I just returned from an amazing trip. I got to travel to Cordova, Alaska. Cordova is very different from Sitka, in a good way. Very open and flat areas, but also very mountainous. We went to Cordova to do humpback and killer whale surveys. The day we landed it was a beautiful, clear, sunshiney day. That, of course, led to an amazing sunset.
The trip was really good. Only one bad weather day and we ended up sitting at an anchorage for half the day. It was worth it because we got a lot of stuff done that day! I only saw one new bird, a red-faced cormorant. There was a little disagreement about whether it was a double-crested, or red-faced, but research was done and I WON! We saw 8 humpback whales and 3 killer whales along with many Dall's porpoise, Stellar's sea lions, sea otters, harbor seals, and bunches of birds. I met some great new people and can't wait to go back to Cordova for the Shorebird Festival in May.
Jan and I doing work! Jan outside, dressed in like 12 layers and me, inside dressed in 2 layers. Yes, this is my usual M.O. I like to stay inside and take notes where it is warm and I can feel my fingers. This makes everyone call me a whimp...but I take damn good notes! Besides, there were already 3 people out on the deck and not a whole lot of room for me to get in the way.
I took this picture of the cliffs and the ice because I thought it was pretty. There are many areas like this in Prince William Sound. It is much colder there than in Sitka and that makes for beautiful icicles!
The mountains are beautiful here! It was a very surreal feeling being in PWS knowing that it was once covered in oil. We were there at the first part of March and on the 24th it will be the 20th anniversary of when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef and spilled 8 million gallons of oil into the Sound. We went right past the spot where it happened. I learned so much about where the oil went and how a change in the weather made the situation so much worse than it could have been. Dave, the captain of the M/V Auklet lived in Valdez when it happened and told us what it was like. No one knew what to do, there was only a small amount of boom to contain the oil and then the wind changed direction. CRAZY. If you look at the Sound today you see an amazingly wonderful place...but just think about what it could have looked like. Dave had photos of oil that he collected from one of the beaches just a few weeks before we got there. Twenty years later...and it's still there. Incredible.
This is all of us...on the M/V Auklet. Yes, I look nutty, but the sun was in my eyes, FOR ONCE! So, left to right: John Moran, Me, Jan Straley, Craig Matkin, Neil Dawson, and Brad Reynolds. It was a great trip and I can't wait to post photos of my next trip to Cordova. Shorebird Festival should be amazing!
