Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! 

We took Seca and Neka out to the glacier for a walk.  It's beautiful outside with all the fresh snow (and more snow expected!).

Neka is the chocolate lab we're taking care of over the holidays.  She and Seca are getting along great!  But Neka has a lot more energy than Seca...

Best wishes in 2014!

Plowing

Steve plowing.

Part of our house sitting duties include plowing this house, keeping up our place, and plowing a construction site.  We got ~5 inches of really wet, heavy snow and spent about 2 hours cleaning up this morning.  Now it's raining, yuck.  Steve's getting pretty good with a plow though!  I went along for the ride and had to reign in my OCD impulses a bit...I'd have spent another hour tidying up things if I was in charge.  Good thing I'm not.  :)

Snowy Irv.

playing hooky

Fog over Mendenhall Lake

I didn't go to school today - such scandal.  I'm done with exams and took the day (and probably most of next week) off.  Yay me!

Mendenhall glacier after a snowstorm

I took the camera and headed up to the glacier around sunset (otherwise known as ~3 pm).  I was happily snapping away, tripod embedded in the snow, when I turned to look behind me to see what the trees looked like (picture below), and saw that there was someone standing behind me taking pictures of me!  Whoa.  Weird.  As soon as the guy saw me notice him, he introduced himself...he's a photographer for the local newspaper and came out to take pictures of people enjoying the nice weather.  After snapping a few more pictures (mostly of me standing there awkwardly at that point), he got my name and moved on to take pictures of the kids sledding nearby.  I think I prefer being behind the camera to getting my picture taken!

Winter storm + final exam

Of course there's a winter storm on the one day I absolutely have to make it out to the lab for my statistics final exam.  The lab is 5 miles out of town and on a road that seems to always be the last to be plowed.  I made it here though!  I left very early (it's still dark for a couple of hours!) so I would beat most of the snow (didn't work) at the risk of beating the plows and finding an impassable road.  It was sketchy, at best, but I'm here and not even the first one in.

The capacity for snowfall in this area absolutely amazes me.  If I can, I'll take a picture to post when it's a bit lighter outside.  Snow is falling about 1-2 inches per hour depending on what part of town (more out here, less in town), which is a pretty good clip...but that's nothing compared to the other day, when we got 4 inches of snow in one hour.  I honestly didn't know that was even physically possible.  It was falling as fast as a hard rain.  Incredible.

Wish me luck!  This should be my last test, EVER!  In theory.  Other than my comprehensive exams that I need to pass to continue on with my PhD.  When I'm done I'm going to celebrate by (shoveling, then by) watching a movie at home with Seca and Neka (we're house-and-dog-sitting again).  Maybe I'll even light a fire in the wood stove!

Oooh, and I almost forgot!  We saw what we think was an ermine (in it's white phase) in the snow on our way home from the gym.  They are so darn cute. 

Everyone needs to pet a puppy during finals week

My advisor got a puppy and brought her into work today so I could meet her.  She's a 12 week old collie from a breeder in Washington, and she's adorable (obviously) and very well behaved already!  Her name is Mochi (pronounced 'moe-key').  She reminds me of a more-hairy, differently colored Seca.  :)

Makes me want a puppy again! 
Oh yeah, and we have a lot of snow here. 

snoooooooow

We've had about 2 feet of snow at the Irv in the last two days.  So, it's pretty, but we're totally running out of places to put snow.  That's mostly because of how we're parked in a corner, and surrounded by other RVs.  Steve got up on the roof yesterday to shovel off some snow, since it was wet, heavy snow.  It's supposed to rain (ugh!) tomorrow which we leave a huge mess if it actually happens...all the street drains are covered in snow, and the surface of roads still have snow which will just turn to ice if it rains (given past experience with rain on top of snow around here!).  And if it does rain we'll have to get up on the roof again because the snow acts like a sponge with the rain and things get really heavy quick!

Snowy parking lot at school

But the worst part of all the snow is that the power keeps going out, especially here at work (where I sit typing this right now).  My laptop has a pretty good battery, but the other day the power was out for 3 hours and that's a bit longer than my battery lasts and of course today I just started backing up my computer to an external hard drive moments before the power goes out.  I hope it finishes before my battery dies. 

Happy winter!

Vibrant sunset last night

Yesterday while Steve was at work, I took a break from working on my statistics class project to take some sunset photos.  The weather is supposed to turn back to snow and rain so I wanted to take advantage of the clear(-ish) skies before they were gone for who knows how long.  I drove out to Eagle Beach recreation area, about 20 or so minutes from home, and was surprised that there wasn't any other people with cameras.  I was out there for more than an hour, and I kept thinking "Oh, this is it! This is the peak of color!"  And then a few minutes, it would be even better.  I didn't leave until it was pretty dark (and very cold!).

So even though I froze my butt off waiting in the cold next to a creaking, groaning river (as the ice broke up while the tide was going down), it was worth it!  What a beautiful sunset!  Just as I was about to pack up and leave, a seal popped it's head up about 15 feet from me.  I don't think it knew what to make of me, since it would rise up and look at me for a few seconds, then pop up from another angle and get a bit more of it's head out of the water, then again from another angle...finally, it drifted away and seemed unconcerned with me.

Science meets art exhibit

None of these are mine!

Friday night was the formal reception for a "Sscience Meets Art" exhibit put on by UAF.  Students, and some faculty and staff, submitted photographs from their research and a professional artist selected the final images for printing for the exhibit, which was held at a downtown Juneau restaurant.  There were 21 images in total, I think, and one of mine was chosen! It was also First Friday, where stores and galleries stay open late and it seems like everyone in Juneau comes out to celebrate winter and the holidays.  It was a fun night!

But this one on the left is...

Seca visits the veterinarian....

The vet gave us a prescription for Rimadyl for Seca's sore joints and after only 24 hours she's a new dog!  She's still got some stiffness, but she so much improved that she was running around outside this morning on our daily trip to DeHart's gas station, where Steve gets coffee and Seca gets a treat (either a milkbone or if she's really lucky, a piece of real bacon). The staff at the store LOVE her.

It was also a beautiful morning for a walk. The sun rises over the mountains at about 8:30 am or so (it's light before that though) and it's been so clear out lately that the sun is pink on the snowy mountains in the morning.  

Finally back home

We're back home in Irv!  After being in Seattle for a week, I was home for about 12 hours before we packed up (or in my case, just left the suitcase in the car) for a house- and dog-sitting gig Thanksgiving week.  Darwin, the dog we were watching, and Seca get along great, so it was an easy week in that sense.  The house we were at had lots of slippery floors and not enough rugs though, so it was a tough week for Seca and her bad hips.  We have a vet appointment scheduled for her this week, hopefully he'll have something to help her.  In all fairness, she's 13 1/2 years old now, which is pretty old for a big (100 ish pounds) dog.  She's very, very happy to be back at home!  (And so am I!)

We're having a bit of a cold snap right now.  It was about 10 degrees or so last night, and only 53 in the Irv when we got up (at 4:30 am...it's a million times harder to crawl out of bed at that hour when it's that cold).  Actually, it was probably only 49-50 degrees back in the bedroom, which doesn't get as warm as the living/dining/kitchen area.  Our little heater just can't keep up when it's that cold outside, and we had the backup furnace set a bit too low last night.  Tonight, we'll kick it up a bit so it's not quite so cold in the morning. 

Happy December all!

For a laugh...

Ok, so I had to share this story.  A group of fellow students live 'out the road' a bit and are having a party tonight (which, unfortunately, I'm going to miss since I'm not back in town until tomorrow).  But, since life in Alaska is never dull, this is the email she sent out today about the party...and note that Juneau has gotten a LOT of snow in the past 48 hours, which always makes things interesting.

"Hey everyone,

Party is still on for tonight(!), but we don't want to make it too easy for you... 

Challenge #1: The long winding road through the woods that leads to our house is still pretty snowy. If you don't have 4WD or are not confident in your 4WD, we recommend you a) carpool w/ someone with 4WD or b) park at the end of  <street X> before our 1 lane road and walk to our house. It only takes about 10 minutes. There's a big turnaround circle at the bottom of the hill at the end of <street X> where cars can fit.

Challenge #2: There has been a brown bear hanging out by our house the past week. Enough said. Be careful. Kevin has offered to stand guard with a 12 gauge but you will have to bring him whiskey.

Remember, the good things in life don't come easy ;-)  Get ready for black bear pizza and deer kabobs!

Call me at <xxx>  if you get lost, stuck, or attacked by the bear.

-Jess"

 

 

What she neglects to mention is that the cell phone service out there is pretty sketchy, so if you do indeed get lost, stuck, or (heaven forbid) attacked by the bear, your call probably won't go through!

Steve's insane, and other random notes

Steve's certified insane!  :)  Actually, he's officially certified to teach the Insanity workout, but it's pretty much the same thing.  We got a group of friends together for a practice session before he does an official "try out" at the gym.  If he passes the try out, he can be hired to teach at the gym!  Go Steve Go!!

UPDATE!  Steve 'passed' his try out and starting on Monday at 5:30 am he's team-teaching the class!

Steve's holding down the fort in Juneau while I'm at a meeting in Seattle.  It's COLD in Juneau this week - highs around 10-15 degrees...so I feel a little bad that's it's pretty nice here (well, in the 40s and 50s, I think that's nice!).  Juneau is predicted to get a snowstorm Thursday-Friday.  It seems too early for cold and snow, after Thanksgiving would be better!  Steve said the power went out briefly at the Irv the other day, and he had to disconnect the water hoses so they wouldn't freeze.  We normally have them covered with electric heat tape, which works pretty well.  When he got off work, the power was back on but the spigot was frozen so he bought a blow torch to thaw it out.

Leaving Juneau on Sunday we departed to the east because of high winds funneling down the Channel.  I've seen other flights go that way, but it's less common because planes have to climb quickly then bank hard right to miss the mountain(s).  Being on a plane doing that was kind of creepy - I started counting how long it took between when the plane wheels left the ground and when the plane banked - only 20 seconds!  We were warned that there would be a lot of turbulence and there was - yuck - it felt like we were bouncing and sliding all over the place.

Antartica on your lunch break

Photo by D.Olsen.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking out of our shared office space and another student's screen saver caught my eye.  Flashing across his computer screen were the most incredible photographs of penguins, leopard seals, icebergs, and kayakers.  I stood there watching the slideshow, totally mesmerized, for several minutes before I realized I was going to be late for class if I didn't leave. When i got back several hours later Dan was at his desk and I asked him about the pictures.  Turns out, Dan is a kayaking guide in Antarctica in his 'spare time'.  Holy awesomeness batman! 

Penguins on an iceberg. Photo by D.Olsen.

This naturally started the wheels turning in my head, because there's pretty much nothing I like better than traveling.  And I'm always looking for new places to add to my travel wish list. So, I started an informal lunch seminar series at school where people can share their travel and adventure stories! There's a lot of students and faculty who've gone some amazing places, and everyone has a tendency to eat at their desk while work, so why not do something about that?

Penguins coming ashore. Photo by D.Olsen.

The seminars are informal, irregularly scheduled, and everyone's encouraged to bring a lunch so they don't feel like they are missing out on too much work time (have I ever mentioned that the building is entirely populated with workaholics?).  Yesterday was the first one, and Dan was the presenter.  He's a fantastic storyteller, and his photographs from several years of trips were incredible.  I've added a couple here, since he sent me some so I could make the advertising fliers.  Dan Olsen gets the photography credits!  Someday I am definitely going to Antartica!

Photo by D.Olsen

We have a couple of other people on deck for talks...Melissa is going to talk about her trip to Argentina, a different Dan is going to talk about his adventures as a biological observer on commercial fishing boats, and I'm hoping to get one of my professors to talk about his TWO treks to the summit of Denali.

"Hahaha...I could totally eat you." Photo by D.Olsen

In other interesting news from Juneau, a brown bear was spotted in the Valley (a local neighborhood), near our gym.  There are lots and lots of black bears in town, but not brown bears.  According to one guy Steve talked to, the last time there was a brown bear in town was 22 years ago.  There are brown bears that live out the road, towards and around Berners Bay (which is near our favorite hiking trail at Point Bridget), so it's not completely unreasonable for one to be in town, but it is unusual!

UPDATE - someone got video of the bear!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_KPKmF4mag

A bit of a detour

I've been carpooling to school with Emily this week because it's getting too cold for Steve to take the motorcycle (too icy in the morning).  Today is shaping up to be an absolutely spectacular day - clear and cold and sunny.  Which means that as Emily was driving us towards the lab and we got closer and closer to our turn, neither one of us was ready to head indoors, into our dark, windowless office.  So when she asked "should I just keep driving and go to Eagle beach for a walk before work?", I had zero objections.

WOW.  Fresh snow on the mountains, low tide at the beach in the foreground.  Way better than work.  :)

Hard frost and hiking

 

We've had several cold nights in a row, which makes me happy that we had gotten the carpet and carpet padding put in recently.  Just having that on the floors results in a +10 degree difference in the Irv, without changing the heat setting on the radiator.  Today, we spent most of this beautiful, dry, sunny day doing the last of the winterizing...putting plastic up on the final two (big) windows, dragging the studded tires out from under Irv so we can have them installed this week, and Steve rebuild the steps up to the porch.  Seca's been having a much harder time getting up - getting up from laying down, but also getting up the steps and she hesitates a lot on the steps.  I think it's her hips that are the worst - sometimes she's very weak and can't get her back end up.  So we're going to take her in to see if there's anything that will help. 

On Saturday Steve had to work, so I went for a long hike with Emily, a friend from school who's been our hiking companion before.  We did the Perseverance trail because it was sunny out and with all the fresh snow on the mountains, we figured it would be pretty.  It was.  Because the trail's in a deep valley and we left about 9 am, we didn't get direct sun in the valley for any of the hike.  That meant that the frosty leaves and moss stuck around for the whole trip.  It was very pretty, but cold!  I had a bunch of layers with me and as long as we kept moving we were fine, but it was only in the 20s in the valley.  Brrrr!

Hairy frost on the truck

I just thought this looked really neat.
It's frost on the side mirror of the truck this morning.

Sourdough success!!

I tried again to make homemade sourdough bread, and it was a success!  I tweaked the recipe (more flour for a stiffer dough; used about 1 cup of pretty liquidy starter, 1.5 cups flour, and enough water for a stiff dough, plus 1 scant t salt), mixed up the bread and kneaded it by hand for quite a long time on Wednesday night, then put it in the fridge to rise slowly so I could wait until Thursday night to bake it.  I took the dough out of the fridge about an hour before baking, which seemed like enough time to warm up and rise a bit more.

My aunt Sue had sent me a really good recommendation about baking in a small oven - bake the bread on the bottom rack, then flip it over if it starts to get too dark on the bottom before it's done.  I was going to try that, but I fiddled around with the oven rack and realized I could flip it over and because of the way the shelf was configured, it was about 1 inch higher off the flame than before.  I also baked a smaller loaf this time, so it was finished before the bottom got too dark.  But, I'll definitely try the 'flip' method if needed in the future!

The final result - amazing.  Crusty on the outside, just-right density on the inside, good flavor, and best of all, no sweaty gym sock odor!  I'd never buy bread again, except that that's just unrealistic.  :)

Around the world in a single restaurant

I sometimes make fun of the restaurant options here in Juneau.  There's a lot of bad and mediocre restaurants, and a few really, really good ones.  This weekend, we had one good and one bad experience.  The good one was an excellent new place downtown (V's Cellar) that was billed as "Mexican-Korean Fusion".  It sounds odd, but it was great.  It's a tiny little place, tucked into a basement and kind of hard to find, but I would absolutely go again.

The other one was pretty ridiculous, and in hindsight I should have known to stay away.  I'd heard they had 'decent' pizza.  And it was decent...I make better pizza at home, but it was edible and came out hot.  However, it was the menu that made me laugh out loud.  Despite have an Italian name for the restaurant (which will remain nameless, though Juneau peeps can probably figure it out) they apparently could not settle on just one cuisine, nor even a mash-up of two like the Mexican-Korean place.  This spectacular failure of a concept was an Italian-Thai-Mexican-Chinese-Greek-Steakhouse, with a salad bar, thank-you-very-much.  It also had 1970s supper club style dark amber water glasses (awesome!) and decorative Roman columns as a nod to their Italian name.  I feel like this sort of shotgun approach to menu planning is really common in small towns (or small, isolated cities like Juneau).  I saw something similar in Cordova that was a catch-all Asian restaurant (Chinese-Japanese-Korean-Thai), but this place really takes that up a notch by combining in so many dissimilar options.  How can you even keep all those different ingredients on hand and fresh??  Oh wait, you can't.

Sourdough bread fail

Sunday I made sourdough pancakes for breakfast that turned out really tasty, and, delighted by my success, I made some sourdough bread.  I loosely followed two recipes, but forgot to add salt, so the final product was really flat tasting, like it had no flavor.  There was no 'sour' flavor from the sourdough at all.  It smells and tastes pretty yeasty...actually, it smells like sweaty gym socks.  Not super appetizing. 

I'm not sure what went wrong with the bread.  I think I didn't have enough sourdough starter in it (I used 1 cup), and I think I needed to let the starter ferment longer (like another day) after making the pancakes.  When I made the pancakes, I 'refreshed' the starter right away, then made the bread a few hours later.  So, I'll try again in a few days.  Until then, I think I am going to make garlic bread out of the failed loaf...maybe lots of garlic will cover up the gym sock smell.  Also, note the issue of baking bread in our oven.  I can't bake it on the lowest rack or the bottom of the loaf will burn.  So I have to put it on the top rack to bake and the bread rose up until it hit the over ceiling!  (the oven flame is is in the middle of the oven so you can put things under the flame to broil or above it to bake...but apparently you can't bake tall things.  Or a turkey.).

Sourdough

In Fairbanks I had breakfast at Sam's Sourdough Cafe one morning, and tried sourdough pancakes for the first time ever.  They were great!  Inspired, I am trying to start some sourdough starter at home, using a bit of a 'cheater' recipe where you start with commercial yeast...a recipe I got from the King Arthur Flour website. I'm only at the 12 hour mark, so there's a ways to go before I can use it, but I'm really excited! 

Another thing I had for breakfast that morning (and another first for me) - a reindeer sausage omelet!  It was excellent!

Fairbanks wrap up and now back home

I got back from Fairbanks yesterday afternoon and promptly took a two and a half hour nap.  The week was really exhausting, I'm really behind on classwork now, and I would like a couple of days to recover.  But that's not going to happen, so I'm in the lab catching up on email and some homework assignments (and blogging, of course), and Steve and I will tag team laundry and making dinner tonight. 

The meeting was ok overall.  I think from an attendee's perspective things went smoothly.  I was a bit frustrated at times by the lack of organization, because that meant questions would come to me, and since I wasn't in charge, I rarely knew the answer and would get sidetracked while trying to find out.  Oh well.  It's over now!

One part of the week that was really fun was the welcoming social on Tuesday night.  It was held at the Museum of the North, on the UAF campus.  It's a really great museum and I'd like to go back sometime to explore some more.  There was a natural history section (very cool to see some of Alaska's wildlife up close) and an art/native culture section.  Photography was allowed, so I took the picture at the top of the post, which was my favorite piece of local art.  There was also a native dance demonstration, though I have forgotten now which native group they represent.  They did a good job of explaining the meaning behind the dance and the moves in the dance.  For example, one dance was a story of making an ice shelter, and the movements pantomimed what you'd do to make it - cut blocks, stack blocks, brush of snow, etc.  The two youngest kids in the group were very entertaining!

I'm so glad to be back home, though it's back to rainy weather here.  In Fairbanks is was cool(ish) and very dry.  I was surprised how the lack of moisture really made a difference in how much less cold it felt there.  Even at 25 degrees, it felt relatively warm outside.  I spent quite a bit of time outside without a jacket, and it was fine.  I was also surprised at how nice it was to be in a wide open space.  Fairbanks has some rolling hills, but is generally in a big bowl-like valley.  On a clear day you can see mountains, but for the most part, it feels very open.  It felt a lot like the midwest.  In Juneau we're pushed up against the mountains and the only real sight lines are along Gastineau Channel and Lynn Canal, but both of those have mountains on both sides.  I really liked Fairbanks, and would like to go back and do some more exploring.  And I really, really want to go back in winter to see the northern lights and go dog sledding!

Fairbanks is wicked cool!

I somehow had the foresight to pick a seat on the left side of the plane from Anchorage to Fairbanks and was lucky that we had clear weather for a view of Denali yesterday.  Wow.  It is so much higher than everything else around it!  It has an incredible 18,000 feet of vertical relief over the land around it.
 

After a long day of travel and setting up for the meeting, I jumped at the chance to go to Chena Hot Springs last night.  It's about 60 miles from Fairbanks...60 long, dark, and potentially moose-filled miles.  We did not see any moose, much to my disappointment.  We did not get to leave until almost 8 pm, but they're open until midnight.  When we got there it was COLD outside, definitely below freezing, and the main pool is outdoors.  But the water was hot - almost too hot for me - and it felt nice to alternate between the hot water and sitting on the rocks around the pool.  Since there was such a temperature differential, the air was filled with gently swirling fog...which would occasionally part and reveal about a billion stars.  Spectacular.  There were very few lights at the hot springs so the stars where so bright.

However, the absolute highlight of the night was seeing a WOLF loping down the road on the trip to the springs.  We stopped the car to watch it until it disappeared into the night.  I love this state.

There's ice on Mendenhall lake!

We had ice on the truck this morning!  We loaded up Seca and went for a walk at the glacier (after stopping for coffee) and there was a lot of ice on Mendenhall Lake.  Some of it will probably melt today (not the icebergs), but I'm surprised it's cold enough for ice to form.  We also saw a bear.  It was headed in a different direction from us, though. 

This picture was Steve's idea - he thought the mountains reflected in the water were cool.  I agree!

I head to Fairbanks tomorrow for the week.  Steve is holding down the fort at home.  I'm not sure if I'll have time to take any pictures, but I hope so!  I've not been to Fairbanks before.

Sunset

After a very busy weekend, it was nice to take Seca for a leisurely walk at the marina just before sunset.  It turned into a gorgeous day after a rainy morning.  The ripples in the water in the lower right of the picture are from a harbor seal bobbing in the water just about the boat ramp.  He took off when he saw us.

The grand re-opening at Steve's job went very well on Saturday.  I went in to say hi and see the new store at about 10:15 am - just a few minutes after they opened - and it was crazy busy already.  Steve said that was the case all day long, so the opening was a huge success!  The new store looks really nice, it's got a lot more space and I think it's a more logical layout compared to the old place and since it's less crowded it's easier to see the clothes and displays.

Snow close

It's fall!  That means snow is coming soon, at least around here.  I took this picture on the way back from dropping Steve off at work today.  We're getting regular snow in the 'sixes and sevens' - the peaks that are in the 6000-7000 foot range, which are all inland from here, in the ice field. 

We had our first frost a couple nights ago too.  That was a bit of an unpleasant surprise in the morning since I still need to dig out the ice scraper.  We need to spend a weekend winterizing soon.  We'll put the carpet padding back in (it helps insulate the floor) and need to get some new carpet for the top.  I also need to put plastic window sealant back up on the windows and roof vents.  That made a huge difference last winter, and helped keep condensation to a minimum.  But we just haven't had time!  Steve's new job is going great, but they've spent the past week moving to a new location so he's been working looong days.  They have their grand re-opening today! 

Happy fall everyone!

Rainy Sitka

This was when I could still feel my fingers!

It's not all sunshine and rainbows in the field.  Monday and Tuesday were mostly cold and rainy, with occasional bouts of no rain.  We actually had our best fishing those days, in terms of the sheer number of sablefish we caught.  At one point we were catching 1 or 2 at a time, on every drop of the lines!

Anne, with a double!  Two sablefish at one time.

We fish with 3-4 baited hooks on a line, using squid as bait.  By the end of a couple of days fishing, the squid is getting pretty rank, and the smell never leaves your fingers. That makes snacking and eating your sandwich at lunch pretty gross. 

Natura, cutting some squid for bait.

One of the biggest downsides to fishing in the rain all day...wrinkly fingers that seem like they'll never be dry and normal again.

But, it sure is beautiful outside with the clouds and hills and occasional mirror-like calm water!

Sunny Sitka

Anne and Karson, showing their excitement about sablefish stomach contents - salmon eggs!

Now that I've been back from Sitka a few days and have had a chance to catch up on the most immediate things (like the assignments I missed and a crap ton of emails...) here's some more pictures from our field sampling in Sitka.

Karson on the boat deck at sunrise, just before we headed into Peril Strait.

Saturday and Sunday, the first two of four days of fishing, were straight up fabulous.  It was sunny after the fog burned off in the morning, then flat calm until the afternoon winds picked up.  Oddly enough, the fog was only present once we headed into Peril Strait, and there was no fog at all in Sikta Sound where we were staying at night (as evidenced by the picture above of a gorgeous sunrise in Sitka Sound).

Very foggy in Peril Strait.  Glad it was early and we didn't meet any other boats!

Early morning self portrait.  And proof that I was there. :)

As I said in my last post, the fishing was so much better this trip than in May.  I think we caught 117 sablefish total, and several were already tagged, indicating they had been caught before in either May or July.  That was neat to see, and Karson will be able to calculate how much they've grown over the summer.  Each sablefish we caught was tagged (only if it didn't already have a tag from a previous trip) and it's stomach was pumped so Karson can take the contents back to the lab and see what they've been eating.

Anne thought I was only taking a picture of the fish!  Nope, sorry Anne!

A lot of the sablefish had been eating salmon...dead, rotting carcases from pink salmon that had either spawned and died and were washed back into the bay, or never made it to spawn.  In any case, the smell from the stomach contents was HORRIBLE. 

Trying not to gag at the smell.

 On Sunday the water was so calm that when we moved to a new site, I was able to catch this cool reflection of the surrounding trees and hills in the boat wake.

 These warm (warm for Alaska in September), sunny days are what makes field work fun!