Midway!

Monday, June 23, 2008

We are on Midway! Yesterday we called up on the radio and told them we were close. They said they'd come out in a boat and we could follow it in to the harbor. That was really nice, and it had the additional benefit of keeping Minnow wreckage off their reef. I was surprised that they'd heard tales of my excellent boat driving way out here.

I asked if anybody would be interested in scuba diving that afternoon. Four takers. (Cathy is not a diver).

While we were waiting on the boat to come out and guide us in, I noticed an albatross in the water. Then I noticed it disappear. We got closer, and I thought I saw a couple of dolphins surface. But he two dorsal fins from the dolphins turned out to be a dorsal and a tail fin of a huge tiger shark. It may have been normal size for a tiger shark, but it looked huge to me.

The albatross in the water was a fledgling that apparently had been flying beyond his ability. This is dangerous for albatross as well as humans. The tiger shark made several passes, trying for an albatross lunch. The bird was too tired or too dumb to get away from the shark, but the shark never could get a good bite on the bird. Eventually, the bird figured out that this might not be a good situation, and flew a few hundred feet away to elude the shark.

Welcome to Midway! After that, nobody wanted to dive.

We docked at the tugboat pier next to an old torpedo boat. It is a very sturdy pier, so we did not damage the dock as is our normal practice. I think it was built in World War II, or possibly 1859.

There are a half a million albatross fledglings here. It's hard to bike or even walk down the road there are so many. The fledglings have about a 5-foot wingspan. (Consider that in the shark photo.) There are also lots of other birds -- white terns, tropicbirds, parakeets, and even a few ducks. There are giant sea turtles on the beach, laying around with the monk seals.

Ed Bachman (Mom's brother) was here in World War II. Mom said he talked about all the goony birds -- they're still here.

We biked and hiked around the island yesterday. We ate at the restaurant (good food!), bowled, and tried to run the dinghy motor. People are really friendly. Birds, too. Mike flipped the dinghy a couple years ago in the Virgin Islands, and the motor still has sand in it.