Pelagic Ponderings

 For the past seven years, my daughter and I (and sometimes my husband too) have spent a lot of time flocking with other birders as they all come to town for the San Diego Audubon's Annual Bird Festival. This year most of the activities went online and only a few tours were operated with significantly reduced numbers to adhere to Covid related guidelines. My daughter and I signed up for the Pelagic trip. Living off the coast of the Pacific we are not unfamiliar with the shore birds and visitors, but we've never truly birded in the ocean. We've done a couple of whale watching tours off Channel Islands but somehow we always tend to take our own port for granted. Well, this year maybe because we've been locked up for most of the time and the only travel we did was a few days to Sequoia NP and a day trip to Anza we've been itching to get out and couldn't pass up on this opportunity.
 

I didn't know what to expect. I was just hoping to see anything other than gulls I suppose. So I signed up for a lecture on Pelagic birding to help prepare. It was a whirlwind tour of species but two species got me excited - Shearwaters and Boobies. Who knew there were Brown Boobies off the coast of San Diego! There was also the possibility of Albatross and possibilities are good, but the probabilities were against us, so I was not optimistic. I was also gently reminded that there are only shades of black and white among pelagic species and factoring in the light, the waves, and the motion of the boat I need not feel ashamed if I make mistakes. The presenter left me with profound words - Don't bird, just observe! 

Black Vented Shearwaters

Bonaparte's Gull

Our boat left the dock at 8 AM and we got back around 3PM and I think we sat down for a total of 30 minutes (only when we ate our packed sandwiches). The rest of the time we were on our feet, and we literally had no faces! What with the mask, the beanie, our glasses, the binoculars and the constant up and down motion of the waves, it was quite an adventure! (My husband doesn't do well on boats and therefore stayed firm on land). 

 We saw a gazillion gulls, most of them were the Western and California kind, but when they are not eating trash in Mission Bay they actually gained our respect! Why, oh why, when you can fly into the Ocean do you settle for our trash? This was the question we asked of the birds. Flying among these gulls were other varieties - the Bonaparte, the Heermann's and even the small Mew gull. And then we ran into the Black Vented Shearwaters, oh about 600 of them, which were a delight to watch! The more experienced birders on the boat were looking for the elusive Manx Shearwater, I was personally happy with the Black Vented ones as I could have never told them apart anyway. Some folks kindly pointed out to us the lone Sooty shearwater and the Pink footed one, but to my non-Pelagic eyes they all looked the same, especially after a day of standing and bobbing up and down. Out of the blue, a Brown Booby dropped in and made quite an appearance! I only got a glimpse of it, but knowing the boobies were here brought joy even if I didn't get to binoc them.

Perhaps our biggest excitement was spotting the Mola Molas, one was such a giant that my daughter was at first sad when she thought it was either a) a dead animal b) or a piece of plastic trash. Imagine our surprise when we realized it was a Sunfish. Then, of course came the dolphins - a pod of about hundred or maybe two hundred of them playing and jumping alongside our boat. We peered down into their blowholes and for those few moments we forgot covid, our backlog of work, our aching feet and heads. 

Out in the ocean we had no landmarks to localize ourselves and I was imagining how it must've been for the first ocean navigators who got on a boat and traveled to the unknown. As a person who cannot swim and is afraid of the water, I said perhaps that was Columbus' only redeeming quality - his bravery! My daughter said she thought bravery was overrated and kindness often went underrated. Would you rather be brave or kind, she asked. She closed her eloquent arguments by stating why she felt that Hufflepuffs were severely underrated while Gryffindor's value of bravery was overrated as it would mean people like Columbus would easily qualify as a Gryffindor! 

It was a tiring day, but our wind chapped faces and dazed expressions don't do justice to the joy we felt. With no distractions of the electronic kind, my daughter and I spent so much time together and while our conversations went from trashy seagulls to trashier Conquistadors, I tried to savor every minute. Of course she had a ton of homework and I had my own load of housework and officework to get to, but they are always there. I reminded myself that you can never step in the same ocean twice. 

That's a Brown Booby & I'm sticking to it!

Less face and less worries on the ocean

Every birding experience is unique even when all we do is watch our backyard feeder. I learn so much from the experienced birders and biologists about the natural wonder around us and I also learn from my daughter about empathy for other species. She is trying hard these days to refer to animals and plants not as "it" but as "they." She has not read Barry Lopez herself, but some of her thoughts and deeds have made Barry Lopez's words come to life for me. Lopez reminds us about how our culture has objectified animals, detached ourselves from our landscapes. He says "we have irrevocably separated ourselves from the world that animals occupy. We have turned all animals and elements of the natural world into objects... because we have objectified animals, we are able to treat them impersonally." So while I missed seeing the booby through my binoculars or capturing a good picture of the mola mola, I borrow Barry Lopez's words to say  "I was satisfied only to watch. This was the great drift and pause of life. These were the arrangements that made the land [and the sea] ring with integrity." I wish I had such remarkable insights to offer, but for now I was glad to have slowed down and paid attention to the world around me.

The Open Roads of Latin America

 Although I live practically at the doorstep of Latin America, for many years it didn't capture my interest beyond just cursory curiosity. I had rudimentary knowledge of its history and its geographical wonders. Motorcycle Diaries changed all that in two hours. It was 2004 and we had two hours to kill and walked into a Landmark Theater picking this movie at a recommendation of a friend not knowing it was Che's story and with no expectations. The movie changed everything for me. I became restless to see all the glorious landscapes and meet the people of this fabulous continent and although not as adventurous as the young Che, I've headed South for many a vacations this past decade.

One thing led to another and I was reading Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Eduardo Galleano and even biographies of Humboldt, Darwin and the scientists of the age of discovery all featured this magnificent continent. South America changed these men and in its own way it changed me. Setting aside motherhood, I would rate the W Circuit as the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever done. These days when I am closeted in my home my mind wanders to all the places I saw in the beautiful continent down below and nostalgia overwhelms me. As a vegan I found Latin America an easy place to find food - rice and beans and fresh fruit and vegetables were available everywhere. From the mercain peppers of Chile to the heart of palms in Ecuador, coca tea in Peru, and simple pico-de-gallo in Costa Rica I never once felt out-of-place as I sometimes did when I traveled in Europe. Despite the dark history of colonialism I also found in places like Ecuador and Peru the Native Americans of South America were not rendered invisible. Many people I met in these travels claimed mixed heritage.

Arenal Volcano - Costa Rica

Napo River - Amazonian Ecuador

Chinchero weaving - Peru

Incan terraces Sacred Valley

Machu Pichu

Mayan Ruins - Belize

Rio-Frio Caves, Cayo Belize

Patagonian lakes - Chile

Mirador Del Torres - W circuit, Chile

I just wrapped up Janet Browne's first volume of Darwin's biography (Voyaging) which covered his voyage with the Beagle. No experience or no person was trivial for Darwin. Despite a Victorian mindset, he was willing to learn from anyone and from anything. Without the five years of traveling with the Beagle, and his encounter with the natives of Tierra Del Fuego, Darwin would have never become Darwin.  Similarly, whatever one thinks of Che, one cannot deny that his motorcycle travels opened his eyes and changed him. In this age of hyper-specialization we sometimes force our kids to pick and choose too early. We forget that personality changes more than we think and as David Epstein reminds us in his book Range, unanticipated experiences will lead to unanticipated goals and growth.  I know I am very fortunate to have traveled through this continent and seen these sights. While I cannot claim to have been transformed like Darwin or Humboldt or Che, these experiences made me re-learn history and question my assumptions and biases.

I am still processing what travels through South America has meant for me, but there is no denying that they have touched me in unforeseen ways. These days when we talk about privilege my teen is often frustrated how even these discussions are so anthropocentric. She constantly questions the privilege that our species claims over other species and the arrogance that is associated with that privilege. In the last five hundred years the theories of Copernicus, Darwin, and Turing have slowly chipped away at our privileged position in the universe. Humility instead of hubris is needed as we face new and unprecedented challenges in the coming decades.Traveling in South America is a lesson in human geography - a reminder that our landscapes affect us and we affect our landscapes. I remember much hue and cry was raised when Hugo Chavez gifted President Obama The Open Veins of Latin America. Both its veins and its roads have much to teach if only we are open to learning.