Birds Island-Part Four [The Shark]

So we continued our nature tour towards the shore. Our nature expert Robin showed us a marking on the sand and told us that there were green turtle eggs buried there. We found an abandoned Noody chick screaming on the shore, must have fallen from a nearby tree. We left it there; nature should take its course. Then we found beautiful tropic bird nests among caves created by tree roots. I was told that papaya milk is a tested remedy to cure stings by sea urchins.It relives the pain and removes the stings. If you don’t know what’s a sea urchin is “you’ll know when you got stung by one”. Once again we walked towards the huge bird colony which never fails to amaze. Sun was setting beautifully over the horizon, I took some pictures. When we were returning we were lucky to see a white Tern feeding its baby. It was standing on the branch it hatched, they don’t build nests remember? I took some pictures but it was somewhat blurred, bad light, could have been a beautiful picture. We returned home tired, desperately needing a sleep. We postponed our plan to go around the island, promised our selves to go next morning. Bird cries never cease during the night, it was a lullaby to me (not for other guys), I quickly fall a sleep

Abondened ?, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Sunset in Birds island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Asmin woke me up next morning, complained me of not being able to sleep. So we set our journey around the island along the coastline, everything was dimly lit by the emerging sun. Sky at the far end of the island was swarming with birds. I managed to take beautiful shots but I won’t post it with this post, later. The birds were enjoying the fresh winds from the sea, beautiful White Terns were flying at the same spot against the wind few feet’s above the ground, must be doing it for enjoyment (Pictures Later). We manage to see magnificent Fregate (pirate) birds perched on top of tall trees. Their wings span could reach 8fts (1.2m), frigate birds land only to sleep or tend the nest. It only second to the biggest bird Albatross. I heard that they steal fishes from other birds as a living. One more thing, this huge bird weighs only about 1.5-1.8 Kgs. It took us about one hour to go around the island.

tropic birds, originally uploaded by poojitha.

birds at dusk, originally uploaded by poojitha.

It was our last day on the island so we hurried to have another snorkeling session. This time the tide was not that low, lots of big fishes. I saw some people at the far end of the coral reef where the waves break, I swam towards them. I was following a group of beautiful parrot fishes, suddenly, I saw a shark, swimming 10 feet’s away and vanishing in to the blue ocean. It was a black tipped shark, not a man eating type (according to the books). I couldn’t tell exactly how big it was, because I was wearing goggles which magnify every thing around me, it must be a small one, big sharks rarely ventures in to the coral reefs. I tried to concentrate on a beautiful Angle fish hiding under a rock, the biggest I have ever seen, but I was bit restless, ‘you saw a shark, you saw a shark’ other guy in my mind yelled. I started looking around, ‘it’s only 6fts of water’ I thought, ‘enough for a 18 footer’ the other guy yelled,’ they don’t eat humans’ I thought,’ that’s what the book says’ he said,’ I’m not that unlucky’ I thought,’ that’s what everybody thought’ he said,’ ‘Enough snorkeling’ I thought, ‘good idea’ he said. Some times I really hate the other guy in my mind.

After the lunch we all gathered near the runaway waiting for the plane. The plane landed, it was time to leave, Island manager called us in to the plane, nobody responded, ‘you don’t want to leave?’ he asked, ‘Noooo’ everybody yelled.

Birds Island-Part Three [Esmeralda]

Next day morning we were determined to go for snorkeling and kayaking. After having the breakfast we reached the shore with our goggles, flippers and oars. We dragged the kayak to the sea; both of us sat on each side facing each other and started rowing. The boat started moving forward a little bit, then it started going in circles. We started rowing relentlessly to make the boat go strait, which in tern made it rotate on the spot like a spin. We were breathless and laughing, luckily nobody was around. We knew we were doing something wrong, rowing boats not that easy after all. Finally some how we manage to synchronize our rowing a little bit, which made the boat go slowly towards our destination, not for long, with slightest mistake it would start going in circles. After circling many times towards the destination, we stopped to rest, I looked back to find out that we have barely moved 20 meters. Somehow we managed to learn the process of moving the boat and steering it, not perfectly though. So we rowed the boat over the corals back & forth, and then took our wives as well.

Bird island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Kayaking, originally uploaded by poojitha.

It was low tide, very low indeed perfect for snorkeling. You never get enough of snorkeling, every meter you go forward you find a new fish to observe .Good thing was that there were no sea Urchins to be found which made my mind very relaxed. After countless swims and seeing hundreds of fishes we were very hungry. We returned to our cottage after lunch to take a nap. I woke up at around 4pm and hurried towards the restaurant to meet up with the nature expert on the island, who promised us a nature tour.

Birds over the sea, originally uploaded by poojitha.

White tern egg, originally uploaded by poojitha.

On our nature tour our first stop was a white tern perched on a branch. It was very still, the guy showed us the reason for that, it was holding an egg in between its legs, amazing feat. White terns never build nests, they lay eggs on a branch, the male and female birds take turns to sit on it (I didn’t see the transaction must be interesting) .Then we were escorted towards some noody nests, actually there were 2 species of noodies sharing the same space lesser and higher, bit difficult to identify, lesser noodies are small in size, with pointed beaks, and darker in color.

Esmeralda, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Esmeralda, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Next stop was Esmeralda, star attraction of the island. Born in 1771 July 1st, she is 236 years old, a living museum, could be the oldest tortoise of this kind alive in the whole world(more than 470 kg). The nature expert revealed us another interesting fact, Esmaralda is not SHE, actually it’s a HE, a male, wrongly named by someone. Living 236 years with a women’s name, not easy, I wouldn’t survive 50 years. “To identify a male tortoise is not that hard” nature expert said. If you look at the rear end of the tortoise shell, its easy, If the shell touches the ground that’s the male (see the picture of Esmeralda with white lady).If rear end of the shell is short that’s female. You could say that, tortoise ladies wear short skirts. There is another way; top of the shells of a male has more pointed scales than female. Female shell is much smoother than the male.

Birds Island-Part Four [The Shark]

esmaralda, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Birds, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Birds Island-Part Two [The Colony]

Bird Island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

CLOSE TO BIRDS, originally uploaded by poojitha.

There were so many birds nest to be seen, I saw some beautiful White Terns perched glamorously on tree tops, to me they always looked like dolls , eyes painted with black ink , head bit out of proportion , heavenly white body. They are most beautiful when they spread their wings. Finally I managed to find a higher Noody chick hiding near a bush, waiting for its mother to bring food; I gently took it to my hand to take a picture. These birds stay with their parents for 3 years until they find food on their own.

Sooty Terns, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Noody Chick, originally uploaded by poojitha.

I found a bird colony marked on the map and walked towards it, I could realize the size of it even from a distant, that part of the sky was totally dotted by a bird called Sooty Terns. When I reached the colony I found that my road was temporarily blocked by a group of Sooty Terns. Sound of them was so immense that it was difficult to call some one 2 meters away, later I found out that there were about 2 million birds, 2 million birds crying at once , can you believe. We were speech less. Since it was not nesting season we decided to walk through the colony. They were flying madly around us, screaming. Our vision blurred by their fluttering wings, they could have killed me within one minute if they were territorial (God bless them, they were not). I have never seen such a gathering of living things in my life. These birds only comes to land to lay eggs, young spends 4 years at sea constantly flying, to return only to breed.

Bird Colony, originally uploaded by poojitha.

bird colony, originally uploaded by poojitha.

That night we returned to our cottage with hearts full of excitement. Then my friend Asmin called me from the other cottage, he was holding a beautiful White Tern, it has sneaked in to his room when we were out .I was bit afraid to hold this delicate bird in my hands, fearing any damage to its wings. Then we walked back to the restaurant in the dark to have our dinner. After dinner we walked back to the beach in search of a green turtle, they often come to this shore to lay 150-200 eggs. We walked about 1 km along the beach with no luck, we sat on the beach, waves crashing at our feet, every thing was eliminated with starlight, there were no city lights night sky was very clear with billions of stars, I saw more stars than usual. We saw quite a number of shooting stars as well, I looked at some stars and wondered if beings like me were gazing at my little star the same way I did, wondering the same thing.

Birds Island-Part Three [Esmeralda]

Bird Colony, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Birds Island-Part One [Arrival]

Getting on the plane, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Flying Low, originally uploaded by poojitha.

We packed our bags to get ready to take the flight to Bids Island, a remote island in Seychelles, only accessible by air, one of the most magnificent places on earth. After reaching the air port by taxi, we were waiting eagerly to get on to the plane. It was a small plane, twin engine Otter .I was bit nervous because it was my first flight on such a small plane. There were about 15 people crammed in that small space, all of them excited in reaching the island. The plane was so small; I could even see the pilots adjusting the equipments. The flight took of without any major hassle, bit noisy though.

Birds Island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

I was sitting near the window, just under the wings. We flew over many beautiful islands like Praslin, La digue and Dennis. I managed to capture some of those in my camera. We were flying at a low altitude, at about 6000 fts. I even saw the shadow of our plane crossing the blue ocean. After half an hour we were circling our destination, The Birds Island. I could see the air strip on one side of the island and it was covered with grass. I wondered if it was raining, water on grass makes it slippery, and hoped the pilot knew their job. Landing was bit scary, big thud, skid and a slight wobble which made me think “it’s all over”. Luckily it didn’t happen.

Nesting Lesser Noody, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Staff was very welcoming and friendly, after rather unwelcoming welcoming drink they gave us a small lecture of how things works on that island. First thing we heard was that there were no locks for the doors or windows of those cottages, not necessary for an island of this size , and it adds up to the uniqueness of this hotel as well. Next thing we learned was that there was no lights out side the hotel, which means we needed a torch to walk to the restaurant to have our dinner. Then we were given our room numbers and torches, we walked towards our cottage, it was amazing to see that most of the trees were fully covered with bird nests, there were no space left. Some birds even lay eggs on the ground since there were no trees left to build a nest.

Birds island Cottage, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Common noody nest, originally uploaded by poojitha.

I reached my cottage to find that it’s being already taken by few permanent residents on this island, some Common Noodies. One thing I noticed here was the friendliness of the birds towards humans. You can get really close to them, not a privilege expected of birds in other parts of the world. I found one bird sitting on its egg, under a coconut tree, right in front of my cottage. I heard that these birds can out live 50 years and always return to the same spot to lay eggs, remarkable memory. So this bird will be laying its egg under the same coconut tree next year.

Birds Island-Part Two [The Colony]

Birds Island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

White Tern, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Drawning Islands

Seychelles Granatics islands, originally uploaded by poojitha.

I heard this news in BBC about Maldives islands flooding because of unusual hight tides.Experts warn this could be a result of global warming.In case you haven't visited beautiful Maldives,don't be late, you may have only few years before it disappears from the face of the world, 80% of the nation's 1,200 islands are less than a meter above sea level.News says that one large populated island is completely covered by sea water.We knew this could happen many years before but nobody wanted to act,act now because its now or never.

I'm planing to visit an island in Seychelles called Birds Island tomorrow (If its not under water,these days you never know),its completely isolated from the world.Millions of migratory birds and turtle comes to lay their eggs ,millions remember,going to have a fantastic time over their.Hope to share the story with you when i'm back.Until then ,enjoy this picture, converted it to sepia to give it an old look.If we don't start preserving nature,we may have only pictures like this to admire in the near future.

Lot of blue,some white & a pinch of green

Island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

I'm proud of this picture,It took lots of patience,but finally managed to capture it perfectly.It Looks beautiful if you view it larger.What i admire in this picture is that the whole picture is in shades of blue & white.Did you notice the bluish shadow of the larger island at the horizon?

Relativity in Zen Buddhism

Zen frog

A wise Zen frog was explaining to the younger frogs the balance of nature:” Do you see how that fly eats a gnat? And now (with a bite) I eat the fly. It is all part of the great cheme of things.” Isn’t it bad to kill in order to live?" asked the thoughtful frog.” It depends . . ." answered the wise frog just as a snake swallowed the Zen frog in one chomp before the frog finished his sentence.” Depends on what?" shouted the students.
"Depends on whether you're looking at things from the inside or outside," came the muffled response from inside the snake.

Source: Zen Fables for Today

The other side

One day a young Buddhist on his journey home, came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, "Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river?" The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, "My son, you are on the other side."

Source: A Lighter Side of Buddhism

You are not a fish

One day Chuang Tzu and a friend were walking by a river. "Look at the fish swimming about," said Chuang Tzu, "They are really enjoying themselves." "You are not a fish," replied the friend, "So you can't truly know that they are enjoying themselves." "You are not me," said Chuang Tzu. "So how do you know that I do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves?"

Source: Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors

Calm Sea & The Book Of Life

calm sea, originally uploaded by poojitha.

I took this picture of the sea while I was on the boat trip; it looks like a swimming pool, right. This area is covered with coral reefs, a calm sea could be a good situation for a boat rider like me, it has become a considerable threat to the corals bio-diversity recently, to whom we should blame this on? Global warming, because of Global warming sea temperatures has been increasing dramatically. A calm sea is a supportive factor in increase the temperature. Scientists say that a coral reef could be easily damaged by increase of temperature from 1-2 degrees, and it has happened before in Seychelles, many beautiful coral reefs were severely damaged around 2002.Hope it doesn’t happen this time.

Recently scientist started compiling a book of life, a database to collect information of all the animals in the world. Biologists estimate that there could be anywhere between five and 100 million species on the planet, and the project is going to cost 100 million dollars and 10 years to complete. The good thing is that Encyclopedia of Life will be available to anybody through the internet. If you want to see some demo pages, the web address is www.eol.org. In ten years at least we will be able to find out how many species we have lost for ever.

And i have changed few things in my blog.Now you'll be able to find a favicon in front of the web address displayed on the address bar ,a small picture which you could drag & drop on to your browsers bookmarks tools bar to create a book mark.

Inspired By Stephen Hawking

During the times when I was studying in Bangalore University, I read about this great scientist called Stephen Hawking in the news paper, a theoretical physicist, he was visiting India for a speech. Hawking is severely disabled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS (a type of motor neurone disease. From what I knew he could only move few fingers of his hand and his facial muscles, he talked using a computer specially designed to identify his finger and facial muscle movements. Then, I was able to buy his famous book called “A Brief history Of Time” on the streets of Bangalore, probably a pirated copy. I read it like I was reading the world’s best science fiction. I was fascinated by the way he described complicated theories of physics in a simple manner; even a person with a limited knowledge of physics could understand most of it. When asked about his objectives, Hawking told Robert Deltete of Zygon in a 1995 interview, "My goal is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” Nowadays he’s regarded as the modern Einstein. If you are interested in reading his popular books, here is the list.

• A Brief History of Time
• Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays
• The Universe in a Nutshell
• On The Shoulders of Giants. The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy
• A Briefer History of Time

If you want to read his fascinating lectures given in different occasions please visit Stephen Hawkings official website.

Apart from inspiring people from his ground breaking theories, recently he expressed his eagerness of visiting the space, as a preparation for that he took a zero gravity flight onboard a specially modified plane ,which gave him 25 seconds of weightlessness .After finishing his journey his first words were “Space ,here I come”. I always think of him as a role model for any one who needs to improve his positive attitudes towards life. If a person with that type of a disability could be the greatest scientist on earth, and probably visit space in the future ,what could stop you from achieving your dreams?

The Beach

Today we were invited by some of my friends to go to the beach called Port Launay.We prepared some food and waited near our house until our transport arrives. Since there were many people,they have arranged a tipper; the tippers trailer was open so we had to sit on the floor to avoid toppling over, standing on it was too dangerous, it was a mountainous road. But the ride was very pleasant, luckily there was no rain and the sun was mild on us. Our first stop was the view point near our house, gives breathtaking panorama of nearby islands. It never failed to amaze me even though I see it every day.

View Point, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Trailer, originally uploaded by poojitha.

I always liked riding on this road, sitting on an open trailer was the best, landscape was constantly changing, huge trees were arched over the road, creepers falling from them barely touched top of the vehicles, mountain tops were clearly visible, we saw a magnificent waterfall falling down from on of the highest mountains in Seychelles, probably created by overnight rainfall.

On the way, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Finally reached the beach, tide was very low, perfect, there were no waves, so decided to play some throw bowling, well, rules were simple, there were two teams both teams tries to keep the ball with them as much as they can. It was really fun, specially when fighting for the ball, once I was almost within on inch of the ball but was unable to touch it because some one was dragging me down by my waist, made me gulp lots of water in the process of escaping, I mean salt water, good for health I hope, lots of minerals.

After that we decided to watch corals, water was really low, could even see fish without diving. We could spot lots of beautiful fishes, hoped if I had an underwater camera. Some coral formations were amazing, must have taken millions of years to grow up to that height and size. There was this small fish which was so blue like a neon bulb ,I followed it to find a school of them covering a barrel shape coral reef which reminded me of a Christmas tree.

Beach, originally uploaded by poojitha.

One thing about watching corals is that you never have enough since you always find something new to observe, the other thing is that you should be very careful because there are creatures that could sting you if you step on them (Wear Flippers). One of my friends, Asmin, was not so lucky. He stepped on one of those thorny creatures to finds several poisonous arrows in his foot, poor guy. Two remedies were suggested by the locals, burning the area with a flame & applying Vinegar on the wound. We did both and he was still in pain.I suppose flame must be to neutralize poison and vinegar to dissolve calcium carbonate thorns.

Boat Trip To A Dream Island

It was a beautiful day; sky was blue with no clouds to be seen, perfect day to go on a boat trip to visit some islands .I hastily picked up my stuff and walked down the hill to the Plaisance junction to catch a bus to town because I missed my bus, busses are very rare on this route, that’s another story. However, I was the first to reach the port, eventually others came one by one except the boat. There were several boats anchored near the port and we were curious in spotting the boat that we would travel. The agent has promised a new boat with glass bottom, so we could watch the corals on the way, but unknown to us boat owner has changed the boat. He called us to say that the new boats name was “Mercy”.

I jokingly pointed at the oldest boat which looked like a floating bathtub and asked Asmin (The guy who arranged the trip) “is that the boat?’ and he laughed. It was the funniest boat I have ever seen, I wondered how it could face a storm at sea, forget a storm, by the looks of it, a large wave could wreck it easily. The boat looked so old that I wondered if it was stolen from a museum.Anyway, some one spotted the boat “Mercy”. When Asmin showed me the boat I couldn’t believe my eyes, neither could he because the old boat we were joking about was the “Mercy”.

Mercy, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Then we were not sure of whether to continue the trip or not. I climbed aboard and asked the “Captain” how many it could carry at a time, mentioning that we have 25 people, “All of them” he replied, I thanked god for making me being able to swim. Eventually, everybody made up their minds and climbed aboard. ”Captain” started the engine, some one mentioned something about Titanic and I decided to stay out side the boat holding a railing, that was safe, I could easily jump in to the sea. Mercy had a unique “Chuk,chuk” sound and was traveling dead slow, surely it was never made for transporting people, we had to take lot of precautions in balancing the boat.

So we “chuck, chucked “to the first island called “Surf”. To land on the island we had to transfer in to smaller motor boats since Mercys keel was too deep for the corals. We quickly change our clothes and started snorkeling, there were many fish. Then we had our lunch and started relaxing, watching the scenery. The sea was very calm and beautiful. Some of the guys mentioned exploring the jungle and we agreed, thick foliage and huge boulders prevented us from venturing further in to the jungle.

motor boat, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Round Island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

Captain called us to say that its time to visit the other Island, we climbed aboard eagerly. This time we “Chuck, Chucked” to an island called “Round”, the guy took considerable time to reach it because we had to go around the island to avoid crashing with corals. To me it was a cute island, very small in size and lives up to its name. Island was covered with thick vegetation. We found an abandoned building there with a great view of the island called “St Ann”. We started walking along a small path through the jungle, heard a cry of an Owl but couldn’t spot it. We were surprised to find that the path we took ended at the same place we started, not a miracle though; the path was set around the island.

Me At Round Island, originally uploaded by poojitha.

While returning back to Mahe I was not that lucky. I was sent down to the compartment area to balance out the boat since everybody wanted to come out. All the way back I was thinking every possible action I could take in an event of capsizing .I was glad that I had the mercy of “Mercy”.

On Bord Merci2, originally uploaded by poojitha.