Most of the Healy science crew flew into Dutch Harbor yesterday.  Everything went smoothly, which is not always the case.  Dutch Harbor is in the middle of the Aluetian Islands and is the gateway to the Bering Sea.  Mostly fishermen sail out of here as you might be aware of from watching Deadliest Catch.  The flight into Dutch is always interesting.  Here is a video of our landing yesterday showing Mount Ballyhoo as we approach the runway.  Not much room for error.....

Jay and I are reaching out to some local school groups to get them involved with the drift arrow project.  Here is a list of schools that have customized some of the arrows with their designs and signatures which will be released into the Arctic.  Coincidentally both Kenmore and Glacier Park Elementary have Polar Bears for mascots!

In October 2012, in addition to the 500 drift arrows that will be launched from Healy, an Iridium sattelite linked GPS buoy will will be deployed on an ice floe along with some drift arrows.  This will allow near realtime tracking of the ice as it moves through the artic, transporting the arrows in the Arctic drift.

In 2012 the Drift Arrow project will go to the Arctic and will be aiming at the circumpolar drift.  The science program aboard Healy will be servicing moorings that have been collecting data along the continental shelf break of the Alaska coast.   During the cruise, drift arrows will be loosed into multiyear ice floes so that they follow the drift of ice across the Arctic.  The company www.PacificGyre.com has donated a GPS-enabled Iridium satellite drifter buoy that will be deployed off of Banks Island in the Arctic Ocean.  The buoy will transmit daily positions of the arrows so that the ice floe can be tracked in near real time.   The drift

The 100 drift arrows loosed in the Pacific Ocean have been wayward almost a year now.  Hoping to hear some good news this summer as people get out on the beaches. 

Here is the latest drift trajectory preditions from Jim

Arrows are moving along and some are predicted to be close to land.  The arrows aimed at Washington State are a little low but there might be still time for them to sail North?

The arrow has landed, well that is what Jim's model is predicting.  And since his tsunami arrival prediction proved to be correct based on a float that was found in the Cape Flattery Beach clean up, we need to get out and start  beach combing!

Winter is here and the seas have been stormy.  The Bering sea experienced one of the worst storms in decades and it delayed Healy from transiting through the Bering on their way to the first ever winter mission in the Arctic.  Makes one appreciate the weather man,

considering back in the day Healy would have been caught in the eye of the storm with no warning. 

Recently myself, the Port Angeles Chapter of the Surf Rider Foundation and the US Coast Guard Port Angeles Air Station worked together to remove at least a ton of flotsam from a beach South of Cape Flattery.  The beach is inaccessible to vehicles and required access via a steep hike.  The Surf Rider had collected the flotsam and had it ready for the USCG helicopter. 

On Nov 17 at least ten sling loads of trash was flown to Hobuck and trucked to Port Angeles.  It was a great success and hopefully more can be done in the future.  This could be training for when the mother load comes in from Japan…..  The Cape Flattery beach trash will be sorted in Port Angeles by Curtis Ebbesmeyer in mid December to analyze it for interesting origins.

Latest drift arrow track is in and shows the arrows getting closer to the coast.  Hopefully the beachcombers in search of Tsunami debris will report one!

The drift arrows are out ahead of the Tsuami debris field which is just crossing the date line according to Jim's compter model.  Today (Nov 8, 2011) the largest storm in years is about to thrash the Bering Sea.  The Healy will wait out the storm just south of the Aleutians and then head north with the scientists who will sail North on Healys first winter Arctic research cruise.  It should also give the drift arrows and extra push?