Starting the new year in Baja

We welcomed in 2019 from Zacatitos in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our dear friends Christian and Lindsay invited us to stay with them at their family's place on the beach again this year. We joined them the first time in 2012 and really enjoyed our time there. When they asked us in September if we wanted to come down again this year between Christmas and New Years, we jumped at the chance. The timing of the trip worked well for Pete, a currently furloughed federal employee. It was a bit more tricky for me since I had just started a new job and had no accrued vacation hours. I worked extra hours to make up for our vacation time and my new employer was really understanding about our already scheduled holiday. 

We arrived in San José del Cabo in the early afternoon and were met at the airport by Lindsay and Arin. We then embarked on a scavenger hunt of sorts to find the tortillaria (where they make tortillas) and the carnitas (pan fried, slow-cooked pork) shop. We found the tortillaria but were coming up empty on the carnitas. Returning home without the carnitas may have caused a scene, so Arin asked some nice men for help. As it turned out, we were within blocks of the place and soon had two stacks of warm tortillas, two kilos of carnitas, and a giant piece of chicharrón (deep fried pig skin). We also grabbed two boxes of beer on our way home, which made our arrival at the house extra welcome. 

We spent our first full day in Baja diving in the Cabo Pulmo marine reserve. We got up early, drove two hours to Cabo Pulmo, and immediately put on wetsuits and hopped in the boat. The marine reserve was established in 1995 to protect some of the special marine species that live there, particularly the hard corals, which are the northern-most corals in the Sea of Cortez. Enforcement of the reserve has been challenging, though, so the benefits of the reserve have been spotty. Our first dive was at a site called Los Morros (the hills), which was an aptly named area of reef that undulated underwater. We saw lots of fish, mainly small individuals, lots of coral, some eels, and a couple Cortez round stingrays. 

When we surfaced from the dive, the wind had picked up and the sea was quite choppy. The water temperature was only 70oF, so I had gotten quite chilled during the dive with a 2 mm wetsuit and 2 mm shortie over the top. The wind at the surface was not helping me warm up, so I huddled on the bottom of the boat to get out of the wind. We had a short surface interval before hopping back in the water for our second dive on the ship wreck. The ship that sank wasn't very big and it was in many pieces. The draw for this site is the potential to see bull sharks. The site is relatively small, so we swam around it a number of times looking for cool critters and sharks. There were a few big fish at this site, which was nice to see. We didn't see any sharks, but there were lots of goat fish and conger eels - two of Pete's favorites - so all was well. The wind had picked up even more during our second dive, so we made a bee line for the beach and started the process of trying to warm up. Fortunately the sun came out at regular intervals to combat the wind that was still blowing. 

We spent the rest of our time at the house in Zacatitos reading, playing games, swimming, snorkeling, walking on the beach or in the desert, and watching humpbacks swim and splash and morbula rays leap out of the water. We also ate delicious food, made almost exclusively by Christian, who would often retreat to the kitchen at 2 pm to make all of us dinner. We were also treated to some phenomenal sunsets and sunrises, and a beach encounter with the local residents. 

our first sunset

our second sunrise

our last sunrise

beach treasure

the local burros celebrating new year's day on the beach!

ridiculously cute baby burro

they were quite friendly

in the end, they got a little too friendly when they started 

licking my pants and eventually trying to eat my shirt

We left Baja fully relaxed and reveling in the time we had with good friends. We returned to cooler, wetter weather in California. While we welcome the rain, it could come in smaller doses. Last weekend the river jumped from 3.5 feet to 13.2 feet after four inches of rain, reminding us how quickly things change around here. We are expecting another round of storms this week so we've winterized the garage to be ready for any possible flooding this winter. Hopefully all will be for naught. 

Pete is still furloughed, which is frustrating and maddening. He is so ready to go back to work! Not quite the start to the year we were hoping for, but hopefully things will get settled soon. Sigh.

A visit to NZ

Leaving NZ was hard for me, but I knew I would be going back before the end of the year, so I had something to look forward to. I headed back to NZ in mid-November for a three week trip that was packed with comings and goings, mostly all work related. 

I spent my first week in Auckland back at the Auckland Council office handing over projects and programs to the new marine scientist and finishing the last few projects that were still outstanding. It was great to see everyone again but also hard to believe that I had been away from the office for four months. I timed my trip so I could join our team on their annual Christmas outing to Anawhata, one of the beautiful beaches on the west coast of the Auckland Region. It was really fun to have some time with the team away from the office. I also got to spend some really good quality time with a good friend and coworker, which was definitely the best part of my Auckland time.

Anawhata Beach

I had brunch with my supervisor, Jacqueline, and go to meet Zoe!

Jacs and Zoe

The weather wasn't fantastic in Auckland, but the long summer days were great! I was able to get a run in nearly every day I was there either before or after work. There were some amazing sunrises that made getting out of bed early worth it. 

sunrise painting the skies above the city center

sunrise on Kohimarama Beach (I missed you Jen!!)

the pohututkawa trees were just starting to bloom - my favorite!

I spent the second week of my trip about two hours south of Auckland in Hamilton working with a friend and colleague from NIWA - the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. This was the main reason for my trip - helping to design and facilitate a national workshop on cumulative effects. I've been working on this project for the last few years and this workshop was the culmination of our work. It was a challenging workshop to design, but Kate and I had a lot of fun along the way. My week in Hamilton was great. I was staying at a place near the Waikato River, so I got to run on the river trail every day. I also got to do a bit of mural hunting and squeezed in a quick trip to the lovely botanic garden.

Waikato River

Chinese Scholar's Garden

Indian Char Bagh Garden

Maori Garden - with kumara planted in mounds just like
in the community garden that I volunteered at in Auckland

Tudor Garden

A selection of some of the murals around Hamilton:

Our workshop was in Wellington, so we headed down there for a few days to start my third week. My morning runs were a bit rainy, but I found lots of murals close to our hotel. I also had a really cool encounter with some native birds in the botanic garden. I was running along and all of a sudden there was a whole bunch of squawking and commotion in a tree along the trail. I stopped and saw a tui (the two blue-ish birds in the mural below) fighting with a flock of kakas (large parrots - brownish bird in the mural below) that had descended on its territory. The tui was outnumbered six to one but it was not giving its tree up without a fight. 

kaka (large parrot) at the botanic garden)

I spent the last few days of my trip in Nelson with my friend Robyn. She started building a house last year and the original timing was such that Pete and I had planned on being available to help Robyn with the interior of the house. The permits got delayed, though, so she didn't start building until after we left NZ. The timing of my trip was great because there were still lots of projects. The drywall had just been hung and mudded and the electrician wanted to get the lights and switches installed, so Rob and I were on painting duty. In three days, I think we painted 12 to 14 hours just to stay ahead of the electrician and the plumber. All that work paid off, though, because I got to be there when Robyn spent the first night in her new house!  

Even with all the painting, we did a lot of fun things too. We went for a long hike up the valley from Rob's place with the dogs, complete with a picnic and a post-hike swim. We took the horses out for a ride another day and swam in the river just about every day. And of course, we ate like queens. It was the perfect way to end my trip and I cannot wait to go back. 

The flax blossoms were a really different color on this hike. 

The soil in part of the area is very mineral rich (serpentine soil)
so it is possible these flax plants are adapted to the local conditions.

Whispering Falls

Robyn with Tui (far) and Kea (close)

Tui and Kea enjoying our picnic (or waiting for us to throw a stick)

Robyn's new house in the distance from her orchard/vineyard

McKenzie and Tasman were kind enough to give us a ride to this vista

Celebratory champaign in the new house!!!

The Humboldt redwoods in our new-to-us Wish replacement

One of the most difficult things for us to part with when we left NZ was our car, the Wish called Wanda. The Wish was a Toyota that was smaller than a mini van but a bit bigger than a station wagon. There were three rows of seats and the back two rows folded flat. This made it a perfect vehicle for sleeping in when we didn't feel like setting up the tent or it was raining (our tent fly sprung a leak about four months into our time in NZ). She got about 32 miles to the gallon, which was great in NZ where fuel is about $8 per gallon.

Much to our dismay, when we returned to the U.S., we were having trouble finding anything that was very Wish-like. We could find vehicles with fold-flat seats, but they tended to be quite a bit larger with worse fuel economy. And then we stumbled upon the Mazda 5, which is nearly identical to the Wish. A friend of ours refers to their one as a "nano-van" which I think is a very apt description. We happened upon a used one in Santa Cruz and are now the owners of what we call the Wish 5. 

We took the Wish 5 for her inaugural trip in early November to the Humboldt redwoods. When we made our camping plans, we were mostly concerned about being rained out. That would have been a much better situation than the wildfires that were burning throughout the state. The Bay Area had been blanketed in wildfire smoke for about ten days prior to our trip and we were not sure what to expect for the weekend. The smoke forecasts were changing daily and were not always consistent with where the plume would be located. The air quality got worse as we drove north, but we managed to make it out of the smoke zone about 30 miles from our destination.   

all ready for sleeping

We live in a redwood forest, so it might seem crazy for us to drive five hours to spent the weekend in another redwood forest. However, the trees in Humboldt are HUGE compared to the babies we have down here so the forest felt quite different even though the trees are the same. The Avenue of the Giants is a spectacular drive with many hiking opportunities along the way.  

The Save the Redwood League is largely responsible for the existence of so many large, old growth redwoods in and around Humboldt State Park. In the early 1900s, the founders of the club noticed that the big trees were being logged for timber and development and knew that many more would be lost if they didn't do something. Since 1918 they have protected more than 200,000 acres of redwood forest, supported the establishment of numerous state and regional redwood parks, and funded research throughout the states redwood forests. 

giant trees!

The burls on redwoods (the bulbous bits) are important

for regeneration. Spouts can emerge from the burls when

new space opens up in the canopy or when the main tree

gets damaged or is stressed by environmental conditions.

big leaf maples provided some contrasting color to the forest

fern spores on a sword fern

it is amazing that these giants can still stand when

their bases are hollowed out from fire

The Dyerville giant - this 371 foot giant fell in 1991. It is

almost easier to get a sense for the size of these trees

when the whole thing is on the ground.

We were mostly out of the wildfire smoke, but a few

particulates in the air made for dramatic lighting in the forest.

Our first two nights in the Wish 5 were great and we have a list of things to add to the car to make it even better. We're looking forward to more trips in the near future!

Settling back into Santa Cruz

Time is a strange beast. At some moments, it feels like we just left New Zealand, and at others it feels like we've been gone for a long time. In reality, we're just ticking over the four month mark back on American soil. It has been a busy, hectic time and it feels like we are still settling into a routine and finding our new normal. We are back in our house so it seems like the transition should have been easier and faster, but alas. 

We had our first visitors from New Zealand about two months after we returned. Our friends Emma and Martin had been working and traveling in Canada for about seven months and stopped to see us on their way back to NZ. Autumn in NZ doesn't coincide with Halloween, so we took a trip to the pumpkin patch, roasted pumpkin seeds, and let Emma and Martin experience the joy of carving a pumpkin. They did a great job for their first time! I took them for a long walk in a native redwoods forest (there is a big stand of redwoods in NZ in a research forest) and we looked for the monarch butterflies that were just starting to arrive in Santa Cruz. 

venturing into the pumpkin patch

the requisite pumpkin photo

getting stuck in

Jacques-o-lantern

albino redwood sprouts

baby chicken of the woods mushrooms

and all grown up mushrooms

One of our goals when we left NZ was to try to maintain our exploring and adventuring that were such big parts of our lives in NZ. They really added to our quality of life there. I think it is easier to do those things when you are living in a new place because you haven't gotten stuck into a routine and you don't take the local sites for granted. For instance, we probably would not have gone looking for monarchs in October if our friends were not in town. In the spirit of exploring new things, we signed up to go to the open day at the sand quarry two miles from our house. 

Santa Cruz county has a unique sand hill habitat that was formerly under the ocean. There are two marine terraces and we live near the upper one. We've explored these sand hills on other occasions...searching for shark teeth fossils and learning about the endemic plants. On this outing, we learned about the sand mining operation at the Granite Rock quarry. 

The company has been mining sand from the area for nearly 100 years. As scientists have learned more about the plants and animals that inhabit these sensitive sand hill habitats, the mitigation measures for mining sand have become more extensive. As a result, this area will eventually be retired from operations and the whole area will be restored to native sand hill habitat. 

They predominantly use the sand from this quarry to make glass bottles. The company has another quarry on the lower marine terrace near Santa Cruz that is used for concrete. The sand at the quarry near us is higher quality and has the right mineral profile for glass. Seeing the operation was really neat. They essentially push sand off the top of the cliff (photo below), move it to a conveyor belt that leads to a series of filters that are used to separate the sand for different uses. The final step is drying the sand, which happens in a giant rotating furnace. It takes less than five minutes to dry the sand and it is 450 degrees Fahrenheit when it comes out of the furnace.  

dozers push sand off the top of the cliff

If you look closely at this photo, you can see bars at the 

far end of the pile of sand. This is the entrance to the conveyor belt.

conveyor belt

The open day was also a fundraiser for our favorite county park, Quail Hollow, which is just across the road from the quarry. All you can eat tacos for a $10 donation? Yes, please!