever. The monkeys and raccoons had clearly figured out that the picnic tables meant the possibility of food and other interesting items and were constantly trying to sneak in and make off with stuff. The raccoons (in groups!) would brazenly walk up right in front of people and try to grab stuff. Only loud clapping and shouting caused them to back off. The monkeys kept  a little more of a distance but given the chance would scavenge stuff as well. All of us kept a close eye on things. In the U.S. raccoons, while highly opportunistic, keep their distance during the day. Here the intermingling of people and wild animals made it feel almost like a Disney movie. I expected toucans to start circling over our heads and burst into song (probably something by Alan Menken). Anyway, what's most important is that Valerie rated kayaking in a striking tropical environment with lizard spotting as a “20 on a scale of 1 to 10”. This made me happy.

Critters everywhere!

I think part of Valerie's 20-out-of-10 rating was that she was just happier with the sea-based portion of our trip. The ship, unlike the land portion, offered choices. On land, we had one guide and each day had a fixed activity. On the ship, there was a whole “adventure” staff who each day offered a range of activities at different levels. Also, being on the ship meant no more unpacking and repacking, and no more bus rides. Plus, as mentioned earlier, the ship meant pampered American tourism with just a smidgen of exotica rather than total immersion in a foreign land.

One of the few things I don't like about the way UnCruise runs their operation is that you always go back to the ship for meals. This can waste whole bunch of time. Nonetheless, we returned to the ship for lunch then it was back ashore in the afternoon for a “moderate” nature hike. Well, “hike” turned out to be too grand a word. Really, it was a gentle wildlife walk. The group meandered along, stopping frequently to look at animals. It wasn’t strenuous, but it was just what the group wanted; with the heat none of us wanted to walk very hard and there was just so much to look at - scarlet macaws, trogan, agouti, deer, iguana, long-nosed bats, hummingbirds, howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, and more! But again, this wasn’t deserted wilderness. For most of our walk we were walking along a road rather than a trail and we had to keep ducking out of the way of cars.

Wildlife spotting at Osa Conservation area

Agouti (not my picture)

Howler monkey

Little deer (see Bergmann's Rule)

Someone else's picture of a (male) howler monkey

Emerald toucanette

Scarlet macaw

Yeah

I'll also mention that every day there were multiple activity options of various difficulty. In the past I always would have signed up for the most strenuous, but since my surgery, and with the heat (remember, it was exercising in the heat which brought on my cardiac symptoms) I opted for "moderate" on this trip. There were a couple of hikes I'm sorry I missed, but I'm just too tentative these days about over-exerting myself to go gung-ho for the hard hikes in the tropics.

By the end of the day (and after a beer at cocktail hour and wine with dinner) I was tired - could have gone to bed at 8:30! But I stayed up reading. Then I poked my head into the lounge for the evening’s talk, which was billed as being about photography but which turned out to be more about bird identification. That was a disappointment, as the guide giving the talk had been the leader of our hike where he had demonstrated a great ability to use a spotting scope with people’s cell phone cameras to get some pretty good wildlife pictures. He did seem to know about photography. At about 10 PM I gave up fighting my tiredness and went to bed.

Luis doing his trick of taking cell phone pix through a spotting scope

Capuchin

Iguana - there's no such thing as too many lizard pix

Mon 12/31

My New Year’s Eve day started once again with sunrise yoga. Then it was a slow morning. We visited the bridge where we spent a long time chatting with Sasha, the boat’s second mate. We opened the conversation by telling her that Valerie and I had met designing shipboard navigation systems and by the time we left the bridge we had heard how she met her (same sex) partner, her work history (mostly cargo and cable laying ships - she’s new to small ship tourism), discussed the history of shipboard navigation electronics, compared the bathroom break challenges of manning a bridge and teaching, and learned of the rivalry between New York Maritime Academy and the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. And more. While this is not atypical for a Valerie conversation, I also think manning the bridge is a lonely job without a lot of opportunities for conversation.

After leaving the bridge Valerie went to the free swim off the fantail. I meant to join her but by the time I finished shaving and brushing my teeth (my first chance to do so since I had been up and out of bed early for yoga, then straight to breakfast then the bridge) the first swim time was done, so I worked on my travel journal for a bit then caught the second swim time later in the morning. I didn’t swim for long; I actually have a fear of the water and don’t enjoy just floating around. Then I worked on my journal some more while Valerie got a massage.

In the afternoon I went ashore- this was at the Osa Conservation Area, home to Corcovado National Park. I got momentarily excited that maybe this is what the Antonio Carlos Jobim song Corcovado was named for, but eventually realized that the song was named after a different Corcovado, (and this makes obvious sense for a bossa nova) a mountain in Rio de Janiero. I went on the (once again "moderate") waterfall loop hike at Drake Bay, which was a nice outing - enough of a hike to feel like a real hike, more dense jungle looking scenery, and a nice waterfall as a destination. Yes, you could jump in. No, I didn't.

Waterfall hikers 

And then it was New Years Eve at sea! After dinner everyone gathered in the ship's lounge, which had been done up with lights and decorations. There were also some party hats - but I had brought my own (the old-fashioned cone kind, purchased at Ayers and flattened out for packing). It was a good time (have I mentioned that open bar is included on the ship?), but we adventurers are not a late night lot and by general consensus we agreed to celebrate the turning of the new year at 9 PM, after which people started to turn in. My understanding is that a few people stayed up until actual midnight, but we were not among them.

Getting ready to ring in the new year

Last sunset of 2018

The ship's crew made it festive (that's the captain in the middle)

Party in the lounge

This adorable lizard (which, unfortunately, I didn't see - someone else's picture) has nothing to do with New Years. But lizard pictures improve everything!

Can't have too many sunset pix.

Tues 1/1/19

Today was by necessity a half active, half restful day, for the afternoon was spent pier side to clear Panamanian Customs and Immigration as well as take on additional supplies and fuel. Upon awakening we found ourselves at Golfo Dulce, one of only two fjords in South America, though apparently whether it qualifies as a fjord is debatable depending upon one’s strictness of definition thereof - it is the right shape and has the right depth profile (as I’m sure all readers will already be aware, fjords are shallow at the entrance and then deeper inside), but was not formed by glacial movement. Which leaves up for debate the question, “Have you driven a fjord lately?” 

In any case, being protected waters it was dead calm - none of the rocking to which we had grown (somewhat) accustomed. We headed out by kayak to explore the extensive mangroves of the area. Once again, Valerie and I enjoyed paddling together.  Valerie sets a good even rhythmic cadence and so it’ easy for me, seated in the rearward stoker seat, to stay synced with her. We have little of the clanging paddles so common among inexperienced double paddlers. Plus, whenever she needed a break I got to get some serious paddling practice keeping u with the group while paddling solo. At one point Valerie said she wanted to be up closer to the front of the group with the guide; I impressed her by sprinting us up to the front under solo power - years of paddling muscle memory at work. 

 

I love paddling sit-on-tops! 

The mangroves were another cool experience. Different than our previous exploration (and sadly, no lizard sightings), but also really cool and alien looking formations of plants. Our paddling trip ended at a couple’s private estate (the Saladero Ecolodge), where there is a small shop and snack bar. This was the second time we unexpectedly ran across a gift shop while exploring, though neither time had it occurred to me to bring money, because, I mean, heck, why would there be anything to buy in the wilderness?!

 

There's the ship

Ashore at the ecolodge

The ship’s kitchen provides some pretty good food but occasionally wanders into odd territory in the service of novelty, such as today’s lunch of coco moco, a Hawaiian dish consisting of a burger patty topped with a fried egg over sushi rice. I took the vegetarian option, a veggie burger coco moco, though still having the fried egg garnish it was only semi-vegetarian.

After lunch we sailed for a bit towards Panama then paused to wait for a harbor pilot to take us into port. Tired from a morning of paddling, I tried to go on deck and read (too hot), then kept borderline dozing off while reading in the lounge and so I retired to our cabin for a quick nap. I awoke and looked out the window to see the unexpected sight of truck wheels. While I had slept we had docked and I found myself nearly face to face with the guys refueling the ship. Being the modern connectivity junkie that I am I realized that pier side probably meant cell phone connectivity and took the opportunity to dash off New Year’ wishes to Teddy and David as well as check the headlines (apparently Trump is currently sparring with General McChrystal, another Iraq War hero - McChrystal said Trump is immoral and Trump responded that the general has a “fat, dumb mouth” or something like that).

I went back up to the lounge to read, work on this journal and drink a somewhat well-earned beer.

The evening was spent underway, heading towards Panama. I think it was this evening that I first discovered stargazing from the fore deck. Out at sea at night it's pretty darn dark, and so when you walked out onto the dark fore deck of the ship at night the first thing that struck you is that you couldn't see a damn thing and felt like you were going to perhaps walk over the side and into the water. However, as your eyes adjusted you began to be able to see a blazing collection of starts. Sitting out on deck, with the motion of the ship and the sound of the bow crashing through the waves, looking at the stars - amazing! Also, if you looked into our bow wake you could bioluminescence - like the water was sparking as we went through it. Very cool. On that first evening there were dolphins swimming alongside the bow too - though I got only a brief glimpse then saw their bio-luminscent trails as they broke off.