I am home

Science group in the hanger of the Polar Sea. Photo taken by Daniel Cox of Natural Exposures. I learned a lot from him, and you should check out his website.
First Arctic roller coaster ride!
You got to get in the ice somehow!
I nick named that light, Ol' Misery!
Pancake ice!
twisted rope
I am not sure why I am having such a hard time with that cord, but it is kicking my butt.
On top of the world.
bow head whale skull, taken in Barrow.



I am home. I made it to the Arctic, and now I am back. Mark welcomed me home with a big hug and kiss, and informed me that I wasn't allowed to leave again. I need to thank him, for all the work he did on my blog, without him, this blog never would have happened. I also want to thank my shipmates, both Coast Guard and civilian for allowing me to get to know you.

All and all it was a wonderful experience. I got to go to a place many don't, see things few do, and be a part of major film project. It was a true honor. It wasn't easy though, and it wasn't very glamorous, as you can tell from my pained expression working with an extension cord. For as great as it was to be underway, it's great to be back home. Thanks for following my blog.


Always,
Pam

You think you hate it now just wait until you put it on

Its cold in the arctic, one must dress warm

Hey hey Boo Boo lets go steal some picnic baskets

This beautiful she bear came within ten feet of the stern of the cutter yesterday. She sniffed the air, dug at some snow, even got on her hind quarters and begged for some bacon covered doughnuts. She stuck around for half hour before she bunkered down in the snow to get out of the driving wind. She returned an hour later to see if we had any treats for her. It is pretty exciting to get within a few feet of a wild polar bear. I don't think I could have gotten any closer if I was at a zoo.

Make the cold stop

Today is a frosty 12 degrees with the wind blowing 30 knots sustained andchilling the air to -12 degrees. Burrrrr

I'll just forget about working on my tan.

Today is the coldest day in the Arctic yet. With temperatures peaking in the teens and frigid gust of 30 knot winds, buttoning ones jacket is a must. The five minutes of standing in formation for quarters resulted in teary eyes and runny noses. In one of the photos the deck department is struggling to put down the safety nets around the flight deck because of strong, blowing winds

What do you mean it doesn't run on twisted up rubber bands and gerbils in wheels?

After an extensive two hour tour of the five engine compartments on board this massive cutter I have come to the conclusion that this ship must be some kind of an engineering master piece and the fact that more stuff on this boat doesn't break all the time is no less than a marvel. There are so many moving parts interconnected and so much horsepower to allow this boat to keep trucking even when something breaks. The Polar Sea has six 16 cylinder engines capable of producing some 18,000 shaft horsepower and three gas turbines in reserve for breaking thick ice capable of producing 75,000 shaft horsepower. I was amazed and really impressed with the machinery technicians onboard.

Ice, we ain't scared of no ice

This photo was taken last night from the bridge when we came across our thickest patch of ice yet. I heard an unconfirmed report that the ice was 8 ft. thick. We broke through though. I spent the rest of the night listening to ice crush around the hull, and felt my bed shake like I was I stuck in an all hours earthquake.

They tried to ditch me

I was on the ice pack the other day documenting dive operations when one of the Lieutenants noticed that the ship was drifting off the spot it was parked. The ship drifted so much that they had to send a helicopter to come pick us up, rather than using the crane. It was my shortest helicopter ride to date.

Why say no when it feels so good to say yes!

As a bold act of declaring, "We know what we are doing," the cooks from the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea garnished this mornings doughnuts with salty, smoked bacon. Bacon, the versatile meat product that is, is often found in the meals served aboard the Polar Sea. When some people complained about the overabundance of bacon goodness the cooks lashed out in a Twisted Sister moment of, we are not going to take it, and put the bacon on the
doughnuts. Take that bacon haters.

View From The Top

Learning At Sea

Ten blue suited individuals are sitting on the mess deck aboard the red-hulled ship. In front of them is Erin Sheridan, the young blonde teacher in jeans and a t-shirt with small polished, stone medallion hanging by a natural fiber cord around her neck. She is teaching about climate change on the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea, homeported in Seattle. She is helping her young uniformed students gain an education that will provide for them for the rest of their lives.

Before going afloat and teaching Coasties, Sheridan taught experiential education in the San Francisco Bay Area for several years. She taught skills such as sailing and kayaking, experiences that garnished team building. When it was time to move on in her career she looked for interesting career opportunities around the United States and discovered Vincennes University programmed tailored to the needs of Coast Guard personnel serving at sea.

Given her maritime lifestyle and adventure-seeking personality she applied, and has been aboard the cutter since it left Seattle in late August.

Sheridan teaches four courses, five hours a day, five days a week. Those lessons include: Intro to earth science, algebra, intermediate algebra, and oceanography.

Some of her students are working toward a specific degree others are taking general college courses in the hopes that they may one day be applied to toward a degree program.

Teaching aboard a moving a cutter has its challenges, and Sheridan said that some times her class get interrupted or some times her students have to miss class because of watch.

“You have to be flexible,” said Sheridan. “You never know when an alarm is going to go off or they call a drill in the middle of your class and all of your students have to leave at once.”

“So far this has been an great experience,” said Sheridan. “This is an awesome boat,” she added.

At the end of the cruise in early Dec., Sheridan will return to her home in St. Augustine, Florida.

I'm Going On A Bear Hunt

I was having dinner, scallops in a pepper creme sauce, on the mess deck when I hear my name piped over the 1MC to contact the bridge. It was the National Geographic producer telling me that a bear and her two cubs were spotted from the bridge of the cutter. I quietly informed the scientist and then beat feat my room to grab my 80-400 lens, that I almost left at home, and took the stairs two at time. I arrived at the bridge breathless and eager to see the bear. I must have snapped 50 pictures, but to see a polar bear in her natural element is a special thing. One of her cubs seemed incredibly curious, and kept straying from his mom to get closer to the big red boat breaking up his icy home. In the photo his mother is standing, as if to tell the boat not to get any closer to her wayward son.

If the Arctic was made of Eskimo pies would you eat it, well would ya?

I was on the ice pack today, and all I could think of, while the snow was crunching under my feet, was Eskimo Pies. The mounds of snow drifts, white and clean, reminded me so much of vanilla ice cream that I wanted to grab some and bite into it. It was gorgeous out there, the sun burned off the haze casted beautiful shadows upon the mounds of snow. Divers drilled out holes in the ice and dove into the frigid water. A soft rainbow made a brief showing, and then vanished as quietly as it came. It was lovely.

Polar Bears but no Coca Cola

Where I am

Well we are getting further and further up North. We are at 77 degrees North. Internet might such down soon, we will see. The ice is beautiful. I saw a polar bear from the ship the other day. He was running away from the Coast Guard, smart bear.

We will just pull over at the next parts store.

The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea, almost 400 feet of icebreaking steel and charged by engines capable of producing 20,000 horsepower, was steered through the ice laden waters of the Arctic Ocean by a seaman with a pair of vice grips.

It was 2 a.m. Saturday when the bridge officer noticed that the Polar Sea was steering a course nearly 26 degrees off from the ordered course. The engineer of the watch was immediately contacted and a broken differential gear was discovered upon inspection.

Rather than having to abort the Sea’s current mission, transporting groups of various scientists to the Arctic icepack, the engineering department worked together with the icebreaker’s sister ship, the Polar Star, moored in Seattle, and arranged to have an identical gear flown to the closest land point, Barrow, Alaska.

While the part was in transit, a pair of vice grips served as a temporary solution to the steering causality.

“The vice grips worked because they acted as a lever for the operator to control the hydraulic arm, which controlled the rudder,” said Ensign Andy Perodeau, a machinery officer aboard the cutter.

The vice grip operator received steering instructions from the bridge through headsets, which provided the communication link.

“If something breaks up here in the Arctic we have to figure out how to fix it, and some times have to be really imaginative,” said Capt. David Vaughan, commanding officer of the Polar Sea.

Once the part arrived, a helicopter was deployed from the ship to receive the gear in Barrow. The gear is on board, and the cutter and crew are working to carry out the scientific mission.

What About the Bears?

The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea’s red hull cuts through the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean set on finding polar bears. Aboard the 399-foot icebreaker is a team of scientists dedicated to recapturing bears that are tagged with collars that transmit a global positioning signal to a locater device allowing the cutter’s crew to steam toward the bears. The scientists are hoping to gain a better understanding of how polar bears are surviving in their changing environment.

In the spring scientists, working from a base camp near Deadhorse, Alaska, used helicopters to track polar bear paw prints and locate the animals.

“We targeted females because male bears necks are bigger than their heads and can shake off the collars,” said Dr. Merav Ben David, professor of Zoology at the University of Wyoming and one of the lead scientists in charge of the mission.

Every spring, as temperatures warm and ice melts, the polar bears either stay near shore, and scavenge for food, or follow the receding ice to hunt for seals.

While the earth as a whole is getting warmer, polar bears are losing their hunting ground. Scientists are going to use the data collected from the recaptured bears to analyze how ice loss is affecting these arctic creatures, said Ben David.

Ben David said that the scientists captured and collared 19 bears. Of those bears that were caught and released four shook off their collars and two remained on shore. This leaves 13 bears for scientists to track, tranquilize, study and release.

The collars, in addition to transmitting a position signal, also relay the ambient temperature and are submersible, to study how much time the polar bears spend in the water.

The collars are outfitted with a self-release mechanism, and slated to separate from the bears on Nov. 1. The scientists, working together with the Coast Guard, have limited time to find the bears before the collars deactivate.

The Coast Guard was commissioned by the National Science Foundation to transport the scientists to the northern end of the earth. The Polar Sea’s icebreaking capabilities allows the scientists to get closer than ever to the polar bears and study the bears in a new way. This collaboration marks the first time bears have been studied using the Polar Sea.

My Partners in Crime

In addition to the various scientist aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea there are also various photographers and vidoegraphers. From new to the art, such as your local blogger, to the seasoned pro, i.e. Daniel Cox, who is currently working for Polar Bear International.

Photos tell a story, and if captured in the right way can be very effective. The photographers aboard are here to tell the story of different scientific groups heading to the Arctic.

Of course Greg Marshall from National Geographic is here, and Daniel Cox, as mentioned before, but there is also Rick Morris, a freelance videographer who is documenting the ice-dive teams, and Christina Galvan, a Hayward, Calif. native, who is here to gain experience, take photos, and blog to her students about her trip.

Aside from the inherent beauty and cold temperatures of filming in the Arctic comes with a bountiful cornucopia of challenges to over come. Challenges that include but are not by any means limited to as shipboard isolation, slow or no Internet, potential for equipment failure and just plain not having the right equipment at the right time, and preparing cameras and lens for different atmospheres.

The icebreaker is also fundamental challenging to shoot because its overhead florescent lighting, steep ladders, and constant ambient noise that is always being picked up by the camera.

I had every intention of time lapsing a sunrise sequence this morning, however I got outside just in time to watch the fog roll in. It is a good thing I have four and half weeks left.

Hello Ice

The Arctic is dry, and when the wind doesn’t blow it is so dry you almost don’t notice the cold. The wind is the persistent one that always makes sure you know it is there.

Goodbye Barrow

I made it to the ship. A landing crafted stormed the beaches of Barrow and picked me and the other Coasties up. After climbing the Jacob’s ladder and struggling out of my dry suit I found my room. The passageways are bit like a mousetrap with out the cheese. I love cheese. We have been steaming since last night and today we passed some ice. It was a pretty sight seeing all that ice floating on seawater. I would upload photos, but as you can imagine connectivity is an issue. More to follow. Tomorrow the scientist start their bear hunt. They are going to track them down from the GPS collars that are on them, tranquilize them with a rifle shot from a helicopter and conduct some studies on the ice.

A warm day in the arctic

Today was an especially lovely day in the arctic. Don't get me wrong, the temperature only peaked at 33 degrees, but it was dry with no wind, and all together fine. What the Irish would call a soft day.
Nothing extra ordinary happened today, aside from the weather. I woke up, ate chex circle, took photos, ironed out the details about getting underway, took more photos, ate lunch, took more photos, drank a hot chocolate, took more photos, ate dinner, processed photos, worked out, uploaded photos, and wrote on my blog. Yup, you are up-to-date.

Polar Bears

Polar Bears. Do you know what is scarier than a Polar Bear, cause I don’t. They are, as I have been informed the largest land predator on Earth, and they happen to be visiting Barrow around the same time I am. I have had my bear briefing, but as thorough as that half hour video tape was, I just don’t feel that prepared to confront a bear. They say if you see a curious bear you are suppose to wave your arms slowly above your head and identify myself. Can you image Pam waving her mitts above her head, and saying, “Hello Mr. P. Bear, I am Pam. Can I take your picture?” I am not going to lie. I am not that brave. If I see a polar bear when I am out with someone I’ll probably trip them for bear food while I run for sanctuary.

Alaska's warmth

I have found no end to the warmth I have experienced here in Alaska. The sense of teamwork, generosity and cooperation is without end, and it is without a second thought. Any concern I have had has been met with response, any need, provided for, and every smile given, returned. The natives are kind, but there is something more. I think it is something deeper, more fundamental. I think it is derived from survival instinct. In any event, the humble town of Barrow and its outlying points have resonated with me, and it is probably more than a little naive to believe that all of Alaska is like this, but it is a definite welcome breath from pretense of home.

Top of the World

Oakland to Seattle. Seattle to Anchorage. Anchorage to Fairbanks. Fairbanks to Barrow. Barrow to the Top of the World. Well I am here now. Today's travels were rather uneventful. It started at the front desk, when I went to check my bag in. Apparently my bag weighted more than the limit of 50 lbs., registering a hearty 67lbs on the old scale, but that was arbitrary because it was of absolutely of no consequence. My bag was checked in all the same. Aside from the plane rides taking a long time they were rather dull. That is until we took off for Barrow. When a Native Alaskan took a seat next me, and thrust her hand in my direction, introducing herself as Loo, could be Lue, can't say for sure which. Anyway, she gabbed and gabbed, and had the most unpleasant habit of spitting when she talked. She drank two beers and educated me on how she is not allowed to drink at her village, and I think the two beers went straight to her head. She started lecturing me on the importance of planning for survival, and being prepared for the worst. If it wasn't for the alcohol I would think that maybe a cultural way to think, and it very well maybe, but it came across as incoherent ramblings. I later saw her at the hotel front desk being asked to leave for being intoxicated.

As the plane neared Barrow I looked out the window and saw the way we were flying above the clouds. They lay below us as white puffs of cotton blanketing the ocean below. It was really beautiful. The plane eventually dipped into the clouds and the plane was consumed by gray, and when we broke from the dense fog the sea appeared. There it was the Arctic Ocean. Lovely, and various shades of blue. There was the muddied blue, that yielded to purple and lighter blues, and off in the distance the water was turquoise as it melded with the horizon. It was a site, and choppy as well. Loo informed me that there must have been an North wind, judging from the sea state.

When I got off the plane I was smacked by cold. An Air Force master stg. gave me a ride from the tiny airport to my hotel. I went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the Arctic Circle, and had Italian lasagna. It wasn't half bad and not to expensive considering the most expensive salad was over 26 dollars.

After a days of prep. and hours of weary travel, I finally made it. Watch out bears, I am coming to get you.

Gear, Do I have enough?

I can't sleep. I keep thinking about yaktrax and marine wool and long underwear and polypropylene. I can't stop thinking about if I will be warm enough, to warm, the right sunglasses, enough lens, to much weight, not enough clothes.

Yaktrax are pretty cool by the way. They are rubber slings that go around the sole of your boots. The rubber is wrapped with metal coils to give you good traction on the snow.

What I am going to miss

I am going to miss the Rascal.

I am going to miss the Mark.

Gear Collection

Yesterday I was able to nail down some hard details about my trip. I spoke with the National Geographic Videographer I would be working with, Greg Marshall , and found out the purpose of our little adventure (we will be telling the story of how scientist recapture bears that have already be radio tagged, and how that data is analyzed and used). I also booked my very long, very expensive plane ticket that connects twice, once in Seattle, once in Anchorage, before finally touching down in Barrow, Alaska. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, I learned what gear I needed to bring for the trip. I purchased these beauts. for a pretty penny from REI today. I also snagged three layers of gloves, to keep my digits from falling off, boot socks, long johns, and not one but two hats with ear flaps (you could never be to careful). I would complain, but how can you complain about buying gear for a trip of a life time. Plus there is an unforeseen bonus of buying all this, you get to tell everyone in the store that you are going to the North Pole to film polar bears.