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Sunday, 01 March 2009

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

My next adventure?

Thursday, 19 February 2009

Rate my video!

Click me to see my video on the website!

I submitted the video on Saturday, and it just got put up today. Whew! What a relief to get the finished product on the website and out of my hands. Now there's nothing to do but wait. Well, you can wait and watch and rate my video! Just go to my video here and click the number of stars you think it deserves.

Next item up on reef ecology 101: Coral enemy #1, the Crown-of-thorns Starfish.

This guy is amazing. First of all, he's covered in poisonous spines and looks like something out of a nightmare. Secondly, it eats coral in the most bizarre and awful way. This video from Youtube does a great job of explaining how this nasty-looking creature can devastate coral. It gives me goosebumps when the guy touches it and it curls up into a ball. Yuck.

Even stranger than this nasty beast, though, is its only predator: the harlequin shrimp.

These whimsical creatures survive on a diet only of starfish. Somehow they manage to team up, pick up a starfish, and transport it to their feeding ground.

This place is like a fairyland.

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

Anybody recognize this?

Okay, I'll tell you what it is, since nobody reads this blog anyway. This is the Southern Cross, the Southern Hemisphere's most famous constellation. Both Ursa Major (Big Dipper, Northern Hemisphere's most recognizable constellation) and the Southern Cross can both be seen in tropical latitudes in certain parts of the year. It has held significance in multiple cultures, from Australia to Brazil. It has appeared on multiple flags and countless tattoos.

True Aussie pride.

Monday, 16 February 2009

Here is the final application! Hope you like it.
#1: Box Jellyfish

This jelly is probably the most dangerous animal in the entire world, which, for whatever morbid reason, makes it of never ending fascination to me. Its toxin is potent enough to kill 60 adults in one sweep. Unfortunately, one of their main habitats is Queensland, in Northeastern Australia, where the great barrier reef is. They are rare to come in contact with in winter, although it's not unheard of. Most swimming areas in Queensland are protected with a net during the summer months, and kids learn to swim year-round wearing stinger suits, a stocking-like body suit that provides adequate protection against stingers.

The most amazing (and totally creepy) thing about these creatures is that they actually have eyes, which means they can locate prey (or a person in their way?) and follow it to deliver their deadly sting. I have no idea how they work, being that jellies don't have a central nervous system, but I do know that they have pretty clear vision (although they are short-sighted) and can make out light and shadow and shape quite well. Creepy, eh?

The box jelly venom (and all jellyfish venom) contains things called nematocysts, which are little packets of venom that actually physically shoot into the skin of a victim. But that's a little more morbid and science-nerdy than I want to get in this blog. Suffice it to say that jellyfish are totally awesome and scary. You can read more about their stinging action here.

Sunday, 15 February 2009

#2: Blue-ringed Octopus

I am amazed at squishy things in the water, like squid and cuttlefish and octopus and jellies (also known as cephalopods). I was lucky enough to chase around an octopus last year at the Hyatt Beach (it inked and everything!), and I get to see squid in fishtanks at restaurants almost every day in the city. This species is fascinating. It dwells in shallow tidal pools and packs a nasty bite. Did you know all octopus can bite? (So can squid, I learned that from personal experience when I was young, I'll tell you the story sometime.) This one, though, when it bites, carries enough poison to kill 26 adults in minutes. Here's some info from www.barrierreefaustralia.com, an awesome resource for reef ecology.

With a beak that can penetrate a wet-suit, they are one little cute creature to definitely look at BUT Don't touch.

The bite might be painless, but this octopus injects a neuromuscular paralysing venom. The venom contains some maculotoxin, a poison more violent than any found on land animals. The nerve conduction is blocked and neuromuscular paralysis is followed by death. The victim might be saved if artificial respiration starts before marked cyanosis and hypotension develops. The blue-ringed octopus is the size of a golf ball but its poison is powerful enough to kill an adult human in minutes. There's no known antidote. The only treatment is hours of heart massage and artificial respiration until the poison has worked its way out of your system.

The venom contains tetrodotoxin, which blocks sodium channels and causes motor paralysis and occasionally respiratory failure. Though with fixed dilated pupils, the senses of the patients are often intact. The victims are aware but unable to respond.

Although the painless bite can kill an adult, injuries have only occurred when an octopus has been picked out of its pool and provoked or stepped on.
One feature of this deadly little guy is his camoflouge. He blends in quite well to his surroundings and only flashes blue when he senses a predator. If you're interested in why these creatures change color, you can read a great article here.

Next up, my absolute favorite sea creature, the box jellyfish.

Saturday, 14 February 2009

New Job and Deadly Creatures

Well folks, it's finally happened: We submitted our video applications for the best job in the world! So, in order to keep true to what I said in my application, I should post to this blog way more often than I have been. I can't think of a better topic to blog about than my obsession with all things underwater. I have wanted to be a marine biologist my whole life, but ended up as a science teacher (well, technically an English teacher, until May!), which is certainly still great. So in my ESL classes, to get past the boredom of teaching "The ram has a ham," I do a lot of research projects with my younger kids. My favorite one so far has been on the top 5 deadliest sea creatures. I'll give you my top 3 favorites over the next few days. Here's my third favorite.

#3: Stonefish (Synanceia horrida)

This ugly guy blends into the sea bed in a similar way to the carpet shark does, by being so lumpy and spotted (and ugly, also known as the Goblinfish and Warty Goul) that it looks like just another algae-encrusted rock. It is a reef animal, although it can survive for hours on dry land when left there by a falling tide (people have been killed by this fish even on land!). Thirteen strong, poison-filled spines along his dorsal fin whip up at any threat of attack.

If you are one of the unlucky few a year who get stung by the Stonefish, its venom, called Verrucotoxin (also used experimentally in cardiac and pain research), causes intense pain, respiratory weakness, damage to the cardiovascular system, convulsions, paralysis, and (sometimes) death. So my advice? Don't go walking around barefoot on a reef.

Sunday, 08 February 2009

The best job in the world...

There hasn't been too much to talk about recently. The weather (cold), our weekends (busy), the island (inspiring), Emma (hilarious), all these things seem too mundane to talk about, and I haven't felt too inspired to write lately. However, there have been some recent updates that I want to share.

First and foremost in our minds is the best job in the world: Island Caretaker in Queensland, Australia. I was hoping to keep it a secret because I didn't want anyone to know how far I have my hopes up (sky-high, baby) or how much time we were devoting to making these application videos (days upon days). BUT WE ARE APPLYING! And Matt's video is going to be so good. My video? We'll see, I'll let you in on a secret -- sharky eats a cat. I'll let your imaginations run with that.

Other than that, we've been great. Making these videos has gotten us out of the apartment every minute of every weekend, which has actually been awesome! The weather is warming up and we have shot video on 4 different beaches, 7 different oreums (tiny mountains), underwater, riding bikes, diving...we are having way more fun than I thought we would. It's also taking way longer than I thought it would, too, but it's been really fun. Application deadline is 12 days from now, or until they reach 30,000 applications, so I'm dying to put mine in. I'm having a hard time with my monologue, though. Lucky for me I have a creative genius for a husband and a rainbow sprite for a daughter, they keep me laughing and inspired.

In other news, I can't wait for Emma to learn how to swim. I think it's going to be this summer, she's jumping off rocks and climbing anywhere we hang out that has rocks to climb. She's been going to daycare for the past 6 months and her Korean is great, although we're stopping daycare in May because I'm quitting work to stay home with Em! We told my boss on Friday and I feel a huge weight off my shoulders. But we'll be going to Australia in late June anyway, with this best job in the world thing, so I would have had to quit anyway, right? The weather has been warming up, so my mind as well as Halla mountain has been thawing and I've been feeling more optimistic.

Lots of love from Jeju. Anyone want to come visit?