The Animals Are Starting to Tolerate Us

When Pauline got up this morning she found this guy hanging out by our gangway.  She thought he might jump in the water when she got off the boat but he just kind of moved over.  Later in the morning Mark had to do some work on the dock and he was still there so he snapped a few shots.

It used to be when ever you got close they hit the water.  But either they are getting used to us or getting lazy.

The Shortest Day

We have probably mentioned more than once about how much daylight we get in the summer.  Well the flip side of that is the long nights in the winter.  Today was the shortest day of the year.  When we went to work this morning (7am for Pauline 8am for Mark) it was dark and about 28 degrees F and slightly cloudy.  At 9:30 Mark had to go out and run some errands for work.  It was pretty light out but the sun was not yet over the mountains but at 10am the tops of all the mountains both to the east and west had a beautiful orange glow as the sun was rising over the tops of the mountains in the east the sky was a bright blue, the mountains orange or white, and the bay was a nice blue.  There were some remnants of wisps of clouds toward the sun that were giving some orange streaks kind of like aurora lights except they were orange and to the southeast.  Of course the temp dropped once the clouds went away to a balmy 18 degrees F.  But a brisk chill was a small price for the show.  Did we get any pictures.  Nope sorry about that.

It's Getting Slushy

The post a few days ago said the harbour was getting ice near shore.  Well it is now slushy even past us.  Not that bad.  The sea otters are still able to pop through it.  As a matter of fact, one surprised both of us this morning as we got off the boat.  He was hanging out right under our dolphin striker.  However for the first time we are seeing otters on the docks.  There were about six of them this morning on the dock across from us.

Alaska really is amazing.  A week ago before the shush but with the snow on the dock we had two river otters playing on our dock.  They are much more shy than the normal sea otters.  But they were really fun to watch playing in the snow and jumping on and off the dock.

On the week of Thanksgiving we did two Anchorage runs.  On both of those we had the Dall Sheep grazing on the rocks just above Beluga Point.  These shy creatures are usually way high up but I guess in the winter time they come down lower because they were literally only about 150 feet up.  We saw some when we went to Denali and they were a long way up and far away.  We were told that was a great view of them, so I guess this one was super special.  For those not in the know, Denali National Park was created in a large part to prevent the Dall Sheep from extinction.

the view from the drive

on our way to Anchorage

Winter Wonderland

It has been a while since we updated our blog.  Well, that is what happens when you are working and not playing.

Mark finished and passed all his courses!

We had a quiet Thanksgiving this year with a baked ham and we surely missed the fun we had last year in Florida.

It is getting colder here in Seward, with occasional strong winds, bringing the wind chill to the minus temperatures, both in the Fahrenheit and Celsius scale.  The snow fall makes the place so pretty and the photos do not do it any justice.  The water in the boat harbor nearer shore is freezing.  The boat seems to be taking it in her stride and we are coping.  We have our wood stove going in the evening and 2 electric heaters going all the time, so we are keeping warm.

It was pretty cold, the surface water is slushy

snow covered Sari Timur, with a gorgeous background

view of the boat harbor with snow-covered mountains in the background

Pauline built a mini snowman.  He didn't last very long, fell over with the falling snow during the night