When I last left you we were getting ready to cross the Gulf of Alaska.

We had careful timed our exit from the Inside Pass by hanging out in a couple small Alaskan towns waiting for the perfect weather.

We got lucky and made it straight across without having to duck into Prince William Sound to hide out from nasty weather.

When we got to the other side we had to head north into Resurrection Bay. Seward sits at the head of the Bay. Ironically, the Bay got his name when someone had to hide out from bad weather back in the day - when the storm had passed it was Easter Sunday.

We round the corner into Resurrection Bay and it was blowing 50-60 knots with steep chop. We were bucking into it and trying to make our best time so we could dock in Seward during daylight hours.

I have honestly never taken so much spray on the wheelhouse windows in my whole career.

I'm sure for the tugboat world this was a drop in the bucket but I was like, 'holy smokes'.

Alaska is notorious for having fierce wind channel down through Bays and Passes. Sometimes you'll hear the weather forecast and it will say something nuts like - 15 to 20 knots; 80 knots in Bays and Passes.

I took a video so you could see!

Honestly, we were so lucky that we only had a few hours of the spray because by the time we were tied up we had a fair amount of ice accretion. Accumulating ice due to freezing spray is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a vessel at sea. It makes a vessel very top heavy and destroys it's stability. You can see in the video how iced up the railing is from about two hours of spray.

Once in Seward we working on de-crewing the boat and then it was time to head home.

An eight day trip turned into thirty. You seriously don't want to know what I found in my fridge when I got home *wink*!

Pops. This one is dedicated to you.

My Dad emailed me and said, 'I've been looking at weather in the Atlantic....you should look at the weather....and eat saltines...'. Ok fine, that wasn't exactly what he said. I emailed him back and said, 'Pops, I'm all over that shit'. I know. What kind of daughter emails her Dad that she's 'all over that shit' with reference to eating saltines?!

Listen, I know it is slightly bizarre for a so-called professional mariner to complain about being sea sick all the time but, honestly, I've never been on a ship that rolled like this one!

In fact, I've written about it in great length.

When the icki-ness set into my tummy yesterday I got creative. I had my trusty ginger drink mix and a sprite. Boom! Semi-Homemade Ginger Fizz! Of course I also took two homeopathic sea sickness pills. Just in case.

Now, I know what you're thinking....you're looking out at that beautiful blue ocean and wondering why we're rolling. This can be attributed to a ground swell. It's a long and rolling swell caused by wind that is a substantial distance away (i.e. The North Atlantic). We're feeling the effects of a North Atlantic storm all the way south at 27 degrees North! This type of swell is much, much different than a locally genereated wind driven swell. This is like a gentle roll back and forth every 12 seconds. It's just big enough that you have to brace your body and every now and then a draw will open on its own. It's not big enough that you have to hold on. For whatever reason, it's just enough to make my stomach flip over.

There you have it: a ground swell, a ginger fizz and, no ability to sit in front of the computer without feeling like I'm gonna hurl.

Love you guys.

(also you can read a really good explanation of a ground swell here.)