If it’s light at 4:00 a.m. in Alaska, why not try to broadcast live from the ship? We were 70 miles off the coast of Alaska on our way to Sitka when we broadcast this video back to KUSA-TV in Denver via Skype. Huge thanks to MTN Satellite Services and the Carnival Information Systems people for providing the increased bandwidth to broadcast our segment.
It’s not too difficult to fly out of bed in the morning when you know that you’re going to spend part of the day hanging out with sea otters and maybe a few whales. The morning started early for our video crew - Bradley Mayhew and Jeff Brooks - as I knocked on their cabin doors at 3:45 a.m. to get ready to broadcast live back to the NBC affiliate KUSA-TV in Denver from the deck of the ship. Just a few years ago, a three minute broadcast like this would have cost huge amounts of money. Thanks to tools like Skype, it’s possible to broadcast for almost anywhere - 70 miles off the coast of Alaska for today’s broadcast. Huge props to MTN Satellite Services for providing the increased bandwidth to broadcast our segment.
When you think of a classroom, I’ll bet the deck of a cruise liner overlooking glaciers doesn’t come to mind. Day 3 was a day at sea - traveling from Anchorage to Sitka - but we started the morning at 5:00 a.m. on the deck with John Scheerens to learn about the science of glaciers. We learned about the famous “Harriman Expedition” that discovered College Fjord and named many of the glaciers. The video below will give you a brief look at the day’s activities including our mandatory safety drill. Our friend Vlad seems to be making a cameo in each video… go figure.
In an interview with NBC affiliate KUSA-TV in the early morning, I renamed many of the glaciers to make the hometown folks in Colorado happy (University of Colorado Glacier, Colorado State University Glacier, Arapahoe Community College Glacier, you get the idea).
After breakfast, we started our Science at Sea Lecture Series with The Natural History of Alaska and the Inside Passage. We were introduced to the natural history process of coastal Alaska, including basic geological constructs, weather patterns, glaciers, flora & fauna and ocean process. John’s lecture brought together the …
Continue Reading…We kicked off the day with registration followed by the first Science at Sea lecture - Welcome to Alaska. After a few ice breakers and meet-and-greet activities, our naturalist, John Scheerens, welcomed everyone with a overview of the experience. After lunch, it was time to load the buses and head to Whittier to board the Carnival Spirit. As you’ll see in the video, Brian Firooz was a trouble maker during the bus loading process… and the bus driver set him straight.
After two years of planning, we were all ready to kick-off our first day of Science at Sea. Even though it was a day of travel for almost everyone, there was still an opportunity to have fun.
