 1-800-324-7602 | Email   2006 May >
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~ Hello to everyone from Captain Dean, and welcome to our fall/winter 2009 newsletter! ~
Who is the beauty queen next to Although it’s been quite some time since my last newsletter, well, better late than never. It seems, though, much has happened that would be newsletter worthy in the past year or so. I’ll try to catch up and cover the following noteworthy topics: You’ve all met our Governor (well…she’s not governor anymore but you know who I’m talking about), crewmembers Matt & Sam (besides destined for marriage) moved on and to Portland Oregon. My daughters, who you may think of as those two little girls growing up on the Discovery, are both attending college, and working full time when not crewing onboard. Tess, at the office, moved to Arizona to help care for her Grandmother. Christine, who many of you may remember cooked onboard several years ago, came back onboard and brought along her newborn daughter, Fiona. I've also had the very good fortune to have onboard as a crew person for the 2009 summer the very talented Sadie Youngstrom. We just finished producing another first class brochure. Discovery Voyages was awarded the “Gold” level for sustainable and environmentally friendly tourism, and I, along with members of the Alaskan renewable energy community, recently met with our Washington, DC, Senators Begich and Murkowski’s Alaska staff to push for clean energy legislation. As many of you who have traveled with us know, we Alaskans are not only versatile (I like to say that we wear many hats), but also highly opinionated. I’ve decided to put on a new hat for myself in this first part of the newsletter—that of the political pundit—and exercise my already strong opinions. Here in Alaska, we tend to raise our children to be independent and courageous. This is probably because we drag our little ones around everywhere we go no matter what we’re doing. (Some may think this a type of child abuse. However, as a full time single parent, I for one, had few other choices) My own daughters, as little girls, have repeatedly been out in weather conditions like those experienced in the winter by Bering Sea crab fisherman, been face to face with pissed - off brown bears, taken the helm of the Discovery at such a young age that they’ve used a stool to see over the steering wheel, helped me to rebuild the ship’s main engines while they were young enough to still be reading Dr. Seuss, worked with dozens of marine researchers throughout the Sound on countless scientific studies, traveled all over the US making public presentations with their school, vacationed in Europe as teenagers, and Heather even lived overseas in Japan for a year when she was only 16. Although our Alaskan male population does dominate the fishing, mining, oil & gas, logging, and construction industries, in addition to much of the general business and political arena, most of our female population are anything but lacking in ability, confidence and courage. It was only a matter of time that the rest of the world would discover that Alaska produces alpha females. However, many of us had hoped that it would have been someone a bit more globally sophisticated than Sarah Palin to present this fact to the rest of the planet’s population.
Do you think this person has all I’m not sure how folks in the rest of the world view Sarah but around my circles of friends we somewhat affectionately refer to her clan as hillbillies, and her hometown of Wasilla as, the white trash capital of Alaska! Hey, some of the Wasilla locals (or residents of the “Valley”, as the area is also called) even have bumper stickers, which state: “Proud to be Valley trash.” (Having a good sense of humor helps us through these long cold and dark winters.) That Sarah of Alaska, she’s armed but doesn’t necessarily load her brains before she shoots off her mouth. And hey, she must have tremendous eyesight because here in Prince William Sound we’re just about as close to Russia as she is in her home in Wasilla but I still can’t see Russia from here. Her husband Todd’s claim to fame is that he can drive a snowmobile really fast. Impressive resume, huh? Well, they sure aren’t lacking in courage. Somehow it would seem that having the Palin clan’s “balls” just wouldn’t be quite enough resources to qualify Sarah to run Alaska (let alone the most powerful country on the planet), wouldn’t you think? So…how is it that Alaskans voted this clan into the governor’s mansion. (It’s actually a tiny little older home in Juneau. The first time I saw “The Mansion,” I looked around for an outhouse or at least a fish smokehouse out back.) Are Alaskan voters nothing but a bunch of uninformed meat - heads? Well, the truth is that Sarah Palin (and her hubby Todd, who participated in all cabinet-level meetings even though they are CLOSED to the public) is a step up from her predecessor, former Governor Frank Murkowski, and his pack of cronies. We Alaskans would have taken anyone to get rid of that self-serving bunch. You may have noticed that the Palin family wants the world to believe that only people of their kind, have “family values.” Do you suppose they ever considered expressing their love for their teenage children by allowing them to participate in a sex education class? Or maybe go so far as to put some condoms in their teenage daughter’s Christmas stocking before she starts having sex with her boyfriend? The Palin’s teenage daughter now has had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy, the challenges of raising a child AND continuing with a higher education for herself, and a nasty breakup with the ex boyfriend/father of their child, which just keeps getting nastier. Wouldn’t some “family planning” go well with those “family values”? As the mayor of the community of Wasilla, Alaska (which by the way, is the methamphetamine lab capital of Alaska), Sarah Plain discontinued funding of the local library when the library staff refused to remove sex education materials from the shelves. Fiscally conservative Mayor Palin claimed that this action was part of a necessary city operating budget - cutting process. Soon after taking these budget - cutting steps, however, Mayor Palin somehow found enough money to build a 45 million dollar sports complex, the cost of which has put the community of Wasilla (population 6,000) in tough economic straights. Go figure? Has the national popular media mentioned anything about Troopergate? This is the story of how Governor Sarah Palin wanted to help out her sister who was in the midst of a nasty divorce from her State Trooper husband. Rather than letting the divorce run it’s course through the court system, the “first family” repeatedly contacted the State of Alaska Police Commissioner requesting that he terminate the offending officer’s (the Governor’s brother in law) job. The Commissioner, being an honorable person, refused to bow to pressure from the governor’s family and soon was himself fired. This sounds like politics as usual in…Chicago! Many of you may be wondering why I’m bothering bringing up any of Sarah Palin’s history since she’s now just that…history. Well, as I gaze into my crystal ball, I see the GOP continuing to be led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney thus alienating a significant portion of the citizenry, keeping another portion of the citizenry fired up like rabid dogs and those on the other end of the political spectrum somewhat confused and hamstrung like little neutered foo-foo dogs. I also see Sarah Palin cramming for the next big political competition with some kind of “look how smart I am now” tutorial effort, getting all “botoxed up,” and jumping into the presidential race as the independent answer to this country’s lack of a cohesive leadership. I know it’s hard to believe and for many, including myself, frightening, but weirder things have happened in the not too distant past. After all, we put Homer Simpson (George Bush) and Mr. Burns (Dick Cheney) into the White House for 8 years. It’s not so far fetched to see The Beverly Hillbillies (the Plain clan) living there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next. Yikes!! One thing is for sure about Sarah Palin—she shouldn’t be underestimated. Moving on … Some of you certainly remember longtime crewmembers Samantha and chef Matt. Well, after many summers onboard the Discovery and many more living year round in Alaska (Sam is third generation Alaskan), they decided to move to Portland Oregon. Matt has been cooking at his brother’s fine restaurant and Sam has been building her massage therapy business there in the Portland area. Although loosing two key crew members at once could be quite a shock to a small operation like Discovery Voyages, I was lucky to have Christine, who cooked onboard for several years before Chef Matt, return to her former position. Also, my daughter Heather (now 20), who grew up onboard and worked under Sam’s guidance, crewed this summer. Hannah, whom many of you remember as my daughter who was born in the Whittier train tunnel, now some 17 years ago, also crewed onboard this summer. Since she and Chef Christine have worked closely together in years past, Hannah spent much of this past summer advancing her cooking skills in the galley and helping with Chris’s new - born daughter, Fiona. (yep…we had a newborn baby onboard all summer)
Crewmembers Sadie, Chef Chris with baby Fiona, Hannah and Heather. 
Sadie posing at the top of a Also onboard this past summer as crew we had the amazing Sadie Youngstrom, from just over the other side of the mountains in Girdwood, Alaska. Sadie, in addition to being a licensed captain, also has a degree in biology and environmental science from Alaska Pacific University, has worked with researchers throughout Prince William Sound and led travelers on kayaking and hiking expeditions for years. She is also, as the following picture tells, a damn good tree climber. Hah!!! 
Tess and Winnifred Also of news at this time is that Tess, who handles our bookings, scheduling, confirmations etc., (the voice at the other end of our toll free phone number), recently moved herself, 3-year-old daughter Winnifred, and the Discovery’s booking office temporarily to Arizona in order to be close to her grandmother, whom Tess is helping care for. Here in Alaska, as I write this on the first week of December, it’s about zero degrees outside. Arizona warmth sounds pretty darn good right now…hah! 
Twenty candles on Heather’s Happy Birthday Heather! My oldest daughter, Heather, who many of you may remember as a little girl growing up onboard the Discovery, had her 20th birthday onboard in July.
Lobbying for the Environment As many of you know, I regularly contribute time and resources to our local environmental community here in Prince William Sound, Alaska. As a matter of fact, several organizations got their start after folks “got all fired up” and “organized” during a trip on the Discovery. Today, the environmental community likes to drag me around, wind up the big key that sticks out of my back and let me do my “business with a green heart” spiel in front of the political community. In October, we lobbied with representatives from Alaskan Senators Begich and Murkowski’s office asking them to support environmental legislation presently being debated in DC. 
Captain Dean with folks from the renewable energy Also of note to any of you who want to support the public interest or environmental community AND possibly get a good deal on a trip onboard the Discovery. Each year I donate a number of trips for two onboard the Discovery to several environmental and public interest organizations. These tours are auctioned off to the highest bidder as part of the organization’s annual fund raising efforts. The auctions do not always generate full ticket price bids. Often, the successful bidder can purchase a trip for two on the Discovery at a greatly discounted price! If any of you are interested in learning more about this, please contact us and we can give you the latest information regarding which nonprofit organization is presently auctioning off a Discovery Voyage. Until next time … Good energy, Much love, Captain Dean
See ya later…alligator? |
Discovery Voyages gets Gold for being Green Also of interest, “green” standards were recently developed for Alaska’s tourism industry by the trade group Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association. The Adventure Green Alaska program is one of the first of it’s kind in America…and…Discovery Voyages became one of only three businesses statewide to receive the highest (gold) level of recognition.
Discover Us on YouTube This year we've joined the rest of the marketing world on Youtube. Click on the link below to see what we've posted so far. The clips are all fairly short so they should load quickly. The clip of the Chenega Glacier calving is awesome, as is the Dall's Porpoise swimming at the bow. If you have some video taken on one of our trips that you'd like to share, post it to YouTube and email me a link. Or send a dvd to the mailing address on the website. I'll take a look and forward the clips onto my Internet guru for posting. Check out Discovery Voyages YouTube channel! Kudos from Beyond North America It's almost comical when your dog makes it on the cover of an elite overseas travel magazine. (That's also daughter Heather in the picture) The story appears in the current issue of Beyond, but you can read it here.
A Brand New Brochure A brand-new brochure for Discovery Voyages was recently completed by photographer, graphic artist, writer, and fine friend, Patrick Endres. Patrick has outdone himself again with this latest production…another award-winning 30-page work of art. Please contact us to have the new brochure mailed to you.
If you’re looking for Alaskan fine art prints in sizes ranging from postcard to full-size wall hangings, visit Patrick’s website at www.alaskaphotographics.com A Young Fisherman with Talent Alaskans seem to have been dealt a better than average hand of courage. In some cases, they've also been blessed with a rare form of talent. This is certainly the situation with regards to locally grown and raised, 20 year old, Jonathan Smallwood of Cordova, Alaska. For any of you interested in viewing and listening to one of our local young fisherman's rise to stardom, you MUST check out his youtube clips. I'm sure you'll be amazed with Jonathan's musical gift. Listen and watch Jonathan. Send us Your Photos If you took a memorable photo during a previous trip with us in Prince William Sound, please email it to us and we can include it in our Guest Photo Gallery. |
