Adventures this summer

I'm so frickin' excited!  I just got notice that my airline tickets for the first of two summer adventures have finally been purchased.  In June, I'll be volunteering for a sablefish survey that will leave out of Unalaska, Alaska (aka "Dutch Harbor" to all the fans of  the popular crabbing drama, Deadliest Catch).  This is the same survey I went on last summer, but I'm on Leg 1 this year, which starts in Unalaska (a $1400 rt airline ticket ride from Juneau), fishes for ~14 days, then returns to port in Unalaska to pick up a change of science crew.  In the map below, the yellow triangles are roughly where we'll be sampling.  Starting from Unalaska (the leftmost village circled in RED), we sample counter clockwise.

THEN, in late July Steve and I, plus Dad and Barb, will be taking the AK state ferry from Homer to Unalaska, with stops in a bunch of villages in between.  The round trip (Homer-Unalaska-Homer) will take about 6 days.  We have a stateroom booked that will sleep four for the trip.  The only two cities we spend a lot of time in will be Kodiak and Unalaska (~6-8 hours each).  The rest of the villages (listed on the map) are shorter 1-3 hour stops, which is just enough time to get out and maybe walk around the port a bit.  I am so excited for both parts.  Of course, I'll take a million pictures, and we'll bring the GoPro along too for some video.  We'll probably see lots of whales, sea lions, various birds, and (I hoping) some bears in Kodiak when we stop.

This is apparently my summer to see most of the Aleutian Islands!