Buldir Island, 7/11/08, by Bob

When we got to Buldir Island, the wind was gusting up to 40 knots and it was a couple hours before sunup. I didn't want to anchor in
the dark with that wind, so I waited offshore an hour or so, then went in to anchor. I got close, then chickened out because of the
wind and because I couldn't see very well.

I woke up Mike to look out for rocks, etc. on the front of the boat. After two more tries, the wind died a little and we were
anchored off Buldir. I went to bed. About noon, someone called us on the radio. There were five people in buildings on shore. They
told us politely that we weren't allowed to be there because of a Stellar Sealion Rookery on the other side of the island. They
didn't mention how we were going to hurt sea lions on the opposite side of the island, or why they were allowed there and we
weren't. Maybe tales of Mike's ecological behavior had spread to Buldir.

We decided we were liable to get in trouble if we went ahead and landed, so we took off for the next island, Kiska. As we were
leaving, someone from shore radiod and said they didn't mean to run us off and would love to have us visit, they just wanted us to
know about the rules.

In the few hours we were anchored there, the anchor had dragged a couple hundred feet. We had a lot of anchor chain out, too. It
would have been pretty embarrassing to have lost our boat somewhere in the Bering Sea.