That's all, folks!!

NOAA Teacher at Sea:  Tammy Orilio

NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson

Mission:  Pollock Survey

Geographical Area of Cruise:  Gulf of Alaska

Date:  2 July 2011

Personal Log:

Well, my trip has finally come to a close.  It's been an eventful 3 weeks and a great experience!  I'd like to extend a big THANK YOU to everyone involved with NOAA's Teacher at Sea program, which allowed me to participate in this wonderful excursion.  I learned so much while on this trip, and I cannot wait to be able to use the information in my future classes.  I almost said I couldn't wait for school to start back up, but that's not quite right- I'm just starting my summer vacation!!  

Secondly, I'd like to thank the crew on the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson, and the scientists on this leg of the trip, for letting me come aboard and participate in this research survey.  The time on board, whether working or waiting for fish, will stay with me forever!  

Jason- thanks for being so easy to work with!  I'm glad we were the "guinea pigs" for working on our logs together- I think it worked well!  I'm glad I didn't ruin the picture you bought by hitting that annoying child on the plane with it!  

I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog, and I want to thank you for reading it!  It feels great when I see my "Total Pageviews" going up and up :)  Dana Steel, thanks for answering all of my questions- correctly!!  

Here are some last photos of the trip- I stole them from Jason's blog (thanks!), and he got them from Paul, our Chief Scientist on the trip.  This is what you get when you have a good camera.  Thanks again, everyone!!

Fog/clouds in the Gulf of Alaska??  Who ever heard of such a thing?!?!

Last Days in Kodiak...

NOAA Teacher at Sea:  Tammy Orilio

NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson

Mission:  Pollock Survey

Geographical Area of Cruise:  Gulf of Alaska

Date:  2 July 2011

Personal Log:

We arrived back at the City Dock in Kodiak early Wednesday morning, so I had all day Wednesday and most of Thursday to explore the area.  One of the science team and I set off around noon on Wednesday to check out the town, and boy, did it feel good to finally be off the ship!!  18 days is a long time to be confined to one space!  The area where the Oscar Dyson is docked is an "industrial" area, with lots of fish processing plants and canneries, and you could definitely tell even if you weren't looking- the smell was that strong!  Once we got past the industrial area, we were in the main part of the town of Kodiak- lots of little shops catering to fishermen, some restaurants, lots of bars, and a few little gift shops.  We first went to a grocery store because we wanted to buy some candy (one thing we didn't have on the ship!) and as soon as I got inside the store, I started feeling some "dock rock."  It didn't last very long though, thank goodness!!  We walked around a little more, then stopped in to the Kodiak Visitors Center, where they've got displays about all of Kodiak's wildlife.  A few of us went out to lunch for sushi later that day- you could definitely tell the salmon was fresh!! Later on, we went to a Mexican place for dinner, and I gotta say, Mexican is not very good up in Kodiak!  

Big bear chase me!  (Who knows the movie?)

Mrs. Pearce used to work here!

The marina. 

On Thursday, Jason (the other TAS), Rick (one of the scientists) and I went to a place called Fort Abercrombie to do some hiking before we left later that evening.  It's got campsites, hiking trails, and remnants of World War II stuff there.  I'd love to go back and camp there sometime!

Jason & Rick on some of the artillery.  

What an amazing view.

It kind of looks like a monster with a big mouth.  

Clouds over the mountain.

Lake Gertrude in the foreground.

Little waterfall.

Jason and I were on the same flight out of Kodiak on Thursday evening, and we both also had a long (about 3 hour) layover in Anchorage, so we ate one last good Alaskan seafood dinner at the airport, and looked at some of the Native Alaskan art they had there.  I left Anchorage around 9 p.m., and was unfortunately stuck in the middle seat for the LONG nearly 7-hour flight to Houston.  Since I was stuck in the middle seat (and the guy next to me kept spreading his legs into MY space, grrrr) I didn't sleep much on the flight.  As soon as I landed in Houston (about 30 minutes later than scheduled), I had to get right on my last plane to Fort Lauderdale.  I was back in the warm South Florida climate around 11 am Friday, and totally wiped out from traveling!  Here are some of the last pics from my trip.

The Kodiak Airport.  That's all of it!

You can see the Oscar Dyson- it's the second ship from the left. 

The town of Kodiak.