Bragging about animals I saw at work

This is simply a list of cool things I saw at work on the boats in the last week and a half or so.

Obviously, this is a mother brown bear with two cubs; they were eating crabs and other intertidal goodies:


And a mink looking for salmon fry at Medvejie:


This is an immature bald eagle:


Here is the back and blowholes of a gray whale:


The back of a humpback whale:


A fantastic bear!


I know; I said I'd post something about interesting plants, but it was easier and quicker to just put this together.

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Time flies when you're having fun!

I thought it had only been five days since the last entry, yet I am late again! I have been really enjoying myself, though, and days are flying by much too fast for me to keep track. I finally went up a little mountain called Sugarloaf, which is about 45 minutes away by kayak, and took a picture of a few common plant species, such as this beautiful bull pine (or shore pine) Pinus contorta var. contorta:


I also photographed this dwarf dogwood Cornus canadensis:


And this mountain hemlock Tsuga mertensiana, which is one of my favorite trees:


Here is another bear photo from work:


And a seventeen-pound king salmon caught near Long Island:


I also ran the Medvejie half-marathon, and won it in 1:23'07''. It was a good run, very scenic, mostly on dirt road, and it even got exciting when the safety guy on his bicycle had to chase a brown bear off the course.

A few critters

It's been hectic with endless days filled with endless work and play. I just love it here in summer. I only did one long kayak trip yet (no time to write about it), and a few great hikes. Sadly, I didn’t have my camera on the best hike of the year yet, so I guess I just have to do it again later...

Anyhow, here's a sea otter I photographed off Inner Point on Kruzof Island:

And some harbor seals on the Parker Group:



A brown bear, in Silver Bay where we have been seeing them about every other day:


A tufted puffin - one of about 150 we saw off Saint Lazaria Island:


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Work and training at Allen Marine

I thought I would segregate the things I do a little – this is about my job as a deckhand on the passenger vessel Sea Otter Express, which does tours mostly to the Medvejie hatchery in Silver Bay. In this boat-cleaning picture you can see the naturalist (Ryan), and captain (Russ):

We started the season off with a lot of training; everything was covered from company history to firefighting. This picture is of an evacuation drill, with Alex and Mindy in the foreground:

And here is Pablo, going through fire-fighting practice. We all got to do it, and I thought it was a valuable and fun part of the training:

Finally, here we are in one of the CO2-activated life rafts, after we deployed it in the harbor on a glorious day:

The tour has been good. I am sunburned, and from time to time I find interesting birds, bears, and plants. I even made time to go kayaking, but this is all for another post, when I get around to it.

First post of the 2008 tourist season - finally.

Once again, I am late posting news to the blog. After the last one about three weeks ago, I went back to Juneau to take my final exams and undergo three days of training with the National Guard. The final exams went very well, except for the twelve-page final philosophy paper on the ethics of ambiguity. An interesting topic, but I just ran out of things to say right around the eighth page. As for training, I scored expert on the M16 marksmanship event (it isn’t a very difficult thing to do, really; about 10% of us get expert), we did some counseling, we had a random drug test for everyone, a physical fitness make-up test, and supply issues to sort out. Overall, it was a rather productive week. I even got to work a little bit for a Sitka store that had a show in Juneau and needed help setting up and breaking down.

Birding in Sitka has been very pleasant, with low numbers, but a rather high diversity of migrants. There have been many surface ducks and shorebirds. I am working on the passenger vessel Sea Otter, which does tours in Silver Bay, South of Sitka. We go down to a salmon hatchery and we don’t see all that much wildlife generally, aside from the occasional bear, an eagle’s nest we like to visit, and the jellyfish, starfish, trees, slugs and birds I like to point out to the tourists.

I'll post a few recent photos to see if this internet connection really is capable of uploading, and then if it works I'll go ahead and put up some plants I promise I'll really do it time seriously this time it's for real I swear I'm definitely undoubtedly without fail going to do it.

Trumpeter swan Cygnus buccinator:

Ruby-crowned kinglet Regulus calendula:

I didn’t get a bear photo yet this year, so here’s a track I found up Indian River:

A week in Sitka

I just came back from a week in Sitka – during which of course I was enjoying myself too much to update this blog. I really need to force myself to post at least once a week.

I have a new address, a new phone number for when I get back to Sitka (probably May 5), and even a cell phone for my job. If you didn’t get my contact information, just write me an e-mail and I will fix that.

Hiking in Sitka was much better than in Juneau. I even found the giant hemlock! At least, I found a giant hemlock that is most likely the one I’d been told about. It was fairly easy to find, and in fact I was able to go right back to it the next day. Birdwatching was good as well, with the following (common) species photographed:

White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons:

Back-bellied Plover Pluvialis squarotula:

Common Merganser Mergus merganser:

Marbled Godwit Limosa fedoa:

I also got to see Bonaparte’s gulls, rhinoceros auklets, a northern shrike (same as great-grey shrike in the UK), and lots of other neat birds. There were even some early flowering plants, but I am trying to save those up for a later post that would be dedicated to them. Hopefully it doesn’t turn out like Kuwait where I ended up never doing a post on plants…

The next few days will be dedicated largely to final exams and term papers.

Maybe I just shouldn't post anything when there is not much to say...

I almost missed my weekly post deadline again! Of course, it'd be easier if I had bird pictures...

This has been a very slow week of reading, sleeping, watching TV in the condo (I have become strangely addicted to a show about a guy called Anthony Bourdain who travels all over the world and eats food), and going to school.

Last weekend was a drill weekend, so we organized a hike on the Herbert Glacier trail that would keep us out of reach of the officers. The forest there was very beautiful second growth, smothered in mosses and lichens.

So drill was not very eventful for me, but for Jad it was quite an exciting affair. Apparently, some overpaid, overzealous paperwork clerk up in Anchorage kicked him out of the National Guard without so much as a warning to Jad, or to anyone in the chain of command! Jad joined the Army National Guard without going to basic training because he had been in the US Navy before, and because he had trained with the US Marine Corps, he was deemed OK to join the National guard without going through the Army transition course. So he went through infantry school, warrior leader’s course, and a year in the Middle East without any problem, and now this dim-witted office-dwelling invertebrate tells him he can’t be in the army because he doesn’t have the transition course! This, in my professional opinion, should have been transition enough:

And of course, whenever it isn’t snowing, I can always count on politicians to provide an easy target for my impotent anger. This morning on the radio, McCain was talking about lifting a fuel tax in the summer, and now I’m hearing about more tax breaks for auto makers, airlines and “alternative energy producers” (corn growers, I bet). So this must be the new conservative motto:

“Inflation and debt: two easy ways to make environmental destruction more affordable for everyone!”