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
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