Well- we arrived safe and sound Monday, April 9th on schedule and with all of our luggage even!! Quite the accomplishment I have to say. I flew from Seattle to Anchorage on a large plane (Boeing 737) and then we hopped on a little puddle jumper type plane in Anchorage to fly to Dutch Harbor. There were 7-8 of us on the plane, and it was quite a noisy ride! As our plane arrived at the Dutch Harbor airport (with just a little bump), we got our first glimpse of the Healy sitting in port. What a huge ship she is!! The view from the plane was magnificent, snow capped mountains everywhere!!! The Dutch Harbor airport is teeny tiny- much smaller than any airport I've been to. There was a little kid in the baggage claim area sliding down the metal ramp that they throw the bags down in a small cardboard box. I bet they won't let you do THAT at any other airport!!
The first glimpse of Healy in the harbor
Our little 'puddle jumper' that we flew to Dutch Harbor on.
Look at those gorgeous snow covered mountains!
After we arrived, we walked over to the Healy, since it was only about a mile from the airport (and we knew we weren't going to be walking much once we got on the ship!). We headed up to the science lounge and got our welcome aboard package (some paperwork telling us the do's and don'ts on the ship) and quickly settled into our rooms. I'm rooming with 2 other women- one from the University of Washington, who is part of our research team, and the other is a post-doc from Princeton (meaning she already has her PhD and is researching with the university). We each have our own bunk and locker, which has TONS (surprisingly) of room in it for all our stuff! We also each have a pager so we can keep track of each other. We have to wear it all day, every day. And we have to do an accountability check 2 times a day, every day. This is to make sure we don't have anyone go overboard, unnoticed. This happened last year on one of the Healy's sister ships in Antarctica.
After settling in, a few of us went out to dinner at the Grand Aleutian hotel. It was fantastic- probably the last REALLY yummy meal we'll have. Two strange things I've discovered so far:
Bald eagles are as common as crows/seagulls here- they were flying around everywhere!! They fly so close you could almost reach out and touch them. Sadly, I forgot my camera at dinner, so I have no eagle pictures as proof right now (but check Maggie Prevenas' photo collection, because she has some FANTASTIC photos of eagles on there)! Hopefully I'll get some once we return to Dutch Harbor.
It stays light for a very long time here- it's around 10pm (22:00 military time) before it starts going down. I've heard by the time we're done with the cruise it'll be setting around midnight or later. It also rises a lot later as well, coming up around 8 or 9am. That is going to take some getting used to- although it's handy for those of us who need daylight to work!!
After getting back to the ship, there was a lot of unpacking to do- personal items and research equipment. We were up until 1:30am (Alaska time, which is an hour behind Washington time- so that was really 2:30am Washington time!) unpacking and starting to set up our equipment. It became clear to us right away that we needed some sleep and more hours to work, so we headed off to bed. I was exhausted, and fell asleep almost immediately. Since the ship was in the harbor, where it's very calm, you couldn't even tell we were on a ship at all- it felt just like being on a large building that sticks out of the water pretty much!
The next day, bright and early, we headed off to breakfast which is served between 7-8am. The food was surprisingly good, and they have a lot of variety (cereal, oatmeal, bacon, eggs, yogurt, fruit, bagels, etc etc) although the fresh fruit and veggies will go away as we are out at sea longer and longer- so I'm taking advantage of what we have right now! After breakfast it was back to the lab- where I now know I'll be spending a very large portion of my time. Unfortunately there are no windows, so I'll have to make due with running outside to take in the scenery. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately- blue skies, "warm" temperatures (in the high 30's/low 40's) and sunshine, which makes me wonder if we're really in Alaska (not that I'm complaining)??
Sunrise on Healy (this was around 8:30-9am).