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.
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the view from the drive |
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on our way to Anchorage |
Good to hear all is well and Mark has passed all the courses. Sea Otters sound like a real treat! Would be interested to hear about how you got on with boat insulation and heating. We are currently insulating last of our lockers now. Busy here with the earthquake repairs from last month but ticking down to our departure and return to cruising 13 months to go. Take care Jim and Tori
ReplyDeleteHey Jim and Tori,
ReplyDeleteMain insulation was headliners and liners on the inside of the hull using thermozite. Really has helped with cooling and heating. We went for a wood stove, keep two ceramic heaters goin almost constantly on low power and two engine room heaters one for main engine one for generator room. These only kick on when those compartments hit below 41 degrees F but since they are not directly heated it is good insurance. Knowing what I do now I think I would have gone for a Webasto diesel hot water system. Not as cozy as a wood stove but that single unit probably would replace all the rest.