Tag Archives: Uyak Bay

Home Again

March 26, 2017Living in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, WritingAmook Pass, Bonaire, Free Book, Free Mystery, Kodiak Island, Munsey's Bear Camp, Murder Over Kodiak, Uyak Bayadmin

ike and I just returned home after six weeks on the road. We had a great vacation, but as always, I am happy to be home, despite the cold weather and frozen waterline.

Spring is still two months away in this area of the world, and we’ve had a tough winter here. After several mild winters, the black-tailed deer population on the island had exploded, but many deer did not survive the freezing temperatures this winter. I haven’t had a chance to go hiking yet to see with my own eyes how bad the winter kill was, but I’ve heard it was bad. The cycling of deer populations is normal, of course, and the deer population here will recover, but I find it difficult to watch animals starve to death and die from exposure.

I was thrilled to get a dose of sunshine and heat on our vacation. We went sailing with friends in the British Virgin Islands, and then Mike and I traveled further south to Bonaire where we snorkeled and dived and enjoyed wearing fewer layers of clothes than normal. Besides spending time with friends, the best part of the vacation for me was that I could snorkel nearly every day. I studied marine and fisheries biology in college, and I have always been fascinated by the underwater world. I could float above a coral reef all day long, watching the interactions between the fish and marine invertebrates in that busy community. The area surrounding Bonaire is a protected marine park, so the coral is healthy, and the tropical fish thrive. I would grab my mask and fins, jump off the dock at our hotel, and instantly be immersed in a gorgeous, underwater world. Getting to Bonaire was not easy, but it was well worth the hassle to enjoy that little piece of paradise.

During the many, long plane rides and mornings on the sailboat on our trip, I had time to edit the manuscript of my latest novel. With each pass, I am polishing it into the story I want it to be. I think most authors would tell you editing is the least fun part of the writing process, but editing is necessary and can’t be avoided. In addition to questioning every comma and semicolon and trying to remember whether a character’s eyes are blue or brown, I worry that the plot moves forward in a logical progression. Will the reader be surprised or disappointed? Are the characters believable? Have I provided enough description or too much description? My working manuscript is long, so I’m concerned I need to cut some scenes. Luckily, I will get help answering these questions. Once I have the manuscript as perfect as I can make it, I will send it to a professional editor who will look at it line by line and then step back and consider the manuscript as a whole. A few friends have also volunteered to read the manuscript, and my publisher will read through it and give me his thoughts.

I also want to ask for your help with my manuscript. In a few weeks, I will post a few excerpts from the book, and I encourage you to let me know what you think, good or bad. I would much rather have the feedback now than read it in a review on Amazon once the book has been published!

Finally, I have a gift for my blog readers. Click on the cover of my book below and receive a free coupon for an e-book of my novel, Murder Over Kodiak. When you click on the link you will be taken to a site provided by my publisher, and you will need to register to download the book, but there is no catch. The book is yours free!

As many of you know, I write a monthly newsletter about crime and mysteries in Alaska. I think of spring as the start of the new season for my newsletter, and I have several interesting topics I plan to cover over the next months. My newsletters are free, and you can always unsubscribe if they aren’t for you. If you think you would be interested in my newsletters, you can sign up here.

Killer Whales

December 6, 2015Kodiak Wildlife, Orca, Uncategorizedkiller whales, Killer whales in Alaska, killer whales near Kodiak, Munsey's Bear Camp, Orcas, Uyak Bayadmin

Killer whales (or orcas) are not really whales but are the largest members of the dolphin family, Delphinidae. With their brilliant black and white markings, they are easy to identify and distinguish from other whales. Killer whales exhibit sexual dimorphism, meaning males and females look very different from each other. Adult males in the North Pacific may grow to a length of 27 ft. (8.2 m) and weigh as much as 13,300 lbs. (6,000 kg), while females grow to an average length of 23 ft. (7 m) and weigh about half as much as a large male. Also, a male’s dorsal fin may reach 6 ft. (2 m) in height, while a female’s rarely exceeds 3 ft (1 m).

Killer whales are mostly black on their dorsal surface and white on their ventral surface. They have an elliptical white patch on the lateral side of each eye and large white patches that extend from the ventral surface onto the flanks. There is a usually a gray or white saddle area behind the dorsal fin, and this marking varies from one individual to the next, making it useful for identification.

Killer whales are second only to humans as the most widely-distributed species of mammal. They can be found in all oceans and most seas, but they are most common in coastal, temperate waters. They are apex predators and prey on a variety of vertebrates and invertebrates. They are known to prey upon over 140 species, and they are the only cetaceans that routinely prey upon marine mammals, with documented attacks on 50 different species.

In the northeastern Pacific, three distinct ecotypes of killer whales have been identified. Resident killer whales mainly eat fish, while transients concentrate on marine mammals. The third type known as offshores have not been well studied, but it is thought they primarily feed on fish, including sharks. All three types are genetically distinct, suggesting there is little or no breeding between the types, and it is possible they should be considered separate subspecies. There are differences in size, coloration and physical appearance between the three types, as well as differences in hunting strategies. Transients forage in smaller groups than residents, and transients travel silently when hunting, while residents produce a variety of clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls for echolocation. Killer whale populations in other regions of the world may also specialize in their feeding habits, but more research is needed to be certain. Killer whales often work together to catch fish or marine mammals, and when preying on large animals such as whales, they may attack as a pack, tearing apart the whale from several angles.

Killer whales are very social and usually travel in groups or pods of up to 20 individuals, and members of a pod are linked to each other by maternal descent. Females become sexually mature at 15 years of age on average, and they may give birth at intervals of three to eight years. Killer whales can breed all year, and the gestation period averages 17 months. Whales in a pod often work together to care for the young, and young females will help mothers care for their babies. It has been estimated that males live at least 50 years on average, while females may live 80 years.

Killer whales are highly vocal and use sound for socialization as well as for echolocation.Scientists have learned that call repertoires of resident pods have features that are distinct to that pod, forming group-specific dialects. A second pod may share some of the call repertoire of the first pod, but other sections will be distinct to the second pod. The amount of similarity of call repertoires between pods reflects the degree of

relatedness between the pods. Killer whales socialize in a number of other ways too, including acrobatic aerial behaviors, such as breaches, spy hops, flipper slaps, tail lobs,and head stands. I’ll discuss more about these various behaviors next week.

Killer whales are always a treat to watch. We only see them a few times a year deep inside Uyak Bay, and it is always exciting. I’ve seen a large group of killer whales herding fish, a small pod trying to catch harbor seals hauled out on an island, and one killer whale with a large octopus in its mouth. Sometimes they want nothing to do with us, and other times, they swim alongside our boat leaping out of the water and diving beneath us. This summer we saw a large bull swimming by himself in water so shallow he couldn’t submerge his tall dorsal fin. He was in an area near a salmon stream, and we assumed he was feeding on salmon.

Have you had any experiences with killer whales? If so, please leave a comment to tell us about it. Also, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask, and for anyone who is a lover of true crime stories, please visit my home page and sign up for my monthly Mystery Newsletter!

Munsey’s Bear Camp

July 26, 2015Historical, Living in the wilderness on Kodiak IslandAmook Pass, Kodiak Alaska, Munsey's Bear Camp, Uyak Bayadmin

By the1960s, the Munseys spent most of the year at Munsey’s Bear Camp, their lodge in Amook Pass, where Park guided bear hunters in Uyak and Spiridon Bays. He soon established another hunting camp at the south end of Becharof Lake on the Alaska Peninsula, where he guided bear, moose, and caribou hunts. Park was a registered guide and eventually became a master guide, holding master guide license number twelve.

Munsey’s Bear Camp was not just a lodge, it was a home. Pat cooked for the hunters and then held school for the kids in a corner of the living room. Mike and Bob assisted their father during the hunts as soon as they were old enough to climb the mountains. Toni, Patti, Jeri, and Peggy helped their mother in the kitchen, and all the kids learned how to safely run boats and shoot rifles.

Fish and Game employees and others often brought the Munseys sick or orphaned wild animals to nurse back to health or to raise. I’ve seen 8mm-movie footage that shows Pat, dressed in a raincoat and hip boots, standing in the ocean gently urging a baby harbor seal to swim. The pup had been abandoned by its mother soon after birth, so Pat assumed the maternal coaching responsibilities. Other pets included foxes, a magpie, and even a bald eagle that had fallen out of its nest. Their favorite pet, though, was a seagull they named Herbie. Once Herbie mastered flying, he would often fly out to greet members of the family when they returned home in their skiff.

During the March 27^th, 1964 earthquake, Mike remembers walking to the generator shed with his father when the first jolt hit and sent him sprawling. They returned to the house and switched on the single-sideband radio, where they heard people yelling for help. The marine operator told listeners that there had been an earthquake and to standby for a tsunami warning announcement. Park and Pat gathered supplies and led the children up the hill behind the lodge, where they sat, huddled in sleeping bags, and waited for the water to subside.

The Munsey children have all carried remnants of their unique childhood into their present-day lives. Cooking is Toni’s passion, and she owns The Rendezvous, a bar and restaurant near Kodiak. On her menu, you will discover a few items that were inspired, at least in part, by recipes she learned from her mother at the lodge in Amook Pass. Patti and her husband, Rick, are both captains and have spent many years running large yachts. Their busy schedules have taken them to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific, among other places. Jeri and her husband, Mark, are also captains and operate a number of tour boats as well as a beautiful, 57-ft. sailboat on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Bob is a commercial fisherman and fishes a gill-net site at Chief Cove in Uyak Bay. He also guides bear, deer, and goat hunters alongside Mike. Bob’s wife, Linda, is a nurse. Peggy lives in Oregon with her two, beautiful children. She is a nurse like her mother, but she now operates a dog kennel and an animal sanctuary.

Mike and I still run Munsey’s Bear Camp. In 2016, the business will be sixty years old, and for fifty-eight of those years, Munsey’s Bear Camp has been in Amook Pass in Uyak Bay. Mike and I have expanded the activities at the lodge to include wildlife-viewing and sport fishing. Both Mike and Bob are master guides, and they still guide bear, deer, and mountain goat hunts in Uyak and Spiridon Bays.