Our Baja adventure draws to a close; the desert, the dark skin, the tacos and a life lived by the wind will soon become distant memories. The tears that were shed were many, but they dried before they hit the ground when we were offered positions working at Tutka Bay Lodge near Homer, Alaska.

As it turns out we won’t have to say goodbye to the whales and the seafood and the smell of salt air. We’ll trade cardon cactus for spruce trees and iguanas for brown bears, but we’ll be living next to the same Pacific waters that have been our home for the past nine months. And we’ll be following many of our avian friends on that familiar northward migration towards the land of summer bounty.

We will be naturalists and guides for an ecolodge that focuses on exploring the unparalleled natural beauty of the Kachemak Bay fjord lands. Hiking, fishing, sea kayaking, wildlife viewing, and running the boat (outboards instead of sails this round) will be among our job duties. Throw in a glacier tour, some intertidal field trips, and a world class chef as the owner, and it starts sounding like perhaps the greatest job of all time.

All year we’ve wondered how the transition away from the sailing life would hit us at the end of our time in Mexico. And all year we assumed that it would hit us hard, that we would be dragged away kicking and screaming. Quite the contrary. While we are sad to leave Baja, we can’t wait to get to Tutka Bay and start the next chapter of our adventure. We will have the opportunity to learn the ecology of a new place and we will get to share that knowledge, and perhaps more importantly, share our passion, as educators and guides. Alaska winters are pretty dark and cold though, and Baja will be there waiting come January…

The folks at Tutka Bay Lodge have encouraged us to continue writing about our experiences this summer, so expect the posts to keep rolling in. The photos of whales and dolphins will just be taken from a sea kayak instead of a sailboat. Hope you don’t mind.

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