Savik's umiak and sleds

This is the umiak, sleds and storage area of Savik crew and the place where I usually stay in Barrow, including this trip. My time for today is all claimed. I will not post again before I head for Wasilla this evening. After I get home, should time and energy allow, I will see if I can cover yesterday and today in a traditional blog post, the kind I commonly did before Instagram first caught me a month or so ago.

Bringing home the whale, part 2: Tattoo of whale tails created in honor of ancestor taken by museum; three whales are brought home

When he was a young teen, Qaiyaan Harcharek wanted a tattoo, but his mom told him, "not before

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Bringing the fall whale home, part 1: The hunt

Ben grips the harpoon as he scans the water ahead, hoping the

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Preview to Barrow fall whaling story: Early morning with Savik Crew on the Beaufort

In the back of the boat, Roy's son, Ben Hopson, prepares the

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From the Savik Boat: the Arctic Ocean on the Beaufort side of Point Barrow, this afternoon at 12:25 PM

I am too tired to write much of anything or even to attempt to explain why I am so tired - but, put in my place, you would be tired, too. Even so, it was grand to be out on the ocean again today - and unexpected, as I had believed we were all done - but, as you can see, here we are, at 12:25 PM, just a bit into the Beaufort Sea side of Nuvuk, or Point Barrow, where the Chukchi and Beaufort meet as one - and not an iceberg in sight. There were plenty of whales about, but just about all were gray whales, not bowheads.

This is not a black and white picture, by the way. It is color. It is how it looked.

And that's it for this post made on the seventh day of October in The Year of Our Lord, 2012.