I was able to recover the last photos taken with my good old FinePix before it passed away. The rest of them are, as always, here.

We're back from Prince Rupert. Our trip to the Grizzly sanctuary was cancelled, unfortunately, due to a broken boat. But the rest of the trip was great fun, we saw many eagles and orcas- even some little frolicking youngster orcas. We didn't see any robots, though, since they were busy on the East coast finding new creatures such as Dumbo-eared octopi.
During our trip out to see the killer whales, we got thoroughly drenched, and, sadly, my trusty little Fujifilm FinePix may have been inadvertently sacrificed to the sea gods. It was dripping yellowish water, which in the case of electronics, is nearly always bad. There's still hope that, once it dries, I may be able to get the pictures out of it. I guess I need to make supplications to Neptune and Triton and all those guys.

The envelope was addressed to "Mr. H. Bear". Mail for him? Yay! The polar bear waved a massive paw at the departing mailman, whose snowshoes were crunching softly in the Arctic snow. Eagerly, he went back into his den to see what the mysterious package could be. The last time he got any mail was months and months ago, when Cousin Berg sent him a postcard from New Zealand.
He used a sleek sharp claw to slice the envelope open. Inside was . . . himself! A picture of him, surrounded by a yellow border. He was on the cover of a magazine! He was making his best menacing snarl, a pretty scary sight for sure. Attached to the magazine was a sticky note that read, "Hey man, thanks for being such a great model! My first cover!", signed by that nice photographer fellow he had met over a year ago. He had forgotten all about that guy. Now he was doubly glad he decided not to eat him. It had been fun taking all those pictures, posing and making faces. He had no idea he would make the cover of National Geographic!
There were more pictures of him inside, in the article on polar bears and PCB contamination. Yuck. He knew all about that, so he flipped through the rest of the magazine. A story called "In Search of the Giant Squid" caught his eye and he began reading. It was so interesting- this article said that squids have blue blood, since they use copper rather than iron to bind oxygen. And they have ammonia inside of 'em! Yuck! Almost as bad as PCBs. But the most intriguing thing about giant squids is that no one had ever seen one alive. Well, the article mentioned one guy in New Zealand (maybe Berg knows him)who caught a few larval ones, but no one had ever seen a big one. No people. And no bears either- until now! Mr. H. Bear decided to go and see a giant squid that very day.
Grabbing his goggles, he headed outside. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, Bear estimated it was not quite midnight, so there should still be a few more hours of daylight. Plenty of time to go to that lead he had passed the other day, where, if he was lucky, that pod of whales might still be hanging around.
The lead, a large swath of open water that remains ice-free year round, was a short distance away, an easy walk for a polar bear. When he arrived, he was pleased to find some whales lounging about, feeding and resting. They were big, much too big to worry about being eaten by a bear, so Mr. H was able to approach without frightening them away. Selkies, seals and even belugas would never let him get so close.
"Hey there!" he called. "Hallo?" Most of the whales ignored him, or maybe just didn't realize he was talking to them, but one swam over to him. "Hi!" she said in a sort of whistly voice. "Who are you, silly bear?"
"I am Mr. H Bear."
"Well than I am Miss C Tacean. Esquire." She giggled. "What can I do for you?"
"Have you ever seen a giant squid?"
"All the time! Why, you don't want to eat one, do you?"
"No, I just want to see one. Will you take me to see one?"
"Well, since you have such nice goggles, I guess I will! But mostly I see squid around New Zealand or Newfoundland, not up here in the Arctic. And you have to go pretty deep, and it gets pretty dark and cold down there, so I doubt we'll see one today. But it'll be fun to look! Hop on!"
And so Mr. H carefully climbed on Miss C Tacean's back, just behind her dorsal fin, and took a deep breath. Although he swam pretty much every day, he had never dove much below a couple of meters. He was excited. "Ready?" C called.
"You betcha!" H answered, and down they went.
The water was cold, but of course polar bears aren't bothered by that. At first, it was clear, blue and familiar in the way the sunlight diffused into straight edges. He could hear whale song, and see vague shapes nearby. But as they went deeper, the water turned black, and Mr. H could feel the pressure increase steadily- his goggles seemed to be trying to suck his eyeballs out. He kept them open, though, not wanting to miss the hordes of giant squid he felt sure were down here. Still they went deeper. And deeper.
Deeper still- farther than any bear had ever gone. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and the pressure was threatening to turn him into a furry snowball. With one last look, he scanned all around, but couldn't see anything. Finally, he tapped Miss C Tacean's fin and she started the ascent. Slowly, so he wouldn't get the bends. It was agony, but Mr. H didn't really mind- what a great adventure! Even if it was a failure.
When they broke the surface, Mr. H rolled onto the snow, gasping for breath. He looked like some exotic new species of drowned Arctic rat, and Miss C Tacean laughed. "Are you alright, silly bear?"
"Yeah," he said, between breaths, "I'll be okay. Did you see any?"
"No, there weren't any down there. Just us whales."
"Oh well. Thanks for the ride! I'm going to go home now. Bye." And he turned for home. Despite not being successful in his quest, he was still excited to learn more about all the crazy things in this world. He loved that there were still things on Earth that no one had ever seen. Maybe someday he would be the first to meet a hitherto-unknown species. Wouldn't that be exciting?
Miss C Tacean watched the funny creature walk away. One of the calves in her pod of Longman's Beaked Whales swam up to her and asked, "I saw you underwater and there was some white alien or something on your back!!! What was it?"
"A polar bear. I bet as long as you live, you'll never see anything like a deep diving polar bear again."
"Wow, cool."

Christchurch
When you're having this much fun it's hard to blog! It's kind of the opposite problem of writer's block- there's so much to say where do you start? How about this: I saw whales! Yay! Not just any whales, sperm whales! Fourth biggest animal in the world. Largest of the toothed whales, deepest diver (that we know of- the elusive beaked whales may turn up some surprises if we ever see a living specimen)- just an impressive sight in general. Normally these whales live too far out from shore to be seen by commercial tours, but near Kaikoura there happens to be a 3000 foot deep trench which is an ideal habitat for the sperm whales' needs. To put that in perspective, I am certified to dive to 60 feet. So that was cool.
I learned a lot about whales and other things at Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand in Wellington. As far as museums go, Te Papa can stand alongside any that I've ever been to, including New York's American Museum of Natural History. As a bonus, it's free to get in! And for a different type of museum altogether, you can check out the National Tattoo Museum of New Zealand. Tattoos are a big part of Maori culture, with the beautiful moko facial tattoos recognizable the world over. You can stop in to see the art, and if you like, you can even get a tattoo to commemorate your trip to New Zealand. I did! And I made a handy little interactive description of it over at my flickr page.
Right now as you can see we're in Christchurch, which is a pretty nice city, though we can't stay for very long. Too much to do!


*Lest We Forget*

Last month you read Little Homie Bear's scientific paper on who would win in a fight between a T-Rex and a Saber-toothed tiger. And today you saw Alien Versus Predator, and know the answer to that long-standing theological question. And yet some of you are still not satisfied! This arrived on my doorstep, so to speak, yesterday. Being the Benevolent Bear that I am, I shall attempt an answer.

*ahem*

Homie Bear was hunting and he caught a big fat seal
But a killer whale saw him and said that he did steal
His supper out from under him and that just wouldn't do
Homie said to the whale why don't you eat some poo
So the offended orca turned and hit him with his tail
Homie had never been so blindsided by such a craven whale
He bounced off an iceberg but got back on his paws
He charged the whale full speed ahead to cut him with his claws
But the whale dodged and dove down deep into the sea
Where he soon discovered that even there he wasn't free
From a bear's vengeful wrath since Homie jumped right in
And grabbed the astonished dolphin by his dorsal fin
The ocean thrashed and bubbled from the epic battle
All the way in South America they felt a little rattle
The water churned and ice exploded as the titans clashed
They bit each other hit each other and they slashed and bashed
With a mighty heave Homie threw the whale back onto the land
Where the raging frenzied beasts prepared their final stand
Ursis maritimus and Orcinus orca, fighting to the death
The whole world seemed to pause as if holding in its breath
Then a timely interruption burst the tension like a bubble
The seal broke in and said, "You should have saved yourselves the trouble
"Fighting over me just isn't worth the pain
"Since I'll be leaving now and you will have no gain"
And then the seal swam away and left the hunters there
Neither now had a meal and they couldn't even share
The only thing that they had proved with their big ordeal
Is that in a fight between whale and bear, the winner is a seal!