Awesome adventure, Bill! It's wonderful to follow along. Your photos today really made me feel like I was on the Healy. What's life like on the ship - more like Life Aquatic or Star-Trek?

As far as the pebbles - is there any way they were brought out there on glaciers from the mainland during ice ages?

Great job Bill! See you back in Colorado,

Karl

Bill Schmoker

Hi Karl- awesome to hear from you. I really enjoyed following your journals and thought of you as we sailed north through the Bering Strait- awesome to think that we were passing over the trails of the ancestors of the people you were studying.Life on the ship is pretty cool. Lots about it is Star Trek (like the high-tech sweeping bridge, computer networks, personal pagers, etc.) A little Life Aquatic, too! Plenty of characters among the 112 people on board. One of my favorites is Captain Bourdeau. He's a senior Canadian Coast Guard Captain whose ship is getting new engines, so he was assigned to us as a command liaison. We had lots of great conversations at meals and on the bridge about birds, wildlife, and his experiences in 17(?) years of commanding an icebreaker in the Canadian Arctic.
I like your way of thinking on the pebbles- stay tuned for my journal later today with my thoughts on those! Our schedule (modified several times by unforeseen circumstances) never allowed us to dredge for rock samples so I was tickled to get my hands on these bits of the Arctic for my students to contemplate and as an authentic souvenir of my travels up here.
Hope your school year is off to a great start!
Best from the Arctic- Bill