Post Date: 19-20 April 2008
Bering Sea
Posted By: Mike Cameron

Fog, Trivia Night and More Fog

Polar Sea in the ice.

We awoke on the 19th, ready to continue our surveys, only to find that the same southerly winds that impeded our progress the day before had brought additional moisture to the area, resulting in a low fog bank as far as the eye could see. Conditions were not right for surveying so we waited. Conditions started to improve a little later in the day but the ceiling was still too low to fly so in the end we had to postpone our work until the next day. That evening, we were encouraged to join the Polar Sea crew for “Trivia Night”. We named our team “Go Kymo!” (pronounced “Key-Mo”) a little joke about our team member Kym Yano that has developed among our group after an unfortunate typo in her first name. Team “Go Kymo!” took 2nd place at the competition so the day was not a total loss!

Conditions had hardly improved on the 20th and so (again) we waited and we waited for an opportunity to fly, which never came. Instead we worked on transcribing our sightings data from our previous flights and entering them into the database.

 

A group effort with the flight suits.

Post Date: 18 April 2008
Bering Sea
Posted By: Mike Cameron

St. Paul Island

The Polar Sea had to make a stop at St. Paul Island to drop off some personnel and pick up some equipment. St. Paul is one of the two main islands (together with St. George) that make up the Pribilof Islands. Our colleagues at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory conduct research on northern fur seals that return each year to establish and defend territory, give birth, nurse and breed on the Pribilof Islands. St. Paul is south of the ice edge and in open water. The intention was to leave our survey area and make the transit to St. Paul overnight and return back to the pack ice in time for our next set of flights. Unfortunately, the strong southerly winds compacted the ice field and increased the wave heights slowing our progress. We didn’t make it back to the ice until late in the evening, and too late for a survey.

 

Walking to the helicopter.

Post Date: 16-17 April 2008
Bering Sea
Posted By: Mike Cameron

First Flights!

We were originally scheduled to begin our flights on 18 April, but the Polar Sea was ahead of schedule conducting their previous duties and was willing to give us a few extra days of surveying! Our pilots are Lt. Lance Kerr and Lt. Barry “BJ” Miles. Each day they switch off duties as co-pilot/navigator and pilot. They are both very accomplished search-and-rescue pilots who have flown all over the United States and we feel very fortunate to be flying with them. The Coast Guard requires that we also fly with a flight mechanic who we have convinced to also help us with observations.

For our first few days we will be in the vicinity of Bristol Bay and Nunivak Island, continuing to work our way westward until we reach the International Date Line. Our survey flights are oriented perpendicular to the ice edge so we can identify how the abundances of each species change with distance to open water. We flew two flights on the 16th and another three on the 17th. We saw a few walrus and some spotted seals. Many of the spotted seals were females with newborn pups.

 

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