My Usual Long Overdue Blog Post :)

The past month has been AHHHMAZING! I love my job. I love being out on the water every day and seeing such beautiful creatures in their natural state. SeaWorld can suck a big one! I've gotten a few decent photos that I want to share with you guys. Before I start with the photos, I want to share this amazing experience that we are lucky enough to hear on occasion. On our boat we have a hydrophone we can drop in the water to hear the whales and orcas. The resident orca pods are usually pretty talkative and we've been able to hear them a few times. Humpbacks are a little more tricky, since they really only make vocalizations in Alaskan waters when they are bubble net feeding. And that was just what they were doing yesterday! We were on our way back from Excursion Inlet when we stopped at a group of bubble net feeding humpback whales that were a little south of Shelter Island. We dropped the hydrophone and this is what we heard!!

The sound you just heard is the call the whales make as they bubble net feed. In a nutshell, bubble net feeding is when a group of whales swim in a circle creating a 'net' of bubbles around a school of fish, then a whale (or whales) dive underneath and make that sound to sorta stun the fish, which drives them to the surface. Once they are at the surface, still trapped in that net of bubbles, the whales swim up and lunge out of the water eating all those little fish. Pretty cool huh?! And to top off all that, as we were leaving we saw four, yes FOUR different humpbacks whales breach one right after the other! Seeing a single whale breach is kinda rare around here, but FOUR?! I was speechless. Well, I take that back... I was yelling OMG, HOLY SHIT the whole time! Haha. It was the most amazing experience I've had all summer with these whales.

Now to the photos... 

Orcas in Stephens Passage

Humpback calf breaching

Silly sea lions!

Something spooked them and they jumped in the water

Humpback calf tail lobbing. Photo cred goes to Katie Harms!

This whale is nicknamed 'Spot'. Can you guess why? haha

Sea lions on a bouy. One guy is a climber.

Bubblenetters!

Humpbacks

Humpbacks

Humpback fluke

Now some non-wildlife photos. A few days ago my friend Alex and I hiked up Eaglecrest and out Pittman's Ridge a little ways. It's so crazy seeing the slopes with no snow. Most of the blacks that we ride on a daily basis are huge, jagged rock cliffs in the summer. A few trails I looked up at and thought, "how in the hell did I ride this on my snowboard?!" haha. 

Mt. Ben Stewart looking mighty fine :)

Looking off the east side.

Looking west towards Stephens Passage and Admiralty Island

Mountaintop ponds :)

Pittman's Ridge

Had to take a selfie :) haha

Looking towards Juneau.

A few snow patches were still hanging around.

One last thing, the thing that has me so stoked for this winter and has gotten my snowboarding withdrawals at an all time high is this thing...

 

Yes, Dustin got me a SPLITBOARD! Woohoo! I'm so excited! It's the Burton Spliff 148. I know that sounds short for a split, but it has 'Nug Reduction' tech which is supposed to make it ride like a 158. Now I can explore all kinds of new backcountry spots this winter. I still need to get the hardware, bindings, and skins, but I have plenty of time until the first snowflake falls. I have the best boyfriend in the world! He's so thoughtful :) 

A Little Bit of Everything

Ok, so now I'm seriously slacking. I can't believe it's almost been a month since my last post. I never imagined my summer would be so hectic and awesome at the same time! Here's a quick recap of the past month! :) Oh, and this is a photo overload post, so get ready!

We went on another heli trip to shred Sheep Mountain for the second time. This time the weather was in our favor and it was sunny and hot, yes HOT! I got one hell of a sunburn since I wore a t-shirt pretty much the entire time. The views were out of this world, the heli ride was awesome, the snow was super good, and the crew we were with rocked as always! The hike out was fun, even the bushwhacking through groves of devil's club. Ouch. Being able to snowboard, much less take a heli trip to shred in JUNE is something I never thought I would have the chance to do! I would repeat that day in a heartbeat if I could!

*all photos in this post were taken by me unless otherwise noted*

 

Photo Copyright Bill Glude

Photo Copyright Bill Glude

Photo Copyright Bill Glude

Photo Copyright Bill Glude

I've also had some breathtaking experiences out on the water at work. Working on a boat is awesome! Here are a few shots from the past few weeks.

Photo by Lukas Baumgaertel

Photo by Lukas Baumgaertel

And we rode our bikes out to Herbert glacier a couple weeks ago. Fun bike ride to a beautiful place.

Photo by Lukas Baumgaertel

Photo by Lukas Baumgaertel

And a few other random photos...

An eagle and a cruise ship...

Beautiful sunset from Sandy Beach

Feel the rainbow! 

Dustin and I a bit past Sandy Beach

Playing in the pillars...

Some friends came to Juneau on a cruise...
this was from the beach as they departed on the Island Princess!

Testing out the Eno hammock I got Dustin for his birthday at Sandy Beach.

What a truly great summer it has been so far. Dustin is loving his job at Eaglecrest, and I'm in love with working on a boat! Allen Marine has been fantastic. I've learned so much over the past couple months, and I'm learning something new every day. The wildlife has been outta this world. Orcas breaching, humpback whales breaching and bubble net feeding, brown bears, harbor seals, steller sea lions, dalls porpoises, harbor porpoises, a million eagles, the occasional sea otter, salmon jumping from the water... wow, where do I even begin to express how stoked I am?! 

In the 5 minutes I've spend typing that last paragraph, I've watched 4 sea planes fly by, and a cruise ship departing Juneau. I still can't take my eyes off the ships going by. So glad to have such a good view from my couch!

The longest day of the year has came and passed, so now we'll be slowly losing daylight until December 21st. Waking up with it starting to get light out at 2am is a bit odd, but I'm starting to get pretty used to it. My mom and stepdad are coming to visit me at the end of July! I'm so excited to show them how awesome Alaska is... they might just stay forever! I miss my friends and family back in Tennessee and North Carolina, but this place is feeling a little more like home every day. I wish I could teleport everyone to AK to visit me! Hopefully I'll have some other visitors sooner rather than later. 

Enough rambling... until next time!

*Peace*