Kelp Visit

 

Josie with a dried Bull Kelp stipe

As I mentioned in an earlier post (click here for post) my sister's friend Josie visited Kodiak to get a feel for how Bull Kelp is doing around the archipelago.  She talked to various locals and got a feeling for the local story.  And out at Lipsett Point her and my sister snorkeled for a few hours and examined the kelp close up.  Nora and I floated around in kayaks on the surface and provided back up.  The current was actually pretty strong too - so we had to make sure they did not get too engrossed in the kelp and get swept away!

All of these pictures are of the underwater kelp beds that they took while snorkeling.  I have a few more posts later that show our activities on land and water, and even some more of them actually snorkeling.  

This year we noticed that in contrast to 2 years ago (click here for 2020 post) there is now very little bull kelp to the south of Lipsett Point.  The main kelp bed is now to the north and east of the point.  We also noticed that the Giant kelp seems to have expanded its range into the deep water on the south side of the point and we even saw a few plants to the east of the point.  The bull kelp on the north side also still extends into remarkably shallow water.  

We are not sure if this is a cyclical phenomena or if the Giant Kelp is expanding its range. Also while flying around to and from our bear viewing to the Alaska Peninsula we saw that giant kelp is far more widespread than I had thought.  Basically we need to keep observing the kelp around Lipsett Point and get a better handle of the interplay between the 2 species - we need more data points to really say anything meaningful.  But this is a start, and the kelp underwater sure is beautiful!

Patrick

Baby sea star starfish

Giant and Bull Kelp side by side

Pyramid in Early June

 

This is the North Bowl yesterday - My 198th ski day of the season!

It's early June and the skiing is still great on Pyramid, and these days I take the dogs with me every time I go. The snow has finished with the freeze/thaw melt cycle. and is solid enough for the doggies not to punch through.  Yet there is still enough snow for long runs and the surface is perfectly soft.  These days the view from the top is down to the green of early summer, and the wildflowers are all blooming by the trail as you hike up to the snow.

Yesterday after I took the dogs skiing I went kayaking with Nora, Stuey and cousin Leo.  We kayaked around the south end of Near Island to the Dog Bay harbor and checked out the sea lions.  They have their own dock there and it was a mass of sleeping, wiggling sea lions.  They perked up a bit when we got close and were making all sorts of grunting sounds.  The animals are HUGE and it was very disconcerting when they started to inspect us.  We promptly turned around before we got too close!

Patrick

The bottom of the jibber is totally done - but I'm still skiing to the clump of spruce trees above the creek crossing

Before the Chaos

 

Along with the post about the helicopter survey these are the last photos I took before Kodiak turned GREEN.  Shortly after I took these photos I went on that final helicopter survey and then my sister and her friend arrived for a visit.  Next week I am running an archaeological excavation.  It's now the busy, busy season.  The time of year when I never even get a chance to check my mail.  

Later in the summer I'll look back on the pictures in this post and think about how quaint it was back in May.  But for now here's to the green days of summer.  The salad days.

Patrick

My 192 ski day this season - and still plenty of snow!

Final Helicopter Survey of Season

 

Kodiak has turned green and 'tis the season of summer chaos - things will not slow down again until next October.  This morning I was looking through the photos on my desktop, and realized I had a bunch from before my sister's visit that I had not posted on the blog.  These ones are from a helicopter survey of outer Kiliuda Bay.  In the photos everything is brown, and it already seems like ages and ages ago that I spent a few hours hovering around with Keller and looking for sites.  But it was only a week and a half ago.  Wow!

The Kiliuda helicopter survey was the final bit of the earlier kayak survey (click here).  We needed the helicopter to check on the sites on the outer coast that were too sketchy to survey by kayak.  We ended up finding 3 new sites and documenting another 3 already known sites.  Most of the villages we documented were on the top of high cliffs and were probably occupied by Alutiiq whalers.  In support of this, all of the sites had exposed whalebone on the surface.

All in all it was a very productive day, and it is always fun to flit around in a helicopter.  At the bottom of the post is a video from the helicopter of nesting kittiwakes flying around a sheer cliff.  It gives a good sense of the vertiginous feeling one gets flying in a helicopter near cliffs.

Patrick

An old house depression filled with whalebone

Clifftop village - probably a whaling village

Polly and Josie's Visit

 

Lately I've been super busy.  Since my last post I went on another helicopter survey to outer Kiliuda Bay (more in another post), and immediately after the survey my sister and her friend Josie arrived for a week long visit. During their visit we spent Memorial Day weekend at our place at Lipsett Point on Afognak and then went on a bear viewing trip to the Alaska Peninsula.  So I have a lot to post on, and in upcoming posts I will cover in more detail the various parts of this overview post.

Josie is from California and is studying Bull Kelp.  Down in California their Bull Kelp has largely disappeared.  She is interested in the interplay between sea otters, sea urchins, and the various species of kelp such as Giant and Bull kelp.  The same 'players' are present in both places but different things are going on.  I had told her about our Giant and Bull kelp forests at Lipsett Point and so she decided to visit.  She wanted to experience a Kodiak bull kelp forest for a comparison with the California kelp forests.  My sister and her are very good friends and so my sister decided to come along too.

We spent the weekend at Lipsett Point and Polly and Josie did some snorkeling in the 45 degree water.  Nora and I paddled around on the surface and provided back up.  We also cooked hotdogs on the beach, went on some walks and enjoyed the sunshine. 

Due to weather we came back from Afognak a day early, and used the extra day to go on a bear viewing trip to the Alaska Peninsula.  Josie checked out all the kelp beds we could see from the plane.  We saw fin whales, elk and spectacular country from the plane.  And then there was Hallo Bay and the bears!

Anyway, more to come in future posts!

Patrick

Josie's focus - Bull Kelp

My favorite - Giant Kelp

Lipsett Point Sunrise

Hot dog with our 'alaria sauerkraut' on top

Hallo Bay bears from our bear view trip