I left home at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday 28 July for what ended up being nearly 20 hours of travel. At the end of the day, I was exhausted but relieved to have successfully reached my destination, Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The trip from Anchorage to Dutch is 790 miles but required 2 refueling stops along the way and took more than 3 hours. It's never a sure bet that a plane will be able to land, so we were fortunate to make a safe landing in the rain and wind.
While in Dutch Harbor, I stayed at the Unisea Inn. It's not exactly luxury accomodations,
and I couldn't believe there was actually a hotel there when the shuttle driver dropped me off, but it was clean and there was lots of hot water, and my room looked out over the small boat harbor, which was much nicer than the nearby fish processing plants! I spent the last few days wandering around Dutch Harbor and Unalaska. The cool weather was a welcome relief after the hot, humid summer we've had back home. I did have to pull out the rain gear, but while it's often cloudy, it rarely rains for long. The sky is constantly changing, and as the sky changes, everything around looks different as well. It's been great to just be out walking around since I will be on a ship for the next 5 weeks. Here's a view of Dutch Harbor from a hill near town. 
and I couldn't believe there was actually a hotel there when the shuttle driver dropped me off, but it was clean and there was lots of hot water, and my room looked out over the small boat harbor, which was much nicer than the nearby fish processing plants! I spent the last few days wandering around Dutch Harbor and Unalaska. The cool weather was a welcome relief after the hot, humid summer we've had back home. I did have to pull out the rain gear, but while it's often cloudy, it rarely rains for long. The sky is constantly changing, and as the sky changes, everything around looks different as well. It's been great to just be out walking around since I will be on a ship for the next 5 weeks. Here's a view of Dutch Harbor from a hill near town. 
I've seen more bald eagles than I ever would have imagined - they seem to be on every rooftop and every street light.
And I had a real treat on Saturday afternoon when I went for a hike with Bill Schmoker, the teacher from the PolarTREC program who is also going on the Healy. We went out looking for rock ptarmigan, which is 
apparently a big deal if you are a bird person, which Bill is, and we found them. But the bonus was that as we came down the hill, we saw a bunch of small birds flying out over the water and up to the nearby rocky cliffs. It turned out that there were somewhere around 20 horned puffins, and they put on quite a show for us.When I woke up this morning, I realized it was the last time I'd wake up on land for a while. That was a strange feeling. Late this afternoon we boarded the Healy. I unpacked my bags and I'm ready to go, but we don't leave port until tomorrow afternoon. I'll post more after I've learned more about the ship's computer system.
Caroline
Caroline
I am alittle jealous sitting here sweating but 5 weeks no land I dont know. Dad
ReplyDeleteWow! Hope you have a safe and amazing journey. Your photos are great and I know that the real thing is even better.
ReplyDeleteDad - We actually saw land yesterday (8/16)on a little side trip to Barrow. After a while, the ice starts to look like a landscape and I almost forget that it's floating on the ocean. In fact, sometimes I even forget I'm on a ship.
ReplyDeleteHi Elisa! Thanks for checking out the blog. You'll see lots more when I get back to school.