I'm in Hawaii now

Ok, Its been a little while, but once I was done with the summer season in Alaska, I went back to Bellingham for a few weeks.  During that time, there were some Northern Lights.  My mother and I went down to the lake to look out over a place with less lights, and we saw these sights:

And a bit more streaks to the east...

A few days later I went down to Mexico to get on my sailboat, and spent three weeks working on getting my boat up and running, and doing some surfing and sailing.  But then I flew to Hawaii to work on the Safari Explorer for a few weeks.  I'm there (here?) now.  On my way in, I took a little short hopper plane (a Cessna Caravan) over to Molokai, and here's a picture of Diamond Head.

Its kinda neat its a crater.  with a playfield in the center.  

Then the flight went over to Molokai, and this was the west side.

And the southwest side.  I stopped at this harbor when I was sailing around in 2012.  It had a bunch of Bees in it.

At Molokai the sunrise was great, with a palm tree.

We got the ship ready for a few days, and then we got guests, which we took to the Halawa valley.  I had sailed past this valley in 2012, and saw a big shark nearby.  Abe will remember this.

In the valley there was great rainbows all over.

And the Taro plants, which they make food out of.  

Here's another look at the taro fields, like a rice paddy.

The big trees have domains of greenery and they don't quite overlap, so its like a geologic map

There are these Elephant ear plants, which are giant.

Here's a better look at the leaf domains...

I found a surprising amount of fungus.  

We walked to a waterfall, but it was pretty good river flow, so we had to be careful to get across the rivers.

Of course the flowers here are beautiful!

We headed from Molokai to Maui, and found some whales...

And we had a great dolphin playing in the bow wake.  

We are now on Lanai, and then tomorrow we'll go to the big island, then play there for a few days until we get new guests on Sunday. 

Harbor seal diving

 I got this video a while ago, while in Cordova, AK.  The harbor seal exhales through its nose before diving under water, in order to reduce its buoyancy.  Usually humans take a big breath before we dive, so we have extra oxygen, but the seals hold most of their oxygen in their body tissue, in the Myoglobin, and also in their blood, in the hemoglobin.  They don't need to hold it as a gas in their lungs, so they can exhale.  We don't have as much capacity in our body or blood.  

Cute Brown Bear cubs

 This was pretty neat.  I arrived at Hidden Falls Hatchery and then went up the ramp and turned to go towards the weir, where there is a spot to stand and see if any bears are around, but there was a family of bears in the spot I was going to stand!   So we watched them from a distance.  

The cubs were very cute, and also learning about how to be more or less dominant, so every chance they got, they took a swipe at each other.  I especially like how the cub taking a swipe checks to see if I watched, and also if mama (who is off frame to the right) was watching.  Checking to see if they can get away with it.  

Salmon video

 I went for a hike the other day up a river full of salmon.  They were all trying to get up to spawn, and the water levels were low, so they were crowded amongst each other.  

Cool video with seals and a calving glacier

 This video was from Meares Glacier, it was calving a bit, and I got this shot of the ice breaking free and then falling down and nearly obliterating the seals that were sleeping nearby.  They run for cover and get underwater.  I think once they get underwater they are mostly safe, since they ice is flying through the air and the pressure wave underwater isn't that powerful.  

Sunny week

This week was really nice, we had a lot of sunshine.  Wilson, who I have worked with for many years in the past, was aboard as well.  It was his only week up here, but it was nice.

At Chenega there was this great seal with drool all over the side of his face

We found some nice whales, and got a good look at them.  

And also one was slapping his tail

There was a full moon also, with a nice morning of moonset over the mountains

Going into Columbia Glacier there was a lot of ice.  It was really stretched out and extended well out to sea, probably because of the large tides with the full moon

The moraine was very full of ice

We also found an Ice cave, and it was really cool looking

It was really stable and we managed to get a view inside

I love the blue ice inside

It goes a long ways

There is a great spot where the glacier was pulling across the wall and the ice pulled a piece of rock out.  This is called plucking

A river otter

And a porcupine!

This guy was eating grass at the intertidal zone, and I went over for a closer look

He wasn't much perturbed by me, but gave me a little sniff

A nice seal

And a wandering tattler

We had lots of bears

This mama bear was chasing a salmon

And a bunch of close sea lions

a closer view

This guy was sitting in the river eating salmon

a male bear

 and another bear giving me a nice look.

I have one more week before I head to Glacier Bay for a canoe trip.

Chenega Glacier calving

 A really cool calving from a kayak at Chenega Glacier.  On August 15, 2024

A week in reverse!

We just did the week in the opposite direction than we normally do, starting with the Hatchery and a new place for me, called Bettles Bay.  It was really nice and a few bears.  The hatchery bears are getting more comfortable being close to humans, so that was cool.  Here's a shot of the sein net hauling in a set.

And a couple close bear shots

This one has lipstick

When we got to Columbia Glacier it was pretty iced in, so we went to the west side

And found some calving

And a cool smooth rock face

And an Ice cave

A wicked cool ice cave

This was a day to remember, going into the blue tunnel

With the folks...

The ripples on the sides are so cool

On the way out we found some Jaegers

In Cordova I found some cool birds

And a chestnut backed chickadee

And some water grass up the hill

Then at Knight Island we found a spotted Sandpiper

And I found some kelp to make Kendra!

And then in the afternoon I went on a hike up a salmon stream to swim with sockeye and then hike in a nice muskeg

The final day we went to Chenega Glacier and it was calving a lot.  Also there was this cute seal

And Captain Rob refused to pose for a shot.

At the very very end, as we cruised back to Whittier, we found some orcas which caught and killed (and ate) a Dall's Porpoise.  We saw the whole thing.