Happy Birthday!

Phil turned 61 today. Or maybe it was yesterday. Or tomorrow? Being on the other side of the international dateline he celebrated it one day when it was March 2 here, and the next day when it was March 2 back home. Kind of makes up for missing a day aboard the ship last month. Here’s the birthday boy with a slice of fresh carrot cake and his pile of presents.

Cloudy and occasional drizzle, so today was the day for caves. Organ cave, one of the Abby caves, has got to be one of all time favorite caves in the world. Totally non-commercial, you
really needed to know where it was to find it. Rock scramble down to the entrance, and then follow a little stream forever. A few side passages, but the stream only went one way, so it was
impossible to get lost. Most of the galleries were 6 to 30 meters high, a few we had to duck a little. The stream itself varied from ankle to waist deep, and CHILLY! Not as many stalagmites
and stalactites as some, but the other rock formations more than made up for it. We didn’t bring a tripod, so the only pictures worth showing are with flash which washes out the colors, so use your imagination.







































The second cave we went to, Waipo, was a little more well known, but actually not as interesting. More glowworms, but not as fun rocks. If you look close at the left picture below you can see a grey shape horizontally across the silk threads. This is the glowworm, with his glowy part on the right. It secretes the threads in some manner, don’t know how or why. The other picture is a gecko that we just happened to see, not in the cave.