Pagan: 15 July 2010

Today was really our first easy day. We spent most of the morning sorting and planning. Mike continues to talk about hitting more pockets of native forest, but I am concerned that we haven’t set up our traps in the other forest types such as the ironwood and coconut forests and in the savannah.  Dinner was particularly good, probably because everyone thought  that Loyal and Earl would be arriving today.  We each were even given a cold Pepsi from the freezer (heaven in a can), so it seemed like a very special occasion. The VIPs never arrived though. That evening we put up the malaise trap, the pan traps, and ran a light trap on the Bandeera Peninsula.  Also on this day I noticed a kind of stinging feeling on my right leg about halfway down from my knee.  I had long pants on, so I kind of shrugged it off without checking to see what the deal was.  When I finally looked at it later in the day, I was shocked to see a dark purple/black festering wound.  A small scratch that I had sustained while camping down south had become infected.  I tried soaking a while in the ocean, but it didn’t seem to help much.  It wasn’t really too puss-filled or gooey in any way,  just swollen and very dark and angry.  A biologist had already been evacuated for a similar infection a couple of days prior, so I was a little worried about it. 

Malaise trap on Bandeera Peninsula with Mt Pagan in the background.