Back in Dutch

Well, this is the first official post with the new format, hopefully I can be a little better with the updating schedule. Just getting back from a relaxing week in Michigan visiting with family and friends. The weather was amazing, the first time I saw the sun in a while - there is something wonderful about putting on a swimsuit and not taking it off for the entire weekend. I was able to see some great friends, some I haven't seen in a while, and it is always good to spend some time with the family. I just want to thank everyone for making the drive and hanging out for a few days. I'm glad everyone enjoyed the crab and salmon.

The flight back to the island has been long, but everything went smoothly. We flew out of San Fransisco at sunset and the view from the plane was amazing. The lights from the bay area and the bridge reflecting off the black ocean, with the sky blood red smeared into orange, yellow, and finally midnight blue of the coming twilight. I tried to take some pictures, but it's difficult getting anything to turn out when moving over 300 miles/hour.

Anchorage Airport

So I'm sitting in the Anchorage Airport at one in the morning, waiting for my 7am flight to Dutch. Over the weekend I realized that many more people were checking the website than I ever imagined. I would like to update it more regularly, but it is time consuming. I figure this will be much easier to keep updated rather than continue with the doing the webpage from scratch, with me not knowing what I am doing and not really having the time to learn html. Also, with the slow internet connections on the island I should be able to upload pictures and possibly videos much easier. I'll begin back dating blogs to sync this up with the old website and add a bunch more to catch everyone up with what has been going on the last moth or so.

Summer's Bay Classic

Yesterday was the annual Summer's Bay Classic race, a 13 mile run through Unalaska, over Overland Pass, around Summer's Bay and back to town. Eric, from Stantec, and I decided to run the race, there was quite a bit of wagering and trash talk between the 2 offices before the race, as Eric won a shorter race on the island last year and I did quite well in the Ballyhoo run. Needless to say there was more than a little pressure to do well. The run started out well, slightly up hill through town, two younger guys took off pretty quickly, but us in our infinite wisdom let them go and stuck to our own pace. Once we got out of town the terrain quickly changed into an extreme uphill climb. We could still see the 2 guys ahead of us, but everyone's pace slowed down considerably. As we ascended into the mountains we began to be surrounded by fog and clouds, it was strangely eerie and beautiful. The higher we ran, the less we could see, just patches of tundra and sheer cliff faces. Once we reached the top of the pass the clouds parted and we could see all the way down to Summer's Bay and the 2 guys ahead of us who had gained quite a bit of ground. I was quite supprised that they were able to keep up their pace for as long as they had. Eric and I were still running together, and we picked up our pace considerably as we started downhill. I began picking points along the road and timing the distance between us and the lead runner, it was clear that we were catching up, but very slowly. About half way down the pass I picked up the pace and started to leave Eric behind. At the bottom of the pass I had closed some of the distance between the lead runners, and with a few flat miles left I decided to make my move. I started closing the gap and with a little over a mile left I caught the 2nd place runner. I kept up the pace and caught the lead runner with just under a mile to go. I was able to hold him off the last mile and ended up winning the race! My time ended up being 1:38.07, which surprised me, I did not think I would be that fast with all of the elevation gain. Eric finished strong and crossed the finish line a few minutes behind the 3rd runner, so he made up some time on them as well. We collected our awards then headed back to work.

Here is the map of the run, make sure you have in on satellite view or it will look like we ran on water (also check out the elevation chart) http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/ak/unalaska/177751522563

Halibut Fishing

4 of us borrowed a boat after work and took it out into Unalaska Bay to do some Halibut fishing. It was extremely foggy at 7pm so we tried to stay within sight of shore as we navigated out to the bay. Once we got out into the open water we baited up and dropped our lines. Somehow I got stuck with the shoddy reel that wouldn't spin freely so I had to pull the line out - all 200 ft of it. However, I got a hit before the line reached the bottom on the first cast! I pulled up a decent sized cod, and it seemed to be a great start for the evening. Although as time wore on, it seemed to be the most action we would see. There were a bunch of porpoises swimming around, and we saw quite a few puffins, and the mountains covered if fog are always an amazing sight. After a while we moved to a new location and Gary, Stantec's field manager pulled in the first and only halibut of the night. It was a small one, but still put up a good fight. Overall it ended up being a great evening.

Pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mikeporter182/HalibutFishing#