Pictures added!

I have added some pictures for posts dated Mar7-15. I hope to add more soon. If you want to see anything specific, let me know.
Steve

finally home

Made it home.  only took 25 hours.  I need a shower and a nap.  More to come later. Steve

Back in Kodiak

Made it back, just pulling up to the dock in Kodiak now. It's been quite
an experience.
Thank you to everyone that has read this, I hope you enjoyed it. I will
be loading pics as soon as I can, probably in a few days. If anyone wants
to get in touch with me for any reason (job offer) try
steven_fenske@yahoo.com
gotta go, there's an empty bar stool somewhere in Kodiak.
Steve

Close enough to taste it

We are currently heading towards Kodiak Island, almost a day ahead of
schedule. We made pretty good time trying to outrun a storm the other
night, and we're here early. The bad news is that we can't dock until
tomorrow, because we have to enter the harbor at high tide. On the plus
side, we're close enough for cell phones to work, and the decks are
covered with people calling the outside world. I called my wife, Kari.
She was pretty excited.
As excited as I am to be off the ship and back in the world, I'm kind of
sad to be leaving the experience and many new friends behind. Thank god
for email and facebook. The experience has left me cold, (really, really
cold) seasick, bored, and sleepless at various times the past month. I am
probably also a little heavier than when I left, thanks to excessive Coast
Guard portions and 5 mealtimes per day.
I'm gonna miss the people and the experience.
Steve

Should have taken Dramamine

Should have. No, I didn't lose my lunch. And thank you for wishing that
I had. Spent the first fours of last night trying to stay in my bed and
trying to make my dinner stay in me. The ship was rolling side to side
about 35 degrees for a while, as we were going fast, trying to outrun a
storm. On many occasions I had to grab the bed to keep myself from being
thrown onto the floor. The rest of the time was spent trying o sleep
while being rolled side to side about every ten seconds. Did I tell you
that ships made for icebreaking don't have the best hull shape for
open-water stability? I finally managed to scoot my mattress to the side
and wedge my leg and hip between the wall and the mattress so I wouldn't
roll around as much. Thankfully, the waves died down after 3 and I was
able to get to sleep. I think I managed to get five hours of sleep or so.
Tonight, I'm definitely going to take dramamine, both so I don't get
seasick, and so that it knocks me out.
Sometime in the night we passed through the Unimak pass from the Bering
sea into the Gulf of Alaska. Just that much closer to Kodiak. No more
ice, seals, walrus, whales, or science work. Kind of sad, but also really
anxious to get back to the world. It's coming soon.
Steve

Happy Easter

Today, believe it or not, someone in charge of morale organized an Easter
egg hunt. Just to make sure there were people interested, they hid 24
hour liberty passes in a few of the eggs for the crew. The rest just had
chocolate. It kept everyone entertained for about 20 minutes or so. The
other highlight today was Easter dinner. They did ham and baked potatoes
yams, and green bean casserole. It was just like mom would make, if she
worked in you high school cafeteria. Just kidding. It was actually
pretty good. Either that, or I'm just getting used to the food on board.
The other excitement is that we are out of the ice again. This is good
and bad. Good because we are getting closer to Kodiak, bad because it
means that we are beginning to do some serious rolling again. We spent
most of Friday and Saturday making sure that everything is secure
everywhere. The general rule of thumb is that you should be able to
turn a room on its side and shake it without anything moving around.
Honestly, the waves feel like that sometimes. We'll know tomorrow if we
did a good job. I'll also know tomorrow if I should have taken some
seasickness pills before I go to bed tonight. We'll all find out
tomorrow.
Steve

No news today

Really, no news today.
Steve

Getting a little restless

Most of us, the crew included, are ready to be back in civilization.
Murmurs of "beeeeerrr" can be heard during the bar scenes in movies. I
wouldn't have thought that coast guard people would be that anxious to get
off the ship already. But they are. discussions of which bar to hit ,
and when liberty will be granted while in port are dominating the talk
during the mealtimes. It gets to everyone, I guess. I don't feel like
I'm losing it that bad, but I might change how I feel when I get back to
the rest of the world. For now, though, I still like I could pass for
normal out in public. We'll see. Not much else going on, two days left
of sampling (not for me), and then three days transit back to Kodiak.
Almost finished.
Steve

Wildlife Sightings

Sorry for the lack of posting the last couple of days, there just hasn't
been that much to post, until now. We are traveling just south of St.
Matthews island, heading towards the Aleutian islands. The good news is
that, as we go further south, and especially near St. Matthews island, the
ice begins to be a little more broken up that it has been, and that means
there are critters here. Today we have seen walrus, seals, and bowhead
whales. Mostly walrus. I can't begin to convey how huge they really are.
They look like some caricature of nature gone wrong. An animal that is
so huge it can't even do anything on land except wallow around. Huge.
But they have to be, the water is so cold that without all that blubber,
none of them would survive here. And they live on clams. If I lived on
clams, I doubt I would weigh more than a hundred pounds. But that's just
me.

Oh, some bad news, the talent show has been cancelled due to lack of
entrants. I might have been one of the talented ones. Probably not.
One of the things we have to look forward to is our weekly science talks.
every Thursday evening, one of our scientists gives a short program on the
research that they are doing here. It is mostly for the crew to get an
idea of what we are doing, but all of us science geeks go, too. Other
than that, not much going on, doing crosswords, playing cards, and
watching movies. And I usually spend a few hours on the bridge watching
the ice go by, looking for wildlife.
Steve