Greg Skomel the Shark Man

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Have you ever heard of the Shark Man?White Shark

My first exposure to that title, Shark Man, was Thursday night. I was back on Cape Cod but not to go “Sharkin”. This time I was there to listen to a presentation by Dr. Greg Skomel aka The Shark Man! I’m not sure when I first heard of Dr. Skomel but by the time I saw him on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week his name was quite familiar to me. In fact when I was challenged to pick 5 people dead or alive, that I would like to spend an evening with, Dr. Skomel was on my list. The rest of my list were Neil Degrasse- Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, Seth Shostak, senior astronomer SETI institute, Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist, futurist, and last but not least Josh Gates,  cable TV host and adventurer. He also has a degree in archaeology so I guess I’m still sticking to the science theme.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to meet any of the other people on my list but I can tell you that they will have tough shoes to fill!

Living With White Sharks

Dr. Skomal’s talk was about living with white sharks, a very timely topic for Cape Cod.  Greg is assigned to the Martha’s Vineyard Research Station. Can we all say Jaws? I’d been told that he was very charismatic and it  was quickly clear that this was true. His spotter pilot was sitting in the same row as I was.  Before the evening even got started Greg came over to shake his hand and welcome him to his talk.  Once the presentation got underway there was quite a bit of good natured banter back and forth between them especially when Greg showed a clip of an “Air Jaws” right under his feet on the pulpit. You could hear the pilot’s voice telling him there was a shark right below and then wham! That got everyone’s attention! That was the way evening went. It was an intimate setting as there was only room for about 150 people. It was a full house. There were lots of oooh, ahhh and wows in between the more dry scientific stuff.

In Conclusion

Greg started the evening off by asking how many people had been to a presentation of his before and most of the room had been. I was one of the few newbies. By the end of the evening I could see why. I will definitely be  keeping my eye out for more opportunities to hear him speak. 

Gone “Sharkin”

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“Sharkin” on Cape Cod

Flash Back to Jaws (1975) when the fictional town of Amity on Martha’s Vineyard was terrorized by a great white shark.  Chief  Brody, marine biologist Hooper and shark hunter Quint took “Sharkin” to a new level as they pulled out all the stops to catch the murderous Great White. Shades of Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Anyway, last year Cape Cod had it’s first fatal shark attack in 82 years! Everyone was horrified and as this year arrived towns along the Cape struggled to find ways to protect vacationers when they entered the shark’s domain.

The Shark App

The Atlantic Great White Conservancy created a Shark App ( There’s an app for that) that alerts when a shark is sighted and lets you know where, which beaches are closed and for how long. My app had been blowing up and I was determined to see a white shark in its natural environment. Whale watch boats reported seeing sharks feeding on a whale carcass. Sharks were stealing fish right off the lines of guests on fishing charters. Was I around when these things were happening? Of course not. I couldn’t be that lucky. So I picked a day to take off from work to go to the Cape to look for sharks. I told everyone at work I was going “Sharkin”. Of course it hadn’t rained in a week but it did that day. 

The Atlantic Great White Conservancy

My app was strangely quiet. Either the sharks didn’t like the rain or  no one was at the beach to see them. My friend Nancy and I wound up in Chatham. We planned to go to the Fish Pier for lunch and watch the seals. On the way there we spotted the Atlantic Great White Conservancy. What a neat little museum. It was pretty crowded because no one wanted to go to the beach in the rain but even though we couldn’t turn around without bumping into someone we had fun. The last room was a virtual reality room where we donned  a headset and voila- we were swimming with sharks! And we didn’t even get wet!

 

 

Beachcomber Seal Tour

We wrapped up our Cape day by visiting the seals with Beachcomber Seal Tours. We didn’t see any sharks because the tour stayed in the inner harbor and so far the sharks haven’t ventured in. The channels and low water level seem to discourage them. But there were certainly enough seals for the sharks to have a hearty lunch if they wanted to drop by. The light misty drizzle changed to serious rain while we were on the water. The captain pulled out the disposable rain capes and pretty soon our boat looked like a convention of ghosts with the breeze flapping our ponchos. Our “Sharkin” day  didn’t yield any sharks but we had a good time anyway. 

Better Late Than Never

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Late is Better than Not At All

Hi Friends. I know I’ve been negligent in keeping up with my posts. To be completely honest I’ve just been tired. My energy has not bounced back since my hip surgery in December. Oh Don’t get me wrong, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Its wonderful to be pain free, at least on my left side. Now if I could just figure out what to do about the right knee and right hip I’d be ready for the Boston Marathon. Needless to say, with this lack of energy I haven’t been out with my camera or going on any “adventures”. It’s been enough to get me to work and home again every day.  But I managed  to roust myself enough this week to go thru my photos from 2018. And that’s what I plan to share today.

 

 

The Deer Did It

Lava Lake Glow

Kilauea Lava Lake Glow- 2018

Driving home from work on Wednesday I saw 3 deer playing in a field in Easton, and they were playing, not just grazing. Seeing them I felt a  little tug. My hand reached for the camera but it wasn’t there. It made me realize how far away from things I love I’ve gotten. The reason for my surgery wasn’t just to be pain free but to give me mobility to get out and do things. And I was squandering my chance. To get back on track I decided I needed to pick up  some of my old habits. Number one is to review the photos from the previous year and narrow it down to the top 10. 

2017 Was a very Good Year

The first thing I did was to start uploading my 2018 photos. When I did I happened to notice my 2017 choices. Oh my! They were going to be hard to beat. 2017 was a very good year for my photos. For good or bad I didn’t have a lot of photos from 2018 to wade through but that didn’t make the decisions any easier.  Here, in no particular order are my top ten choices from 2018. You can see them full size in a slide show at https://dustyroadsphotos.zenfolio.com/

2018 Photographer’s Choice

The Run-away Scooter

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Scooter Disaster

The scooter continued to refuse to go uphill at Busch Gardens. The situation remained unsafe as it would careen backward gaining speed every time it stalled out. We finally worked out a method to finish our visit. At the bottom of each hill I would get off and limp up to the summit while Joe pushed the scooter to the top. Then I would get on the scooter and ride it down the other side and along any level ground. At the next hill we’d repeat the process. We got to see Christmas Town and the lights but it was cold and this definitely put a damper on the evening.

The Next Day

In the morning I contacted the scooter company and we negotiated a change. They brought us 2 scooters and took away the defective one. It seems the braking mechanism that prevents the scooter from rolling backward was stripped on the old scooter and needed to be replaced.  By agreeing to keep our rental contract I was able to get a scooter for my sister to use. I have to give credit to the scooter company as they were very responsive to my complaint.

Time for the Main Event

Now that the scooter debacle had been dealt with it was time for the main event. We were heading to Colonial Williamsburg. This area is so loaded with history. In addition to Colonial Wiliamsburg there’s Jamestown and  Yorktown. Jamestown is home to the story of Captain John Smith and Pocahotas and Yorktown was the last major Battle of the Revolution.

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg was quiet, maybe because it was a weekday or maybe because it was cold. Even with the icy wind blowing re-enactors were playing their parts and always willing to chat. My favorites were the horse drawn carriages. Of course we had to take a ride. Not only was it fun it gave us a chance to warm up for a few minutes since we went in one of the enclosed carriages.

 

Over Hill and Dale

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The Hills of Busch Gardens

Last time we got together I told you we were warned about the steep hills at Busch Gardens. Well it was no understatement. A tram takes visitors from the parking area to the entrance. Its a very similar set up to Disney World. The Tram operator was very nice about muscling the scooter onto the train. He returned to help us take it off as well. So far so good.

Christmas Town

Once we went through security we headed down Main St in Christmas town. It was just beginning to get dark but even if the lights weren’t fully on display there were other lovely decorations.  One of my favorite decorations was the clock tower. I loved the way that was decked out.It was simple but elegant!

 

The Hills are Real

Leaving Main Street behind we began to wander the rest of the park. It wasn’t long before we came to the first hill. And it was a hill. Unlike the gradual slope one might expect in an amusement park where everyone is walking this little hill was quite steep. I pointed my scooter at the hill and started up.

About half way to the top the scooter began to lose power. Then it quit entirely. If that was all it would have been no problem. We could have just hopped off and pushed it the rest of the way but that’s not what happened. No! That scooter started rolling backward down the hill gaining speed as it went. It almost tipped over before I managed to get off and stop it. Other visitors all came running to give me a hand. I was so embarrassed. I thought I’d done something wrong!

Let’s try this again

We pushed the scooter to the top of the hill, turned it back on and went on our way. We wound our way past Pompeii’s wall of lights and through the polar bears. This was all pretty flat but then it was time to tackle another hill. Even being prepared did not stop it from happening again.  By now I was getting very skittish. Joe said he would drive it up the next hill so we continued on. This was certainly putting a damper on our adventure…at least for me.