the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

people! need your help identifying something for an article. it's white and smooth, but it's very small (maybe 2-3 inches long max and just a little wider than a strand of hair), and lives in anemones. it has an eye and mouth, it seems. the divemaster said it's a ghost eel pipefish, but i don't think so. it's definitely not a ghost pipefish =P i've attached some photos to help. do you know what it is? hope so! thanks in advance! oh and could you please help me identify these gobies? is it true that they're rare?

September 12, 2006. Was supposed to dive at Apo, but it was too late to make arrangements, so we decided to go Dauin instead. First time to dive in a black/gray sand setting, and what a great experience it was! We went down maximum 15 feet because the currents were really, really strong, but in exchange, we saw these jacks schooling at that depth (usually they're found in open sea). You'll notice that my shot is pretty unsteady--that's the current dragging me along, and you'll see in the video how fast it is.

September 10, 2006. One of the rare occasions I used my underwater camera on video mode. I've always loved looking at schools of fusilier, and here's a perfect example why.

September 11 and 12, 2006. I'm skipping a couple of trips, dives and melodramatic events in my life to upload this album of my visit to Dumaguete via Lilo-an, Santander, Cebu and my amazing dives in two sanctuaries in Dauin to give you (and me) a glimpse of my future home and lifestyle. Just a selection of the most interesting things I saw on the trip. I'm so excited already! PS my new website header (the one you see above) is a picture from the masaplod norte sanctuary in dauin. super strong currents! was hardly moving even though i was finning like crazy. but perfect visibility. also the turtles up there i cut out from a picture of an anemone that you will see below =)

Description: THE WASTE TRADING MARKETS! Sept 8 (and every first Friday of the month) Gold Crest Car Park, Ayala Ctr (along Arnaiz Ave. Makati) Sept 22 (and every third Friday of the month) Alabang Town Center (Alabang - Zapote Rd) These Waste Markets aim to make recycling convenient and accessible, especially for those who frequent commercial shopping areas, and also to show that we all CAN make recycling a habit! Ingredients: Trade scrap paper for new (office/ mimeo) paper! Trade used ink cartridges for new! Sell your electronic waste (junk computers) and old /broken appliances! Sell your used lead acid batteries! Redeem the following for cash: PET plastic bottles and other plastics, aluminum/tin cans, scrap glass. Drop off points also provided for junk cellphones, cellphone batteries, styrofoam... Directions: Please help spread the word and forward this announcement to friends, family and colleagues. For more information, contact Nancy Pilien, Philippine Business for the Environment ...

so we finally arrived in new york last night, at about 8pm. while waiting for conching to come out from being interviewed about her finacee visa, i sat on the baggage carousel checking for a signal. there were two, but neither was good for surfing. my mother's place has a good connection in one room, so i checked and answered my mail early this morning before we left for connecticut because i was afraid i'd be offline the whole time i'd be here. but wonder of wonders! got home at around midnight tonight after playing progressive rummy with my aunts and cousin and brother, and when i turned my laptop on---11 Mbps from an unknown source! here, in the middle of nowhere! really need to be working, though. the silence here is deafening (the house is right beside the thames river), so i had planned on finishing up some articles i owe before going back to busy new york and going on my other trips. but with ths connection here...uh oh. PS imagine my glee upon discovering that ...

before anyone accuses me of being an internet addict, i'm admitting it now, for everyone to know. i'm at the incheon airport now in seoul waiting for our flight to new york and i found SIX wi-fi networks at this particular hallway post alone! before i left davao, i had taken to driving around with my father searching for wi-fi connections late at night. it gives me pure joy to discover wireless networks practically everywhere now in the city, even on the highways! i once spent 14 hours (with just an hour's break in between to change venues), starting at 4pm, just surfing. some people, drink, smoke or do drugs. i wi-fi. and here is a picture of me that conching took just now =P

September 10, 2006. so i insisted on bringing josrique, who had just gotten his open water diving license in davao , on this trip so he could see more of cebu and get to cross to dumaguete as well. we'd just come from diving in mactan, and were promised two dives the day after courtesy of club fort med and pacific cebu resort so i could write about boljoon's underwater attractions. we knew we would be diving with some japanese, but we didn't know the pair were sisters until we were suiting up. took them on a tour of boljoon's historic church after the dives--their first time inside a catholic church, and their first time on a tricycle =) afterwards exchanged japanese and tagalog phrases over dinner: "onaka ipai" = "busog" and "watashiwa anataga s'ki" = "gusto kita". food and love--perfect dinner converstaion, don't you think? Open Water Diver status: Josrique - 10 days Ane Yumiko - 4 years Ate Jeneen - 5 years Namiko - 6 ...

September 9 & 10, 2006. For some strange reason, I found myself exactly one year later on the road southeast again to the picturesque town of Boljoon . But while I had only solitude, dread, and anticipation as companions then, this time I had my brother Josrique along, as well as Oliver, marketing manager of Club Fort Med, which had invited me to write about their resort. Same moon, same sea, but on a much lighter note this time.

...after seven years of roaming the world in different directions, all five of us found some common free time for six days last August to try each other on again for size.

August 26, 2006 - Marissa 3 and Diaz Wall, Off Samal Island. It was Jo's graduation dive for his Open Water Diver certification, and Papa's birthday the next day, so all three of us showed up at the dive shop again to get more entries for our dive log and have Papa try diving for the first time. Finally saw the rare pygmy seahorses that I didn't get to see last time , plus some other micro stuff. Of course, with all my focus on getting good macro shots of the micro stuff, I got separated from the others with almost no air and practically non-existent visibility at nearly a hundred feet. Fortunately, I wasn't too high on nitrogen to remember how to ascend properly (didn't remember the safety stop, though, because didn't have a watch). At the surface, I discovered the others weren't too far off, after all. All's well that ends well =P BUt definitely need to be less autistic in photography next time. After that, I started memorizing the taxonomy of all the...

the greenie patch by Jeneen R. Garcia to be published September 2006     Last time we talked about how RECYCLING can help prevent garbage from piling up in landfills. With chemicals and machines, recycling turns old stuff into something brand new.   Today, let’s find out Mother Nature’s own recipe for recycling organic wastes into fertilizer. You’ll discover it’s something each of us can do. Are you ready?   INGREDIENTS Brown Stuff (dry waste-- twigs, dead leaves, paper, sawdust, eggshells) Green Stuff (wet, fresh waste-- grass clippings, tea bags, fruit and vegetable scraps) Soil Water Air   INSTRUCTIONS 1) Dig a hole in the ground or get a large container. This will be your compost bin. 2) Put a layer of brown stuff (about six inches). Brown stuff are rich in carbon. 3) Put a layer of green stuff (a little less than the brown stuff). Green stuff are rich in nitrogen. 4) Sprinkle each layer with water. Put a thin layer of soil. Mix everything together to let in...

the greenie patch by Jeneen R. Garcia published August 2006     Hello, kids! By now, your heads are probably full of all sorts of stuff taught to you by your teacher. Hmm...so do you still remember Teacher Earth and the 3R’s?   Right! The 3R’s are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle--three easy ways we can help keep our planet clean and healthy. Last month we talked about how to Reduce and Reuse. So this time, let’s talk about how to Recycle.   If you check the dictionary, Recycle means transforming trash by using chemicals or machines so that it can be used again. When newspapers are torn up and mixed with chemicals, they can be made into newspapers again. When used plastic bags are fed into a machine, they can be turned into plastic chairs.   Amazing, isn’t it? When we recycle, we get something brand new out of old stuff. Not only that, we keep the old stuff from going into the landfill as garbage. But recycling usually needs big machines and chemicals. Since we don’t ...