We had some interesting visitors from the deep sea the past week.

Not your usual fried calamari variety, definitely.  Scientists didn’t know how to classify this slimmy creature when they saw it because it looked part-octapus, part-squid. The confusion was due to the 8 tentacles (simliar to the octapus) on a squid’s body. After further investigation, the scientists discovered that it was missing the 2 other tentacles, probably from injuries as it was travelling up the pipeline which sucked it out of the deep sea off the cost of Hawaii. You can find more info from the national geographic site entry here.

This giant squid washed up on the shores of Tasmania, on the western coast of Australia. The size if the giant squid was as long as a school bus (around 8 meters or 26 feet) and weight around 550 pounds (250 kilograms).  Unfortunately, the squid was badly injured. You can read the full details from this national geographic site entry as well.

There were a number of animals I wanted to see on this trip to Palawan. For some of the animals, I didn’t have the agility to run and get my camera to capture them (birds particularly).

For some, I just had to settle for these pics. Haha!

Dugong or Sea Cow

Peaceful Killer whale

While lazying around Club Paradise in Palawan (an island in the Philippines), I found it interesting that my American friend was so facinated with our local butiki (lizard). It seems every home in the Philippines has a lizard of this sort - they eat insects such as cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes. These lizards can disconnect their tails if a predetaor catches it by the tail. I’m not sure if they will grow back a new one though… From the looks of it, this little one has had a close encounter

While snorkling, we had to watch out for these stinggy jellyfish. There were not many of them though I was steering clear of them nonetheless. They looked so soft and …yummy.

Here are some of the other animals I saw when I was in Palawan.

My friend had such a blast chasing these little crabs across the beach! They are the same color as the sand and they can dig into the sand really quick!

The rich sea offered a lot of fun fishing for the 14-yr old boy who joined us in the boat. Although the boat was travelling in high speed (perhaps around 40 km/h), he just let down his fishing line and caught 4 fish in the span of around 15-30 min intervals! Here are some of the pics we took with the fish.

I just saw an announcement on the sanriotown.com main blog and latest news section about the launch of What a great idea! Everyone can sure use some happy news and thoughts to make the day a bit cheerier!

Here is a happy photo I took during my recent trip. These army guys were with us on our boat back to the dock from Club Paradise and on (literally) the local jeepney with us on the way to the airport in Busuanga, Palawan. They were sporting their camoflauge uniforms… it’s blue! Is it because the island is surrounded by water?? They happily posed for me when I requested to take their photo.

I got the chance to see some of the unique animals of Palawan during my recent trip.

This particular red heron is the resident bird at Club Paradise. This fiesty bird has been known to attack the guests that accidentally get too close. She is 17-years old, even older than the resort itself. Her bad temper has lead to her injury as well, when one of the guests hit her too hard and twisted her left foot. Now she walks with a limp and just flies around in short distances. I was feeling bad for her, but then saw her try to peck one of the staff!

On our 2nd day at Club Paradise, we had to wait for a while for the rain to stop before we proceeded for our island hopping boat trip. It was during this time that I spotted this monitor lizard. I wanted to take the picture with the full “arrival” sign on the left side of the picture, but the lizard scuttled away too quickly before I got my next shot. Can you even spot the lizard??