As a Coast Guard wife, I've spent quite a lot of time wondering where exactly my husband is ...
Over the years he's be stationed on ships that broke ice, rescued people, cleaned and placed buoys, and checked safety equipment on private and commercial vessels. Through all those postings, most of the time, the location of the ship and her crew—and their particular mission—were confidential/secret. I usually knew he'd be back in a a few days or weeks, and sometimes months, but was often unaware of if they were transiting north or south. It's a funny life ...
However, Badger recently joined the crew of the US Coast Guard Cutter HEALY, and everything changed for us. Stationed out of Seattle, the HEALY spends a great deal of her time in the Arctic (image below from Badger during this tour).
The HEALY is primarily a scientific vessel, and although she also performs any number of other functions (including an emergency escort of the Russian oil tanker RENDA into Nome, Alaska in January of 2012), supporting science and the complement of civilians aboard, is her main goal. She carries a crew of approximately 80 and also carries about 50 civilian scientists, journalists, wildlife specialists, and students.
Because of this non-military mission, the HEALY is trackable! So, instead of wondering where my husband is and what he might be looking at, I can check online for hourly updates, and so can you! There is both a visible track line as well as an hourly photo ...
THE HOURLY PHOTO
Every hour or so, a new photo is posted from a camera atop the HEALY. Many used to show simply a black image—night on the open seas is dark—although now that they are so far north, night as most of us know it no longer longer exists—the sun never really sets.
Here's one from 22 July 2013:
And here's one from today, 12 August 2013:
You can watch the photos here: http://icefloe.net/Aloftcon_Photos/index.php?album=2013
HEALY TRACK LINE
Also very interesting is watching the track line: http://icefloe.net/uscgc-healy-track-map
The track line shows where the HEALY has been during this tour—in the screenshot below, they had left Dutch Harbor, Alaska and were heading north, and then into the Arctic Ocean ...
Here's the one from today (August 12, 2013):
Also though, don't miss out on zooming in and clicking the location dots to see statistics such as wind speed, air and water temperature, salinity, depth ...
No, they're not drunk, and no, they're not performing a search and rescue (as far as I know)—this is what the HEALY's track line often looks like when they are doing science. Awesome.
HEALY WEB PAGE
You can also see updates about the current mission via the HEALY's web page:
http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcHealy/
Here's the most recent post for family and friends:
http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/cgcHealy/aws13/130811.asp
EXTRAS
As I said before, over the years Badger has been deployed a great deal of the time. When he has an Internet connection, he tries to send me a daily mug (a picture of his face such as the one at the beginning of this post that he sent me last month from Alaska). A partial collection of these "mugs" from over the years can be viewed on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kateblackmer/tags/mug/
Unfortunately, while aboard the HEALY, his Internet use is very limited and images are an impossibility, so mug shots are rare (basically just when in port, which is infrequent to say the least). But when they do happen, I post them on Flickr.
Here's the last picture we took together before the ship departed Seattle on 11 July 21013:
And here's Makeshift a few hours later, watching from Bainbridge Island for the HEALY to transit north through Puget Sound. We did in fact watch the transit ... we were sad for us, and yet excited for the crew and our large badger to depart on such a great adventure.
Goodbye for now my love ... see you in Alaska!
Postscript on 130813:
A new television ship about the HEALY is airing this fall/winter. Here's the trailer:
http://vimeo.com/63185820