October 7

Temp: 33 F

Weather: cloudy, 30 knot winds

I woke early in anticipation, staring out into the darkness trying to get a peek at how far we'd traveled during the night. St. Lawrence Island, port side. We've entered the Bering Strait region—one of the moments I've been looking forward to the most. This region is a breeding season home to as many as 10 million seabirds.

Follow the Healy's voyage on this map.

The majority of these birds feed in the waters of Chirikov Basin, between St. Lawrence Island and the Diomede Islands at the center of the strait. Passing through the basin, we'd come upon busy areas with Northern Fulmars, Short-tailed Shearwaters, Horned Puffins, Least Auklets, and even a few Pomerine Jaegers. Then other times there would be no birds at all. I'm earning a better sense of this place: the vast scale, the movements of marine wildlife in this landscape, and how ships navigate through the area.

As we passed King Island, another global Important Bird Area, the weather started to turn. Later, near Fairway Rock, we had 25 to 35 knot wind–made waves atop large, deep-trough swells. The bow would ride up on a swell and come crashing down on top of the next, turning deep navy ocean water into bright white spray, sometimes reaching the bridge windows where I stood, about 60 feet above sea level. After a couple of snow squalls cleared, there they appeared: the Diomede Islands. Little Diomede is owned by the US, and Big Diomede, only 2.5 miles away, is owned by Russia. It is the closest distance between our two countries, the demarcation of the heart of Bering Strait, and the entrance to the Arctic Ocean. I feel like I have just entered inside one of my maps of this place; it feels a bit like walking into a story book.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is an icebreaker. When the boat comes crashing down hard, producing energy that vibrates the inner walls of the ship, it feels wrong, but I have to know that it's okay. I know I could not be in better hands than the Coast Guard, so with that, I turn in for the night, rocked to sleep at the edge of the Chukchi Sea.

Melanie Smith, Landscape Ecologist, Audubon Alaska