Thank You Veterans

Thanks to all veterans who've served at Midway, those I served with during my 6 years in the Navy, and those who've served anywhere in the world.  We'll be having a small ceremony tomorrow at the Navy Memorial.

This is one of the few photos I have from my time on the USS-Honolulu (SSN-718).  I'm down in the engineroom of the sub out in front of this battle group.  I remember the crew up in the control room were worried that if the engines stopped, we'd be in trouble.  We were moving pretty fast in this photo, and the carrier was closer than it looks.  I enjoy my view a little better nowadays than I did in back then.

More of the albatross have been appearing every day.  We haven't seen any nests yet, but it won't be long now.  The weather is cooling down, but we've still been having perfect days.  Not hot, but sunny with a bit of a breeze. 

This is our Navy Memorial on Veteran's Day, 2007.  The big gooney bird is no longer there.  It had been getting eaten by termites and damaged by weather, so after years of patching, we finally sent it off to Honolulu to get a copy made.  We just have to wait until we can get money for it from donors. 

 A group from NOAA and the State of Hawaii came out to learn more about Midway.  One stop was the monument to Henderson Field on Eastern Island.  We lost our visitor program, but we'll still sometimes get visits from our monument management partners.

 The group got to see what a great job the verbesina removal crew is doing over there.  This area had been covered with verbesina a few months ago.  The crew had to clean some trails so they'll be able to move around the island when the albatross start nesting everywhere.  Don't worry, they still have plenty of nesting space even with the cleared trails.

 The group also helped plant native bunch grass and 'aki'aki grass.

 This young Short-tailed albatross visited us last year.  It's come back again seeing if there's any other Short-tails to meet.  We haven't seen it interacting with our 3 usual resident birds.

A Black-footed albatross with verbesina in the background.