In 2008 many dramatic actions took place in Bering Sea such as scientists plumbed the vast depths of the Bering Sea to reveal new species that expand our understanding of the ocean, volcanoes rumbled and erupted — reminding us of this community’s fragile perch on the Ring of Fire. Beside discovering new species an unexpected spotlight has been fall on a remote and unpopulated island, Rat Island.
Records revealed that some stories were tragedies. The fishing fleet that sustains Unalaska suffered terrible losses in 2008, the sinking of the Alaska Ranger and the Katmai resulted in the deaths of 12 fishermen, and questions remain over what went wrong for these vessels and their crews. There were happier stories also such as the gift that a 101-year-old woman made to Aleutian communities — an extremely rare Attu basket her father had given her almost 60 years before.
Scientists uncovered two new species in the Bering Se, called the Golden V kelp in February. The kelp, up to 9 feet long with a paddle-shaped leaf and golden-yellow “stem,” grows in cold, shallow water attached to large boulders. The “holdfast” — the portion of the kelp that attaches to the rock — is an unusual disc shape that can withstand high-energy waves of the Aleutian Islands.
The summer saw three major eruptions from volcanoes along the chain. The Aleutians saw two fishing vessels go down with loss of life in 2008. The Alaska Ranger and the Katmai are two of the four fish processing vessels — boats in the so-called “head-and-gut” fleet — to have suffered catastrophe since the 2001.
Apart from these there were several many stories happened in Bering Sea and most of them are dramatics. Therefore, it would right to call 2008 a dramatic year for the actions happened in Bering Sea.
