Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Fairweather

We live on a large bay named "Port Clarence". It is the only sheltered water in the whole Bering Straits region. Because of this we occasionally see ships and boats hiding out from rough weather on the Bering sea. Most of these boats are barges that are hauling fuel and supplies to area villages.

The last few days we had a more interesting vessel hanging out. This is the NOAA ship Fairweather. They are up here mapping and charting the sea floor and ocean depths. There has been a lot of interest in shipping in the arctic in recent years and NOAA has decided to update their navigational charts.

You can learn more about it at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website.

The photo was taken by holding my camera up to the lens of my 30x spotting scope. The Fairweather was about 5 miles away and the zoom on my camera just wouldn't do it alone.

C.O.

5 comments:

Barnabas WF said...

Awesome! I wish I had thought to do that. Hope you feel better.

Erin said...

The spotting scope makes for a cool effect! Very nice!

Anita said...

Wow! Great picture from so far away!
I've been following your blog for a while now. Is fun to see life in another part of Alaska. My sister, Heather, is married to AnnMarie's cousin Shawn. Another Northern Minnesotan transplanted here by a dream.

Nancy M. said...

Neat picture! Kinda looks like it was taken out of a port hole on a ship.

The Rudstroms said...

Ya, I know you Anita. I wouldn't recognize you on the street or anything but definitely know your name. Glad to know you're following the blog. Alaska is a lot like Minnesota actually, but we have mountains. "Minnesota enhanced," we say. It is a dream to be here.
--AnnMarie