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Krauss - Andrew Krauss

I'm setting this up to show my travels from 2008-2009 for the Watson Fellowship. For my fellowship I'll be kickin around the South Pacific learning about outrigger canoes: how they're built, what makes 'em go fast, and how I can make them go fast. I'm planning on visiting the Cook Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, and possibly the Marshall Islands. If you have any tips please let me know!

This blog includes all sorts of stuff. Some of the entries are like a diary entry, telling what's been happening recently. Some are a little story, a different way of saying what's going on. Some are a collection of photos with comments and others are informative, meant for other travelers. So I hope you enjoy the ranging posts - who knows maybe you'll even get some poems reminiscent of my old days of sending out dart e-mails (At school I had a darts group winter '08, sent out some cryptic e-mails - my creativity is random).

Updates: This site is updated somewhat randomly, normally once I've generated a bunch of content, meaning it'll come in bursts. Text entries will be more frequent since it doesn't require uploading photos, but that means that entries may come out of order (for example I just added in pictures corresponding to Aug 1st, when I've already had entries through the 5th. So keep your eyes open, hopefully TravelBlog will say when somethings been updated.

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Joined on: July 18th 2008
Last Login: August 17th 2009

Blog Entries: 41
Photos: 116

TB Code: [blogger=82476]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by Krauss, order by Date newest first.

By Krauss
August 6th 2009

Should I go on? North America » United States » Washington » Graham

Ok so here's the question. I've got a massive load of pictures that I never uploaded because I didn't have the good internet. And I've got a good memory of what happened since it has to do with boats. I'll post it if people are looking but sometimes I feel like not that many people are actually checking. So, here's the deal. If I get enough people to say that they're interested, I'll post the whole year in completion, starting when I left off in January. ok, maybe not complete completion, but I'll post a lot of it. What's a fair [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
July 3rd 2009

The Beatles Clearly Visited Tonga and Wrote a Song About It… Oceania

So I think the title pretty much sums it up but I think I should point out how weird it is anyways. Whenever I’m walking down the street, whether to go to the build or get food, people don’t say hello, they say bye. I have no clue why. It’s like they took and English class and someone switched Hello and Good Bye. It’s really strange but it just seems a little sad to me. It’s like as soon as even a smidge of a potential conversation starts, it’s over. Immediately just bye. So yeah, evidentially the Beatles were here… [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
June 20th 2009

Never have I been... Oceania » Tonga » Tongatapu

Never have I been so comfortably happy to drive extremely slowly down a perfectly straight and decently paved rural road or to see a cockroach in my bathroom. Why do you ask? Because these are both things I associate with being in a nice warm island nation where time just goes a little slower. So if you haven't guessed I'm in Tonga. Getting to the final legs of the trip. So far Tonga seems pretty good. I'm kinda really exhausted though, after awkward flight hours and being used to going to bed at 10pm. But today was good. I got into [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
November 21st 2008

Vaka Eiva Round Raro Oceania » Cook Islands » Rarotonga

ZRoundRaroApproach

Text coming soon [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
November 19th 2008

Vaka Eiva Muri Sprints Oceania » Cook Islands » Rarotonga

ZBeerPants

So the way the Vaka Eiva worked is you had the Opening Ceremony, the Iron Races the next day, a day off, Sprints, a day off, and then the Round Raro. On the off days the juniors and stuff had races too I guess. I forget when the Singles were. Anyways, this was the Sprints day, which was a pretty jokey day and basically an excuse for a party. Ngakau Toa raced two boats that day in the Sprints, which we never practiced for. I was actually pretty disappointed about it because it was blatantly clear that my team didn't care [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
November 19th 2008

The Maire Nui Café and Gardens Oceania » Cook Islands » Rarotonga

A Little Yellow Star
See title. If someone wants to ID these there welcome, I'm thinking Greg Eppinger or some other zealous bio major?

The Maire Nui Café and Gardens So after the confusion that was the Muri Sprints we decided to head out and get some lunch. I’d seen this place off the road and it looked like it might be a nice little café with some gardens, so we stopped there. The café is a pretty small place, very quiet because it’s off the road. I’d highly recommended if you want a quiet place to sit and have a tea or coffee. It turns out the original place was near the road but it burned down. The new shop used to be an [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
November 17th 2008

Vaka Eiva Iron Races Oceania » Cook Islands » Rarotonga

Launching
Queued up, waiting to get on the water. We got a pretty good boat, it's pretty much brand new. Ngakau Toa got one and Te Tupu (the opposition) got another. This is the Te Tupu canoe.

So I don't have much else to do today so I'm writing the text. Truthfully, this happened half a year ago and I don't really have too much to add, looks like my photo captions took care of most of it. But I can clarify about the race, I forget if that's in the captions or not. So this was the Vaka Eiva Iron Race, mixed category, which means 3 girls, 3 guys in a boat. I had been trying to get into the regular men's race, but I didn't, I think our club only raced one boat for it. Anyways, [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
November 15th 2008

Vaka Eiva Singles Oceania » Cook Islands » Rarotonga

Singles Head out
Singles going to race

Vaka Eiva Singles Sadly there isn't too much to say or show about this day. I spent most of the morning working on the traditional canoe build along with the regular Saturday morning grocery shopping. The singles raced this afternoon, the picture is of the women's race heading out. My only real comment about this one is that I wish I had asked to race. Since it was 'windy' (I thought it was pretty normal for here but a lot of the imports seemed to think it was) many people decided to scratch, so I probably could have gotten a boat [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
November 14th 2008

Vaka Eiva Canoe Blessing Oceania » Cook Islands » Rarotonga

Making Clothes
Make your own costume. Unless your white. Then you get to watch someone else make it and take photos. The leaves are ti leaves, which have some mysterious properties relating to fire. Consequentia... [more]

The opening day of the Vaka Eiva was today and one of the things that happens is the canoes are blessed. This is actually pretty much all that happens. I thought it was going to be a usual day building canoes and then attending the ceremony. Nope. At lunch I find out that Mike is supposed to do the blessing. And that I’m to take part. Interesting. My role will be to carry the holy water. So I don’t have to say anything, all I really have to do is stand there, look dashing, and follow them around when they’re baptizing [View Full Entry]

By Krauss
November 10th 2008

Krauss goes to Atiu Oceania » Cook Islands » Atiu

Atiu Coast
The coast of Atiu. Beautiful water colors.

Krauss goes to Atiu So as I was groggily getting up this morning Dave was mentioning to me that he wouldn’t be back for lunch because he was going to Atiu for a day trip. I mumbled something to the effect of that’s ok because I probably won’t need a ride into town, I’ll be working on my NSF application all day. As he was about to leave, and as I was finally actually getting out of bed, he asked if I might be interested in coming along. All of a sudden I’m awake. I ask him to clarify and [View Full Entry]

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