The expedition begins

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Jackie,, Rob and Dave had brought the boat 'Stardust' to collect the volunteer team. Will, the lead scientist is Canadian, but lives and works in Bath, England. Consequently, some of his engineering students had agreed to spend the summer helping with the research.( Rob and Dave). Jackie was also British, and was studying in Wales. She had contacted Will in order to research the mysid poulation as part of the project.
Stardust is not a fast boat, but apparently reliable. The weather was beautiful for the crossing of three hours to Xusela, the name of our camp, which would be home for a week. On the way we could bask in the sun, look at the strange guillemot type birds, and keep an eye out for whales. We did see two humpbacks from a distance which was very exciting, especially when we were able to follow them for a while in the boat.
The highlight had to be the white sided pacific dolphins who chose to bow ride with us for quite a while. They seemed to be doing it just for fun, although there may be an element of competition in it for them. Quite a start to the expedition.

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Photos

Two men and dog in a canoe
The crew had met this strange crew earlier in the week. they had travelled from Alaska!