Logbook entry: Transition from Wainwright to Atqasuk to Barrow to Fairbanks to Anchorage to Wasilla - footprints on the airplane window - lights dance outside the jet window - happy cat

Just before closing the door and taking his seat behind the

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Shadow Me follows Savik Crew on the fall bowhead hunt

Those who followed me through my surgery, the complications, emergency surgery, multiple hospital stays and long periods of at-home convalescence that followed, will recall the occasional appearances of Shadow Me. It was not that many weeks ago when Shadow Me followed me on a slow, painful walk around the outside of my house. A bit later, we climbed Wards Hill together. As hills go, Wards is small and gently sloped, yet it felt like a major accomplishment. He followed me on slow, easy, walks through mud puddles (I didn't go into the puddles, but Shadow Me did).

And then one day he followed me on a bicycle ride. Wow! Shadow Me felt like he had really made a major accomplishment. Shadow Me and I both had an invitation to follow the Nuiqsut hunters in late August/early September to Cross Island, where they stage their fall bowhead hut, not far offshore from Prudhoe Bay.

We both desperately wanted to go, but I still had an ugly open hole in my tummy about three inches long and an inch and a half wide and, with Margie's help, had to change the dressing on it twice daily. And little things caused me significant pain.

Still, as August neared its end and the Nuiqsut hunters prepared to go, I almost did it. "Go!" said Shadow Me. "I'm getting tired of this placid, sedentary life." But I know how rough it can get in those little boats when the wind blows, the waves build and the water turns choppy. Those who loved and cared about me said - "don't go. You're not ready." Inside, I knew they were right.

So I didn't go. I stayed home. And so did Shadow Me.

Roy Ahmaogak long ago gave me the open invite to join him and Savik Crew whenever I could. The crew was originally started decades ago by his father, Lawrence Savik Ahmaogak, most often called Savik, the Iñupiaq word for knife. Savik is 78 now, going on 79, has suffered through recent surgeries of his own and has made his son Roy and his nephew, Richard Glenn - who is also Savik, co-captains in his stead.

Come 5:00 AM Monday morning, I was ready to go, but just before the time came, I almost backed out. The hole in my tummy has closed, but it is still healing. It is ugly to look at, has scabbed over four or five times now and appears to be building a new, cellophane-like scab. When I had flown here on Alaska Airlines just two weeks earlier, I had been assigned to a seat in front of the exit row. The seat back would not recline and the pressure of the seat back pushing my wound against my belt buckle left me in real pain for two days afterward.

Yet - that was two weeks earlier. I had improved in that two weeks - a lot, I was certain. I decided I could do it. I hoped it would not get rough out there - but it did - and it didn't hurt me. Not only did I get through it, I enjoyed every moment of it - even those moments when I worried that I and my cameras might get pitched off the roof of the cabin into the ocean. In fact, I think the hunt, the rough water and the bouncing somehow made me stronger, more healed now than I would have been had I not gone.

During those moments when he would appear, like this one yesterday afternoon when the hunt reopened after Point Hope transferred four unused strikes to Barrow, I could see how much Shadow Me enjoyed it, too. 

For those who might be wandering, I have not yet done any picture editing of the past week's activities. I might wait until I get home and then do a little story later on. It seems like a waste of time to do a serious picture edit when I am in the field. It takes at least twice as long on my laptop here as it does on my desktop at home, I can't see the pictures nearly as good on the small laptop screen as I can on my Apple Cinamascreen and there are other things out here I can do with that time that I can't do at home.

On the other hand, I might just get driven, and do it this weekend and get a post up by Monday. I kind of doubt it. I think it will have to wait until I leave my Arctic Slope home and return to my other home in Wasilla. But I might. We will see.

But I don't think so. So please don't get your hopes up just yet. 

Nuyaagiq leaves the whales in her mother's car

This is the very last picture that I took today and that is why I chose it - because it is very easy to find the last picture you took. You just go to the end of your take and there it is. You don't have to do any picture editing or look at any others. Plus, I knew the subject of my last picture to be a cute one - and beautiful, too. Pretty smart, I will also bet.

This is three-month old Nuyaagig, also known as Annabel Rose Kalayauk, daughter of Riley and Megan Kalayauk. Her mom gave me a ride back to where I am staying from the site where three whales were landed today, which finishes a very short fall whaling season for Barrow, unless unused strikes from other villages get passed on.

I will see if I can find the time tomorrow or over the next couple of days to do some kind of picture edit and post from the past three days - but I won't promise. I took many pictures, I still have more pictures to take and other things to do as well.

Plus, I am very worried about these images. You will note the foggy haze, which is kind of okay here as it gives a soft focus effect and that can work okay on babies, but, from the very first image I took, I found myself dealing with either with condensation or water and salt spray on the front elements of my lenses. I cleaned them off I don't know how many times but after awhile it just didn't seem to do any good.

So I think probably I will find this kind of hazy fog on just about all the pictures I took over the last three days. I wish I were a rich man, because I know the lenses I used are never again going to be quite as good as they were before this shoot began. This would not be so big of a problem if I could just buy new lenses whenever I do something like this.

And I fully expect the new camera I bought just before coming up here to go down sometime in the next couple of months and then I will have to send it to Canon and get it repaired for how many hundreds of dollars? 

This has happened to me so many times!

The cameras never really got that wet - just a few drops now and then - but even though they are such good cameras they go down all too easy when they get around moisture, especially when salt is involved.

Still, I will try to go through them and put up some kind of post before too long.

And I have greatly enjoyed the last three days. Greatly enjoyed.

There is no other place on earth like this place up here.

What a privilege it is to experience it.

added on, 10:16 PM: Actually - Nuyaagiq didn't leave the whales in her mother's car. Those whales wouldn't even fit into her mother's car. Not even one whale would. Not even the smallest whale. It would crush her mother's car.

Looking for a whale

Roy Ahmaogak and his son Bennie scan the waters of the Chukchi Sea shortly after sunrise this morning, looking for a bowhead whale. In just a few hours, I need to get up and go join them and their Savik crew to go out and look for a whale again, so I don't have time to even glance at the many photos I took today, let alone edit them or make a real post of them. I quickly grabbed this one image from near the beginning of the take, so I could least put something up.

If I had the time, I could make a pretty nice post.

Suffice it to say it was great to be out on the ocean, with good people. The sea got a little bit rough a bit later and I got to worrying a bit about what all the twisting and pitching would do to my still healing, herniated, surgical incision. I could feel it, all right, but everything seems fine now. The world is still rocking a bit for me. I just took a shower and when I closed my eyes to rinse my hair off I nearly got pitched right out of the shower by the motion of the waves, even though the shower is in a firm building on dry land.

Well, frozen muddy land.

To ride the surf among bowheads and hunters: will my reoccurring dream come true? Momma, where will your babies go?

I have written at least twice before about a certain reccuring dream that has come to me many times over the past many years. The particulars vary from dream to dream, but always contain certain

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