Its 0302, I was prodded awake about half an hour ago by a combination of Hip Hop and unnecessary lighting. Charlie has an interview with something or another at 0600 tomorrow and went to bed for a few hours himself telling me to wait for the survey crew to get back hopefully before the sun comes up, again. I haven’t really slept more than a few hours at a time since we left Ensenada or maybe the day before that. My other instructions were to do the blog, which apparently since it was two in the morning meant I hadn’t done it since the day before yesterday…I think he hid my book.

So I finally read the comments for the last couple posts thanks for not being spam. To address the grey whale migration question and what we were actually seeing off of San Martin Island. We had a good debate still left somewhat unsettled amongst the crew as to how many whales we saw and wither they were hanging out around the island or passing through.

The time of year is right for whales to be moving northward with new calves to go feed up in the rich waters of the Bering Sea until its time to do it all over again next season. However sometimes mothers and calves will stay much longer and may not even migrate at all for the first season being witnessed around San Martin Island even during the middle of the summer.

To the blood samples question. We are only getting a drop of blood from each bird preserved on a piece of filter paper, which is enough for a genetic analysis. This Will hopefully help further out understanding of how these birds divide themselves up into populations, by getting samples from birds at all the islands they are known to socially congregate on.

The picture is of a navy vessel we passed on the way into San Diego yesterday morning.

Ok ill post more stuff later, I’m going to go make toast.

Jeff