Bering Sea Healy Cruise. April 2-May 10, 2009

This spring I flew to Dutch Harbor to board the US Coast Guard Icebreaker Healy for a 5 week cruise in the Being Sea. This cruise followed the same transects as the cruise I took last spring. Here are a few photos of this cruise.

Mt. Redoubt erupted 4 or 5 days before I left for Dutch Harbor. The ash clouds from the first eruption and subsequent ones delayed and canceled many flights in and out of Anchorage. Luckily, the day I flew the volcano was not erupting in such a manner as to cancel flights. But as you can see there was ash and steam coming out as we flew past.

For the life of me I can't find the name of this volcano. Pretty neat one. It is along the south side of the Alaska Peninsula.

Some interesting shapes made of sea-ice around Bristol Bay.

Pogromni Volcano on Umnak Island at the end of the Alaska Peninsula.

Just outside the hotel I was at there are some open areas where the local fishermen spread out their nets and ropes to fix them and roll them up. The local bald eagles take advantage and pick scraps of meat out of the nets. Found out something recently that explained why juvenile bald eagles look so much bigger than the adults. Their feathers are larger.

There are hundreds of these birds in Dutch Harbor.

Just hanging out. I am taking this shot from near a dumpster used by the hotel. There is almost always a few eagles perched along the side of it or in it. But not today.

We had very nice weather the day after I arrived. This the view from the front of the hotel.

View out of my hotel window the nite I arrived. This direction is opposite from the one above.

Pyramid Mtn with snow on it. I climbed it in Sept. 2007 when it was covered in grass and blueberries.

This guy/gal stood still for us for a few minutes to get some good shots.

Leaving on another nice day in Dutch. I've been very lucky to have good weather at least one day when I've been coming or going out of here.

Early on in the cruise we came upon about 700 walrus over a several mile stretch. It was very foggy, thus difficult to get a good shot.

Some ice and sun shots.

We got off the mother ship again this year to sample the sea-ice.

Healy in the ice.

At the end of one transect we were out in open water, off the Bering Sea Continental Shelf, and over very deep water (about 8000 feet). We sent down the CTD to collect water samples. Tied to the CTD was a mesh bag with a bunch of styrofoam cups. Here are the ones I sent down.

We also had some rough weather out in the open water. Here are some shots from up in the crow's nest, 100 feet above the water.

On one of our passes by St. Matthew Is. we had a stow away. This McKay's Bunting spent a few days hitching a ride on the helo deck at the back of the shipl. He/she would hop around looking for bits of food and fly off the ship at time and then come back.
For birders this is one of the rarest song birds in N. America. It only nests on 3 or 4 islands in the Bering Sea, including St. Matthew. It spends the winter in SW Alaska, around the Yukon River delta. It is not endangered but there are less than 6,000 around.

Going thru some very thick and snow laden ice.

Coming into Dutch Harbor this old airplane was taking off. This plane and another like it are still being used out here to service remote villages that do not have runways.

A tugboat helping the Healy put into port.

A close-up of the front of the tug. Just a bunch of cut up and folded tires. Pretty neat.

A beautiful morning in Dutch Harbor, taken from the ship.

Here are just a few of the boats in the vast fleet that go out of Dutch to the Bering Sea.



These next photos are not mine. We had a multi-core on this cruise again. It is sent over the stern and down to the bottom of the ocean to sample mud. When the legs touch down, the weights above push those tubes into the mud as the cable goes slack. As the rig is lifted out of the mud, arms with round disks on the end spring down to keep the mud from coming out of the tubes on the long trip back to the surface. On deep casts this procedure can take several hours.

One of the casts brought up this bi-valve. It fit perfectly in the plastic tube. A fraction of an inch in any direction and the clam would have never gone into the tube. Pretty cool.


A better shot of the walrus we passed by. There were a number of other sightings besides the day of 700. Taken by Liz Labunski.

A Ribbon Seal taken by Liz Labunski.



A typical scene during our ice station days. Here I am helping Jessica Cross bag up some ice cores. Taken by Ned Cokelet.

Here I am taking water samples, one of hundreds I helped take from the CTD which went into the water about 240 times over about 33 days. Taken by Brandi.

On our way south, near the end of the trip we had some very calm days. The water was like glass. This surface bouy is on a mooring that my boss and I have instruments on. On this cruise we were passing by it and were asked to go have a look at it because the real time communications with it were not working. I did not get into the small boat to go have a look. Nothing could be seen that was wrong with the bouy. Photo by Chris Linder. If you would like to see other photos taken by Chris Linder of this cruise, go here: http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/expedition5/journal.html

World Ice Art Championships March 2009

While my Mom was up here for a visit this March we went to the World Ice Art Championships. It was a frigid nite with the temps dropping fast to below zero. My camera bit the dust a few days before so Mom took all of these photos. Thanks Mom! It was another year of amazing sculptures. But some of them did not photograph as nicely as they could have because the officials had not blown the snow off the single block entries. Here is the website for the event: http://www.icealaska.com/
There are alot of photos here but there were so many great entries and some need more than one photo! Enjoy!

Mexico January 21-February 11

Traveled with my good friend Darcie to Mexico for sun and heat. We flew to Tucson, Arizona and then hopped on a bus bound for Navajoa in the Senora State of Mexico. The trip took 9-10 hours. In Navajoa we took a local bus for about another hour to a small village, Juan Escutia, along the highway, getting off at the Pemex gas station right along the highway. Our final destination was another 10 miles towards the Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez coast, the Agiabampo Estuary and Navopatia Field Station.

Here is their website: http://alamoswildlands.org/

6-7 students each winter come for a quarter to study birds and plant life here. They make bird counts, capture and tag birds, count/identify plants in grids, etc. The students live at the field station in the canvas tents you see in this picture.

Rotating right about 90 degrees from the previous photo.

Moving right again. Here you get a sense of the organ pipe cactus forest that is all around. But it is in danger of being wiped out. This area has the most extensive area of virgin organ pipe cactus in Mexico and the world. It is still be bull-dozed down to make way for irrigated crops that are being sent to the US. It needs to stop! You can help by donating to the Alamos Wildlife Alliance so they can purchase land here and preserve it.

I am taking these pictures atop a cement building that serves as storage, student "lab" , etc. Here you see the shower for the camp. The camp has no power except from a few solar panels. Water is heated by propane for the shower. The water is actually hauled to the site and pumped into a huge tank on top of this building and is gravity fed to the shower and to the kitchen. In the kitchen there are two propane two-burner stoves and an earthen oven fired by mesquite wood.

Rotating right again. Here you see one of the 4 palapas. These structures are made of woven bamboo and then covered in a mud/straw mixture. The roof material is bamboo supports with recycled banner material. You can rent one of these to stay in or camp with a tent.

Here you can just see the kitchen, to the left of the person and the common eating area, forward and to the right of the person. In the background is some of the estuary. The land beyond is a mangrove island.

The view from the crapper. Yup, an open air outhouse.

A walk way in the camp. All the lanes are lined with shells from the Sea of Cortez coast.

The kitchen with an outdoor dish washing area to the right.

Inside the kitchen and the earthen stove.

The boa constrictor that lives in the kitchen to keep rats out. Not sure he/she does much in the cooler temps of the winter. It was in the 50's at nite and in the 70s/low 80s during the day. Perfect!

Looking up at the boa's nest.

The communal eating area. Also the location of the station library.

Inside.

Another Palapa.

My Palapa.

Inside. Spartan living but it keeps the chill and evening dew off.

A solar oven for yummy baked goodness.

Pies and cake.

Part of the full accomodation deal is use of the kayaks. The mangrove islands have channels that are navigable during high tide. Here we are winding our way thru one of the channels. Really neat.

Some photos of the organ pipe forest around the station.

A crab spider. So cool. About the size of dime. Some were up to the size of a nickel.

We traveled to a nearby ranch to see some different birds. On this ranch, lives a fellow who is a bit of an artist. Here are some of his sculptures.

A different mangrove trip with Darcie.

Hundreds of brown and white pelicans inhabit this area for the winter.

There were 6 students from Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington living at the station for a quarter. Each morning they would go out and do bird counts and identify plants and do plant counts at different grids. A few times during their stay they would go out and net birds to identify them and tag them.

Catch of the day. Don't ask me what they are. But I can say they were yummy on the grill!!


Some mornings the fog was pretty thick. By 9 or 10 it was burned off and another sunny would be had.


To get to the Sea of Cortez you had to kayak about 20-30 minutes across the estuary, beach the kayak and walk across some sandy scrub for about 5 minutes. Once there you had about 10 miles of deserted beach to yourself. But because it is deserted beach, no one is there to clean up all the garbage that has washed up on the shore. It is pretty bad. Tons of plastic bottles.





Every nite flocks and flocks of brown/white pelicans, frigates, cormorants and other birds fly from the north end of the estuary to points south for the nite. A count is made by someone at the camp each nite down by the shore of the estuary. It is a lovely way to end the day as the sun goes down.


Darcie and I got up early one morning so we could take a long walk along the Sea of Cortez beach. As we were kayaking along we were blessed with this amazing sunrise.

Mexico- Copper Canyon January 2009

The next set of pictures are from around the Copper Canyon. We took a bus from Navopatia to El Fuerte where we boarded a train to Creel. Creel is at the rim of the canyon at 7,800 feet. It was cold up there! The nite time temp. was in the mid 20's. During the day it was in the 50s. There should have been snow on the ground but it was a low snow year. The Copper Canyon is AMAZING! If anyone is thinking of going to Mexico and doing something other than sitting on a beach, this place should be high on your list.


The train stop at a "town" called Divisidero. It is really just a stop to get a good view of the Canyon. There are heaps of little shops selling touristy stuff and really good snack food. Here is a panoramic of the canyon. The Copper Canyon is actually a collection of different canyons. This is the Urique Canyon.


A few photos of the train trip from El Fuerte to Creel.


Heaps of tunnels to go thru. I think there were well over 60 along 160 miles of track. For any train enthusiasts this trip is amazing. The track does a couple of crazy double loops


We rented bicycles and went around to see the sights.

Darcie next to a mushroom rock. This are was covered in volcanic ash at one point. A harder rock covered the ash. When it was all exposed the more easily eroded ash under the harder rock helped form these interesting formations.

A nice view around Creel.




This one is not going to last much longer!!

Can you see the frog?!

Further down the road was a site with all these granite spires. The local Tarahumara Indians call the area the Valley of the Erect Penises. When the Spanish invaded they could not stomach that name and called it the Valley of the Monks. I like the former. Ha!
Really neat! Some are well over 70 feet high.












Darice and I down in the Copper Canyon on a suspension walking bridge across the Urique River. We took a hair-raising bus ride down into the canyon from Creel to the sleepy town of Urique. The road descended 6300 feet. Temperatures in the canyon were in the 60s at nite and low 80s during the day.

A few photos around Urique.



The beautiful gardens at the backpackers we stayed at. This place is owned by an American who has been living here in Urique for many many years. His home here is amazing. Entre Amigos is the name of the hostel. Here is the link: http://home.comcast.net/~ramsay52/ You can pick from the garden during your stay.



Amazing rocks/boulders along a creek bed.



Pot is grown widely in these parts.




A nice panoramic of the Urique river canyon and the town below.





About the only color in the canyon were these flowering trees. Not sure what they are called.

Here you can just see the outline of the road coming down into the canyon. In places there is nothing between the side of the road and a multi-thousand foot drop. And the road is often only wide enough for the small van/bus.

Another flowering tree/bush.

The Urique River running pretty low in this, the dry season.


Some very cool rocks along the river. It was difficult picking a few to take home with me!

Darcie posing along the river where we swam to cool off from the hot days. The river was chilly but not too bad.



Darcie and I hiked around the canyon a fair bit during our week there. One day we hiked down a creek bed and found this tree growing out of the rocks.

On our way out of the canyon and back home.

A steep look down at Urique, the Urique river and canyon.

Finished Floors and Shelves

The day after x-mas I hit the downstairs floor, installing solid bamboo T&G in most of the space and vinyl around the entry-way door. Took 2 days for the bamboo, nailing it down. It really changed the feel of the place. Much more like a finished home now.

This is what the floor looked like before, painted OSB. The black is felt paper to prevent squeaking floors.

Looking SW from the kitchen. Old rocker is from my Great Great Grandparents. I brought it up on my drive from Minnesota in November.

Looking south from the Kitchen.

Looking West from the kitchen table.

Looking West from kitchen at the entry-way door.
The next project is to put the stone around the wood stove and to put in a shower in the corner you see here where the coats are. It will be a real shower stall, a small one, but no running water besides a hoisted 5-gallon bucket with warm water in it (heated over the wood stove or kitchen stove) and a nozzle on the bottom or side to let the water out. The shower will drain thru the floor into a bucket outside.
For now I take showers at work. In the summers i collect rain water off my roof and take bucket showers outside.

The kitchen with the finished shelves.
I don't have running water but I do have gravity fed water. Upstairs there is a 55-gallon drum sitting on its side. I have copper pipe running from it to the sink and into a regular faucet. There is a small RV pump under the sink that I use to pump water up that same copper pipe out of 5-gallon jugs that I fill either at the Univ. or at a natural spring 5 miles from my house. I use about 5-gallons of water a week for drinking and cooking. Another 3-5 gallons a week for dishes. The sink drains into a 5-gallon bucket under the sink. I may plumb the drain to run outside in the summer (it'll freeze in the winter). It works great. When I leave for extended periods (more than a week) of time I just drain the line and let my place freeze, not having to burn any fuel oil while I am gone. It just takes a day or so to warm the place up again when I get back.
Yes, I have an outhouse. But I learned the trick of using a pee bottle inside for those late nite wake-up calls while in Antarctica. My first summer at South Pole Station I was staying in the Quonset hut camp where there was a central bathroom area which meant you had to walk outside to reach it. The walk was not bad, it was the blinding sun(the sun never sets at 90 south/north for 6 months) and hit of cold air that sucked, coming out of your little cave of a room (they were about 8'x10') in the middle of the "nite". I did that drill only once before getting a plastic pee bottle. The air has less than 10% humidity down there and you are at about 9,300 feet in elevation so you have to down alot of water to stay hydrated.

Before the holidays I finally put up my kitchen shelves. They are made out of rough cut lumber I made from logs left over from the building of the house. My brother has a band-saw saw-mill and I used it to make these one inch boards. The house logs still have the round on one side so the boards have this round on one side too. It makes for a nice effect.
I had to sand the wood so I'd have smooth surfaces. The supports are made from little spruce trees from around my place.

Driving: Minnesota to Fairbanks, November 2008

I flew back to Minnesota in early November and spent 18 days there visiting family and friends. My brother, his wife and their new baby, Lucas came down for a week and we traveled around together visiting family. They flew back to Alaska but not before buying a mini-van for their growing family; 4 kids now. I agreed to drive the car back to Fairbanks. I left Nov. 25th and arrived in Fairbanks 6 days later. It was my first time driving up in the winter. The roads were excellent and the weather mild, in the 30s during the day. The only bad weather was from the boarder to Delta Junction with blowing snow.
With it being winter and the car full of old furniture from my Mom, I had to find a cheap way to spend my nites. I signed up onto the website: www.couchsurfing.com. It is a free service where you search for people's places to stay, in cities around the world. I found a place to stay 3 out of my 5 nites. It was a great experience and way to meet locals/new people. My couch/spare bed is listed on the website now. So come surf my couch!!

The beautiful Mississippi River Valley just above the little town of Alma, Wisconsin and the Alma locks/dam. This was not part of my driving trip back to AK but on one of the trips to visit family while in Minnesota/Wisconsin.

Flat, flat, flat North Dakota and a wind power farm near Langdon. There had to be over 50. Pretty cool.

A turtle made of wheel rims. In Dunseith, North Dakota, just south of the border with Canada. Nearby is Turtle Mountain which I imagine was the inspiration for this piece of art.


I had no idea this park existed and came upon it totally by chance. I chose this route thru North Dakota just to by-pass the busier boarder crossing south of Winnipeg.
Pretty neat park. Check it out: http://www.peacegarden.com/
And here is a link to the history of the park: http://www.peacegarden.com/allpdf/Peace%20Garden%20History-%20Web%5B1%5D.pdf

In the park, looking along the boarder.

In the park.

My first nite was in Brandon, Manitoba. I surfed on a mattress of a nice college student there. Jessica, her sister and friends were hashing out ideas for their new 'zine.
That nite, while driving to find the place, I heard on the radio that the International Space Station was about to travel overhead, looking like a moving satellite but much brighter. I pulled over and looked up. Sure enough, there it was. Really cool to think that that moving thing in the sky had 10 people in it.
The next morning was cold and foggy making for a beautiful drive. The ground/trees were covered in frost.
I was in the land of wheat and giant grain silos!

The North Saskatchewan River valley.

Driving across Saskatchewan was so beautiful. Wide open space.

I love these old graineries.

Nearing the end of my second day. I spent the nite in Lyodminister, a city that stratles the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta, just east of Edmonton. I spent the nite with a young fellow that works as an environmental technician for Husky Oil.

The scenary between Edmonton and Fort Saint John, my third day, is not very pretty. Just rolling hills of forested land. Lots of oil and gas developement going on. The highway was chocked full of trucks servicing the oil and gas fields. The air around Edmonton was very polluted and the roads were crazy busy. Alberta is booming with all the oil/gas money.
North of Fort Saint John you begin going thru the mountains. Here I began to see alot of wildlife, like these Caribou. Elk, Bison and a Lynx too.

Entering Stone Mountain Provincial Park, British Columbia.

Bison along the road just north of Liard Hot Springs. There were about 60 spread over 3 groups. Very cool. The ditches alongside the road here are very wide. Grass grows there and it makes for good grazing for the Bison.
I spent the nite at a lodge, after my fourth day, across the road from the Hot Springs. On that fourth day I became very sick with the flu. I slept 16 hours that nite. My fifth day was not fun. I was still very sick. I spent my 5th nite in Whitehorse with an old college-mate, Forest and his wife Georgianna and their son Finn.

The mountains around Kluane Lake. And that is it. An exhausting trip but glad to have experienced the Alaska Highway in the winter.

Bering Strait 2008

In October, 2008 I flew to Nome, Alaska to board a Russian research vessel. We sailed north to the Bering Strait and spent 11 days in Russian and American waters. We sailed towards Russia first and came upon rough waters. So we hid in a small bay on the Russian side.
It was a fun trip. Stepping on the ship was like stepping into Russia. Very few people on the ship spoke English.

We had some free time before sailing so I tagged along with some other scientists and drove about 30 miles on the road to Teller which is about 80 miles north of Nome.

The Bering Sea and looking at Sledge Island.

The mountains around Nome are really pretty.

Looking down on Nome.

Anvil Mountain, a few miles from Nome.
"Two of the four gigantic Alaska Communications Systems microwave antennas atop Anvil Mountain, built in 1957 as part of a long daisy-chain to link the Tin City military radar site with the outside world. The system was decommissioned in 1974, but the dishes remain as landmarks. "
From Tom Busch

There are some crazy looking machines, right out of the Mad Max movies, here. They are used to ply the beaches/shallow waters around Nome, sucking up the sand looking for gold. The beaches of Nome have been mined for gold for many years.

Our ship. The Lavrentyev. A 240 foot research vessel from Vladivostok.
There were about 10 US scientists on board and a half dozen Russian scientists then probably 40 crew.

The room I shared with a fellow technician from Seward, Dave Leech.

My lab space.

The dinning hall. Very nice and really homey. Plants in the windows.

The setting for lunch and dinner. Those meals always stared with a yummy soup, a potato/onion base with other things added, usually something from the previous day's meal.
There was no chow line. The food was all brought out to us.

The bridge.

Leaving Nome on a beautiful morning.

Nome.

Looking at the eastern most part of Eurasia. We hid from the storm just off the picture to the left.

Bringing in the moorings. We seemed to always have a snow squall for those recoveries! We recovered 8 moorings and deployed them again.

Cleaning off the barnacles!

Me and the Boss. It was fun to finally sail with my supervisor, Dr. Terry Whitledge. We are coming up on a mooring that will be "popped", meaning released from the anchor, and then we look for the floats and go get it.

Deploying the moorings.

Ready to trip the release and have the anchor sink to the bottom.

Lots of whale sightings. Mostly Bowhead whales and a few Killer Whales.

Snow squalls. Not my photo.

Big Diomede Island.

Big Diomede and Little Diomede on the left.

Our last day out in the Bering Strait. A storm was about to brew up so we high-tailed it back to Nome, cutting off our trip by a few days. I'll be back in the autumn of 2009.

Some of the crew.