Capturing the Moment

  I still can't believe it. We had a couple of very clear nights last week as we sailed the Safari Quest through Southeast Alaska. Not only did that bring some beautiful sunsets, but one night it brought something even rarer, Aurora Borealis!    To see the Northern Lights you need a combination of factors. You need a clear night sky, darkness, and a perfectly timed release of charged particles by the sun. There are a few apps out there that are getting better at predicting the chances and intensity of the northern lights, however just getting a clear night sky is a task in itself here in Alaska. It is the rainforest, which means low hanging clouds almost all the time. Plus it is still summer, so the days are long, and the nights not very dark.   Our night deckhand shocked me with a midnight wake up call for northern lights. I lept out of bed, threw on my clothes, grabbed my camera and bolted up on deck. I was amazed further at the intensity of the lights. The...

Aurora borealis Aurora near Juneau, Alaska The Aurora borealis in all of its glory showed up on my very last night in Alaska. I was wrapping up a wonderful week-long trip including bears, humpbacks, calving glaciers, and ice gardens, but it seemed that Alaska wanted to send me out with a bang.   Around 12:30am our deckhand woke me up with the message of Northern Lights. As the expedition leader I am who gets to wake up and make the call to either wake up all of the passengers if its good, or let them sleep if its not. Either way it usually means a long night. So I put on some warm clothes, splashed some water on my face, and walked up on deck to a very mediocre show of the Northern Lights. But it was good enough so I made the announcement for people to get up and outside. As the passengers started trickling sleepily out of the cabins the lights dimmed a bit, but then to my great pleasure they came back with a vengeance. They became started dancing across the sky, almost li...