By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way down south… way down south. The BA family is heading to the Galapagos Islands for an 11 day adventure with a boatfull of skeptics!
This cruise is being done through the James Randi Educational Foundation (perhaps you’ve heard of it), and it’s filled to the brim (or in nautical terms, the poopdeck) with skeptics. The Amazing One his own self will be there, and so will PZ Myers, George Hrab, Soccergirl, the awesome AB Kovacs, and a bunch more. We’re stopping for two days in Quito, Ecuador, to experience the country, the equator (I have things planned for that, oh yes I do), an observatory, and generally just eat lots of stuff (guinea pigs? Maybe).
Then we fly to the islands, board our ship, and tour the region that inspired one Charles Darwin, and made so many creationists weep over the intervening century.
That’s PZ’s territory more than mine. But we’ll be smack dab on the Equator, which means southern skies. The Magellanic Clouds (if we get up really early)! The Milky Way majestically sprawled overhead! And the Perseids (peaking August 12, so go out around 1:00 a.m. when the Moon is low and look for meteors)!
I plan on having a wonderful time. I have several blog posts written and ready to go, just in case the intertubes don’t connect well on the boat. I’m hoping to get some writing done while I’m down there, but you’ll still get articles from me either way. I’ll try to Twitter while I’m there, too.
Enjoy the northern hemisphere while I’m gone!
