10 August 2009, Frederick Sound, SE Alaska

Another beautiful anchorage last night; just before bed I went up onto the pilothouse roof (our bridge-less flybridge) and stood for a long time. The only sounds were occasional jumping fish and various bird calls. Absolute silence. Not a lot of places in the world today where you can get that...

This morning we're underway NE, then E, the SE in Frederick Sound, bound for Petersburg 56º 48.84' N, 132 º 57.79' W. And the whale-o-rama continues with traveling humpbacks fluking, blowing, rolling, slapping, sounding and breaching their way down the sound.

Today is the memorial service in Golden Gate Park, for Al Benner, retired Captain San Francisco PD; creator and first director of SFPD Behavior Science Unit; co-founder with SFPD Lt Vicki Quinn of QuinnBenner teaching Peer Support and Critical Incident Debriefing to police personnel for many years, Psych Director of West Coast Post-Trauma Retreat (WCPR); friend and mentor. I am not able to be there, and I am deeply unhappy (and guilty) about that. I had a great conversation with Al before leaving Hong Kong, and a very brief one (with him in hospice) just before he died. At his retirement dinner, not so long ago, a deputy chief got up and said "we give medals to officers for saving lives; if Al Benner had a medal for every police life or career he's saved, they would extend down his chest to the floor and out in front of him". So unfair that he did not live to enjoy his retirement, his second family, the adult lives of his daughters, his many friendships and professional relationships and the fruits of all the ground-breaking work he'd done in the field of police psychology...