We took a charter flight from Anadyr, Russia to Nome, Alaska. At the Anadyr airport we were met by very serious officials taking at least 5 minute to review our documents and about 15 for Debbi Shearwater. We made it out of Russian air space and within 2 hours we landed in Nome. As we went through customs, we met the director of the Nome Visitor's Center and he mentioned that there was a rare bird seen at Point Nome, which was about 15 minute south of town.
We landed at Meynypilgyno, which is the research and conservation facility that strive to save the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. We did seen the Sandpipers but it was not anything like my first encounter. It was nice to see some of the wintering North American bird in full breeding plumage. As we traveled along the coast we had a great flyby of a Red-throated Loon.
After our time at the Commander Islands we sailed north to Karaginskiy Island. This was a commercial fishing area and along the coast we cruised around a shipwrecked Trawler that sank in a storm in 1978.
The expedition started at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy Russia as we boarded the Soviet Era Heritage Expedition Professor Khromov / Spirit of Enderby. We sailed north to the Zhupanova River is search of Stellar Sea Eagles and we were not disappointed. We loaded up in the zodiacs and departed the ship around 8a. It didn't take long to find our first Eagle but that was just the beginning. We had some great close encounters with an Eagle flying passed us and so close that I couldn't fit the Eagle in my frame, but what an image. The morning was overcast so I had to up the ISO to 800 and had to open the aperture fully to f/4 so I could shoot at a high shutter speed of 1/1250s to reduce camera shake as well as the rocking of the zodiac.
On day 3 and 4 of the Palouse Workshop with Nick Page we woke up about 2 hours before dawn or around 2 am. We would photography the sunrise and return to the hotel for breakfast an then a nap before heading out around 1500 to capture the sunset and made it to bed around 2300.
