Podcast: Play in new window
We take our first Field Trip to explore Iguazú Falls, Ushuaia, Antarctica, the Falklands, and the amazing journey of Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance expedition.
Iguazu Falls and Buenos Aires
Ushuaia
Cape Horn
Ice
Penguins
Video (from Twitch and YouTube):
<p>Writing is only part of a writing career -- no one warned us that we would need business acumen and entrepreneurship to be an author. Whether you're traditionally published or an independent self-publisher, it's good to have a leg up on accounting, marketing, time management, and other key skills.</p><br><p>These recordings of live discussion on craft and development, on business best practices, on explorations of fascinating and inspiring real life cool stuff, and more will help you along your writing journey and career development. Join Laura VanArendonk Baugh as she shares what she's learned and what she's learning. (Or join the weekly live discussion with your own questions!)</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>
Transcript:
Field Trip! Steam & Ice & Penguins (Iguazu Falls, Ushuaia, Antarctica, Falklands) – powered by Happy Scribe
Trying again, hello.
All right, now with more microphone,let’s hope that’s working now.
All right.
Oh, my gosh, it’s so embarrassing.
Like the number of weeks Iforget to turn my mic on.
Like, at some point.
Some point I’m going to remember that is
a key part of the going liveprocess is to turn my mic on.
So, yeah, ok.
OK, welcome back, everybody.
It is Tuesday here.
I know it’s Wednesday for at least oneof you because we are an international
group and that isfantastic and really fun.
So let’s let’s jump in and get started.
So this is our very first field trip.
So, yeah, Natalie can hear me now.
It’s amazing how much better thetechnology works when I click the button.
Yeah, really.Kind of.
I’m a functional adult.
OK, so “you need more cowbell.
I mean, microphone.”All right.
Hey, Aresonantone, I don’t thinkI’ve seen you around before.
Welcome.
Thank you very much for comingand joining us today.
So, OK, where are we doing?Oh, yes.
This is what I was doing.
I can’t even keep, I can’t evenstay on task for like 90 seconds.
This is our very first field trip.
It is the fifth Tuesday of the month,
which means it’s a theme that onlycomes up once in a while.
And I’m calling it a field trip because
that makes me happy and because it’s2020 and we’re not going anywhere.
So this is my chanceto to make a virtual trip.
But it’s not just me talking about
traveling,which would be incredibly self-indulgent
and a lot of fun, but probably really,really boring for the rest of the world.
Oh.Oh, hey, it’s MD, awesome.
Welcome.
So sorry.
Podcast friends, like, I’mresponding to the chat.
You know, that’s you guys knowthe drill you’ve been around.
But yeah, I basically sound likea spastic lemur on caffeine.
So that’s, that’s how we do things.
So our field trip is not just going to be
me sharing some travel info,but specifically for creative purposes.
I’m going to talk about things that Iexperienced, the way I
perceived that environment and that sortof thing to be useful in a
writing context, because there were things
specifically about, you know,some of the places we’re going to talk
about today that I did not I would nothave imagined it the way I experienced it.
So and then we are going to have a story
time, which I don’t think I’ve ever donea story time in this particular venue.
Some of you have caught them in my other
videos for Gen Con orseminars or whatever.
But we are going to do a story time hereand hopefully that’ll be a lot of fun.
So field trip.Field trip.
Yeah.OK, awesome.
Let’s oh, I do want to say
that last week, last week endedon a little bit of a cliffhanger.
Not intentionally, it’s justthat’s the information I had.
But I want to say that Undómielis probably fine.
So if you’re if you’re new to the partyUndómiel is my Doberman.
Those of you who havebeen around for a while
Yay!Undómiel is probably fine.
So we had already ruled out cancer.
We got the test back.
Blastomycosis is negative, so
she still has some stuff going on,but her uveitis is
reducing, like everything’sgoing in the right direction.
So you know what?
I would be totally finewith idiopathic uveitis.
Like, that’s a completely fine thing.
Oh, hey, speak of the devil.OK, bye.
OK, she’s not going to stayand meet her public, so.
OK, there we go.
And so that happened.
What is beeping at me?
Why are you beeping?
I have no idea what’s beeping.
OK, so there we go.
Oh no, thanks Natalie.
I appreciate that.
And I know I know I had several groups
of people praying for herand I really appreciate that.
That’s
all.Yeah, just all the good vibes.
Thank you much.
So, OK, so let’s talk about oh,and if you were in on the the prep screen,
I was showing all the smores pictures,S’moregasbord came out.
So that’s new.
Oh, the last piece of housekeeping.
This is the last week of Sub-tember,which is a Twitch thing.
If you’re on Twitch catching this,
if you’re doing this on YouTube or apodcast, just hang out for just a second.
But September is on Twitch is where you
can get double the doublethe value for your subscription.
I don’t know how it works,but I don’t care about that because I’m
not actually asking anybody to pay money.
But if you have an Amazon Prime
subscription, you can support this effortwithout paying a penny because you get
a free subscription on Twitchwith your Amazon Prime membership.
And if you would use that for me,I would be very honored.
Thank you.So that’s it.
And there we go.
Let’s move on to what’sactually going on here.
But, uh.
OK.
With any luck.
Oh, no, that’s not howthat’s supposed to work.
OK, we’re going to tryto make this work this way.
All right.Oh, poo.
You can tell you can tell how exquisitelyrehearsed this was, I have my slide show,
but I don’t have my I can’t seethe chat while I have my slide show.
So give me a second to fix that.
The reason this matters is we have a delaywhen I’m talking and
so I can talk and talk and fiddleon my phone at the same time.
We have a delay while I’m talking.
And so I want to make sure that if you
guys have questions as we’re going throughthings that I do get a chance to see them.
All right.Hopefully.
Now, what are you goingto work, just work.
Why is this so hard? Just work.
All right, you know what, I’m goingto pull out the emergency backup.
Let’s see if my husband’s live. Hey,husband, are you live?
Are you on the chat?I think I saw you.
You are on the chat.I did see you.
Can you bring me my Surface?
And I’ll use that for the chatwhile I talk because.
Yeah,
let’s see if I can if I can use Twitchto reach the downstairs of my house.
This is embarrassing,
delay seems to be about 15 seconds,
Natalie says, I don’t know how youfigured that out, but brilliant.
OK.
All right.Well, my plan is.
Let me start
you know what, let me just start doing
this, and I will oh,he says he’s on the way.
That’s fantastic.
Let me go ahead and start, and then I will
just keep switching backand forth and checking the chat.
So, again, the purpose of thisis I want this to be useful.
If you’re setting a scene,
you know, ask me specific details,because grounding is really important,
you know, being being there,having this visceral physical details.
So,
yeah.
So where we’re going with this is I guessI should tell you where we’re going.
So we’re heading south of the equator,which is no big deal for Grace.
But for some of us, like that’snot where we normally live.
And
the we’re going to stop off in Argentinaat Iguazu Falls, which is phenomenal.
And then we’re going to keep going south
to Ushuaia, which isthe southernmost city on the planet.
Thank you very much, husband.
Big cheer for oh, I shouldhave less sound on this
and
Ushuaia, the southernmost city on the planetand then heading down to Antarctica
and then talking aboutShackleton and the Endurance.
So that’s the master plan.All right.
So let’s see, can somebody throw something
into the chat and let me make sure thatI can see what I would need to see here?
Guys, I am such a professional.
Oh, my gosh.
All right.
OK, but where are you going?
Oh, I’m good.Thank you.
OK.
All right.
I’m signing into the to the other
here, and then we willwe will be like, oh my gosh.
I’m going to cut all of this out
of the podcast, I’m goingto deny any of it ever happened.
All right, let’s just go overto the fun part here, look at pictures.
OK, so this is the beginningof Iguazu Falls.
OK, but I do have some chat.There we go.
Awesome.Awesome.
OK, good.It’s not very easy.
I’m going to make this better.All right.
All right,
yeah, so
let me start by saying this was I had
talked for years,I don’t even know, decades, that Antarctica
was like the the bizarre dreamdestination that I’d never actually do.
But it was fun to talk about.
And then there were somediscussions made and
treaty updates and whatnot limiting
the amount of tourism,tourist visits to Antarctica,
which for the record, I completely supportit is a uniquely fragile environment.
Oh, hello.Hi there, Doberman.
Can you see, can people say hi to you?
It’s a uniquely fragile environmentand it needs to be protected and.
Oh,
all right.OK, quick share.
There she is.
OK, now back to me.All right.
And so protecting protecting Antarctica is
is absolutely important and limitingthe number of tourists there is.
I’m on board with that.
I also wanted to get there before it was
you know, it’s not shut down,but extremely limited.
So I went ahead and I actually did
book a trip there and thenI booked it for years out.
And so it was a long term thing.And I’m thrilled.
I’m happy I did it.So
that’s where we’re going.
But would you pass a lot of things
on the way south? So that’s what we’regoing to talk about a little bit.
Iguazu Falls ison the border between Argentina
and Brazil, and it isa ridiculously huge waterfall system.
Can you guys hear the birds?
Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry.
Like, they’re not in the building.
I didn’t think they wouldbe picked up by the mic.
They are noisy. I do have noisy birds.
So.
Yeah, so.
Oh, my gosh, I can’t even stay focused.All right.
We’re heading to Iguazu Falls.
It is ridiculously huge.
When I say ridiculously huge, I mean
the if you think of Niagara Falls,which a lot of people will have seen,
it’s very well known, a large waterfall,Niagara Falls, is three cataracts and it’s
roughly one hundred and sixtyfeet or 50 meters ish
down.Stop pawing me.
You’re very disruptive.
No, they’re not actually herefor you, believe it or not.
Yeah.
Iguazu Falls, instead of three cataracts,has 270 cataracts,
and instead of being 160 feet tall,they are somewhere between 200 and 270
feet tall or 60 to 80 metrestall, which is huge.
So the legend is that Eleanor Roosevelt,
upon arriving and looking outaround Iguazu, said, “Poor Niagara.”
And I cannot tell you ifthat is in fact true.
What I can tell you isthat as I’m standing looking around,
because there’s no way you can seethe entire thing at once,
you you just have to go from placeto place to catch snippets at a time.
So in no way are these photos like
of Iguazu Falls that eachof a tiny section of Iguazu Falls.
And I’m just it’s so big.It’s so big.
It’s just so big.
And like you think Niagara is big,but this is so big.
And my husband said,”I’ve never been to Niagara.”
And I said, “Well, don’t go now.
You’ll just be disappointed.”
So I can tell you that that happened.
But
this is just an absolutely gorgeous,
phenomenally huge systemof cataracts in the rainforest.
And what you have seen is I didn’t realize
at first what you have seen is if you’veseen Black Panther or Civil War and you’ve
flown into Wakanda or you’ve seen thecoronation scenes, that is Iguazu Falls.
That’s a tiny section of Iguazu Falls.
So they’re just really,really beautiful waterfalls.
This.
Is
video at the Garganta del Diablo,which is a great name,
it’s literally the devil’s throat,and this is one section of the falls.
And it’s just I mean,
it’s so huge and it’s so powerfulin order to get here to look out on this
part, you have to walk threequarters of a mile over the river.
And
so it’s really, really wide river.
And so you walk three quarters of a mile
over and then that’s where youget to look out onto this part.
So I just want you to imagine that there’s
three quarters of a mile going on behindyou while you’re looking at this.
OK, all right.
I’m hoping looks like I’mstill skipping the chat.
Still happening.OK, good.
All right.Where is.
Hello.Hello.
Why don’t we there we go.
So this is a caiman who’s hanging out.
As I said, we’re in the rainforest,
so we’ve got all kinds of wildlifehappening cause this came in hanging out.
This is a coati, coatimundi.
And they are huge pests becausethey are not to be fed by tourists.
So, of course, the tourists feed themand they’re obnoxious little buggers now.
ButI’d always heard them called Coatimundi,
but apparently when I was there,I only ever heard coati.
So we’ll see.
and then this is a really cool creature.
This is a potoo
and
the common potoo.
It is a it is, I believe,a technically a parrot.
But what you’re looking at here and it
looks like a stick and a brokentree trunk, but there are two birds
on there and they have justhuge flat shovel mouths.
And what I was told while I was there
was that they were just their mouthsopen and their breath is kind of awful.
So the bugs go in and then they eat them.
But when I did my own reading,
they’re actually nocturnal and theyfly around and catch bugs.
They just hang it likethis during the day.
So nobody bothers them becausethey think they’re a stick.
But that is a mother and chick.
They’re on this on these stick.
And I never would have caught them.
This is a telephoto
in and I never would have noticed them if
not for a park staff who who sawthem and pointed them out.
And so they’re very,very good at their camouflage.
So let’s get back to..
I also saw a toucan while I was there, you can gocatch a little bit of the spray on a boat trip.
Great pictures again.
Just they just keep going.
So I don’t know if you can seeif you follow the falls back.
You know, it’s also coming there.Look at my husband.
Keep going.Keep going the curve.
And then behind at the end of the curve,
if you look back further,you will see even more falls.
So, I mean, these things just keep going.
There’s it’s suchan enormously huge system.
So we’re just looking at pretty things, soI’m not sure if I actually specified this,
but please like ask questions about,you know, what
what details you want to know, because,again, my point for this particular
Field trip kind of concept is to share
things, to help makewriting scenes better.
So back there, so.
My
one of the things that is
really impressivethat, you know, you don’t think about,
but then you go someplace likethis and you see it in action.
So one of the purposesof a rainforest is to absorb water.
So this is obviously a lot of water
when.
They started doing the logging,
and so you’re clear cutting forests,you’re not getting the same kind
of a water absorption happening,it increases the runoff.
Well, you think, oh, it justmakes the falls more impressive.
No, it’s the falls are prettyimpressive on their own.
And so now with with the the clearcuttingfloods will wash away entire islands.
You know, like stuff is really
there’s there’s been some very significant– the numbers are impressive.
Everything in that picturemultiplied by four.
And that’s what flooding can look like.
So and then the cloudy wateris really hard on the fish.
It’s really hard on the predators.
And it’s, you know, takingaway huge chunks of land.
And so it’s one of those things that’sjust like you need to be really aware
of what we’re doing that affectsnot just them, but us, you know?
Well, we’re all on the same planet here.
So I do want to mention very quickly
my friend Garrett Hudson,who is one of my critique partners
and my author group,and he writes historical thrillers
and he’s got two series runningin Argentina just before
World War Two breaks outand simultaneously in Shanghai.
And so Shanghai and Buenos Aires,you see American agents
just before World War Two breaks out.
And his book, Spy Tangois, the climax is set at Iguazu Falls.
So if you like
reading books about Nazis getting theirs
that be something to lookat, Spy Tango by Garrett Hudson.
And so, OK, so let’s hopover now to Ushuaia.
All right,
so this is looking out onto Ushuaia, thisis the southernmost city in the world.
It’s right on the very tip here,South America, little tip of Argentina.
And originally I had plannedto do, I really enjoy hiking.
So originally I had planned to dragmy poor husband off to a national park
and hike actually up into [Chile],because you can take take a trail through
the park and actuallyend up on the border.
But for various reasons,
I got talked out of that,so we end up taking a
trip to Laguna Esmeralda instead,which is a glacial lake under
one of what you can see the glacierthere in the back of this picture.
So here we are crossing.
This is an enormous peat bog.
So I love hiking on peat.It’s springy.
It’s resilient.Your feet don’t get tired.
It’s it’s really fantastic until it’s not.
So as we’re going you’ll see in these
areas, you know, here, there’sa nice boardwalk in other areas.
It was not as developed.
And so people had thrown down poles or
branches and then you would usethat to get across the peat.
And you have you know,
you’re distributing your your weightout so you don’t sink into it.
Well, this is all welland good until it’s not.
But also, you can see there’s nota lot of room for traffic here.
And so when we actually met up
with a bunch of other people and we’retrying to take turns it back and forth
and it’s really so I’m like,I’m going to be smart.
I see one lonely branch over there.
I’m going to go take that branch.
And so I’ve got my backpack on.
I’m taking this photo so I’m not in it.
But I’ve got you’ll see in another photo,I’ve got my big purple backpack.
I’m ridiculously over geared because,
again, I had plannedto do a different hike.
So I’ve got a large backpackon with my water in it and
my boots and all that.
And I’m going across and I’ve got pretty
good balance in this branchis a good four inches wide.
Like I’m I’m I’m doing fine.
And what is shifting a little bitin the peat and you think that’s fine?
Well, what I had not secured was
the camera hanging around my neck,which is a big DSLR.
And so as I was moving and things,the camera swung.
Well, that threw my whole weight off.
And
the exciting part is that is not
oh, I’m sorry.The lag was killing me.
Yeah.Thanks.
Thanks, Alena, for answeringGrace’s question.
Yeah, there’sthe walk over the bridge at Iguazu.
You’re walking on a boardwalk above
the river for three quarters of milesto get to the Garganta del Diablo.
So
so anyway, as we’re as I’m walking across
this thing and the camera swings and soI’m now I’m trying to recover because
that was a weight shiftthat I wasn’t expecting.
And the key part is this is not my camera.
The camera belongs to Alena,who I just saw in the chat, to my sister.
I had borrowed this and I’m not goingto lose her camera into this peat bog.
So I made the decision to sacrificemyself to save the camera.
So I went off the bog and just steppedstepped down so I could stay upright
and not lose the camerato the side while I step down.
And I went all the way down over my knee.
Like it was pretty far down.
So then I pulled myself back up ontothe log and I pulled out my bare foot.
So
then I had a really good laughand had to go down for my boot.
And it was it was all exciting.
And
so, yeah, all that to sayand I’m really sorry.
I’m seeing that you guys are getting somelag and I don’t know how to fix that.
So I apologize.Yeah.
I’ve got, uh, everything is setup as well as I could get here.
But
yeah, we did, we did lose powerbriefly before we got started.
So I don’t know if that’saffecting something.
I don’t know.
So it looks like Seeker is tryingto do some awesome wrangling.
We’ll see.We’ll see if we get better.
So OK.
Anyway, this is a picture my friend Mark
took of me trying to getmy boot back out of the peat.
And so you can see that the log andme struggling and so yeah just
but it’s again things to think about that,you know, peat is great to walk on when
it’s packed and when it’s really,really wet and loose,
it will take your hiking bootand whatever else you put down there.
So, OK, so you can see there’sthe glacier in the back way and close.
This is Laguna Esmerelda itself
and glacial runoff always has that color.
It’s
due to the silt that thatthe water carries down.
So so that’s a you know,you’re always going to get that really
iconic glacial color.
And that is part of the that’swhy it’s Laguna Esmeralda here.
Emerald Lake
you look at how much of that glacier is
not there, you can see what would normallybe iced and how much that’s receded.
This is a problem.
Ushuaia and surrounding areas,all of their water for the town comes
from the glacier and the glaciers aredisappearing for, you know, reasons.
And
so this is going to be a problem becausein the I’ve got
I actually have a post on my blog goingthrough how much of ice is disappearing.
And it’s terrifying.It really is.
It’s something that you don’t seeliving in the American Midwest.
But you can see it really well whenyou go other places and something of.
In multiple places,
so, oh, Chile rather than Peru, yes,
that’s what I meant, Chile,you know, a country [Peru was a different trip]
oh,
it says I may not be alive.
We’ll see.Oh, there you go.
Oh, I am good.
He says I am online.
OK, this is exciting.
At least it’s a field trip and we’reall just doing the best we can.
It was travel, so.All right.
This is that this is myself and the man
who’s trying to keepmy stream live right now.
So everybody say hello to.Yes.
Thank you.OK,
so here I’ve got my backto the lake, we’re descending.
You can see the glacial runoff streamdeparting the lake and going down
and we’re going heading back towardthat peat bog and the mountains there.
And again, it’s justabsolutely beautiful area.
So
that is Ushuaia.
And so now.
So,
OK,I’m going to try to keep it on a photo so
you can at least seesee something pretty if you get stuck.
There we go.All right.
So now we have departed Ushuaia.
We’re heading south into Antarctica.
But first we have to round to Cape Horn,which I was very excited to do because.
Humans being what they are, they havemade all of these checkboxes to to to
account for all the different navaladventures you can have, so, you know,
you could cross the equator and becomea shellback, across the date line.
You can go through the Straits
of Gibraltar, you can go through,you know, all of these things.
So, rounding Cape Horn
with a checkbox for that and but it’s alsoa hugely significant thing historically,
if you like to read about,I don’t know, shipwrecks.
So Cape Horn is really, really terrifying.
Oh, thank you, Adam, for subscribing.
I really appreciate that.
So Cape Horn is absolutely terrifying.
So it’s the Cabo de Hornos.
It’s actually named for a ship.
The Hoorn, which is itselfwas named for a city.
And oh gosh, I believe the Netherlands,I think pretty sure has two Os
So almost positively the Netherlands
and it sank.
So
that’s where the nameof the the Cape comes from.
It’s not named for the shapeof the rocks or anything like that.
But what you’re looking at hereare the Teeth of Deceit.
And I always say nobody namesthings like angry sailors.
So these are the teeth of deceit,which are not Cape Horn.
But if you saw this through the mist
and because this,this is extremely good weather.
And if you saw this through the mistand you’re like, oh, there’s the Cape,
let’s let’s start to tack around,you’re going to founder and go down.
So this as we jump forward,travel forward on here to Cape Horn.
This is the most dangerous shippassage probably on the planet and.
Over 10000 sailors that weknow of have died here.
In the winter, the waves here will bemaybe 100 feet tall, 30 meters tall.
And if you think about it, you’ve got
the entire Pacific to buildup wind and wave action.
And then it gets funneled
into that Drake Passage and the you know,the sea floor rises and the land narrows.
And all of that energy has to go somewhereand it goes into furious winds and waves.
So this is a really,really dangerous area.
And when I say really, really dangerous,if you jump back to the colonial period
where the Spanish are mining everythingout of western South America,
and they could throw it all on a shipand take it around
the continent and head back to Europe,and that would be, you know,
ship travel’s way more efficient,then throwing everything onto the back
of donkeys and llamasand crossing the Andes.
But that’s what they did because that was
a safer and less risky venture thantrying to get around Cape Horn.
And so when Darwin was on the Beagle,there’s a report firsthand account
from the Beagle’s captainof the Beagle rolling over so that the
port side of the of the deck was
three feet underwater, justhanging out underwater.
And they managed to get it back up.
The most impressive one, though,that I found when they’re talking about,
you know you know, Cape Horn is really,really kind of a challenge
is.
The Bounty, so HMS Bounty,pretty famous ship,
tried for a month to get around Cape Horn,could not figure out a way to do it,
that they thought they hada chance of surviving.
So the Bounty turned around,crossed the Atlantic,
went around Africa and crossed the Pacificbecause circumnavigating the planet was
considered easier thangetting around Cape Horn.
So that’ll give you an idea of whatCape Horn,
It’s phenomenally,
It’s a big deal in the ocean.It’s a big deal.
So all of that to say, get back,sorry, get some photos going here.
So that’s the Teeth of Deceit.
This here is where the
I’m going to call it the west in the eastwaters come together so you can see just
below the horizon you’ve got the mountainson the horizon and then you’ve got
a little bit of a colorchange in the water.
That is the confluence where
you can say the Atlanticand the Pacific come together.
Now, if you go online,you will find all kinds of hogwash about
the two oceans not mixingbecause they are indeed,
generally speaking,coming together at different temperatures
and different densities, different, youknow, salt concentrations and all that.
But there is no sheet of Plexiglas
separating the oceans, they will absolutely mix.
It just means that you can sometimes seea visible confluence before things
thoroughly mix, but it hasa lot of wind and wave action.
It’s going to mix.
So I just thought that was funny thatpeople say that the oceans don’t mix.
Of course they do.So if you look in this photo and you look
to the left, now, you’re startingto look down onto the Cape Cape Horn.
And this is Cape Horn itself.
And again, this entire trip,we had the best weather.
You know, our our crew was telling us
that this was the best weatherthey’d ever seen, like.
So I’m I don’t have good storm photos
to show you, and I’m finewith that, actually.
But we were in we were in the very calm
season and this was the bestof the best weather.
So if you look on the cape there, you cansee on the left you’ll see a lighthouse.
That’s where a
Chilean sailor pulls double pay
for for holding you managingthat lighthouse for months at a time.
You see some really tall radio antennas.
And then on the right,you’ll see something.
It’s just a tiny little almost a circularthing sticking up in the photo and oh,
sorry, there’s our pilot boat making surewe don’t founder on the rocks and die.
OK, so there’s the lighthouse and somelovely antennas.
And then here is the
sculpture that is there and it’sthe albatross at the end of the world.
And so it’s two large metal metal wings,
layered metal wings, and the negativespace forms an albatross.
It’s a really kind of striking monument.
And this is a monument to those10000 sailors who have died.
And so I just pulled this up.
This is a poem that is inscribed there.
And it’s
it’s just again, because it’ssuch a phenomenal place.
So, OK.
Oh, why don’t you go, come on.There we go.
All right.And I do have more information.
And if you want to see some really,really good photos that I did not feel
comfortable using in my streambecause I did not take them.
Go to my blog.
And I’ve linked to some official
photography that it was justway better than what I could do.
So really good stuff.
OK, so here is the very, very tip.
And I feel it’s important to say this isactually the continuation
of the Andes Mountains,which runs all the way down the continent,
and then it kind ofdisappears into the ocean.
And so you’re looking at is the very,
very edge of the of the Andesas they sink below sea level.
And then this is a storm petrelwho was flying along with us.
And now we are southof Cape Horn looking back.
So this is my proof photo.
Look, I did it, got around the cape.
So there we go.
And you can see how lovely and calmthat water is and how not dead we are.
So it’s great.All right.
So we go south and we go into the proper
Antarctic across the circleand we’re going in.
OK, so
and I’m sorry, I just keepchecking on the chat.
If you guys have questions,
if you want me to focus on something,you know, definitely,
you know, let me know.
And Natalie, I did not actually have anyencounters with dead sailors,
but I think that there’s a lotof story potential there.
So let’s do that.All right.
Halloween is coming, guys.Get out your pencils.
That’ll be our October create-in.
So, OK, so we’re coming in and
the the Antarctic water here,we’re a little bit sheltered.
So you can see how very,very smooth this is.
And I don’t know I don’t actually knowhow to explain what I was expecting.
I don’t know what I was expecting,but this was not it.
This was the water at times wouldbe just glassy, glassy, smooth.
Again, we’re in the best season or having
the best weather out of yearsand years of the best season.
But the water is glassy, smooth.
There would be wind or no wind.
But it was.
Just the thing that blew me away was howsilent it was,
and this is one of the things I wantto talk about, because it’s not something
that I ever would have considered until Iwas there and, you know, experienced it.
Oh, that’s my very firsticeberg right there.
So, yeah, there we go.
But if you think about where sound,
you know, what are you usedto hearing in your life?
OK, we always have background traffic.
You know, we knowthat that won’t be there.
Right.
But you don’t think aboutthe other constant low grade.
Sounds like wind in the leaves.
There’s no leaves.
Insect life.
Now, there’s not like, you know,it’s really, really silent and I was just
blown away at how muchsound there was, not
the only terrestrial speciesis a species of midge.
So not a lot of noise going on there.
And some of the birds will callabove water.
And your seals or sea lions may or
may make, you know, callabove water, but that’s it.
That’s pretty rare.Most of your most of your life is under
the water and you’renot listening to that.
So really, really quiet.
Absolutely phenomenal scenery.
I mean, it was it was like I said,
I talked about going there for years,but this was there.
OK.
And Jon keeps running in and out
and doing things that may may makeour streaming better, I don’t know.
I’m working really hard here, guys.
I’m giving him all the credit, so.All right.
I’m just going to go on with the
with chatting and catch me ifyou have questions. And you can see how how
the land is very jagged, but the butthe ice has been made very smooth
and the icebergs are amazing.
So this one that you’re looking at.
I don’t honestly remember if this is the I
think this is the 18 mile iceberg,there was another one that was 30 miles.
I’m not sure if that’s this one,but that is 18 miles long.
And then when you guys.
You know, you’re familiar with the phrase
the tip of the iceberg,that’s that’s legit.
So this is the huge, huge size.
And again, in the
reasons to, thingsto think about department,
the ice breakup has increased by 40percent in the last five years.
That’s not good.
So but here you can see like just
like that’s a city that just broke off and floated away.
So the sunrises and sunsetswere phenomenal.
So it’s just the colors and the intensity
were always brilliant and youcould catch it in the ice.
So I did a lot of photos of the sunrise
reflecting on icebergs and just gettingsome really cool color effects that way,
but just all kinds of beautiful,beautiful colors.
The ice itself is absolutely gorgeous.
So, OK, so yeah, Mike’s pointing outthe underwater can be really noisy.
Yes.
But I wasn’t thereso I’m not going in that water.
It’s really cold but yeah.
Yeah the, the whales there were so manywhales, phenomenal numbers of whales.
So I’m sure there was a lot of chattergoing on that I just wasn’t privy to.
So if you look at this iceberg,
find the tall right edgeand follow it down.
You’ll see a bit of a red smear.
That’s not actuallythe paint from the Titanic or, you know,
any of those things that you’llhear about icebergs.
No, that is a red algae and it’s one ofthe few plant species that exists there.
So most of the marine life, the baseof the food chain is the krill, which is
really, really, really popular there.
But there is a red algae that willsometimes grow in the ice.
So you’ll see that.
I’m sorry, I have I took like 6000 photos
of ice and I’m notexaggerating with that number.
So you guys are gettingthe very light version tonight.
But I just want to share the expanseof just water and ice and sky that was
really water and ice and sky.
Yeah, just.Oh, my gosh.
So beautiful.
And the scale of this,when you’re looking at that kind of broken
edge along the shore there, that’sprobably several hundred feet tall.
I mean, everything is huge.
Just, again, enormous scale.
So,
yes.
So, yeah, Natalie, Natalie waspointing out, “utterly silent.
No terrestrial species have to travelthrough deadly waters to reach it.
Don’t want to alarm anyone but we’ve found the homeland of the introverts.”
Yeah, those are the there arescientists who overwinter here and
that’s a, you need a certainpersonality to commit to that,
but but they’ll they’ll thinkthey’re always taking applications.
So, OK,
so let’s jump ahead.
OK, here’s what you’re actuallyhere for, the penguins.
So these guys are kind of tough tophotograph because they’re really fast.
So they’ll be zipping along and popping
in and out of the water, porpoising in and out and and they’re quick.
And I was pretty proud that I was able topredict where they were going to come up.
So I did get some nice penguin photos,
but they’re unfortunately all with,you know, a lot of telephoto.
So you’re not seeing
really,
really crystal clear penguin shots.
I’m sorry.
So many whales, as I said, humpback,minke, some other ones, I don’t know.
Lots and lots of whales, more penguins,
penguin butts.
So the penguins would come out on the ice
and gather round and hang out and alsothe sea lions and the seals would come out
on the ice and gather and hangout and they eat penguins.
And so it was great because you would get
you could tell, like,the penguins were really good at telling
when when the seals werehungry and when they were not.
And Weddell seals, by the way,are like 13 feet long or something.
They’re really huge.
So for the big deal,I was very happy with this photo that I
got a picture of the ice whale and themammal whale together made me happy.
OK,
so I’ve got a photo coming up, I believe,
of that’s a humpback divingthat they go here we go.
Here’s the penguins and a and a I don’t
remember if this is a sealor sea lion together.
My photo was not clear enough to tell.
But this the penguins hop up and they’relike, wow, OK, this is great.
And then they come around.
See the seal, they’re like, Oh.
Creep, creep, creep, creep,and go by very slowly,
but the seal’s chilling so they didn’t care,so everybody was fine.
This is a Weddell seal and you know,he’s just a big, big guy.
Hold out on the ice chillin’.More whale.
Sorry, you guys are goingto see a lot of whales.
This is a little signal light mounted on the rock there.
So
some of the ships willuse it to come through.
And this was great because I just wantedphoto of the ice and the ice formation
and I accidentally got whale becausethere’s so many whales coming up.
You can see this is a whale blowing
high here in the front whileI’m taking my ice photos.
Great.
So, again, just absolutelybeautiful stuff.
Sunlight on the flukesas they’re going down.
This is Mark and Jon and my father,Larry, all hanging out, taking photos.
Oh, there’s an Alena in there,too, between Mark and John.
I just see her nose.So.
All right.So suddenly on the ice.
So many beautiful, beautiful,like like I said, the light on the light
on there was amazing becauseit’s coming in at a great angle.
So.
Let’s get through.
And the sun setting at, you know,fairly early in the afternoon and still
because we’re so we’re so polar andso was just grab the.
Grab all the sunset lightand see on the ice.
OK, so now we are going, yeah, yeah, yes,
Alena is saying in the chat it wasimpossible not to get whale photos.
Like if you just pointed it at the water,
at some point you’regoing to get whale photo.
Which is good becausethe whales were actually
nearly hunted out and the reason they
stopped whaling in these waterswas because they ran out of whales.
So so this is actuallya really good rebound.
OK, so we are looking at
the Endurance glacier,
so we are at Elephant Island and we’relooking at the Endurance glacier.
So a couple of things to be aware of.
First of all, this is a place where youcan see how much the glacier has receded.
You can actually visibly see itif you see where the water changes color,
that is glacial debris that has made
it just a pile of trash,pile of glacial trash in the water.
And then as the glacier has receded,
leaving that debris, that’s whereyou’re getting the water change.
So you can see how farback and again, that
edge that you’re seeingthe face of the glacier.
I’m not actually sure how to how tall it
is at this point, but probablythree or four hundred feet.
So this is a considerabledistance to be seated.
But I want to talk about Elephant Islandand the Endurance Glacier.
Sorry.
Look, bonus whale, justcan’t not get whales.
So this is the all the endurance glacier.
I want to talk about Elephant Island
because it is one of the mostphenomenal adventure stories
and it’s all true.So I don’t know where the Hollywood
summer tentpole blockbuster is,but nobody can nobody can write this
better than the way itactually happened, so.
So let’s talk about this, all right.
So Ernest Shackleton
has done polar expeditions before,they were adventurous in their own ways,
we are not going to talk aboutthem because we don’t have time.
But he’s definitely, definitely alreadyhad enough adventure for most people.
But before he startsthe endurance expedition.
But he’s going to do the Endurance
expedition and their goal was to depart,to go down to Antarctica, cross
the continent of Antarctica,hitting the South Pole on the way and come
out on the other sideand head to New Zealand.
So quite a feat.
That’s already aridiculously ambitious feat.
By the way, the year is 1914.
We are working our way up to World War [1]
actually things start to gobad and Shackleton cables back to
the U.K. It’s like, “hey, you know,
I’ve got this ship and thesepeople and we’re ready to go.
Or, you know, do you do you need us back?
You know, what’s what do wedo about the expedition?”
And he gets a one wordcable back that just says “Proceed.”
He’s like, “great, we’re taking off.
We’re going to go do this.”So.
Oh, and Alena is telling me
that the Endurance glacier isabout 400 feet tall there.
So thank you for that.
So.
We’re going to
sorry, I pulled my notes back there, sothey’re heading heading south,
they stop at South Georgia Islandwhere there’s a Norwegian whaling station,
and they talk with those guys for a whileand finish finish provisioning.
And they hear that it’sa very heavy, ice year.
So they take on extra storesand there’s some extra clothes.
South Georgia Island,by the way, is very far south.
It’s the middle of nowhere.You’ll see a map later.
And the only thing that’s there is
that station for processingwhales, as we said.
So they stay with them a little bit longerthan they had originally tended to take
on extra provisions because theyheard it was a heavy ice year
and then they go and it was probablya good thing that they did that.
So they travel south towardthe actual continent of Antarctica.
They go over a thousand miles.
They are approximately one day out
from their intended landing pointwhen they get stuck in the ice.
And so these photos, by the way, areall actual photos from the expedition.
And the photographer made some
legitimate sacrifices to get these photosout, so let’s really appreciate them.
So they’re one day out, they get stuck inthe ice with the most perfect description
recorded as “like an almond in toffee.”They were not going anywhere.
So now the ship is driftingin the ice, because
when I first think about this,
the you know, you think aboutthe ships getting stuck in the ice.
You just think of the shipstuck in the ice.
Like, that’s how I always picturedthis when I heard the story.
But when I started reading into it, like,
no, no, the the icethe ice is moving, right?
The ice is on the ocean.
So it’s actually traveling.
So this ship is beingcarried along with the ice.
And so they’re trying to get out, they’retrying to keep, you can see here they’re
cutting out around the ship because whenthe ice comes together,
as it freezes over, they want itto lift the ship above the ice
rather than crushing the ship.
So they’re doing constant what I’m goingto call ice maintenance on the ship.
But this ice is you know,
you can always picture it as,you know, just smooth and flat.
But look at these photos.It’s incredibly jagged and rough.
So they’re clearing out the ship that’s
in, I believe, Februarythat they get stuck
and in October, they’re trapped.Ship springs a leak.
So I want you to like that’s a long time
to be stuck on the iceand not going anywhere.
And they’re photos that I didn’t includeof, you know, the men out on the ice
playing football, you know, doing thingsbecause they’ve got nowhere to go.
They’ve got nothing to do.
They’re there but are just waitingfor the ice to let them out.
So they’re in the they’re in the ice.
I want to say nine months.
Finally, the ship springs a leak becausethe ice is putting so much torsion on it,
and so they abandon ship and make a campon the ice itself and stay near the ship,
pulling out suppliesand whatnot as they go.
And then in November,they watch the ship go down.
I believe I have some photos of this.Yes.
So there’s the camp on the top leftand then ship.
Beautiful photo there.
It’s all night at this point.
The ship’s keeling over and then thisship is finally crushed by the ice.
And
I can’t imagine like watching that happen,knowing that you are thousands
and thousands and thousands of milesfrom anything even remotely.
I mean, from land, right.
You’re not you’re you know, you don’teven know what’s under you is just water.
So
they at that point, because the ice,again, is moving,
you’re not frozen in the ice in one spot,the spot the ice is moving the ice.
It carried them about twelvehundred miles off of their course.
So they havetwelve hundred miles even to get back
where they started, much lessto any place that’s useful.
So they have three lifeboats which theyload up with their supplies and begin
dragging by hand over the ice and gotsome photos of this happening here.
And so and at this point,our photographer, who is
Frank Hurley isthe photographer and he actually at one
point threw food out ratherthan lose his camera equipment.
So that’s why we still have these photos, which is amazing.
So the ice starts breaking up.
They get into the
they get into the boats and they just they
spent five months draggingthese boats across the ice.
So
nine months of trapped in the ice, fivemonths dragging the boats across the ice,
they finally get to Elephant Island,
which is where that glacier is that you’relooking at just a few minutes ago.
They have not touched land in 497 days.
Elephant Island is the firsttime they have touched land.
They’re really, really happyto be on Elephant Island
and they get some elephantseals and some penguins.
And life is really good,
except they’re still thousandsof miles from absolutely nowhere.
It’s just that now they have some dirt.
So there’s no way that they’regoing to get discovered or found.
And, you know, at this point, it’s 1915.
So, you know, just calling on the sat-phones, not really an option.
So the closest thing they can think of is
that whaling station at South Georgiathat is 800 miles away.
You’re in an area of the sea that’s goingto routinely experience 50 foot waves.
That’s just normal.You have a 22 foot long boat,
you have a sextant, you havea chronometer that may or may not work.
And you can’t really see the sunreliably in order to navigate.
Let’s do this. So six people,Shackleton and five of the men
set out to try to reach South Georgiaand that whaling station,
everyone else takes the remaining twoboats, flips them over and makes a cabin
out of it, and then justcalled the Snuggery.
And so they’re just going to stay thereand hope that Shackleton gets back.
All right.
Sorry, I’m just catchingup on the on the chat.
OK, we’re good.
Dying at “disaster selfies.”
There are actually quite a lot of selfies
and portraits in thesein these photo collection.
But, you know, like yougot 14 months on the ice.
We’re going to do take someselfies, by all means.
OK, so they are on thisincredible voyage in this tiny little
boat, they’re trying to makeit to Georgia, south Georgia,
the spray on the ice as it’s splashing — and I’m
sorry, the spray on the boat,as it’s splashing on the boat,
It’s freezing.It actually freezes up to 15 inches thick
on the hull of the boat, which is,of course, handling,
affecting the trim and the handlingof the boat,
which is not really designed to dothis kind of thing in the first place.
So they’ve got some rocks that they’veput in the boat to use as ballast.
And so they’re moving the rocksaround as the ice freezes harder.
Just, you know, like it wasa heck of a sailing venture.
Anyway,they’re beating the ice off the canvas
sail so that it doesn’thave time to freeze thick,
all kinds of stuff.They’re getting frostbite.
Of course they’re getting frostbite.
They’re in freezing water constantly.
There’s no way not to be wet.
For six days they don’t see the sun at all.
And again, that’s kind of whatthey’re needing to use to navigate.
So, Frank Worsley, I believeI got this name somewhere.
Yeah, Frank Worsley is
taking sextant readings and doingeverything else by dead, dead reckoning.
Just, you know, he’ll see the sun when he
can and then we’ll just really try to stayon target until we see the sun again.
Which would be days,
You know, days and days at a time.
Yeah.
“Oh, for Icelandic feldsparat that point”
If you’ve, when I actually when I talk about
in the Norse mythology talk,I have some Icelandic feldspar.
I pass around for this and theydid not have that there with them.
And it’s a way to find the sun whenyou can’t actually see the sun.
It’s theorized that the Vikingsuse that for navigation.
But yeah, we are not an option therebecause they’re on, you know, our
volcanic rock or I actuallydon’t even remember what
what Elephant Island is.But it doesn’t matter.
There’s not that much useful usefulthere if you’re not an elephant seal.
So and then they have this one particularadventure, which I’m just going to read
Shackleton’s words to you because Ican’t say it any better than this.
“I called the other menthat the sky was clearing (yay)
And then a moment later,I realized that what I had seen was not
a rift in the clouds,but the white crest of an enormous wave.
During 26 yearsof experience in the ocean
in all its moods, I had notencountered a wave so gigantic.
It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean,a thing quite apart from the big white
capped seas that had been ourtireless enemies for many days.
I shouted, ‘For God’s sake,hold on, it’s got us.’
Then came a moment of suspensethat seemed drawn out into hours.
White surged the foamof the breaking sea around us.
We felt our boat lifted and flunglike a cork in breaking surf.
We were in a seething chaos of tortured
water, but somehow the boat lived throughit, half full of water,
sagging to the dead weightand shuddering under the blow.
We bailed with the energy of men fightingfor life, flinging the water over
the sides with every receptaclethat came to our hands.
And after ten minutes of uncertainty,
we felt the boat to renewher life beneath us.”
So spoiler alert he did write that.
So he lived through this.
But,
you know, justwhen when Shackleton says in twenty six
years he hadn’t seen a wavethat big, he’s not talking
26 years of paddling in a pond.
Right.He’s is already a polar explorer.
So pretty, pretty dramatic weather.
After fourteen days, they catch sight.
They can see South Georgia Island,which is amazing.
And
that I’ll show you in a minute whythat dead reckoning was so impressive.
But they they see South Georgia Island.
They can’t land because they’re coming in.
There’s rocks betweenthem and the islands.
They’re going to have to get around
to them, which I can’t even imaginehow frustrating that must be there.
See the island.OK, well, we’ll get there in the morning.
We’ll go around and in the morning there’s
a storm which blows them back out to seaand they lose sight of the island.
I’m telling you, I couldn’t write thisany meaner than what actually happened.
Two days, two days later,
they’re finally able to make it backto that island and they come in.
They’re running out of water, by the way,all of the time that this is happening.
So they finally get back in two days laterin their entire fourteen days of travel,
they had only seen the sun on fourdays and the rest was dead
reckoning by Frank Worsley,who is, bravo. By the way.
He’s a Kiwi.Good job, Grace.
There we go.You’ve got some good countrymen there.
So they arrive on South Georgia,
but they’re on the wrongside of South Georgia.
The whaling station is on the other side
and South Georgia, wouldn’t you know it,it is made of mountains.
So you’ve got a mountain ridge.
Right down the middle of the island.
Two of the menat this point are too weak.
There’s no way they’regoing to be able to walk.
So they leave one personto stay with them.
And then Shackleton and two otherpeople start over the mountains.
They don’t have a tent.They don’t have sleeping bags.
They have very little in the way of gear.
They do take a cookstove.
So in some of the last of their food,
they had, you know, they theybrought some blubber and things.
So they’ve got that.
And at this point,nobody has ever been there.
You know, nobody’s mapped that.
But whaling station doesn’tcare what’s on the mountains.
Literally just a blank space on the map.
You know, this is South Georgia Island.Here is the whaling station.
Here’s some island nobody had nobody had
mapped this, much less hada route across these mountains.
And I want to see these mountains orsomething like 9000, 10000 feet high.
So these are these are real mountains.
So they start and they walk overnight.I go this way.
No backtrack.Go this way.
No backtrack.Go that way.
And in overnight, they get throughthe mountains, not directly over.
They do find find ways through.I don’t care.
It’s still impressive.
They’re, you know, crossing it for 4500,5000 feet, something like that.
They get to the next
the next morning they hear the steamwhistle from the whaling station.
So they know they’re on the right track.
They’re trying to find a way downto the whaling station.
The only way they can get down,there’s a stream that.
Oh, hi.Thank you.
Yes.Yes.
You’re interrupting my dramatic moment,OK? There is a stream that
runs runs down and it’swaist deep meltwater.
So freezing waist deep meltwater,probably only liquid because it’s moving
and then a 30 foot waterfall and that’sthe only way they can find down.
So that’s what they do becausethey’re done at this point.
So they literally wade through this streamand then go over the 30 foot waterfall.
They do have a rope.They try to lower people down safely on.
But I think the third guy just kind
of goes for it because there’sno way to lower him down.
And they make it 22 miles over
completely unmapped, mountainous terrainovernight to the whaling station.
Nobody replicated this, by the way,until 1955 when British explorer
Duncan Carse retraced the route acrossthe South Georgia successfully.
And his comment was, “I don’t know how they
did it, except that they had to.”Like, this is crazy.
So they get to South Georgia, the whalingstation, and in true English fashion
Ernest Shackleton is like, hey,I’m sorry, we look like a mess.
You know, we haven’t been on land and,
you know, a year and a halfkind of starving and dying.
But, you know, I’m sorry,we’re not shaved up and stuff.
They go around, they rescue the three guyson the other side of the island
and they’re like, OK, now we needto go get the rest of our crew from
Elephant Island.
So they take a whaler, it’s now May,by the way, so they take a whaler.
So we’re getting into,you know, autumn there.
They take a whaler to try to reach
Elephant Island, but the winter ice isclosing in and they can’t make it,
which is how terrifying and frustratingas a leader to to face that.
So they go back,they go to the Falkland Islands,
they get a trawler, they tryto make it, they can’t make it.
They go to Chile.
Residents of Chile actually take up
a donation to rent a schooner to go and tryto get these men off Elephant Island.
They’re 100 miles away from Elephant Islandwhen they lose an engine.
So they have to go back and try it again.
In Chile again, they get the steam tug
Yelcho actually finally makes it.
So while the men on Elephant Island,
Frank Wild, was leading there while
Shackleton was goneand somebody comes running up and like,
“There’s a ship, should we set a fire to letthem know that we’re here and help guide
them in because it’s getting very heavyice, very heavy mist, all of these things,”
I’m sure you’re addinga lot of drama here.
Thank you.
And so they put a theyhave one can of fuel left.
They put a hole in it, light theirclothes on fire and guide the Yelcho in
so they get there.
And Frank, well, it’s like, “hey,thanks for coming back for us.
Really appreciate it.
Do you want to see howwe’ve survived here?
Because we’ve set up like, this the Snuggery,made out of the other boats
and we’ve been, you know, huntingand do you want to see how we’ve lived?”
And Shackleton’s like, “We had to try four
times to get here,get in the freakin boat, let’s go.
We don’t know if we’re going tobe able to get out.”
And so within an hour,everybody’s on the boat and gone.
And I do mean everybody.
No, not one person was lost on thisentire escapade, which is phenomenal.
There were you know, there wasfrostbite, there was injury.
But, you know, at least some of the peoplelost toes and pieces to to frostbite,
but everybody made it outalive, which is amazing.
They were on Elephant Island for 127 days
after their four hundred and eightyseven days of whatever it was.
I said that they had been on the water.
So just an amazing adventure story.
Oh, and let me get photos.On the right, the men waving,
That’s Shackleton and the otherfive departing for South Georgia.
So that’s everybody like,
“I hope you make it come backfor us when you do,” that kind of thing.
And then this is the Yelcho comingto get them on Elephant Island.
So that’s great.
And getting mad props to ourphotographer who who took these photos.
Now, here is what isterrifying and amazing here.
So you look down,you can see Elephant Island
where they, you know,walked out a good long ways
and then that 800 miles and dead reckoningto try to get to South Georgia.
As you can see, if they hadn’t missed
South Georgia, which is,by the way, not a really big place.
And so it would would have been easy,easy to to not hit it dead on.
There’s that.That’s it.
There’s nothing until Africa.Right.
So if you had missed this in this storm,
in the waves and whatever,just amazing, amazing
work to to navigate that and everything.
More penguins!
So.
So Elephant Island, the Enduranceexpedition,
definitely something to to read upon and and yeah, and I used to think I was
mean to my characters and Igot nothing on real life.
You know, I agree with Mike there.
So more glaciers, more icebergs.
Oh, I have totally forgotten
the name of this island.
Darn it.
It’s.
It’s not it’s not famous for anything,
I just knew the name of itat one point and it’s gone.
So there we go.All right.
So let’s move on then.
And there’s my dad takingphotos in his natural habitat.
Let’s talk about the Falklands.
And this is fun because I actuallydid put some fiction here.
So the Falklands are
sorry I
got too many keyboards going on right now.
So the Falklands or the Malvinasare disputed territory.
If you’re old enough,you remember this war in the early 80s.
And so the Falklands are stilloccupied by the English who
have been there for quite a while.
But the Argentina lays claim to them.
And actually, while we were in Argentina,at one point, we were having conversation
in the in the taxi, all in Spanishand somebody mentioned the Falklands.
And our taxi drivers, like, you meanLas Malvinas, and yes, las Malvinas.
And he’s like, “let’s just notlet’s just not talk about that.
Let’s just have a good day, OK?”
So it’s a very sore topic.
However,
when they had a referendum a few years ago
on the Falklands, only three votesto rejoin Argentina were cast.
And everybody’s quite happy being English.
But
let’s go here.
So we went out to a sheep farm to takepictures of cormorants and penguins.
And so you’re looking at a cormorant here,
but there will be penguins livingin the same area.
So we’ll see both of themin these photos here.
And
I had so much fun with this because when
you think of penguins, you don’tusually think of sheep pastures.
And so it was really just great to see.
Here you have cormorants and penguinsstanding right next to each other.
So, you know, sharing this colony area.
So this actually, while I was here,as I started the story for what became
Land Girl,which is the, it’s my story
in the Earth Anthology,Earth Elemental Anthology.
These are Rockhopper penguins, which
are easy to identify because they havethose long yellow
punk rock feathers coming off theirheads and they’re super cute.
And
cormorant so.
OK.Oh, Cornwallis, thank you.
Yes, that the island that was.
I’m sorry, like everything iseverything is delayed.
I’m not catching up on the chat.
Yes, the island that I can’tremember is Cornwallis Island.
Thank you so much.All right.
So we’re jumping through.And I loved this.
Like, this is this penguin was outin the middle of nowhere all by himself,
just heading across the sheep pasture like, “Bye!
I’ll write when I find work!” It’s pretty cool.
So but anyway, in Land Girl I talkabout, you know, they have to ride three
or four hours by horsebackto get to a town.
And in all of that and all it tookthat all just lifted it verbatim from
the family who owned the sheep pasturewhere we were, who was telling us about,
you know, their family havingestablished this farm,
you know, decades before.So here we are.
We’ve got
these are some king penguins in the middleand then Gentoo penguins around them.
And so they are hanging out in the
on this particular beach just chillin.
And you can see the king,the king penguins are actually molting.
So everybody’s you know, some of themare looking a little ragged right now.
So that’s OK.They’re going to get some new feathers,
but just sharing some
Penguin pics
I could look at Penguin Pictures all day,
so sorry, that’s what youguys are going to do.
Just penguins hanging out at the beach.
I took so many pictures of penguins,this is my friend Mark and my husband
Jon, observing penguinsin the sheep pasture just hanging out.
And again, this is not howI usually picture penguins.
So I loved getting these photos.
And this is, you know,just it’s another colony,
but they’re all up above the shore,which you’ll see here in a second.
And you can see we’ve got a lot of chicks
here growing out of there, down an inch,their actual adult feathering.
So some pretty funkylooking penguins going on,
but that’s where they’re coming down.
And then they would come upthe hill and hang out here up top.
And this is one of my favorite pictures
that I took is this Little Rockstar penguin right here.
So.
So there is
when I say saying
the Falklands and just the penguins
and the sheep mingling together,which I just like I said,
I had a story on deadline and I was like,I’m writing about penguins and sheep.
So that’s how Land Girl came about.
And then we did do one more thing that I’mgoing to share really quickly
at Puerto Piramides, where we gotgotten some kayaks and ran out to sea.
These are cormorants.
And then also there’s a swimming cormorant
and then some sea lions thatI just think are awesome.
So I do want to point outin this picture, I did see it.
I’m glad you guys are liking the cutewhale and penguin pictures.
If you look at the top of this rock,it’s a little bit blurred here.
That’s the rocks, I’m prettysure are not just dusty here.
I couldn’t get close enoughto see this in person.
I’m just using the telephoto here.
But I have seen it
in other places where sea lions havebeen for centuries or millennia.
And what you get is the
the sea bird feces and the constant
grinding of the sea lionshanging out and rolling around up there.
And it actually startsto polish the rocks.
And in the Galapagos,
you can actually get somethingthat it kind of looks like marble.
And it’s just that the rock, which is,
you know, volcanic in the Galapagos,but it has been pooped on and ground down
so often that it kind of getsthis almost marbleized texture.
So that’s something, again,
just it’s a visual detail that youprobably wouldn’t think of,
but can add an extra layer of depthand realism to your scenes.
So these
sea lions are great, OK,pinnipeds are the best.
So I love these.
They’re just hanging outlike being sea lions.
It’s great diving in there,probably 20 feet above the water here.
They don’t care.I’m just going to jump in.
These guys were all just hanging outand I’m pretty sure these are in Undómiel’s
relatives because look whatthey’re doing with their heads like.
This is my Doberman right here.
So hanging out thenand breaking their own necks.
So sorry, you got to lookat some cute sea lion pictures.
Come on, they’re just kind of adorable.
OK, there we go.
So.
I get back.
Get back to where I can see things, OK?
So that was that was a field tripand I’m sorry, I’m going to try to just
Natalie says she’s referred to editing as
polishing shit, but she didn’tknow it was a real thing.
Yeah, apparently youreally can polish a turd.
There we go.So,
yeah.
So that is our first field trip,which I’m hoping was
a little bit more than just pleasesit and look at my vacation pictures.
But I wanted to pull out things that Ithought would be again, helpful.
So
yeah, that yeah,there’s totally, those sea lion
pics are completely meme-able.
You can, you can put a lotof captions on those.
So so yeah.
If you guys have questions or if you wantme to turn back and answer something.
And I saw that, you know, Alena and Jon,
I think we’re throwing some stuff intothe chat as we went, which I appreciate.
So, hey, Kyle, thanks for stopping by.
So, yeah.
So if you guys have questions.Absolutely.
Throw me throw me some stuff in the chat
and otherwise I’ll talk aboutwhat we’re going to do next time.
So next week we’re back on.
I mean, we’re still technicallyon our theme calendar.
It’s just that we have a fifth Tuesday.
So it’s a little special.Next next week,
we’re back on our regularly scheduledthe business of creativity.
So it’s a business career topic.
And we’re going to talk about the fearof success,
which is one of those things that soundsincredibly counterintuitive,
but I think is way more commonthan people actually talk about.
So
so, yeah, OK, good people and good things,
yeah, throw throwin questions if you got them.
So I am absolutely open to if you have
comments, observations on the fearof success or if you have questions or
something you would like meto address specifically about that.
Feel free to send that my direction.
I’ve got a bunch of notes already,
but I want to make sure thatit does what you want it to do.
So.
So let me know about that and then.
Well, what else do wehave going on in October?
Because I’ve forgotten what the next.
The next thing is,
oh, man, why do I have why do I do this?Hold on.
I have calendars.
They’ll tell me.
Mm hmm.
That’s right.How could I forget I wanted to talk about
the many uses of NaNoWriMowhat it is good for,
what it is not good for,and how to use it to your best advantage.
And so since working our way towardNovember, we’ll be doing that in October.
And then after that,our Learn with Me in October is
with Carla Hoch, who is a mixed martialartist and generally all around awesome.
And we’re going to talk about fight scenes
and fighting people and fighting,probably fighting zombies because it’s
October and, you know,I just fight all the things.
So if you have specific questions that you
want to bring to that,Carla helps writers with fight scenes.
So definitely take advantageof it. So awesome.
OK.
That’s really everything I’ve got, unlesswe just want to look at some more sea
lions, but if we havethings to do this evening.
So
thanks guys.
I honestly, I was pretty
I didn’t really know how this was goingto go because I really didn’t want to just
be like, hey,look at my vacation pictures.
Right?
So if you want to give me any feedback on,you know, was that a complete.
Was there anything useful for writing out
of this or was it just the picturesor was it just the pictures?
But that’s OK because itwas penguins, was it?
We could have used this timein a more productive way.
And here’s how I’m wide open to feedback.
This is our first fieldtrip we’ve ever done.
And tell me what you wouldlike that would help you.
So that’s it.
And then the next time will bethe fear of failure and self sabotage.
So there we go.Oh, hey, Adam, thank you.
All right.So again,
if you guys want to use your Amazon Prime
subscription to subscribe,I would love that.
I’ve also got a Ko-Fi, but I’mgoing to be here regardless.
So if you guys
aren’t able to contribute, that’s fine.
We’re going to just tell somebody
people here and then we’ll be back onto
our regularly scheduled businesschat next week.
So that is it.
Oh, Natalie’s putting out havewe talked about S’moregasbord yet?
Not really.I guess we could.
S’moregasbord is the
I had photos I put during the prep screen,but that doesn’t mean anything.
S’moregasbord just came out.
It’s the cookbook forover a hundred new s’more recipes.
It says one hundred and one on the cover.
But between you and me, we over deliver.
So Alena, who was herein the chat earlier, and
our friend Julie and I put out a
book of s’more recipes I guaranteeyou have not thought of.
And if you’re thinking s’mores are sosimple, you need a recipe for that
like you need a recipe for boiling water –Guys.
Buckle up.There’s good stuff in here.
Actually, let me see if I havethis if I can grab a photo of it.
OK, ok.
Yeah, because becausethe magic of the magic of.
Photo directories,so, yeah, this is a lot of fun anyway,
I would love to love for you guys to trysome of those and it’s basically our
thinking was it’s 2020and we need carbs, OK?
Or is there something you can do outside
so you can make a risk,mitigated party and have a good time.
So, yeah.
And poor Seeker in the chat had to be, hewas one of our taste testers because we
had to decide what recipesto include and it was a tough job.
He stepped up so.OK, awesome.
I’m glad it was.
I’m glad it confirmed someresearch things for you.
Mike, I appreciate that hearing that.That’s good.
Yeah.Because I’m definitely like
Viking sea travel.
Those people were insane
because they got some also some veryskilled navigation going on there.
OK, and.All right.
Oh, Grace wants to know how to makes’mores without a campfire.
OK, so we have
Alena and I have made s’mores I know in ourin a house over a woodburning fire.
I am morally opposed to the idea
maybe in the apocalypseperhaps we’ll discuss this.
But that’s not that’s nothow s’mores need to be done.
However, we have done s’mores overcandles inside and all sorts of things.
You know, you’re just it’s going to take
you a little bit longer thanif you have a big wood fire.
But it can be done.
And I’m pretty insistent that a roasted
fire-roasted s’more taste different thana internally steamed microwaved s’more.
However, if you’re up against the wall,
heat your marshmallowwhatever way is available to you.
But but I will throw out that, you know,making a s’more over a candle.
Absolutelyis possible.
And it’s, you know, a perfectly plausible s’more.
So.
OK,
all right.
Yeah.Alena’s mentioning in the chat she has roasted
s’mores on a, roasted marshmallowson a salad fork over a jar candle.
Yes.This can be done.
So.All right.
And and we have vegan s’mores and we have
s’mores with fruit on them,like there’s all kinds of s’more options.
All right.So.
Where are we going?OK, we get back to because I’m going
to get incredibly distractedby all those pretty pictures.
Oh, yes.So that’s it.
Thank you guys for being patient.
I know there was wonky stuffgoing on with the stream.
Again, we had a power outage shortly
before, and it sounds likeour local ISP is having trouble.
So I appreciate you guys sticking around.
We’ll try to be smoothflowing for next week.
So that is it.That’s all I’ve got.
So you guys take care and Iwill see you next Tuesday.
All right. Bye bye.
