I was out at Cordell Bank a couple of days ago, and I can't remember ever seeing the water around here so icy blue. Looked like a real desert. Should have seen a few thousand Cassin's Auklets, but probably didn't see 100. Low numbers of everything else as well, except Sabine Gulls moving through. Pretty good numbers of humpbacks and blues. Don't know how they're making a living.--burr@igc.org (Burr Heneman)