An afternoon adventure

Here's Patty and Jill checking out a seal hole. It's amazing to see what these creatures are capable of doing.
Here is the hole. We are thinking the seals keep their hole open all winter. There are about 3-4 feet of ice out there right now. You can see where the seal was sunning himself when we first spotted him.
This is the CM tree that is growing in the middle of the canal, bay, ocean, whatever that body of water is called where we were. On our way over, we noted that the trail was quite well marked with sticks, etc. Cynthia, my passenger, said, "Look at that tree growing up through the middle of the ice." I laughed... and then thought... wow... I hope she is kidding. I then turned and said.. "You were joking right???" Thankfully she said that she was... this will forever be known as the CM tree!
Here's Betty! Betty, Cynthia, and I took the trail over to the tundra while Patty and Jill did some ice exploration. We climbed the hills and got some pretty great photos. We watched the other girls out on the ice but opted to stay on the land. We played around for awhile and then started to head back. We could no longer see Patty and Jill so we waited around and watched for them. No sign of them anywhere... we climbed one of the hills again and still nothing. We went back down on to the ice and waited. About an hour later, we still had no indication where they were so we decided that we should maybe head back and see about getting someone else out there to help us look for them. We hated to take the ice around, we had no idea what direction to go... and if we took that way, surely the girls would come up across the tundra. Betty headed back to SMK while Cynthia and I stayed out on the ice to watch. Not too long after Betty left Cynthia spotted this black dot that appeared to be moving toward us. Sure enough the explorers had made their way back. They had seen some interesting sights. I have much faith in Patty's decisions but she had that rebel Jill on with her... made me a bit nervous!!! (Montana rules - don't know what those rules are on the ice, but I know in UNO they suck... LOL)
This was taken from the shore of mainland Alaska. It is looking over to St. Michael Island to the left and the very tip of Whale Island to the right. I have absolutely no idea how far over it is but it was a nice ride... Lots of thick ice Dad... not to worry!