~ Greetings to all from Captain Dean ~

Welcome to our Winter 2008 Newsletter

Hello to everyone from…winter in Alaska. I thought that folks would enjoy a couple of pictures of wintertime life here at 60 degrees North latitude so …

Here's the Discovery during a snow storm before being shoveled off and…

Here's what your car looks like in the morning.

Captain Dean Rand

Those glowing white globs floating in the air are snow flakes being lit up by the camera's flash. We call them…snow flakes the size of butterflies.

Often, after a snow fall like this, it will begin to rain which will make the snow VERY heavy. It's always a good idea to keep one's boat and vehicles clean of snow before it starts raining. Most boat owners here know this. However, there's always one or two boats which sink right here at the dock because of the weight of the waterlogged snow, if not removed in time.

On the Family Front

I've been discovering what everyone has been warning me about regarding raising teenage daughters. You'd think that a guy who has commercially fished for crab during those brutal Bering Sea winters and logged for many years with the toughest mountain men in the Pacific Northwest would be able to handle a couple of teenage kids just fine. Those winter storms on the North Pacific with waves topping out at 80 feet we're pretty big adventures but not quite as frightening as what my teenagers have put me through this Fall. (boys, out all night, fast cars, and who knows what!) Oh well …, I've always thought that having good stories of adventure to share with friends, old, new, and yet to come, are priceless. I'll have plenty of new stories for years to come … so long as I survive these new adventures in parenting.

Heather Rand

Heather (now 18), who spent last year at a Japanese high school, is back here in Alaska finishing up her high school levels while also attending college classes in Anchorage two days per week. She plans to complete high school this December and take full time classes in Anchorage until the spring. Meanwhile, she's applied to about 15 schools, out of state, with plans to study English and with her eyes on progressing into the study of law. I just hope that she doesn't become a professional student. Hahh!

Hannah Rand

Hannah (now 15) will be heading to Japan for 10 months beginning this next March. She'll be staying with a family just outside of Tokyo who happen to have a teenage daughter living in England. We're not sure if the daughter will be back from England when Hannah will be there. I just hope that they have a piano and Hannah can continue with lessons. As a matter of fact, I told her that she can't go unless piano lessons can be arranged. It shouldn't be a problem because music scores are really a universal form of language. I think that it would be good to have her receive lessons from a Japanese instructor. I will certainly miss those nightly piano (and harp) practices of Hannah's in addition to…. yelling at her to get out of bed in the morning, nagging her to clean her room, and washing endless dirty dishes when I come home! Ah…parenting.

The past few months I've also been busy with some big maintenance projects on the Discovery. I just finished an upgrade to the heating system making it more efficient and reliable. The winters here at 60 degrees north latitude in a harbor located right beneath Whittier Glacier call for a heating system which can operate in bitter cold, high winds and frequent power outages. Otherwise, the plumbing could freeze and burst many of the ship's internal piping. At this time, I'm working on the Discovery's propulsion equipment trying to decide whether or not to rebuild one of the main engines or replace them both. With the work season only a few months away (we usually do wildlife research charters in March & April), I may decide to rebuild them for use this next work season and meanwhile order new equipment to install next Fall when there's plenty of time to work out the “bugs” which always come with new machinery and equipment.

Anyway I look at it … this continues to be a lifestyle that I enjoy getting up to in the morning. There's never a dull moment.

~ Captain Dean & family

Greetings from the Crew

Sam and Matt Roughing it in Hawaii for the Winter

Samantha Guse - It has been a busy fall for me.  I left Whittier on Saturday after our last Discovery trip of the season, bound for Maui on Sunday to start massage school on Monday.  It was by best seasonal transition yet, and I have been knee deep in the 206 bones and the 656 muscles of the body ever since.  School has been fantastic for me, I have always wanted to study massage and learn more about our amazing bodies.  It is unbelievable to live in such a paradise like Hawaii, it is almost as beautiful as Prince William Sound...(almost).  With the holiday season coming up I have a break from school to do some inter-island traveling and some much needed rest from my full time school schedule.  I will be thinking about all my friends and family back home in Alaska, as well as our Discovery family, wishing all of you a very happy holidays.

~ Aloha, Sam No Ka 'Oi (Sam is the best)

Matt Tocchini, Chef - After decompressing from a very busy 2007 Discovery season, I retreated to my house in Camelot, in Seward, to reconnect with friends, my bicycles, the dogs, the art of chopping wood, and the most pleasurable of all things...eating out.  no fuss, no muss, no dishes, just the check please!

At the end of October I went outside to visit my family in California, then continued west to Maui, where I am currently enrolled at the Maritime License Center to receive my captain's license.  Having not been in a scholastic setting in a long while, it has taken some time to shake off the cobwebs of my note-taking skills, my study habits, my testing ability, and my (apparently) shortened attention span.  It's been a great experience though, and Maui has proven to be not a bad place to spend some time.

I'm looking forward to the New Year and will be getting to work on this much-ballyhooed cookbook we've been talking so much about.  Keep your eyes peeled in the newsletter for further updates. See you in '08.

~ Matt

Sarah skiing at Hatcher Pass in October

Sarah Heck - There has been a lot of excitement for me this fall. At the top of my list is that my partner, Stephen, and I bought a house. It has been something we have been saving for and are excited about. We are in a wonderful neighborhood in Anchorage, right next to the trail system that leads us to work and to skiing and biking for fun. Commuting without use of a vehicle is really nice. There are several friends in the area and our neighbors across the street even brought us a homemade apple pie!

We've also had a lot of wonderful snow, and I've been out skiing in the mountains quite a bit already. I am continuing to volunteer with Challenge Alaska, an adaptive ski school, and for the Forest Service's Avalanche Observation Program this winter. In my spare time I am substitute teaching and playing guitar.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday season and New Year. I also send you a Happy Solstice from Alaska where we celebrate the slow return of daylight that excites us for another bright summer!

~ Sarah (and Steve)

Brenda visiting with family

Brenda Roper, from the office - Happy Holidays! It has been a busy fall for me with a vacation to Santa Fe, New Mexico where I met one of my three sister's. We toured Georgia O'Keefe country, explored ancient ruins and sampled the local wine. I extended my visit to enjoy the southwest sunshine and booked nearly 28 people onto the Discovery while I was there. Thank goodness for wifi. Back to Anchorage to catch my breathe and get the office in order before a last minute trip to Michigan to enjoy Thanksgiving with family. I include a "home for the holidays" photo of me with another of my three sisters. I'm the one with the glasses (in case I missed meeting you when I delivered groceries to Whittier last summer).

We already have several sold-out trips for 2008 including our annual Spring Birding & Wildlife Voyage in early May and the Grand Alaska Journey in August. We are very excited about another summer in Prince William Sound and still have good availability on our active adventures! Wishing you many blessings this holiday season.

~ Brenda

Hugh Rose, Photography Guide - Greetings to all from the cold and dark of Fairbanks! The 2007 season was one of the best and busiest ever for me. Thanks to all of you who traveled with me on the Discovery in 2007! I'm finally slowing down enough to look through all the photos I took of you in Prince William Sound this past season, and there are some great ones!

Of course the season started with the spring bird and wildlife trip which began in Cordova and included 4 days on the Copper River Delta. As you know the Captain Dean was not able to participate in this trip, but the trip was a huge success as we managed to witness the peak of shorebird migration on the Copper River Delta when more than 7 million shorebirds stopover on the Delta during a brief one week window of time.

Sea Otters

Penguin

The 8-Day photo tour was a great success this year with some of the best otter photos I have ever seen taken and the new "Grand Alaska" trip that combined Denali with a 5-day cruise on the Discovery was a perfect combination! Sunny skies in Denali afforded all stupendous views of the Mountain (Denali) and sunny weather in the Sound, made for great photography, hiking and kayaking.

I spent the fall leading polar bear viewing trips to arctic Alaska, and then shifted gears in late October, when I flew for three straight days to the far southern hemisphere and got on a ship in Stanley on the Falkland Islands for a one-month trip to South Georgia Island. Fortunately, I was not on the Explorer (the ship that just sank of Antarctica), and I enjoyed a fantastic 2 weeks on South Georgia Island during the peak of elephant seal pupping. I just returned two weeks ago from that adventure and head south again after Christmas for a one-month trip to the Antarctic.

If you have any questions about upcoming trips, camera gear or anything else please feel free to contact me, but I may not get back in touch until early February when I return from the next trip to the southern oceans.

~ Hugh

A piece of baleen becomes a play thing for this bear. Attached to the jawbone of baleen whales, these combs are made of keratin, the same stuff that makes up human hair and nails, and are used for filter feeding.

This curious polar bear appeared to be trying to open the truck door.

Penguins photographed during Hugh's month-long trip to South Georgia Island in the Southern Atlantic.