by Nate Jones, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

June 7, 2008: A short entry, because I’m seasick! The weather has definitely taken a turn for the worse! So much for the calm Bering Sea in summertime. We have a gale going, with winds to just over 40 knots, and seas of 15-20 feet. I went up on the bridge this morning to look and see the stormy weather. I was excited to experience this, because it’s definitely part of what makes this ocean what it is. I could barely keep my feet as the boat lurched from side to side. The spray from the waves was lashing across the windows, blown by the wind. That’s like 40 feet off the water! OOooppf. I couldn’t stay very long. I didn’t even take a picture, unfortunately. But, the US Coast Guard is nice enough to provide some stock footage on their website that I’ll borrow here to demonstrate what I saw:

Lucky for me, our scientific instructions (protocols) tell us not to survey in this weather because it’s too difficult to see birds anyway. I mean, c’mon – How many birds can you see in this photo?!