I just saw this on my msn page. thought it had some pretty cool shots in it. http://photos.msn.com/slideshow/photos/arctic-surfing/23ze80tf#1 Im not sure if you need to bring nut butter with you though... lol.
Very cool... As I look out my window at the snow covered surroundings, the pictures are quite motivating! Thanks for sharing.
nice. it's so beautiful up here that even when you get skunked, it's hard to be bummed. you just look around and go yeeew! ...until a drilling rig runs aground. click on the link for Sitkalidak Island in the article and zoom in on Ocean Bay. Unbelievable spot! Hope it doesn't get trashed. http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/shell-drill-ship-runs-aground-alaska-raising-spill-concerns
apparently it's still upright but more storms on the way. interesting how many old harbors/puerto viejos there are in the world. The exact site of the grounding is on the southern side of Sitkalidak island, a small island adjacent to Kodiak. Most of the land on Sitkalidak is owned by the Old Harbor Native Corporation. The village of Old Harbor is located on Kodiak just across from the island, on the other side of a protected strait. In Old Harbor Wednesday, villagers were paying attention to the unfolding drama with the drill rig, but also busy with life as usual. Commercial fishing for cod is underway, and crab fishermen are gearing up for tanner crab season, which begins Jan. 15, said Melissa Berns, Vice President for the Alutiiq tribe of Old Harbor. Everyone connected to the grounding has done a good job keeping the community in the loop from the beginning, Berns said, from updates when problems with the tows first developed to the ongoing issues presented by the grounding. Nearly 150,000 gallons of petroleum products are on board the rig, some to run power equipment on the rig itself and most of the rest to provide stability for the vessel during transport in the open ocean. Concerns now have turned to protecting the area's salmon streams and sea lion and seal rookeries from contamination in the event the Kulluk begins to leak. To date, officials have maintained that the rig appears intact and that no sheens have been discovered during overflights. Questions remain unanswered about the cause and preventability of failures suffered during the trip, from engine outages to broken tow lines, but in Old Harbor, Berns said people seem generally satisfied that there are times you just have to suffer through whatever Mother Nature throws at you. “We're from a maritime community, and we are well aware of situations happening with marine vessels. It all goes with living with the conditions that we do out here. They just happened to come into a bad storm,” she said. Meanwhile, Old Harbor Native Corporation, which is said to be working with Shell on spill prevention options and access to its lands, has chosen to remain mum, telling reporters that it would comment only via a press release which was still being formulated. http://www.alaskadispatch.com/artic...-crew-board-evaluate-grounded-shell-drill-rig
