There's lots of incredibly cool, beautiful and impressive stuff that happens on the continent that other people see and take photographs of. We haven't posted those photos on this blog because it seems a sham to do so .....HOWEVER, last night, I was checking in the baggage for people flying to Christchurch and was told that the cargo pallets shouldn't be closed because we were waiting for the whale harpooners to return with their harpoons.
At about 2:15 in the morning, three scientists (whom we'll refer to as "the harpooners") showed up to check in their equipment. I chatted with them for a while and learned that they fly by helicopter to the large channels in the ice where killer whales swim for food and they "harpoon" a small tracking device onto the dorsal fins of the orcas, as well as removing a small plug of blubber from the body. They are studying the migratory route and the health of the whales. The main harpooner is working at the Alaska Sea Life Center and, who knows, maybe if we visit him in Seward this summer, we'll have a chance to really see this stuff for real next year!
