Shelter Bay Activities

Friday July 10, 2009: 7:50 am

On Thursday morning we were again greeted by a black bear and bald eagle on the beach. Finishing touches were applied to the Knowles Bay site, the antennas calibrated, the genset tweaked and our gear carried back to the beach for transport to the Auklet. The hut housing the SeaSonde electronics was getting really warm, so it was ventilated in order for the system to work properly. At 3 pm we departed Knowles Bay, and by 5 pm we had the entire crew on the beach at Shelter Bay. To our surprise both fiberglass huts had pitched forward, half suspended in the trees over the edge of a small cliff. Whoops! We can only assume that at some point a blast of wind caught the 2m Starband satellite dish and caused the whole assembly to flip.

We unloaded 16 batteries, the Biodiesel genset and the biodiesel drums from the Auklet to the zodiac and then onto the beach. From the landing beach we transported all of the gear 150 m along the beach, up the bank and the down the meadow to the sites. Then, we decided to have a go at turning our huts back over. Steve and Mark disassembled the dish and removed enough brush so that the huts were free to be overturned while Hank, Rachel and Leslie emptied propane tanks from the A-frame structure that will house the biodiesel generator. We attached the come-along to the dish mast and then started the hauling process. As soon as the tension began to lift the hut, snap! The line parted, and Mark called an end to operations for Thursday. Back on board the Auklet, we regrouped and put some food into our systems. Not long after, a group of Humpback whales put on a show for us blowing, tail wagging and then the full Free Willy out of the water breach. Wow, what a spectacle. We all turned in pretty early and have awoken this morning to our first grey, rainy day. We’re about to organize gear on deck and then start transporting it to the beach when the tide comes up a bit.

HS

Saturday July 11, 2009 -- 8:45 am:

It’s Saturday morning, where are the cartoons? First off here’s a quick note, don’t swim in Prince William Sound, there’s SHARKS!!! We will probably not be making the swim call anytime soon as we have observed the definitive dorsal fin of a salmon shark circling our boat for the last two days.

Yesterday we made tons of progress on the shelter bay site starting with overturning those huts that were blown over. Once upright, we emptied out all the water and much that had accumulated inside and started to install the Hughes net satellite communications system. While Steve and Rachel worked out the comms, Mark and I installed the battery bank, the power panel and began the assembly of the Ample Power genset. All of our various projects came to a full stop when a big blonde grizzly wandered by on the hillside above our camp, we only saw him for a few seconds before he disappeared into the trees but his presence put us all on edge for the rest of the day. Leslie, our media and outreach specialist, took on the job of bear spotter and at one point thought she heard the bear on the beach in front of us. Yikes! A radio call to the Auklet verified that it was imagined but still, the thought of a hungry bear circling our little CODAR camp was creepy. Besides that, at 3 pm Leslie left us on a float plane ride back to Cordova so we were on our own.

We worked another twelve hour day yesterday and came back to the Auklet to the fantastic news of a Halibut catch by the second mate, Kevin. He pulled in a 37 pounder and decided to share it with us. David baked it up to perfection and a feast was had by all. Today we’ll be putting the finishing touches on the Hughes Net comms system, plumbing in the genset, wiring it to the power panel and installing the CODAR. Keep your fingers crossed for us that we don’t see Blondie the Bruin today.