orca's, humpbacks, fin whales and more...

 

thought i'd toss in a few from the trip out of Seward. it turned out to be a great day on the water. for the second year i guessed a perfect day for boating and whale watching.  yippee!

the black spots on the ice are seals. plenty of those out there.  also an active calving happening. 

our captain was keen on showing us as much as possible on this beautiful day. i went by myself. luckily, i am pretty comfy doing stuff alone most of the time. it's, of course, more fun with others generally. i am pretty good at chatting with total strangers. met a Dr from California on holiday so we chatted a bit. 

those tourists had no idea how lucky they had it out there that day. 

the wild flowers are going nuts so i have also made some treks to Arctic Valley and around Powerline to enjoy those. 

a few walks out at University Lake and Campbell Airstrip. met with friends for walks a few times. life is pretty well rounded. my new bracelet arrived. it says "ocean mountain nature joy" i figured it would be a good reminder to get out of bed and head outside. 

my friend CR is going to make another fall trek up here so i need to start making some plans.  have wanted to do the drive out to Chicken and see the fall colors that way. so perhaps that could work. we shall see. 

i'm currently watching the live cam for the walrus. they have been plentiful on the island this week. lots of fun noises.  love those walrus. was super bummed as i heard from a Dr friend that was slated to go to Round Island that the flaky boat captain had emailed him pretty last minute to cancel. i feel so badly. now i'm thinking perhaps we go together next summer and see if i can get a group to join us. he'd love to go again and i'm not opposed to one more fun trek out to that beautiful place. if you want to join, ponder it. i'm thinking around July 13-19, 2025. 

these blorfers are sure fun. 

many thanks to SH and JH for helping get our new web page created.  we are nearly there.  need a few tweaks then we can go live with it.  i let the old one lapse.  just too difficult to set up the donations/sales portion. hopefully this one will be more user friendly for me and for others. walrusadvocates.org will be the page. shorter anyway. 

otter portion of the photo's. 

feel like i haven't gotten much accomplished of late.  did put the electric fence on the facebook marketplace.  i bought it after the bear woke me up getting into my car in a campground. never have used it though. working less hours makes me re-evaluate various things that i own but never use. sell and have extra cash around. that should keep me solvent for some time....i have way too much stuff. i'm eyeing a few more items to sell now too. 

i worked CSU and ICU last week. this week, i got on call both nights. the first night i got called in at nearly 2 am to help open the CDU, which is observation. easy night. the next night i got overstaffed by 10 pm.  they keep hiring more folks but many are getting on calls consistent.  not sure what the deal with that is. 

these otters are so adorable. 

Sunday i head back to Homer for another low tide. the dogs will be thrilled. 

the water was so perfect.  the sun came out. 

and this big pod of orca's!!  a whole family.  so cool.  

they were all over around the boat. 

everywhere you looked another orca or more. 

they are really cool.  well any whale sighting is cool.  i'm always happy when we see whales out there.  who would get bored of that?

saw a black bear this week and a family of moose. all from the car coming back from hikes.  never bore of any of these sightings. those were in town. 

i'm still looking at photo's from the big camera from this trek. i will need to get that done before i head to Homer. always good to have the big camera around in case i see more stuff. the phone just doesn't get as good of photo's of stuff zoom wise. 

i had applied for a desk type job but it was not to be. wasn't really sure i wanted the job anyway, but nobody loves rejection. oh well. it was good that i showed the incentive to start looking and applying and it was good practice interviewing since it's been a long time since i've done that. i'm a real tough kid, i can handle my shit....as Taylor would say. 

politics is still a continuous nightmare. the orange fool got shot at a rally last week. it was a strange thing and he got clipped in the ear, many think it was really the glass shards from the teleprompter that hit him and not a bullet.  another guy behind him died pretty instantly and two others were injured. the shooter was killed. a lot of strange things with this.  honestly i thought it all looked fake to start. the crowd didn't react the way you expect really.  the secret service seemed to delay getting him off stage and allowed him to do photo ops? why did they allow him on stage when there was reports of a gunman on a roof near by.  all so odd.  he's, of course, milking it for everything. his followers are acting like he's on a vent instead of just having a scratch on his ear. they are also whining that people are being mean about the fool...when they have been mean for years and continue to be nasty to and about everyone and everything.  they are clueless in general though. 

so polls swing back to him winning.  Biden has covid now and looks near dead half the time you see him.  i wouldn't be surprised if he died before President Carter, who's been on hospice for over a year now i think. the rumors today are that he's getting more push to not run again and to allow Kamala to run instead.  they better decide soon.  i think even Obama was encouraging him to think again about running.  if we didn't have a near corpse running the Dems would stand a better chance according to recent polls. not to disrespect Biden.  he's honestly surpassed expectations. the right would never admit that but he has gotten things done that haven't gotten done. it's all still a disaster and the supreme court is a complete corrupt mess at this time. i can't get a $25 gift card from a patient/their family or i could be seen as being corrupt but a supreme court justice can take millions as gifts and it's totally fine!

back to the whales. and the walrus.  i've been hearing some chiming.  JK is on board for next summer. i think RC will be on board as well. 

been raining this week. sun is supposed to return next week.  i got my boat mostly blown up...ready to go, but waiting on weather.  it's just nice for little local lake fun. like to see the birds out there on the water. 

these whales are so cool. 

their markings are so distinctive. 

not much else to say. i need to get on the computer and pay a few bills. also see if i have any pto to put in for this over staff shift. 

then i will need to make a plan for my future. 

happy to be at this end of this career and not just getting started.  that goes for work and life.  not sure how much of this nations issues will get worked out.  either way the election goes it's gonna be rough.  his cult followers will not go down with out another Jan 6 episode no doubt. will they attack dressed as fools in trump clothing again?  freak show.  so embarrassing. the guy that was killed at the rally was a full rumper. he was a retired fireman but i guess his social media was full of the orange fool. it's so crazy. the shooter...he was registered GOP but no real explanation why he did this.  he was killed after not too many shots were fired.  don't like to see anyone get killed. i agree that the Dems should immediately get a gun bill with rumps name on it and make them all have to vote against yet another ar-15 ban bill but this one with rumps name or the name of the guy killed or both. 

when it happened i immediately thought of the line from a movie, "the interpreter" an almost assassination can be just as good as an assassination. garners support and sympathy. the sympathy for rump did not last long though.  i did watch that move the next night. the conspiracy theories are flying on both sides.  

i better get a few more things done on this computer and then get the dogs fed. 

should paint more rocks too.  always relaxing. 

can you see the stars below

bear glacier below

grateful for a. a great day on the water with sun, calm seas and lots of wildlife. b. lots of walrus on the walrus cam to enjoy this week. c. flowers and mushrooms to enjoy on the trails.