Seeing Manatees had been on my bucket list for many years and I finally got to be in Florida at the right time, smack middle of winter, when the water is cold and Manatees migrate to Crystal River which is warmer. Going for the 06:00 trip was a bit too extreme with a 2H drive from Orlando and a 3h time difference (that would have made getting up at midnight California time), so the 11:00 tour was more reasonable and that turned out to be a good choice as the early morning weather had thunderstorms and lightening, which definitely impacted the experience for those who went early (especially as boats are not allowed out while lightening is happening).
Since we arrived a bit early, went to check out the national park:
thankfully the water was pretty clear
baby getting milk from mommy
There are many companies that offer tours, and they are not all as good. Having the right guide and a company that gets you there hopefully when all the other boats are not there, does matter.
In my case I was also interested in diving while I was there, so that steered me towards Bird's Underwater and that was a great choice: they were professional, definitely did the best to optimize our experience and in my case, I was lucky enough to be put on a 3rd boat with no one else since the other boats were full. Kudos to Bird's underwater for caring about our experience and not just shoving us onto another full boat to save themselves a bit.
pre-trip briefing
out expert guide
everyone was thrown in the water in groups, it was crowded when we arrived
Time to get in the water. I was a bit worried that the water would be too cold (21C), especially as they only offered a 3mm wetsuit, which I knew was way insufficient for diving, but turns out when swimming a lot back and forth at the surface, I didn't get cold and did not need to put the 2nd wetsuit I had requested just in case (and for the dive, later):
let's go :)
water was not clear unfortunately
The few I saw early were quick and not very clear water:
Most of the time in the water was ok but not great. The manatees were not that interested in interacting (which is normal, they are not here for our amusement :) ), and the water was so murky in places, that if one was by my feet, I could hardly see it. But around the end, the other groups had left, and I got super lucky with a baby that was curious and playful:
Another year at Enchanted Xmas in San Jose, well done, plenty of LEDs again. If you put aside the pretty ridiculous price of parking or food and drinks onsite (but eh, if people are still coming, they are charging what the market will bear, I guess), the lights are beautiful indeed:
Vasona Park did a great job with decorating the park. It was nice to visit but tedious to get in (via a long detour to get people in a very long line to get in, despite timed tickets):
Back to see Neil deGrasse Tyson for a 3rd time, this time for part 2 of "An Astrophysicist Goes To The Movies". It ws a fun evening as any evening would him, would be, although I found this specific talk a little weaker than the first one, probably because he had to find other material that he hand't already used in the first talk, but that said there were still plenty of fun bits, and as I said, any time with him is a fun time :)
he still has a few books I should read :)
the list of movies for his 2nd talk
those doors were indeed portals to a 4th dimension we can't see as 3 dimensional beings
wizard of oz was wrong all along!
I never caught that one either
parsecs are a unit of distance, they can't be used for speed or time (BTW a parsec is 3.6 light years as I found out)
Gravity: haha, that's an easy one. It had lots of good physics, but also some glaring holes
Oh no, don't let him go! :)
As a bonus, he gave he attendees a hall pass for the next day if they were late :)
And I had no idea he was on zoolander 2 :)
It was another very fun night, very quick video summary:
Maker Faire came back but it's not really in the bay area anymore, Mare Island is honestly closer to Sacramento than it is from the South Bay. It's a bad location in my opinion, and I hope they come back to something more central to the bay, but we'll see.
That said I was driving back from Tahoe, so that remote location was on the way home and stopping there wasn't terrible. We arrived almost at opening time, but with offsite parking and bussing in, it did burn about 30mn. not ideal but we arrived in eventually:
Finally at the entrance:
It was nice to be in time for Adam Savage from mythbusters:
still has the passion
Fun to see coke and mentos again too:
The dark room was a fun time:
The LED Piano was great to see again:
I also loved the cuttlefish art car from burning man:
Plenty of other expos:
cool hat
electromage
oh my, I had one of those when I grew up
oh, I need one of those
how does it even? :)
cool idea :)
For some reason they also had cars:
This was fun enough, but the new location is not great, I hope they change it back to the middle of the bay area, I don't care if it has to cost more as a result.
Illuminarium Las Vegas is next door to Area15, and being there a little bit early for the Dreamstate Area15 show I had just enough time to see the show, which is a nice space movie projected on a lot of walls. Cool place:
This was randomly part of the Psyrri walk in Athens, and a hillarious find. HAd to stop and enjoy the place for a little while. They really went all out, it was both impressive and fun:
The Texas Eclipse Festival did not end as planned, organizers cancelled
the event for weather risk reasons, although in the end the weather was
so much better than forecast (forecast said we'd never see the sun at
all and it would rain).
When I heard about the cancellation on a thread fo bar one of my 2 cell
phones,while barely awake, I managed to tear up camp and start driving
out in just 15mn and got out of the festival in just over 45mn, before
traffic got really bad. I then realized I had just enough time to drive
my friend Marc Antoine's ranch 50mn away, and the fact that 2 lane roads
in TX have 70mph speed limits, sure helped. I got to his place 30mn
before totality.
It did not rain, and the sun came out just at the right time for the
eclipse and went hiding in the clouds soon after. Timing was perfect.
And I happened to capture some solar flares and mercury with my not so
great handheld camera, so I'm happy :)
When I got out of the festival, partial eclipse hadn't started yet, but the sun was barely visible
Marc sent me the GPS location of his ranch, and GPS said I could barely make it and thankfully the roads were near empty
I pulled over a few times when the sun was visible for barely a minute
Most of the time, it was fully overcast, as per the forecast
but the sun came back out a few times
And in barely 50mn I made it to Marc's ranch and got to meet his family. We had just seen one another 2 weeks prior at beyond wonderland
all ready
fun thing is you can see a partial eclipse without glasses
getting there, so close
and yes!
even a decent shot frmo my cell
it got dark :)
I caught some sun flares on this one
on lower right, I think I you can see mercury. Einstein used it the lensing effect of gravity in his theory of general relativity
my best lucky shot!
and way too soon, it was over already :)
and the sun soon went to hide under clouds again, perfect timing!
The eclipse festival didn't end well, but the eclipse itself went way beyond expectations!
Video: