Bering Sea

Most days in Nome, you're not likely to run into anybody you didn't see at the Breakers Bar on Friday night. More than 500 roadless miles from Anchorage, rugged tundra and frigid Bering Sea waters have a way of discouraging visitors. So it was a big deal when the World, a 644-foot residential cruise ship with condos costing several million dollars apiece, dropped anchor during the summer for a two-day look-see. "We never had a ship anywhere near this size before," Chamber of Commerce director Mitch Erickson said.

Four years after the dwindling sea otters of southwest Alaska were placed on the Endangered Species List, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated nearly 5,900 square miles as critical habitat for otters in the Aleutian Islands, Bering Sea and Alaska Peninsula. Near-shore areas were chosen because most of the creatures that sea otters eat -- sea urchins, crabs, octopuses and some bottom fish -- are found in shallow waters, which also provide the best protection from marine predators.

A vegetarian restaurant on the Mendocino coast has begun serving a six-course "sea vegetable dinner," featuring sea palm, nori, dulse and wakame -- different forms of seaweed. Though they're not your typical fare in the U.S., fresh sea vegetables are eaten all over the world by those who live close to the source. Asian cuisines feature the most seaweed, but it's also found on the menu in Scandinavia, Scotland and Peru. In Nova Scotia, they dine on sea parsley, or dulse; in northeast Siberia they eat kelp harvested from the Bering Sea. It's a bit of a misnomer to call them vegetables -- seaweeds are algae, and most are not considered members of the plant kingdom.

On the island of St. Paul, winter is marked by the opening of the opilio crab fishery, the start of high school basketball and the annual arrival of the tax preparers. Like most communities off the road system, there are no tax professionals among the 460 residents of the Bering Sea fishing port, 300 miles west of the Alaska mainland. So each winter, volunteer accountants and students from as far off as upstate New York board tiny planes bound for St. Paul and dozens of other bush villages to prepare tax returns for free.

Ribbon seals do not face extinction and don't need to be added to the endangered species list, the government said Tuesday. Because of the melting of sea ice caused by global warming, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was petitioned in 2007 to list the seals as endangered. The agency said it was difficult to determine the exact number of ribbon seals. It did estimate, however, that there are at least 200,000 in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk.

The mangled remains of a World War II Navy submarine were found in the Bering Sea, more than six decades after the vessel disappeared off the Aleutian Island of Kiska. The discovery of the Grunion culminates a five-year search led by the sons of its commander, Mannert Abele, and may finally shine a light on the mysterious last moments of the vessel.

Whales, walruses, seabirds and fish are struggling to survive the changing climate of the Bering Sea, their northern feeding grounds perhaps permanently disrupted by warmer temperatures and melting ice, scientists reported Thursday in the journal Science. By pulling together a broad range of observations and surveys, an international research team concluded that it is witnessing the transformation of an entire ecosystem in a region home to almost half of U.S. commercial fish production.

The Bering Sea had calmed slightly as the Coast Guard resumed its search for three people missing from a crab boat that sank in stormy weather. A man lost overboard from another boat was presumed dead and the search for him was suspended. Three crew members of the 92-foot Big Valley were found by the Coast Guard after the boat sank -- all wearing bulky survival suits -- but only one was alive. Three other crewmen remain missing.

One man died and a man and two children were missing Wednesday after their whaling boat capsized off St. Lawrence Island in the frigid Bering Sea. Six people were onboard the 16-foot boat, which was made of animal skins. The boat was part of group of boats hunting whales from the Yup'ik Eskimo community of Gambell, Alaska state troopers said. The missing are the village mayor, Jason Nowpakahok, 38; his daughter, Yolanda Nowpakahok, 11; and his nephew, Leonard Nowpakahok, 11.

A back-draft explosion caused when crew members opened hatches before a fire suppression system had been activated apparently sank the fish processor Galaxy in 2002 near St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea, the Coast Guard said in Anchorage. Oxygen reintroduced to a fire burning in the ship's engine room probably caused the explosion and accelerated the engine room fire, the Coast Guard said. Three men died, including one blown off the ship in the explosion.