Typhoon Feeder-Bands

Feeder bands are the spiraling lines of thunderstorms which extend outward from a typhoon's center.


  It was a sunshiny day on Guam.  A typhoon was heading directly towards our island home  but it was far enough out that we were not experiencing any manifestations of the impending  storm yet. I had the day off in order to prepare. With preparations complete we decided to go shelling and beach combing.  We decided on an area close to home in case the typhoon came faster than expected.  It was a very low tide that day.   We walked out on the tidal flat in the area just north of Cabras Island. We were is water about 12 to 18 inches deep. As we walked on the edge of the barrier reef we started finding Snake's-head Courier Seashells. It was beautiful and we were enjoying our leisure stroll.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Snake's Head Courie  Shell

My Closest Encounter With A Gray Whale

This is the photo that I took that is referenced in the following story.

      I was heading out into Sitka Sound in Southeast Alaska with a tourboat full of whale watchers. That summer, along with Humpback, Minke, and Orca whales, a group of about 15 Gray  Whales had decided to make Sitka Sound their summer feeding grounds. Usually, Gray's would pass us by on their migration from Baja to the Chukchi Sea.  This year however, we were spotting Grays on almost a daily basis. I headed South toward Biorka Island. If it was a little rough, we would hug the shore in an attempt to make the transit out to see the whales smoother. As we neared Fragrant Island I spotted a whale blow at the south end of the island. It looked like there was a group of 3 or 4 feeding in a close group.
       I slowly approached the area where I had seen the last blow before the whales had sounded.  When the group returned to the surface they had split up and were blowing all around us.
          I was watching the dive pattern of a specific gray. Everytime it surfaced it was getting closer to the tourboat.  If it kept on it's current course, I estimated that it would come up very close to the stern of the vessel. I grabbed my camera and told a crewman to man the wheelhouse while I went to photograph the whale.  Because the whales had moved closer to the vessel, I had turned off the engines. The wind was slight so the tour vessel wouldn't move.
          Interestingly, whales are unpredictable to a large extent. Sometimes you can be pretty accurate at predicting what they'll do and sometimes they do the exact opposite of what you think. This time I was lucky. I walked directly to the stern of the upper observation deck  and went down the stairs. On the main deck I went immediately to the starboard back corner of the tourboat and stood right above the  swimstep. As I did the gray whale surfaced and raised up out of the water high enough to expose it's right eye. At that point I was only about 7or 8 feet from the whale. For about  5 seconds I looked right into it's eye and it looked right back at me. During this exchange I took a photo. As I bracketed the photo I knew that I had an excellent shot.  I prize it to this day. Then, down it went and it was gone.  A passenger that had watched me walking toward the stern was curious as to why the captain would leave the wheelhouse. He  followed me and had seen the entire event. As I walked by him on my way back to the bridge he looked at me in amazement and asked me how I knew that the whale was going to surface right where it did.  I smiled at him and said, "I just had a feeling."

Me in the wheelhouse during a whale-watching tour in Sitka Sound in Southeast, Alaska.