A Trip to the McMurdo Aquarium

Each season, there are several science groups in McMurdo studying the fauna of our region.  These studies focus on seals, penguins and whales and also encompass several long-running projects researching life in the ocean below the surface of the ice.  The sea water here is about -1.6 degrees C /28 F.  In order to collect specimens for study, the scientists and their graduate assistants either employ the services of a professional diver (see post with video from ocean videographer, Henry Kaiser, here) or they go fishing.

Fish groups travel over the sea ice in a tracked vehicle, called a Pisten Bully, to their fishing hole.  These fishing holes are often created using a long drill (manually-operated) with a 3-foot long flight.  Sometimes, a much larger hole is cut with a giant, mechanized drill and a small hut is placed over it for the warmth and wind protection for the science group and divers. My friend, Dan, is a fish scientist and his blog postings will give you a very good idea of what fishing in Antarctica is like:  http://hassumaniantarctica.blogspot.com/2011/10/saturday-october-22-2011.html

Fishing groups and divers bring their catch back to the aquarium for further study.  The community gets to look at these creatures during the weekly tour of the Crary Lab or, for those of us lucky enough to play music with a fish scientist....one evening after work.  Here are some pictures from the touch tank and from the fish tanks.



Various fish and stars





Brittle star



Lice



 

Crinoid





Antarctic Toothfish - Mawsoni - Antarctic Cod - Chilean Sea Bass - whatever you call it, it is overfished



This one is 85 pounds/39 kilos - a small one.  The biggest adult toothfish can reach 330 pounds/150 kilos.



Octopus

The octopus isn't the subject of its own study but it was very cool to see.  Here the scientist is giving us an up-close view.  Apparently, octopi are very intelligent.  Last year, the octopus they were keeping in the aquarium found a way to get out of its tank, walk across the lab and hop into the touch tank for a snack.  The night janitor found him on the floor on his way back to his tank.  this year, they have fashioned a heavy lid for the octopus tank.

If you want to learn more about the Antarctic Toothfish/Chilean Sea Bass/Dissostichus mawsoni, please take a look at the Last Ocean website or watch the Last Ocean documentary.

Fall Fun

Since the end of the tour season, we've been lucky enough to have mostly fantastic Indian summer weather - sunny with clear, blue skies and warm temperatures - perfect weather for doing all of those activities we'd talked about doing all summer long.

We spent several days doing some work around the house for our landlady. Mostly, this involved splitting wood (with a magnificent machine that does the splitting for you with a big chisel) and, of course, stacking the split wood.

We also learned how to drive the 4-wheeler and had some fun driving it around the neighborhood.


Once we finished our duties at home, we did some wonderful hiking and really enjoyed the reds of the alpine tundra, the golds of the aspens and devil's club plants and the deep greens of the evergreens.




We were invited by one of Michiel's many employers to join him fishing. Jason owns and operates Angle 45 , a local fishing guide company. He took us out in a row boat to go driftboat fishing on the Kenai River. As we are both pretty sick of eating salmon (imagine that!), we were thrilled to discover that we would be fishing for Dolly Varden and Rainbow Trout. With Jason's expert guidance and excellent gear, Michiel got a trout within 2 minutes of leaving the boat put-in. Unfortunately, the trout was actually too large to keep (to Michiel's surprise and dismay). Jason released it and we spent the rest of the gorgeous day catching our limit of Dollys (1 per person) and trout (also one per person) and trying our hand at catching silver salmon (no luck). The day ended with a great boat run past a large brown bear doing his own fishing and swimming in the river. Many thanks, Jason, for a super day!

Michiel cooked up the fish beautifully that night and we had a truly gourmet meal of freshly grilled fish with sauteed green beans and basmati rice. YUM!

This month also featured an extremely high tide in the Turnagain Arm so a group of us did some canoe and kayak paddling from the Seaview Bar parking lot at sunset. We certainly surprised many of the locals, who'd never seen paddlers in the Arm - as it is known to have very dangerously strong currents and quicksand-like mudflats.

Dipnetting for Reds

One of the privileges of being an Alaska resident is being able to dipnet for salmon. With the appropriate permit, dipnetters use their own home-made nets to "dip" for salmon as they swim upstream to spawn and then die. Dipnetting at the mouth of the river in which the salmon are swimming allows the dipnetter to catch salmon at their prime - before they start the decaying and mutating process that accompanies the hard slog upstream. The type of salmon we were hoping to catch were the red or sockeye variety that are known as the tastiest of all Alaskan salmon.

We joined some other Hope residents for a couple of days on the Kenai River to try our hand at this uniquely Alaskan activity. We had the mistaken impression that we would put on our chest waders (waterproof overalls), lower the giant nets in the water and we'd immediately pull in dozens of salmon. We thought we'd reach our limit (25 fish for the head of the household and 10 additional for each family member) in a day or two.

We couldn't have been farther from the truth. We spent hours in the freezing cold water watching the line of fishermen and women to our left and right. We gauged when we got back into the water after a break by watching for when others pulled fish out. We'd stand patiently and I'd try not to let the incoming tide flow over the top of my chest waders until we felt a jerk in the net. The real trick was then to flip the net over and drag it over the sand until you got to shore. Most people lost their fish by looking in the net to check out the fish while they were dragging it in to shore.

Once on shore, you had to "bonk" the fish with a small bat to kill it and then untangle it from the net. Here I am with my one and only after getting lessons from a friend on how to "bonk" it and carry it. (Note the very feminine gloves.)










Sadly, the run was no where as strong as it should have been for that time of year and Michiel and I ended up catching only 3 fish between us (2 for him - he'll be sure I added this detail).

It was just as well, really, as each fish yields 6 fillets - more than enough fish to satisfy us for the rest of our summer in Alaska - and we had a great time camping out on the beach and spending time with our neighbors and friends.

The gulls had a great time, too. When fish were being caught and filleted on the spot, the gulls had plenty of opportunity to eat the discarded heads and guts.



Fortunately, we received some lovely recipe tips from Marie-Birgitte in the comments of the post "Getting Ready for the Ice" so we will enjoy our salmon in gourmet fashion. Thanks, M-B!

What's new in Alaska?

What's new, you ask? Well...since we wrote some pretty extensive coverage of our time here in Hope, Alaska last year, we didn't feel the need to cover familiar territory. However, we have been doing some new stuff since we got here in snowy and wintery May.

We've had a very late summer and Michiel's efforts to get an early start on the vegetable garden were thwarted by snow and icy soil. As we approach summer solstice on June 21, things are FINALLY starting to feel like summer and the lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and sunflowers are starting to do some real growing.

It was great, however, to experience a taste of winter in those first couple of weeks with temperatures in the 30's and 40's during the day with occasional snow flurries and a snow shower and below freezing at night. During the last week of May, I guided my first trip of the season and the state experienced a heat wave, including record-breaking high temps in Hope. When we returned from that great trip (Michiel joined me), all of the trees had leafed-out and winter was certainly over.

Gone Fishin': One of the fun things we did recently was to go out for our very first salmon fishing attempt. Our friend, John, took us out on the Kenai and Russian Rivers for red (sockeye) salmon fishing. He taught us how to tie the fly onto the line and how to cast, etc., but we were all unlucky and/or unskilled and spent the day with our boots in the frigid waters trying to stay warm in the downpour.

Fishing on the Kenai River is never a solitary pursuit



While hiking along the Kenai River to the confluence with the Russian River, we saw a small brown bear doing some fishing of his own.



We DID enjoy it, though, and vowed to try again now that we have our annual fishing licenses. There's something very satisfying about the idea of bringing home your own food. Unfortunately, that night, we had to eat leftovers.

Michiel was the only one of the three of us to get a fish on the line (twice!), but, alas.....no dinner.



Gone Runnin': Today, we both ran the Anchorage Mayor's Half-Marathon (13.1 miles/21 kilometers) - formerly known as the Midnight Sun Marathon. Michiel was extremely supportive and stuck by me the whole time - even going so far as to carry extra GU (energy gel) and Gatorade. It was incredibly helpful and motivating to have him there with me to help me through the tough moments (like from mile 11 to mile 12). It was surprisingly fun to do and very inspirational to see all of the different body shapes, sizes and ages of people who were out there running. I also managed to beat my time goal of 2.5 hours by finishing in 2 hours and 23 minutes or so (results are still unofficial). UPDATE: Official time was: 2:23:26, which put me at 309th in the women's race and Michiel at 281st in the men's race.

For more info on the marathon and official times, see www.mayorsmarathon.com

I'm not too sore, yet...but it has only been 7 or 8 hours..... UPDATE: Ouch.....

Fishin' for World Cup Soccer: Our (especially Michiel's) biggest sadness at the moment is that we can't find reliable internet coverage of the World Cup soccer games. In case you haven't been following, the US even has a small chance to advance to the second round. Of course, we are most interested in seeing how Holland does and after watching the European Cup two years ago while living in Amsterdam, I developed an appreciation of the game that everyone else in the world seems to care about.... GO HOLLAND!

Feelin' Clammy

After the moose incident, we got into the car - hearts still pounding - and joined some friends for a long drive to a beach along the Pacific Coast to dig for razor clams. Clams are best harvested at a large negative tide, that is, when the low tide is far off shore - preferably more than -2 feet. Yesterday's tide was -2.5 feet, so we thought it would be fun to go clamming.

Armed with fishing licenses, 5-gallon buckets, fluorescent pink and green rubber gloves and shovels, we descended on the beach to look for the little dimples that indicate the presence of a clam. When you see a dimple, you start digging quickly and carefully. The clam shells are very sharp (thus the name "razor clam") and fragile, which makes digging very tricky. Just a little too close and the clam shell is shattered. The clams are also very fast diggers, themselves, so it's a race between you and the spitting clam that is trying to pull itself vertically deeper into the sand.

It was good fun but not very fruitful as the tide wasn't really low enough to get the really big guys. In fact, only the experienced clammer in the group got his limit (60). When we returned home, we had the more difficult task of cleaning them (which includes removing them from the shell, rinsing them several times and cutting out all of the internal organs and yucky parts (very scientific, huh?). Here's a photo to get a better idea:


Michiel and I managed to harvest enough to make a clam sauce for our pasta dinner - but it sure was a lot of work. If we had to live off the land this summer, we would be in for big weight loss. Kidding aside, we ARE trying to live as much as possible off the land since groceries are more than twice as expensive as what we're used to paying in Amsterdam, but we'll have to try something closer (this required nearly a 2.5 hour drive each way) and more bountiful.

On another note: just saw a bald eagle swoop past the cabin window with something in its talons. Excellent!