Goldfish had a bridal shower tonight so Chico and I were on our own - we spent the time walking up the backside of Bunker Hill. You can see Chico is looking fabulous as usual and I scraped off the beard for Spring cleaning because between the big rain storm the other night and the warm temperatures I think winter is on the run! You can see in the top photo how much snow has melted in the past week . . .
The pictures of the ice encrusted rocks I posted a couple days ago were taken quite by accident! Goldfish and I were snowshoeing along the bay, picking our way across snow slides that were icy from repeatedly freezing and thawing and trying to avoid the rocks that would occasionally tumble down from above. There was a tricky spot on this particular slide but I was waiting patiently, snapping a few photos, when I heard a whoosh and saw Goldfish take the express elevator to the beach. She was laughing pretty hard so I snapped a photo and slid down to join her where we stripped off the snowshoes and continued the days walk below instead. You can see why it takes awhile in the spring for the road crews to clear the road to Summers Bay!
When I was walking Chico tonight I was struck by the difference between Unalaska and my home state of Maine - although I am just a couple years away from living the same number of years in both states, Maine will always be "home". New England abounds with history, seeping from every pore; the architecture, the statues in the parks of historical figures, the museums, and endless volumes categorizing and documenting, well, everything - the people, the land, the birds, the animals, the ocean, the fish, the trails, the plants, the rocks, the geology, the hydrology, all are explained and studied. If you decided to move to any state in New England and wanted to research the area first you could find information that would answer almost any question you could dream up.
The freezing surf had made some fantastic designs along the beach - how we ended up on the beach today is another story all together which I'll tell tommorow! 
The last couple nights Goldfish and I have been heading out to the valley after work to snowshoe and give Chico his run - beautiful place to hike but horrible flat light for photography. The wind whistles through, on our backs on the first half of the hike, in our face on the way back to the car, sculpting the snow into fantastic shapes, filling our tracks within minutes, Chico seemingly indifferent to its push or pull. 
My first day off since January 1st was marred by the breaking story of the sinking of the catcher processer Alaska Ranger today resulting in the deaths of four crew members with a fifth still missing about 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor. The same Bering Sea that looks like mercury in the last rays of the sun along Little South America took a 200 foot vessel to the bottom reminding us all how dangerous this industry of putting seafood on the table can be. My heart goes out to the families of the lost fishermen.
Goldfish and I snowshoed up the back side of Bunker Hill tonight in a nice gale and I'm just starting to thaw after a hot shower and a giant mug of hot tea. That Goldfish, she's tougher than she looks . . . . I had to consult a windchill chart when I got home and was surprised to see at an air temp of 20 degrees, an increase in wind from 20 mph (baseline tonight) to gusts of easily 60 mph (almost knocking me down) the windchill only drops 8 degrees. The moral of the story is for me to dress more warmly when Goldfish is picking the workout, and that conditions looked and felt a lot more extreme than they actually were at the summit - I just knew I had to keep moving, and fast, or I was going to get hurt by the cold. I had a nice iced up beard going by the time we got back to the car and two ice horns growing out of my eyebrows.
The picture above I took last month and I think it demonstrates that sometimes there is such a thing as too many eagles - they aren't quite as majestic when there are 50 or 60 in the frame. It was however a great opportunity to observe group behavior and I did come away with a couple nice close-ups of individual eagles that I've posted earlier.
Let's see, what's been going on out here in the last couple days . . . rumor has it that Mike Rowe was on a boat in the vicinity of the Pacific Glacier when it caught fire on Goldfish's birthday and actually took part in the fire fighting effort - look for that to show up in either Deadliest Catch or Dirtiest Jobs . . . and speaking of the Discovery Channel, Myth Busters is coming to Alaska sometime this year as well . . . . . thanks for the hot gossip E!
What I was looking for on Little South America was to spend 30 days exploring what in many ways is a semi-closed ecosystem; I wanted to see how the animals lived, where they got water, what their patterns of movement where, what they ate, how the light moved across the landscape, where the birds roosted, where the fox dens were, what kind of sea birds and marine mammals frequented the surrounding waters. I saw many things both breathtakingly beautiful and ugly beyond belief. I read stories in the snow - I saw traffic patterns and watering holes and ambush sites where life and death struggles had occurred. I saw ptarmigan, foxes, eagles, ravens, many types of seabirds, and sea lions. I also found a pile of dead carcasses, five foxes and a duck, and a mostly eaten bald eagle lying on the beach.
Last night was my second evening spent on Little South America, and also the second time I went to the top of Bunker Hill. Whether winter or summer the view from the summit is always worth the hike! For purposes of this little exploration, "an evening spent" will be a minimum of 2 hours. Challenges yesterday were the cold draining the batteries on my digital camera very rapidly (I only took 8 pictures, and missed a good one because of it), and ice forming in the feed line on my hydration pack. Miss Ker-Bear and Kali took a brief break from work to join Goldfish and Chico, sliding on the lower slopes while I hiked to the top. Daylight until 9:30 - I'm loving it!
If anyone knows what these duck/goose - like birds are, let me know. As you can see in the top photo, there were hundreds of them, lining the shore and floating in the harbor. I've been meaning to find a bird book that covers the Aleutians but haven't found one I liked yet. 
It's that time of week again where I leave the negative behind and focus on the things that exceeded my expectations this week . . . . of course the very astute among you may observe the Friday Five is being actually posted on Sunday, which brings me to:
Some days by the time I get to sit down at the computer my mind is completely empty and I can't even think of a title for a posting, let alone anything intelligent to say. Most of those days are when I don't walk the dog - tonight I made phone calls instead. Two lessons there: fresh air clears the head and clarifies the thinking, and life is chock full of choices and phone calls to family are every bit as important as blog entries.
This photo was taken in St. Paul and has been circulating around out here - you may know that many crab boats deliver to St. Paul during opilio season instead of Dutch Harbor because it is closer. This photo was taken recently and shows the ice breaker Hercules clearing a path for three crab boats to leave St. Paul. Dutch Harbor processors have gotten more crab deliveries lately due to ice problems up north.
Today was pretty super fabulous, weather-wise - sunny and warm with just a hint of a light breeze, it made me believe spring is just around the corner. We all went snowshoeing after work and were treated to feeding sea lions and a nice sunset. I can't wait until this weekend when Daylight Savings Time starts, that will extend my range on after work hikes with good light until 9 or so and the days getting longer all the time. It's hard to believe there is just a little over 6 weeks until vacation!
There is always so much going on with the sky out here - birds soaring, crazy cloud formations, wind whipped snow - and the sky seems huge. The big ocean, sure, everyone knows about that but its the big sky I think that can make a boat seem tiny.
We're close to landing all our pollock quota and cod should be closing this coming week as well. That will just leave just crab landings, and not many of those, so we can start flying processors home for the season break. We're got more crab deliveries than normal last week because the Priblofs were iced in but are clear now.
Those of you that know boats can probably imagine the level of my excitement - which words cannot actually adequately convey - when I'm around the patrol boat used by the Port of Dutch Harbor. Some might say slapping twin 225's on a light weight glorified Zodiac is too much - I'm just sorry I didn't think of it first . . . . . .
