For those of you still following, I’ve once again fallen very behind on blogging! As you can imagine, there was no internet connection for my laptop while we were at sea, so there was no way to post updates here from my laptop. Suffice it to say, it was quite the amazing adventure working with sea otters in SE Alaska. There's no way to properly sum up the experience, only that it was definitely the opportunity of a lifetime. We were surrounded by snow-capped mountains, majestic evergreen trees, and the chilly deep waters of the Keku Straits. The waters were filled with life, from harbor seals to marbled murrelets to halibut to humpback whales. And of course, huge rafts of hungry otters. We lived on an 84-foot expedition yacht, the M/V Northern Song, and were trailed by a fishing boat (the "Jerry-O") converted into a mobile field-surgery hospital, along with a number of small skiffs for scouting, setting nets, and capturing otters.

It sounds like a dream vacation, although we worked super hard and very long hours. Capturing sea otters in nets is extremely difficult. We were faced with strong ocean currents, walls of floating kelp and marine debris, winds, waves, and the icy cold air. Otters caught in nets were very carefully disentangled and transferred into large wooden capture boxes, then transported to the surgery boat where we anesthetized, collected loads of samples, and finally conducted surgeries to implant intra-abdominal radio transmitters. After two weeks at sea -- working long hours in the cold, dealing with all sorts of challenges and obstacles, we successfully captured 30+ otters and implanted a total of 30 radios. It was a phenomenal team effort and great to be back in the field again. Incredible!!! Eliana and I spent an additional 2 weeks after the otter capture doing some hiking, paddling, and exploring throughout Petersburg, Juneau, and Sitka. We didn't want to come back to Miami but .... sigh, back to reality. Photos posted here.