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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • Amber Mountain National Park, a prominent volcanic massif in the north of the country, is the oldest protected area in Madagascar, and is known for its waterfalls and crater lakes, and is one of the most biologically diverse places in all of Madagascar with 75 species of birds, 25 of mammals, 59 species of reptiles, and ???? species of frogs.<br />
Although it is so accessible and supposedly Madagascar’s most visited natural attraction I was fortunate enough to be there when it was almost empty. The prominent view sites for the park’s waterfalls are really breathtaking. The night walks were very rewarding, especially for an abundance of frog species. The icing on the cake of a very rewarding trip there was discovering a beautiful leaf-tailed gecko on the tree that my hammock was attached to. I discovered it in the middle of the night when I got up to relieve myself. I had trekked far and wide in the hope of finding more of those amazing, elusive creatures and one blessed me with a personal visit in the dead of night.
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  • Madagascar day gecko  (Phelsuma madagascariensis madagascariensis) is a diurnal subspecies of geckos. It lives on the eastern coast of Madagascar and typically inhabits rainforests and dwells on trees. The Madagascar day gecko feeds on insects and nectar. This lizard is one of the largest living day geckos. It can reach a total length of about 22 cm (8.7 in). The body color is light green or bluish green. The skin between the scales often has a light color. A rust-coloured stripe extends from the nostril to behind the eye. On the back there are brownish or red-brick coloured dots which may form a thin line along the mid back. These geckos do not have eyelids, and they have flattened toe pads.
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  • I climbed Petersburg Mountain on many occasions. It was just the right height for a quick energetic climb and workout, usually taking less than an hour. It provided a great day out from Petersburg after a short boat ride across The Narrows. Although not that high the view from the top was stupendous.
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  • Marojejy National Park was undoubtedly one of the highlights of my trip. The Marojejy Massif is a chain of mountains that rises to an elevation of 2,132 metres.The trekking up to the peaks was challenging, the scenery incredible, and the abundance and biodiversity of the flora and fauna all along the way was second to none: at least 118 species of birds, 148 species of reptiles and amphibians, and 11 species of lemur occur within Marojejy National Park. One of the lemurs, the silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus) is one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates.<br />
I travelled with a lovely couple from Switzerland, and we had an excellent guide called Rombo. The second base camp was just out of this world! The camp was raised up on stilts and overlooked a river that plummeted to the valley below and opposite, one of the peaks of the Marojejy massif towered above us; all around was lush verdant forest that resonated with the sound of birds, frogs and insects.
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  • I took this photo from the end of the salmon cannery where I worked from 1979-86. The Devils Thumb mountain is clearly visible on the border between Canada and the USA.This photo was my first photo to be used by the Alaskan Marine Highway, and appeared on the cover of the ferry schedule. They used several more of my photos in exchange for free passes every year.
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  • The McBride tidewater Glacier, Glacier Bay national Park and Preserve, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
<br />
The Glacier Bay Basin is a myriad combination of tidewater glaciers, snow-capped mountain ranges, ocean coastlines, deep fjords, and freshwater rivers and lakes that provide widely varying land and seascapes, and hosts a mosaic of plant communities, and a great variety of marine and terrestrial wildlife. It has many branches, inlets, lagoons, islands, and channels that hold prospects for scientific exploration and a visual treat for the visitor.<br />
Glacier Bay, the body of water, covers an area 1.375 square miles (3,560 km2) of glaciers and accounts for 27% of the park area. It was a large single glacier of solid ice until early 18th century. It started retreating and evolved over the centuries into the largest protected water area park in the world. It was formerly known as the Grand Pacific Glacier about 4,000 feet (1200 m) thick and about 20 miles (32 km) in width, which has since then, over the last more than 200 years retreated by 65 miles (105 kms) to the head of the bay at Tarr Inlet, and in this process left separate 20 other glaciers, including this one, in its trail.<br />
Glaciers are very dynamic entities and there are seven “active” tidewater glaciers in Glacier bay, which are advancing into the sea and thus calve off large chunks of ice that fall into the sea with a thunderous noise, raising large waves.
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  • The Glacier Bay Basin is a myriad combination of tidewater glaciers, snow-capped mountain ranges, ocean coastlines, deep fjords, and freshwater rivers and lakes that provide widely varying land and seascapes, and hosts a mosaic of plant communities, and a great variety of marine and terrestrial wildlife. It has many branches, inlets, lagoons, islands, and channels that hold prospects for scientific exploration and a visual treat for the visitor.<br />
Glacier Bay, the body of water, covers an area 1.375 square miles (3,560 km2) of glaciers and accounts for 27% of the park area. It was a large single glacier of solid ice until early 18th century. It started retreating and evolved over the centuries into the largest protected water area park in the world. It was formerly known as the Grand Pacific Glacier about 4,000 feet (1200 m) thick and about 20 miles (32 km) in width, which has since then, over the last more than 200 years retreated by 65 miles (105 kms) to the head of the bay at Tarr Inlet, and in this process left separate 20 other glaciers, including this one, in its trail.<br />
Glaciers are very dynamic entities and there are seven “active” tidewater glaciers in Glacier bay, which are advancing into the sea and thus calve off large chunks of ice that fall into the sea with a thunderous noise, raising large waves.
    Southeast-Alaska-glaciation1.jpg
  • Port Houghton is a deep inlet on the mainland just to the north of Petersburg. It was one of my favourite peaceful retreats to find solitude in Southeast Alaska, and to enjoy and photograph the beautiful vegetation. It was my favourite place for vegetation because it has such an array of consummate displays of all the lowland, coastal vegetation habitats: flower meadows bursting with blooms and colours: muskeg resplendent with colour and minute detail, especially in the fall, dotted with inky ponds, and lichen and moss festooned dwarf trees: before the surrounding primary old growth temperate rain forest extends up the flanks of the surrounding mountains. Foraging bears frequent the meadows in the summer or dine on salmon in the rivers in the fall. At the head of the inlet there is a salt chuck  with a rock where harbour seals haul out.
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  • Flower meadow bordering a river, Port Houghton inlet on the mainland, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
<br />
As a keen gardener and amateur botanist Port Houghton was my Shangri-la. It is a very deep inlet and it ends with a salt chuck surrounded by high mountains. On one side there is a river that goes directly into the tidal inlet, as can be seen in this photo. Between the river and the salt chuck there are beautiful, colourful, flower meadows and closer to the forest there are extensive patches of richly vegetated “muskeg”, sphagnum bogs, dotted with dwarf trees heavily festooned with moss and lichens. It was like a botanical garden that had beautiful features of all facets of the rich vegetation of Southeast Alaska. Because the rainfall there was so high and the conditions usually overcast, the colours always seemed to be particularly saturated and resplendent so that the red of the Indian paint brushes literally seemed like wet paint that had just been applied to them.
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  • I became very familiar with this small local ferry because I usually used it to get to one of the small native communities like Kake, Angoon and Hoonah, from where I started my kayaking trips that often ended up at Tenakee Springs, where I boarded it to return back to Petersburg. It became like a trusted old friend that I enjoyed seeing cruising past my various campsites, and looked forward to being reunited with at the end of my arduous trips, and then relaxing in relative comfort on my way home to Petersburg.<br />
MV LeConte is a feeder vessel for the Alaska Marine Highway System, built in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin in 1973 and commissioned in 1974 by Alaska's ferry system. LeConte is the older sister ship to M/V Aurora, and both serve as feeder vessels that pick up passengers in small communities such as Hoonah and take them to larger regional communities (this process is colloquially known as the "milk run").<br />
In the case of the LeConte, it primarily serves in the northern portion of the Alaskan Panhandle in between Sitka and Juneau, but it also occasionally ventures all through Southeast Alaska as well, LeConte and the M/V Aurora are the only AMHS vessels able to serve the communities of Angoon, Pelican, Tenakee Springs, and two of the three vessels (the M/V Taku also is able to access these ports) to serve Hoonah and Kake. This quality is due because of these vessels' small sizes thus making them both vital assets for the ferry system and the residents of these rural villages.
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  • The mangrove snake or gold-ringed cat snake (Boiga dendrophila) is a species of rear-fanged colubrid. It is one of the biggest cat snake species, averaging 6–8 feet (1.8–2.4 m) in length. It is considered mildy-venomous; although moderate envenomations resulting in intense swelling have been reported, there has never been a confirmed fatality.
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  • Sparce vegetation on the coast of the Sierra de la Giganta in the Bahia de Loreto National Park, the Baja Peninsula and the Sea of Cortez, Mexico.
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  • With such sparse vegetation and the exposed geology, the sense of perspective, space and geological time is greatly enhanced. In the foreground is an elephant tree, one of the many plants perfectly adapted to surviving the extremely arid conditions prevalent in Baja. Standing water was virtually non-existent when I was there but the eroded streambeds created by the brief seasonal flash flooding were clearly evident.
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  • With such sparse vegetation and the exposed geology, the sense of perspective, space and geological time is greatly enhanced. In the foreground is an elephant tree, one of the many plants perfectly adapted to surviving the extremely arid conditions prevalent in Baja. Standing water was virtually non-existent when I was there but the eroded streambeds created by the brief seasonal flash flooding were clearly evident.
    Kayaking- Gulf-of-California5.jpg
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  • The Johns Hopkins Inlet is probably the most spectacular glacial inlet in Glacier Bay, but it was usually so heavily choked with ice that it was virtually impossible to get anywhere near the face of the huge glacier.
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  • My Klepper Aerius 1 kayak on a beach on one of the Brothers Islands, Frederick Sound, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br />
This was a truly idyllic location that I loved visiting. I can tell this was taken in my early years kayaking in Southeast Alaska because I was still using the heavy wooden Klepper paddle. It made so much difference to paddling when I started using a very lightweight fibre-glass paddle. It made a big difference to reducing arm fatigue when I was paddling for long periods. But arm fatigue was a minor problem compared to my bottom and back aching, and I experimented for years to try to find the perfect seating and back support. I ended up with several layers of foam until I finally bought a special  inflatable kayak seat and back-rest.
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