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Visit Page 2 (More recent photos)
Casa Walrath em Cuba! Note: I'm now in Napoli... these photos are from 2007-2009. |
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Recently had a visitor near aboard the boat I use on the bay... a juvenile shore bird (I haven't had time to ID it yet...) |
A closer view of my visitor |
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Walking to the chapel on Thursday, I saw one of the local hummingbirds. They are irridescent and quite beautiful in flight... |
They're also not afraid of people. This one was within 3 feet of me, gathering nectar from the flowers. |
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Lucky me... Night Ranger played last weekend (21 January) in Guantanamo Bay... yeah, it's fuzzy, but it was dark. |
This is the front of the "Q", where I lived until mid-November. I now live in a housing area called "West Iguana", about a mile and a half from the High School. |
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 Let's remember... for pommes frittes, it's always mayo! |
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This shot is from just north of Bouy 2, looking north... |
A GTMO Sunset |
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And sunrise from Bouy 1, near the mouth of Guantanamo Bay |
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This is a shot of the base chapel from the bay... right now there are some renovations ongoing to the oustide walls. I'll get another shot when the walls are finished and the new windows installed along the top. |
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This is the "Dock of the Bay" mooring area, and the four power generating windmills on top of the hill above. The chapel is just to the left of this view. |
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Moonset on the bay |
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In the background of this shot, you can see an island, just above the two mooring points left of center. That's a view of Hospital Cay, one of the islands in the bay with a long history... apparently once a leper colony, then the base hospital, and now a favorite stop for boaters on the bay. Overnight camping's permitted here, so long as you clean up completely after yourself. This shot was taken right after Noel passed the island, then turned west and south, parking just north and west of GTMO! |
Here's a better view of Hospital Cay-with better weather to go along! |
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This stretch of shore is partly a replenishment zone and partly a manatee refuge.  |
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So you think it's always warm and sunny in Guantanamo? |
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The Brau Haus in Wisebaden... taken the evening after the snow above (no, the above wasn't GTMO... I had a quick business trip to deutschland in November... that's right, twist my arm) |
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There are a LOT of Iguanas here... this is a relatively "small" one that has taken up residence near my office at the Elementary School. From tip of tail to nose, this one is about 3 feet long (.8 meters). Like I said, a small one. |
Pelicans and more pelicans! They seem to out-number the seagulls on the bay!
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And for those who have been asking "How's the fishing?" You tell me... |
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Some blackbirds outside my office... the bottom one was sitting on the branch for several minutes with his wings stretched out, as if he were drying his feathers or warming his wings. The buzzards do the same thing. It's rather eerie to walk into the chapel with two or three buzzards sunning themselves on the eaves over your head. Makes me wonder if Mr. Schultz saw buzzards do that sort of thing when he came up with Snoopy's buzzard character. |
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One of my biggest joys at GTMO is watching the different family groups of dolphin in the bay. They were gone for a few weeks-I'm assuming the water was a bit chilly for them, but I saw them again the weekend of January 13th. Here's one of them, fin high. In the shot immediately below this, a much closer and clearer view of one as it prepares to dive, chasing dinner. You can click on each of these three images for a larger version. |
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If you look very closely, you can count 5 different individuals. On the extreme left and right, two adults, with a third adult also on the right side... in between them, you can see two juvenile dolphin. Normally, I see this family group near bouy 2, close to the entrance of the bay. This time, we were south of bouy 1, which is on the leeward side, near the mouth of the bay and the confluence of the St. Nicholas Channel, the Guantanamo River, and the Guantanamo Bay. |
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| After the loss of Phaeton, I have now acquired (or has she acquired me?) a new kitten, Kimi... Click here for an amusing video of her discovering futebol on TV... (it works now--finally figured out what I was doing wrong). |  |
I (Rich) arrived in Cuba on August 28th and have been finding my way around since then. I'm on the bay whenever the weather (and the job) permits, and lots of other times I can be found at the club ham shack.
I'm fairly active with APRS via the International Space Station and other ham orbital stations. My Satgate/I-Gate is operational while I'm in country (during the school year). Click on this link for those stations near my home station. Click on this link (www.findu.com) for a page showing my home location (KG4QB-1). When the page opens, click on Satellite to see the image from space. In the future, you will also be able to get weather observation information from this link.
| I have also successfully completed my StarBand Installer's certification, and am able to handle StarBand satellite installation, provided you take the proper steps to acquire the equipment locally (I'm using Orbital Enterprises for my dealer). While I lived in GTMO, StarBand was my internet provider, and I gladly recommend them over the other CONUS services for quality of service, fairness of their FUP, and costs. Yes, they are a bit more expensive than the other guys, but if you want the best, then frequently, you must pay a small premium. StarBand provides my CONUS residence internet service as well. |  |
My parish is on base, of course, and is housed in a magnificent older chapel. I'm cantoring again, and also playing the organ for some liturgical functions.
While there are lots of places I'm not permitted to photograph on base, as I add more pictures to the collection, I'll update this page.
