Temp: 40 F Weather: Sun and 25 knot winds

I hadn't seen a speck of land for two weeks until the island of Unalaska began emerging from the Bering Sea horizon some 50 miles before the end of our journey in Dutch Harbor. In the last three weeks we traveled through three seas (Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort) and two oceans (Pacific and Arctic) in two countries (United States and Canada), and viewed two continents (North America and Asia).

(Photo: After a three-week voyage on the icebreaker Healy, Dutch Harbor is a welcome sight.)

This map follows the route the Healy took on this voyage.

We relaxed in sunny, rippling wavelets in Camden Bay and battled gale-force, 45-knot winds and monstrous 20-foot swells off of Icy Cape. We sampled ocean chemistry from the very shallow Hanna Shoal area to the 2.5-mile-deep bottom of the Canada Basin.

I'm grateful for all I've learned and everyone I've met. I am impressed by the professionalism and good humor of the Coast Guard crew and scientists on board. And I'm very impressed with the Healy herself. I'm going to miss this floating city, this temporary configuration of "town residents", and the structure and routine that is so ingrained in me today, but by next week will be something I look back on.

As we passed in sight of Akutan Island, separating Unimak and Akutan passes, hundreds of fulmars, shearwaters, and kittiwakes gathered in groups. Humpback whales breached in the distance. I saw northern fur seals waving at us from a bed of floating kelp, adding one last new species to my list. A mix of clouds and sunbeams colored Unalaska Island, making for a dramatic grand finale of yellow and orange mountains rising steeply from the sea, eventually engulfing us as we traveled into Dutch Harbor at the shore of the town of Unalaska.

In total on the trip, we saw 50 species of birds and 10 mammals. As the crow flies, we traveled 1,700 miles from Dutch Harbor, but as the boat rows it was 2,000 miles. The round-trip total, given all of our loops and zigzags along survey transects, was 5,200 miles. Stepping on land for the first time wasn't as dramatic as I thought it would be. I guess that's because it's what I know. It was getting on the ship in the first place that was the foreign environment, so lost among the many decks and hallways that first day. That seems both long ago and also like yesterday. Parts of the journey felt everlasting, and then it's over in an instant. It's been a wonderful ride. Thanks Healy!

Melanie Smith, Landscape Ecologist, Audubon Alaska