Next Stop: Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, Alaska
Well folks, it’s the North Pacific right whale crew back in action. Today is the day! We set off for Alaska and the crew will meet up together in Dutch Harbor tonight. Dutch Harbor is on Amaknak Island in Unalaska, Alaska, around 800 miles Southwest of Anchorage. You may have heard of it before from the show, Deadliest Catch. We have a slightly different crew this time than we did on our first voyage in search of North Pacific right whales. Captain Kevin, Shawnecee"Leon" Schneider, Lindsay "TRex" Walker, Elizabeth "Erob" Robinson and Connor "Cman" Gallagher, will set sail tomorrow and head north towards the North Pacific right whale critical habitat in search for the world's rarest whale.
Perhaps, the most important name for this voyage is Peggy. Peggy is the object of the quest. A hydrophone buoy positioned a couple hundred miles East of the Priblofs and West of Bristol Bay. The most significant thing about Peggy, relating to the crew's voyage, is that this NOAA buoy routinely detects acoustic sounds made by North Pacific right whales. This buoy gets pulled out of the water In September, has the data analyzed and most every year in August, right whales had been in the vicinity. We leave Dutch Harbor tomorrow and head straight, well as straight as a sailboat can go straight, to Peggy. This year our voyage is not on the good ship Orion. Our friends on Muktuk, a steel hulled sailing vessel, have grown interest in our project and wish to also see what Peggy is all about. Their extensive sailing history and worldwide travel stories will keep us engaged during the hours upon hours of searching for the whale in a haystack. We won’t have any service to communicate with our wonderful shore support, but please send all the whale vibes you have. This is our best chance to see a North Pacific right whale and perhaps their only chance to have their story told.
