Buzz Blog

Here I am safe and well in Quito. I spent the night in the Hostel El Arupo where I met Pip. She’s currently traveling around and doing strange things in Ecuador with small furry animals. The hostel is very clean and I would recommend it. The only downside is that my room was on the third floor. I carried both of my bags up there at the same time and reached the top gasping for breath. I’d totally forgotten that Quito is at altitude! Since I’d eaten most heartily in business class + on the plane and I was pretty shattered, I was happy to forego dinner. I spent a few hours chatting with Pip and catching up on her adventures before sleep got the better of me.

I awoke early with my brain in one continent and my aching body in another. After a very lazy morning we got a cab across town to the very swanky Dann Carlton Hotel. The rest of the guys who are on the trip with us out to the Galapagos Islands will be meeting us here. Then we found a nice restaurant and I ate a really nice steak with rice & black beans. I love rice and beans. After that a trip across to the old town where we spent some time at the Basilica. A towering pseudo gothic monstrosity that sits on one of the many hills that make up Quito. I also climbed it’s tower and got some very nice views. You can go out onto the roof and the turrets and climb some very rickety and rusty ladders to the various pointy & crumbly spires. A health and safety nightmare ! But, jolly good fun.

I was happy to get a cab back to the hotel as I was by now feeling very tired, what with all the physical activity and the altitude and the half a cow digesting in my stomach. Actually I was somewhat relieved to get to the hotel unmolested. Quito has an appalling crime rate and until recently had the highest murder rate in the world. I had spoken to several people since my arrival and most of them had been mugged or the victims of theft. One young girl who’d been in the country 18 months had been mugged 5 times ! 5 times ! She was pretty laid back about it and it seems that actual physical violence is rare although most of the muggers do carry knives.

My advice if your traveling to Quito would be to come here as part of an organised tour. Leave the big camera at home and carry only the minimum amount of cash separated between many pockets. Or, carry a shotgun ! It seems that once you leave Quito the muggings tail off a little and people just steal stuff from your backpack whilst your on the bus. RIght now I can’t wait to get out of here.

Still, I’ll be meeting a lot of friends here in the morning and we have a trip out to Otavla and the one it’s many markets. All being well I’ll still have all of my body parts on returning tonight.

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Yawn ! I’ve been up since 03:30 and the trip to Heathrow T2 was dark and very wet. The only advantage to an early morning flight is the lack of traffic, especially around London. Terminal 2 was not overly busy and it took me about 30 minutes to check in and clear security. Despite lots of signs around the terminal proclaiming wi-fi I have been unable to get my fix of the Internet this morning. Well I suppose I’ll be off the Net regularly until my next brush with reality and civilisation. I do find it odd and more than a little irksome, that, one of the busiest airports in the world does not have free wireless with good coverage in the terminals like many of the smaller US airports. I suspect that this will be the first of many little niggles on my 15 hour journey to Ecuador, courtesy of Iberian airlines. The last time I flew Iberia I was so mightily unimpressed that I vowed, never again. Yet, by quirks of fate I find myself waiting for another of their flights. I can only hope it is better.

Sitting at the gate I think again about how much I really hate air travel, especially long-haul. As much as I love working on the Nautilus Explorer and as much as I like the chance to see other countries and cultures the whole flying thing sucks. Surely it’s time for the airlines to install something similar to those coffin hotels they have in Japan. Put a TV screen at one end of it and give me the option to inhale a strong sedative and it would be perfect. All this cramped seating and cattle prods is just wrong!

Another concern is the cost of flying. Not just financial but also in terms of the environmental impact. It’s always something that I have to wrestle with. I spend my life on the ocean preaching conservation, and yet the only way my guests can come and see all of the wonders of the ocean is to hop on a large aircraft. Therby taking a large carbon rich shit on my lovely pool. It is not, as I have often said a perfect world, and I far from one of its perfect inhabitants. It can only strike a note of deep irony, that I am now sat on a large jet airplane with a heavy (very heavy) backpack full of electrical toys, gadgets and assorted “stuff”, on my way to gawk at poor South American country. Still, there we are, or at least here I am.

The backpack (very heavy) really is full of stuff. It’s sitting in the overhead locker above me (which is where overhead is of course). If memory serves me correctly, and there is no reason for it not too then it contains: EOS 20d camera, 18-55mm lens, 10-20mm lens, 100-400mm lens, a 50mm macro lens, Fuji F31fd compact camera, Lomo LC-A film camera, Etrex GPS, Flip ultra video camera, card reader, 2 portable HDD, USB memory sticks, spare mobile phone, a small notebook and pens, various batteries, 2 rolls of Fuji film, a paperback book, iPod nano and of course my Macbook. I also have my iPhone (on which I writing this entry) and an 80gb ipod in my pockets. That is probably enough tech stuff to launch a small satellite into orbit, and certainly enough to be killed for somewhere like Quito. Fortunately all I have to do is get from the airport to the hostel. Once there I meet the rest of the gang, and I hope there’ll be safety in numbers.

It turns out that there are several people on this flight to Madrid flying on to Quito, why wouldn’t there be. Including the two middle aged women sat next to me from Kent. Madrid is a huge airport and on landing we receive two sets of instructions in rapid fire Spanish, followed by an unintelligable English translation. The announcement concerned our onward travel plans, and having disembarked the aircraft via the front doors I was held on the jetway and informed to leave by the rear doors and get aboard a bus. I was not the only one, there were about twenty other lost sheep. All english, all with a grasp of languages that could be surpassed by your average hamster. Still, we did manage to get onto the terminal bus and find the right gate for our onward flight to Quito.

Now, here I am at gate 57, a gate much like platform 9 and 3/4 at Kings Cross, for it only appears to exist in fiction. Not quite, but almost, since there are no signs for it at Madrid airport anywhere. I have to admit that with only 20 minutes to get my connection my arse was twitching. I’d paid no attention at all to my boarding pass from Madrid to Quito when it was issued at Heathrow. When I pulled it out (the boarding pass) at Madrid I was a little astonished to see that I was assigned seat 6D. To anyone who’s ever flown a wide bodied jet that means the pointy end of the plane. The pointy end means first or business class. How was this so? My ticket had not cost me a small mortgage. I assumed that it was a mis-print or possibly that Iberia had taken the perverse step of numbering it’s seats from the aft of the aircraft. So, I was most astonished when I was shown, shown you will note to a seat in Iberia’s business plus class. Bonus! My day was looking up. The irony was getting more, well, irony by the minute. Here was I a jobbing divemaster sitting where only the stupid rich, those with large expense accounts and the nieces of rich uncles generally park their arses. Well, of course my impression of Iberia had already risen considerably. Was it true that I could sell my soul for a comfy chair and a glass of cava ? You are damn right!

Not only did I get a glass of champagne I also had a wonderful three course meal and several fine glasses of Gran Fontal. A meal served with real cutlery, for of course we all know that no self respecting hijacker or terrorist would choose to fly business class. Why on earth would one want ones last flight to be bourgeois? Still I do pity the peasants in economy.

Now that I’ve completed this somewhat lengthy blog entry and am somewhere over the Atlantic, I shall fully recline my capacious seat and sleep off the gourmet meal. Whilst enjoying the silence provided by my Bose QC2 headphones (not in my pack but round my neck, that’s why I forgot to list them above). Normally I don’t go in for such blatant shows of disposable income but these were a present, and they make air travel much more pleasant. Even when I’m not in economy.

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On Coin Street
Originally uploaded by buzzthediver

Whilst I love the immediacy of digital and barely have my 20D out of my hands on a trip there was something exciting about having a roll of film processed. Kind of like that feeling you get on a blind date. You just don’t know what you’re going to get.

Tags: Geeky Stuff, Travel // Add Comment »

It’s the first day of sun that I’ve seen here in the UK in at least 10 days. A really nice day, although the sky is full of ominous clouds. Those clouds would probably look great in the pictures I plan to take, especially on the Lomo. Sadly I can’t take any pictures right now, why? Because I’m sat in traffic on the A102 that has not moved (at all) in about 20 minutes.

It’s episodes like this that remind me, painfully, why I wanted to escape the UK in the first place. It reminds me even more of why I would never, could never, live or work in London.

The only thing keeping me same right now is the knowledge that, in four days time I’ll be swapping the concrete jungle for the real thing in Ecuador. From Quito I’ll fly out to one of the Galapagos islands and spend a week diving with my great friends Brian & Jill Miller.

Although I will not have any Internet access whilst out on the ocean I do intend to use Ecto the offline blog editor to make a daily log of my activities.

Even if I have bad weather at least I won’t have to sit in traffic for hours on end. Oh! We’ve moved oh! Stopped again. Someone, please get me out here.

As Lord Blackadder once said “we’ve advanced about as far as an asthmatic ant, with some very heavy shopping.”

Written using Wordpress on the iphone. At least I did something whilst sat here.

Sometime later………………..

Turned out nice again After a long wait in traffic and with rain threatening the whole way we arrived in Greenwich. Got into the covered market just as the heavens opened and peals of thunder bounced off the glorious buildings of the Naval College. Fortunately the heavy precipitation was short lived and the sun was soon back in the sky. This was my first visit to Greenwich and my guide Claudine knows where everything is. I managed to finish off the first roll of film in my new (well reconditioned) Lomo LC-A and shoot a few shots with my trusty Canon EOS 20D. Once I get the film from the Lomo developed I’ll post some of the images and write up a little review.

All in all not a bad way to spend one of my final days in the UK.

Looking at Greenwich

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What can I say ? I’ve been in possession of my iPhone now for about 10 days. It’s the original iPhone not the new 3G version. I it purchased from my friend Trev when he upgraded to the 3G. I’m running version 2.0.1 of the software and have the following software installed:

AIM

Flickup

Google Mobile App

Proxymind

Remote

Shakespeare

Twitterific

Wordpress

1Password

It has performed flawlessly, I have never had to reset it. I do occasionally shut it off overnight but I’ve never actually needed to reset it. Of course most of this stuff is old news, but to me it’s all new. I was getting ready to leave the UK when the iPhone dropped onto an unsuspecting planet last year and so really did not take an interest. Now that I’ve been able to pick one up, off contract for a decent price I’m amazed. I’m staying in London right now and even without a data package on my O2 pay as you go SIM I get wireless almost everywhere.

This thing really is what all mobile PDA / phone / laptops should be. It’s easy to use it has lot of great applications, many of which are free and it just works. Sure the camera could be a tad better, sure a few minutes of video might be nice and yes I would love to be able to copy and paste, but those things are just icing on an already scrummy cake.

Whilst wandering about in London yesterday I was able to get my location, ask the Maps application for “Camera” and it threw down a handful of pins showing places nearby which were camera shops. Then it gave me directions too. Fabulous. I always carry a camera normally a DSLR which I love. However, with the iPhone I can shoot something funny or just a quick snap and have it on Flickr and / or MobileMe in seconds and have it alert anyone who might be bothered on Twitter.

I can watch a movie or listen a podcast or read Shakespeare all on the same device.

Of course once I’m back on the boat I’ll loose some of the functionality that makes it so great and a lot of places I travel too are not well connected to the outside world either, but at least when I wander back into civilisation I can connect, upload and play. No hassle.

It is without doubt the finest little gadget I have ever had my sausage fingered grubby hands on. If you don’t already own one then do yourself a favour and go buy one. Even if you have to sell a member of your family or pawn treasured article belonging to someone you love.

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I’m getting myself ready to head back out on the ocean both mentally and physically. One of the things I’ve had a chance to do whilst on my longer than anticipated vacation is to read a lot. One of the things I came across was this from the great British Inventor and SCUBA fanatic Arthur C Clarke who died in March 2008. The piece was written in 1959, I wonder if we have taken any notice at all ?

Excerpt from Challenge of the Sea - Arthur C Clarke (1959)

For centuries, the sea has inspired the greatest deeds of heroism and the greatest works of art. From Homer’s Odyssey, the Norse sagas, the tales of Melville, Stevenson, Conrad, and later writers such as Herman Wouk or C S Forrester - how much of the world’s literature we owe to the sea! Yet the poets and novelists of the past saw only one of its faces. What lay beneath the waves was as unknown to them as the far side of the Moon.

‘Perhaps as our knowledge grows, the sea will lose some of its mystery and magic - but I do not think so. As far ahead as imagination can roam, there will be unexplored depths, lonely islands, endless leagues of ocean upon which a lost ship could wander for weeks without sighting land. When the continents have been tamed from pole to pole, when all the deserts have been irrigated, the forests cleared, the polar icecap melted - much of the sea will still remain an untouched wilderness.

‘Let us hope that it will always be so. In the sea, as nowhere else, a man can find solitude and detachment. There are times when each one of us needs this, just as there are times when we need action and adventure - which the sea can also give in abundance.

‘The sea calms the most restless spirit, perhaps because of its own perpetual but never-repeating movement. Men who will relax nowhere else will sit for hours on a beach, or upon the deck of a ship, watching the waves weave their endless patterns. The cares and turmoils of everyday life seem unimportant when we contemplate the sea.

‘Like all other things, the sea will not endure forever. But by our standards, it is eternal. As we look across its moving surface, remembering that it has scarcely changed since the first man saw the light of day, our minds are washed clean of the petty ambitions and jealousies and meanness that form so large a part of everyday existence. From the waters which first gave us life, we may draw not only food for our bodies and raw material for our factories, but also refreshment for our spirit. The sea is our greatest heritage. We are only now beginning to realize its value. Let us use it more wisely than we have used the land’.

Tags: Nautilus Adventure // 1 Comment »

I’m on the Twitter. Actually I have been on it for a while, but never really used it. Although very different, I prefer it to Facebook. In fact I will be deleting my facebook profile within the next few days. Why ? because I have slightly better things to do with my time and it’s full of junk. Twitter on the other hand forces you to be brief and I can easily update it via a mobile phone (cost 20p). So although I’ll soon be back at sea, at least I can quickly drop you all a “tweet !” to let you know I’m back on / near dry(ish) land. If you really need to get a fix on where I am then you can subscribe to Twitter and have a message sent to your phone when I update.If you’re reading this then you can probably see that I’ve added a little widget which pulls my latest twitter entry into to blog. Also I have a Flickr widget and have been uploading a lot of my pictures to the photo sharing site. Sadly, a lot of my old stuff is on various drives scattered around the UK so I won’t be adding any of my old trips for a while yet.I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do a lot of this stuff from my Iphone when it arrives. NO! Sadly not a brand new G3 model but the first version. My mate Trev has succumbed to the new G3 and I’ve purchased his old unit from him. My Nokia is dying a slow death and although I’ve never used one I’ve always liked the Iphone. Lucky me :)Finally, check out the link to Pip’s Travels, she’s having a great time in Ecuador.

Tags: Geeky Stuff // Add Comment »

Fire Path, originally uploaded by buzzthediver.

It seems like only yesterday since I wrote a post here !In a recent post I was drooling over a Canon PowerShot G9. Well, I can confirm that it is a mighty fine piece of kit. I managed to borrow one from a friend and take it out for a bit of a spin. As is my usual practice I completely failed to read the manual. Even though I had downloaded the .pdf to peruse. In fairness, if you are even vaguely tech savvy then you should not need the manual for all but the most esoteric of operations.Aesthetically the G9 is fairly plain, which is just fine by me. It fits nicely in the hand, but would probably benefit from a slightly bigger grip. The scene modes are great and produced some good results, great for snapping away at parties or on the beach.Automatic mode is really not where this camera functions best. In addition to aperture and shutter priority modes it also has an easy to use fully manual mode. Even without reading the manual it did not take me long to get my head around being able to use this great little camera to take some better than OK shots. Another feature I really love is the time-lapse mode. The G9 can take a shot every 1 or 2 seconds and produce up to 2 hours of great time-lapse video. Although I have not used it for standard video work I have seen some of the results and it is by no means a poor performer in the video arena.Of course the first thing I did when I got home was rush to the WWW and see how much it would cost me to purchase one. I soooo close, then a thought struck me. This camera has been out for a while, I wonder if there is a G10. A quick Google and I discovered that the Photokina show is on in Germany in just a few weeks time, and that there are strong rumours of a G10 to replace the G9.So, watch this space.I’ve also ordered a Lomo LC-A and am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

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At the end of my last post I promised I’d write an entry on how I geotag my pictures. If it is something you are really interested in then there are a lot of in depth “how to’s” to be found on the Web and Flickr has some especially good ones.

This is how I do it.You’ll need a digital camera and some kind of GPS receiver which allows you to download tracks from it. I use a Garmin eTrex. Then you’ll need a cable to hook the camera to the GPS and some software capable of reading the tracks. I’m using the Pro version of JetPhoto Studio which costs $25.00. The free version does not allow you to write the geotag information back into the EXIF data within the pictures, and you’ll need this if you want Flickr to place your pictures onto a map automatically. Also if you are using Flickr then you’ll need to go into your account settings and enable the geo maps. Err, a computer of some sort will be pretty useful too.  If I were you I’d get a nice shiny Apple Mac . You’ll need to have your GPS unit switched on and running for the whole of the time you are shooting I just make sure the batteries are good and then clip the unit to my camera bag or belt and forget about for the day. I’ll also make sure that any old track logs are deleted and most critically that the time on my camera matches the time on my GPS. I also shoot a quick shot of the GPS just to give me a timing reference incase something goes adrift. This is especially useful if you are using a GPS data logger such as the AMOD which does not have a screen.At the end of the day I’ll download the pictures to the computer (Iphoto) and go thru and tidy up or delete anything that needs attention. Once that is sorted I’ll select the ones I’d like to geotag and open up JetPhoto. You could just import straight into JetPhoto from the camera if you like. Once that is done click on the maps tag and click on GPS logs. It will then pretty much walk you thru the process of downloading the tracks from the GPS unit. If you’re having trouble I would suggest doing something radical like RTFM ! The downloaded tracks will appear in the track log window. Then you’ll need to “locate” the pictures. You have the option of doing all of the photographs you imported or selecting particular ones. Once you select one of these options the software will match a GPS co-ordinate with a photograph based on the track log time and the time the photograph was taken. Now you know why it was so important to have the times on both devices synchronized. The next step is to hit the software button which says “Write EXIF” make the appropriate settings and let it write the GPS data into the EXIF. That’s it really.If you go back to the Actions tag in JetPhoto you will notice a button in the bottom right hand corner to upload pictures to Flickr. The first time you do this you’ll need to authorise with your Flickr account. It will upload any selected pictures and any that are geo tagged will be automatically placed onto a map.You may need you play around a little to get the GPS data imported but it’s all fairly straightforward. JetPhoto can also make Google Map Galleries and create Flash Movies. It will also make a lightbox Web Gallery which if you have geo tagged your photographs will link to Google maps.It’s always nice to know where you took a picture and to be able to look at map and see all of the places you have been. If you already have a GPS and a digital camera you may as well make the most of the technology you have and do something with it.Have Fun.You can see my pictures on Flickr

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The Blue Beach, originally uploaded by buzzthediver.

OK, it’s been a while - again ! I apologise. Panic not, for I will soon be in full “blogging mode” again. There a few reasons why I have been absent . Sorry, but I’m not going into why right now, I just needed some time and space & I’ve had lots, thank you very much.Anyhow, back to the blog at hand.In many ways this post is a test. A test of the connection between Flickr and my blog, which if it works should make my postings a little richer. Also it is a test of my latest fad. Not just me, a lot of folks. The picture here is geotagged. Using my trusty old GPS and some nifty software I can now embed the location a photograph was taken into it’s Metadata and then pass that to Flickr where it places the picture on a map. Truly amazing and very geeky. I get to use a lot of toys !!More on the techie, geeky stuff later this week I promise.

Tags: Geeky Stuff // 1 Comment »