When the ice breaker breaks ice here he starts by breaking a channel about 4 times the width of the boat itself into the sound and an area they call the “turning basin” for the ships. (About three miles from open water to the turning basin) The ice remains in place and broken in the Sound and channel but to go out to open water a really big wind is required to push all the ice out through the channel. It’s kind of like getting catsup to flow from a new bottle with the wind acting like the tapping you do on the side of the bottle. In the last few days the wind has been blowing ice from one side of the Sound to the other opening some areas of water. As soon as that happens the Menke whales started moving in to look for food. Yesterday I wandered down to Hut Point and saw about four of them swimming around. Later in the day I heard someone say they saw a killer whale popping straight up through the broken ice. They hold themselves above the ice for a couple of minutes as they turn around, kind of like a periscope on a submarine, looking for targets of opportunity. The seals were quit a ways away from the open water so were in no jeopardy yesterday and there were no penguins to be seen but you can bet the killer whales will continue looking until they find some unsuspecting suspect to remove from the gene pool.

Last night I had a mid shift in the Tower and my last airplane to recover had a strong crosswind and reduced visibility. I found my stomach churning a little because it was questionable whether he would be able to find the runway or not and if he couldn’t the next stop is the designated crash landing site since there are no alternates here. Thankfully he was able to land and another day’s mission was successfully completed.