A relaxing weekend....

Barkley, relaxing in one of her favorite spots, the back of our friend Chris' truck at work, watching the world go by. 

A much needed relaxing weekend was had. Saturday saw catching up with errands, cleaning my office and going to a SEA party in Rockport. It was nice to see old friends again, and nice to get out! Sunday was even more laid back, grocery, a walk at our favorite trail, then Chris and Gabby over for dinner. I needed a slow weekend and definitely feel refreshed for it. 

The next few weeks are going to be hectic, in a good way though. Sometime next week Jenny, Doug and the kids are coming to visit! They're on the east coast visiting family and will drop by to stay for a few days. I'm totally thrilled to see them again, then on friday Laura G. comes to stay for ten days - and that's pretty much 99% of what I miss about Hawaii over here in Maine, so i'm going to be in bliss! The week after next is the AAUS diving meeting here at the Darling Marine Center and in Portland (both Laura and I are presenting), and then it's the beginning of November and Dad and Sanchia are coming to visit. So it's all go, in a good way...:0) It does mean i'm running around a little this week trying to get things squared away so I can spend some good time with friends. 

As for Barkley, she's doing great and still seems to be loving Maine. Our 6yr old neighbor has decided she's the best thing since sliced bread. For her part, she's putting up with it, was very proud of her today that she didn't snap at him when he ran at her full speed. She's doing really well.....:0)

Barkley shows her Welsh pride.....okay, maybe her Mamma's Welsh pride.....:0)

Miss Barkley

It's been so nice to be back from Alaska, and so nice to see miss Barkley again. She's really a hoot, I love having her around, makes me laugh on a daily basis. This week has been a bit crappy at work, so having someone to make me smile has been awesome. :0)

I woke up Saturday morning to this, someone had tucked herself all the way under the bed. I wonder if she was a little chilly (we have had a bit of a cold snap!). 

Sunday meant paddling. Someone was very keen to get going. Kept glaring at me being slow loading the canoe! 

Though a little fidgety today (I forgot the campmat she usually sits on), she did seem to enjoy herself. I love this shot, just seems to scream Maine.  

Finally caught a photo of it (almost). Someone likes to sit on the gunwales. Which of course is cute, except it makes the whole canoe lean.....

Heading back to Maine

A whirlwind 8 days in Alaska, and i find myself sitting in the Seattle airport again, waiting for my flight back to Boston (via Chicago). The trip as a whole was fun, it was great to see Bob and Michelle and Jennifer again, and I did get to see my first Alaskan Bear, as well as got to enjoy a little of Juneau yesterday afternoon.

The cruise though was pretty much a bust - we managed to sample half our colonies, but that in itself was a miracle. Our first dive all three of us went in the water. We were expecting poor visibility because of the time of year (glacial melt tends to be murky), so had already planned to go in making sure we held onto each other until we got to a coral, then break off do what we needed to do, then rechain to head to the next one. Despite pretty good visibility to 15ft, a wall of silty blackness appeared at 32ft, making it impossible to see even past my elbow, and the reflectivity of the silt meant you couldn't read your gauges, no matter how close you had them pressed to your mask. Jen and I managed to stick together, but we lost Bob within 5 minutes and headed back to the surface.

The visibility improved a little over the few days, making it possible to at least read your gauges, but if you lost contact with the fjord wall or your buddy you were done. So we'd sample by heading to an exact depth, then moving hand over hand across the wall, hoping to bump into a coral colony, and hoping it was one of our tagged ones. Frustrating to say the least, and since both Bob and Jen said it was the worst they had ever experienced, and they have a lot of experience, i'm glad to say I hope never to have to dive like that again! To say it again, we were incredibly lucky to get the samples we did.

Some photos from the trip below. Barkley has apparently been having a ball with Amy, Peter, Stuart, Jackson & Farley all week, and i'm sure is not going to want to come home tomorrow. I can't wait to see her though, i've missed my fuzzy friend!

Heading out of Juneau super early on Wednesday morning. 

The Gastineaux Channel

We were lucky enough to see the humpbacks again - hundreds of them - in almost the same place as last year! 

My "lab" on the Steller - not quite as luxurious as previous boats, but none the less functional. 

The back deck of the Steller - we bring a lot of stuff! 

Entering Tracy Arm

Tracy Arm. 

The Steller, parked up by our sampling spot. 

One of the more important tasks of our Tracy Arm cruises - collecting the glacier ice for the evening gin and tonics....:0)

Getting ready to dive

Going in by the "Bullseye" - which is underwater, but we know where it is from that white mark on the wall. 

Lots of ice and icebergs this year - probably because of all the rain Juneau has had this summer. 

Iceberg. I love the variety of shapes and sizes of iceberg. Of course up here I have to remind myself to not look for penguins! 

Heading back out past the Tacu Inlet on our way back into Juneau. The weather was glorious for most of the trip - just one day of rain. 

The Herbert Glacier just north of Auke Bay. We unpacked (and repacked) like crazy on Sunday so we could have a little of the day to enjoy the sunny weather. Bob and I mountain biked out 8 miles on a great trail to this glacier and then sat and ate donuts (we were hoping for another bear sighting, but alas no). I haven't been on a mountain bike in a really really long time - but it was a lot of fun, and I managed to mostly keep up! 

Sunday ended with a few beers on the beach overlooking the channel. The mountains in view there are the eastern side of Glacier Bay National Park. If you could cross over those mountains you'd be smack bang in the eastern arm of the park. Stunning! 

A beautiful day today meant some great views from the plane. Down below on the other side of the channel there is Juneau. 

And that is Tracy Arm fjord, where we were just two days ago. Just as beautiful as on the water, and at some times of the year, in the water! 

In Alaska

Back in Alaska - arrived here on Sunday night - ready for the last in our series of diving cruises. Weather is not quite what it was last September, a little wetter to say the least, but still, Alaska holds a place in my heart. The last two days have been hectic, getting supplies, chemicals and dive gear ready to go, and tomorrow early we head out down the Gastineaux Channel towards Tracy Arm fjord to collect Red Tree Corals. No cruise blog this time, i've just been too pushed for time, and we have no internet or phone coverage while we're out there anyway, so it's never quite the same. So wish us luck, and we'll be back in "range" on Sunday! 

Despite a hectic packing and organizing schedule, we have managed to go by the famous Mendenhall Glacier trail in search of the mysterious Alaskan Bear (which I have never seen in any of my three visits to Alaska!). Some pictures of the last 2 days....

The Mendenhall Glacier trail at 7am this morning, in hope of seeing bears before I headed to the lab to continue packing. This was the 4th visit to the trail in hopes of seeing bears. 

"Bears Woz 'Ere" - see the dead fish in the foreground. Lots and lots of evidence of bears, but alas, no bears. 

The glacier is however as spectacular as ever. 

Despite the signs, no bears this morning. Maybe it'll wait until after the cruise. 

The view of Auke Bay from the NOAA lab this morning. Crows flying all around calling out into the cool morning air. It's been a little warmer than expected (60F), mostly raining, but spates of sunshine and dry. 

Auke Bay - the view from the lab pier. 

Auke Bay Marine Lab - or at least part of it. 

A bald eagle overlooked our packing operations this morning. So beautiful, I can never get enough of bald eagles. 

The Steller - our research vessel for this trip. Somewhat different from our luxurious tourist boat of past cruises, but none the less functional. The one shower/toilet is going to be interesting with 3 divers onboard. After 40 minutes in 40F water, it's always good to get a warm shower in. 

We finished packing the boat at 4pm and headed back to the lab. En-route Bob decided a fifth visit to the trail was in order....and as luck would have it, my first Alaskan Black Bear! 

A beautiful 16yr old female, no cubs this year as the rangers told us. We'd just been eating donuts in the parking lot. We figured it helped. There's certainly a positive correlation there....:0)

Home time.

Nothing like a Hurricane to enforce some inside-time and make you catch up with things. The winds just started blowing hard, so i'm sure we're not in for power for too much longer. But so far we started the morning by cooking dog cookies, skyped with my favorite Hawaiian family the Engels-Holdt's and made my first batch of Maine soap - yay!

Nicola - the soap mold is AWESOME! Sorry it's taken me soooo long to try it out!

Some cookies for Barkley to share with her boyfriends when she goes to stay with them in a week while i'm off to Alaska! 

The first of the Maine Soap - Citrus Castille - I hope it turns out! 

Irene

What an end to a week. An end i'd rather not repeat anytime soon. You know that visa issue I mentioned earlier - well it turns out it was actually a huge deal. I got a phone call from the lawyer at 5pm on thursday telling me they were going to have to send me back to the UK, as I was out of status (aka illegally working). I did some searching around and found there was a chance they could issue me a new entry document if we could prove it was their error and that there was an office in Portland. So yesterday was a day spent at the lawyers office, then waiting around to see if they would entertain changing my documents.

Luckily Gabby came with me, looked after Barkley and kept me sane during the whole experience. Luckily they didn't take me away and stick me on a plane. And that's the closest I ever want to get to that happening. They changed the documents and all is now okay. This whole process has been a pain in the ass, but most of it I can laugh it. This wasn't though, I swear I lost ten years of my life in the last 24hrs. Last night involved some adult beverages, and today has been slightly fragile....

And now just waiting on Hurricane Irene, though by the time she reaches here she'll be a tropical storm, so all we'll see is some high winds, lots of rain and probably some power-outs. I don't think it's going to be huge, but we'll probably spend the day inside catching up with things.

Some photos from a lab lobster outing, and from the last round of Monhegan Diving (a few weeks ago)

Trish teaches us the right techniques for opening and eating lobster! 

Little lab group!

Collecting Gersemia corals off Monhegan. 

Collecting corals. 

It was a beautiful day!

My cute little conehead....

The hotspot looked great this morning, but by the afternoon she'd scratched it raw again. Sigh, so it was time for the cone. I want it to be nice and healed before I head out of town again....

This one kind of sums up her feelings about the cone....

She's not a happy bunny....

Time flies by.

I don't know why i've been finding it hard to update the blog since I moved, it just isn't coming together as it has in the past. Think i'm just in a rut, i've not been taking a whole lot of photos recently either, so that doesn't help, as I prefer to show with photos rather than say with words. Need to remember to take the camera into work more often. Need to update the lab blog too....that has been a LONG while.

So here's the short and long -

1. The end of the DC trip went well - spectacularly busy, 7am - 8pm first day (along with edits at 10pm) and 7am - 7pm on the second day, just making my 9pm flight and back home by 1am on Weds - interestingly to a skunk taking refuge under my stairs who really did not want to move. It took some convincing, but i'm glad to say he's not returned or i'm sure i'd be having my first experience with de-skunking a dog.....

2. Weds I picked up Barkley from the kennel, she was exceedingly happy to see me (I have never seen her jump around like that before, it was totally cute). She made it until sunday then ate her bed overnight, bored we think. And unfortunately she'd developed a really nasty looking hotspot on her cheek. So that was a bath, followed by a trip to the vet - it was pretty nasty, so she's now on antibiotics and i'm trying desperately to stop her scratching it, which is almost impossible. If it's still nasty by weds she's getting the cone, so lets hope it's gone.

3. Thursday we moved in with Barkleys friends Jackson and Farley, alongside two cats and five chickens! We looked after those guys through Sunday and we all had a blast I think. Chris, Gabby and Mike came over for a BBQ on friday which was awesome.

So what's in store this week? On Weds i'm taking my lab group out for lobsters before my intern heads out back to school, my tech moves on to a full time job and a visitor from the Smithsonian heads back. It's going to be all quiet in the Waller lab in two weeks, really really quiet in fact. Especially since i'm back to Alaska the first week of September (which I thought was 3 weeks away, but I figured out today is actually less than 2.....ouch!). It's the last cruise of our project in the fjords and my collaborators up there found some travel money for me, so i'm headed up, mostly to process, but i'm hoping to get a dive or two in there.

In other news my green card just seems to get more and more complex. I just passed the first of 3 steps and they were supposed to hand in my paperwork for the next step last week. In usual fashion they did not and I found out this afternoon that there is actually an error in my last entry documents when I came back from the Antarctic. What does this mean? I'm not sure, but my paperwork at the moment apparently says I should have left the country July 1st. Oops. And of course the lawyer went home at 5.30pm when he announced there was this issue, so i've had no closure tonight as to what this means.

There is some serious partying in order when I finally get this thing.....and still no word on when I can travel out of the country. Maybe in 3 months....that's without this latest setback.

Wow this turned into a long blog. I hope all have a great week, i'll be sure to blog if I get deported, i'll have plenty of time!

The D's

Spent a wonderful and all too short two days with the D's here in DC, and am now held up in a hotel next to NSF ready for a panel meeting tomorrow. Lots to read tonight. Way too much to read tonight. Add to that a great allergic reaction to the vaccines I had to get last week (red spots everywhere!) for the green card process and all is just peachy....:0) Yes, I have a case of rubella from the MMR vaccine. Luckily not contagious - this form in reaction to the vaccine apparently isn't - and I oh so hope that's true.....if i've given the D's spots before they head to Alaska on vacation i'm not going to be a happy bunny...!

Some photos from the last few days.

Okay...this one is from New Jersey where I was last Mon - Weds. The Jersey Shore. That program scared me about coming here, but it was really quite pleasant and beautiful. 

The Washington Monument.

Quick hot-dog stop before heading into the Natural History Museum

Deep Sea Coral exhibit in the museum - yeah! One of the photos on there (top right) I actually took in Alvin....:0)

Dahlia hugs a neaderthal in the Evolution exhibition. 

Some large property here, but i'm not sure i'd want to live in the crowds. 

Davin shows off his cooking skills.

And his lobster t-shirt! 

Smile!