Ever wonder what it's like to be on an icebreaker on the Arctic Ocean? October 4-25, Audubon Alaska's Landscape Ecologist Melanie Smith will blog about her experience as a seabird observer on the US Coast Guard icebreaker the Healy as it travels from Dutch Harbor, Alaska to the Arctic Ocean.

See the map of her voyage.Oct 4

Location: Dutch Harbor

Temp: 50 F

Weather 40% sun, 30 kt winds

It is a beautiful fall morning—yellow, orange, and red plant life blanket the soft but steep mountains, and low angle sunlight gives an inviting feel to a place that’s not usually known for its serenity so much as its storms. I’ve recently arrived in Unalaska—Dutch Harbor as it’s also called—which is the main port along the Aleutian Island chain of Alaska, and the largest town around for hundreds of miles. A few big, back-to-back storms have pummeled the Bering Sea and the Aleutians recently, but today is a break between weather. It is still blowing 30 but the sun is mostly out and the rainbows that keep popping up feel like a good omen for the adventure ahead.

I’ve come here to meet up with an icebreaker. The US Coast Guard Cutter Healy is docked in the harbor, awaiting the arrival of 37 scientists—mostly oceanographers—who will head to the Arctic Ocean for research. Over the next 21 days we’ll be out collecting data in US and Canadian waters.

This isn’t my usual gig. I’m here as a volunteer for the US Fish and Wildlife Service—one of two seabird and mammal observers opportunistically placed on this ship to collect data. I’ve been a birder my whole life—my oldest memory is watching a Wood Stork at Corkscrew Swamp in Florida with my mom and dad around age 4. But still, I have a lot to learn here about identifying seabirds, as well as the routines of ship life, and riding out the rolling swells, far away from land, deep in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas. So stay tuned, and I’ll take you along for the ride too.