Alaskan Adventure part 3

Last update for a while.

Also, I titled and added descriptions to the rest of the pictures in the gallery, linked in the post bellow.


Monday, June 16th
I got up a little before 7, I tried to put my contacts in, but couldn't. I tried a whole lot of times, but it never seemed to work, and then when I finally did get one in, it wasn't right. It's edge had folded up a little bit and it was very uncomfortable, so I took it back out and put it away. It had a small crease where it had been folded up, so I didn't try to put it back in, I figured that I'd just let it sit and get it's shape back.

The girls were going to go shopping for the day, so they left around 8, and David had to go work, so I was pretty much alone with Mr. Pherson. We talked for a while until Etta came and picked my up. We were going to go and pick up the nets for the boat, Rick had given them to a man to be fixed, and they were done now, so we had to pick them up. It was about a half an hour drive to pick up the nets, and then an hour and a half to get to the boat, and then once we got there, it took is a while to get the nets on the boat, but we got it eventually. Then we drove to Soldatna, which is at least 2 hours away from where we were. There, we bought supplies for the boat, food mostly. Then we had to drive all the way back. And by the time we did that, it was 6 p.m. already. Oh! And I got to drive the truck a little, not very much, but it was some, that was my first time driving a stick on the road, so it was something new for me.

Well, Etta had been invited over for dinner at the Pherson's, so we dropped in, and they were just finishing up cooking the moose steaks. Yum-my!

Dinner was quite good, the moose had a nice flavor to it, slightly different from anything else than I've had. I think that everyone had a great time; the Pherson's told a couple stories about stuff from South Africa, and then everyone shared his or her testimony. I think that that was a real blessing to me, I'm very glad that we did that.

After dinner, David, Etta, Mr. and Mrs. Pherson, and I played a game of Risk. I've never played real Risk before, I played a little on the computer, but it was a little bit different variation, and on the computer is not the same as in real life. The game got intense in a few places; it was very enjoyable, even though I didn't win either round. I'm sure that we all had great fun, I know I did.

It was 11 p.m. before we finished our second game, the time really snick up on us, so after the game we dismissed and went to bed.



Tuesday, 17th
Etta wasn't coming over until 11 a.m., so I helped out some be raking up some cut grass, and sticks and stuff. Then Etta picked me up, and we drove over, and delivered the food, that we bought the other day, to the boat. We organized it and put it away, so that hopefully we'll be able to find it later.

Then we drove ovenr to the library, where they have wireless internet, so we plugged our laptops in and got connected with the outside world. I sent and recived some E-mails, and uploaded my blog. (Sadly no pictures, I didn't have time.) I almost got everything done that I needed to do before we had to leave. We then drove over to save-U-more to get some pizza to bring back for Rick and the crew. Rick and the guys were coming back a day earlier than planned, because we had to get the boat in the water, and because of how the tides are, it had to be Wednesday morning. I was suppose to stay at the Pherson's place for Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, but I didn't end up spending Wednesday night there. Which I was/am pretty bummed about, because Mr. Pherson and David had planned on getting the guns out a little later, and letting me shoot them, and I was really looking forward to that. But because Rick came back early I didn't get a chance. Frowny face. :(

After breakfast I had tried to put my contacts in, but like yesterday, I didn't succeed. I got one contact in, but it wasn't in correctly, so I couldn't see clearly, and it felt like I had a piece of sand or something in my eye. I tried blinking, to see if that would get it to work its way into position, but it didn't. Then I tried rubbing my eye, that didn't help either. Since nothing was getting it into place, I had to take it out, but when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't see the contact. I looked, and stared, and looked some more. I held my uper eyelid open, I held my lower eyelid open, I even tried holding both eyelids open, but I just couldn't see it anywhere, I checkde the floor, maybe it fell out and I didn't notice it. I doubt it, but whe knows? Then I started trying to pull it out, thinking that maybe it's there, but I just couldn't see it. That failed to provide the solution as well. So I just said to myself, "I don't know." And just went on, I put my glasses on, and then just went about my business. It sure felt like it was somehow stick on the side of my eye, but when I looked I couldn't see anything there.

Back with the story, we (Being Etta and I) were at save-U-more getting pizza. Save-U-more has free wireless internet, which, by the way, I appreciate very much. I was able to finish up what I ran out of time doing at the library. I felt a slight pain in my eye, followed by a blinking frenzy, and then at the end of that I had the small sticky something attached to my eyelid. You guessed it; it was my contact. It looked like church clothes before they get ironed, all wrinkled. I opened it up, and straightened it out, it had all thees creases in it from being folded up for so long. I put the contacte in a place where it would stay safe from being crushed, or anything. I knew that it would probably dry out, but I couldnt think of a better solution, so I went with that, and sure enough, it was all dried up and hard when we got home, a couple of hours later, and when I tried to pull it off, because it was stuck to the container that I put it in. When attempting to pull it off, I broke a small hole in the middle, of the contact. I don't really care though, I thought, "Oh well. It that's what happens, then that's what happens. I've pretty much given up on contacts for this trip, I'll worry about them after this summer, once I get back to a place where I can know that I'm going to be there a while.

When the pizzas were ready we grabbed them and headed out to go meet Rick and the guys. We went up met up with Rick at his cabin, and ate the pizza there with the guys and him. Etta and I ran and got some water for the guys so that they could get showers and not run out of water. And then finally we went back to the Pherson's place so that I could get my stuff ready. That morning, I haddn't known that I was going to leave that day, I thought that I was leaving the next day, so my bag wasn't ready to go yet, so I had to get it ready.

Rick came and picked my up and we all drove to the Deacon. I met Brandon, the other deckhand, he came in on Monday morning, but I hadn't bet him yet because he had been down fishing with Rick.

We cleaned up the boat, and then pretty much waited around for the tide to come in so that they could put us in the water.

We met our captain that is going to take is to Bristol Bay, while Rick stays here and continues to fish in the Sound, and then he'll fly up before we start fishing at Bristol Bay. Our new captain is Shiloh, and his crew will be traveling with us to Bristol Bay; Tal and Hillary.

They put the boat in the water once the tide got high enough, and then we drove on over to the harbor where we parked for the night.



Wednesday, June 18th
Today we prepared the beat and got everything ready for the trip. Rick did a lot of tuning, and stuff, but there wasn't that much for us to do. Basically we helped Rick when he needed it, and did simple tasks, but Rick pretty much wanted to do thnigs himself.

Shiloh and his crew brought their stuff on board and put it away. The living quarters are pretty cramped, because right now we have 5 people in our cabin--we call it the galley--instead of 3 people like we will have later on when we go fishing.

Rick left us around 6 p.m., so we just hung out until Shiloh came at 11 p.m. I did some writing, and took a nap I think.

When Shiloh arrived we got the things ready and started out on our great adventure.

Sleeping 5 people in 3 bunks was a bit of a challenge, but we avoided it by haveing people sleep in shifts; one person would be awake and would stay up with Shiloh to help him keep awake.



Thursday, June 19th
Unfortunately, today I had my first encounter with sea sickness. During the night we were traveling through rough waters, although not really that rough, it was enough to make Richard, Hillary, and me sick. And Hillary had been drugged up with anti-seasickness pills. I hadn't taken any of the pills until now, but it was too little, too late. I took one pill when I wasn't feeling well, but about 30 seconds later I threw up, so the pill didn't have a chance to do anything.

We drove a lot. We drove all the way to the place where we get pulled out of the water, and taken across the mountain pass. Before getting there we had a tone of things go wrong. (1) We didn't have power, so the lights didn't work, and I couldn't charge my laptop. (2) Engine problems, the port (left) engine wouldn't stay in gear, so we were running on only one engine. (3) Our water didn't work haly the time, it would come out slowly, and then it would spay a high power blast, then nothing would come out. But we got by; doing dishes became a challenge though, but we managed.

Anyway, enough of the bad, after we got to where we were going to be pulled up out of the water, we parked it and waited for the next high tide. We arrived on a high tide, but there were other boats in front of us and we didn't get to go right then. The next high tide was about 12 hours away. While we were waiting there, Richard and I climbed a mountain that was close by. During low tide the water got low enough that the boat sat on the bottom, so Richard and I just walked across to the land. The mountain was really steep, but we climbed it, the trees and the vegetation helped because we could grab hold and pull ourselves up. Climbing up wasn't too hard, but it was very tiring. The view was spectacular, but I've seen many spectacular views before, what made this unique was the climb that it took to get there. So, the view was nice, but the satisfaction of climbing up the mountain was the more rewarding part. Climbing down wasn't quite so simple unfornunatly. We tried to climb down, but we got to a rock fack that had a straight down drop off, so we had to climb back up and find another way down. The next way we tried was the same way, it went for aways, and then all of a sudden it dropped straight down. So we climbed up again. Our third attempt at climbing down was successful, we found where we had climbed up, and so we just climbed down the same way. Our little adventure took about an hour and a half of strenuous exercise. I got lots of pictures. :)

A little bit after we got back on board, Shiloh got out his guns One was a pretty standard (for Alaska) hand gun, but the other one was none other than the .50 cal. Smith & Weson. The biggest, baddest hand gun currently available on the market. It was designed fro big game hunting, it could take down an elephant, no joke. Don't stand in the way, and hearing protection is mandatory. Standing about 10 feet away, I could feel the shock wave when he shot it. It was definitely cool. Each bullet costs over $2, so you wouldn't want to use it as a target pistol, but if you need to stop a charging bear, I can't think of any hand gun that would be better. After showing her how, Shiloh let Hillary shoot it too, I even got a video of it. Then he shot the smaller gun, which wasn't as cool, but it was still pretty cool.

After that excitement, we settled down and chilled out until 4 a.m. when they were going to pull up out of the water. Richard and Brandon played rummy, while Hillary and I wrote in our journals. We didn't have light in the cabin, because the power wasn't working, so I tapped my flashlight to the pole in the middle of the room, and that provided enough light for everyone to do his or her own thing.



Friday, June 20th
Wow, it's only been a month since my birthday, seems like much longer. Probably because I've been doing so much since my birthday, it makes it seem longer.

Anyway, we got up at 4 a.m. to got pulled out of the water. Then we drove over and across the mounains. I took lots of pictures hoping that some of them would come out in the dim light and bouncing truck.

After traveling through the pass, which took about an hour, we were put in a huge lake and continued on the way.

We didn't have too many problems, just the ones that we already had.

We exited the gigantic lake and entered a river. Then we continued down the river for the rest of the day, until we stopped at the fishing cabin. We didn't sleep in the cabins, but the owner knows Shiloh and the other captions in our group, and he is going to be our guide part of the way down the river. We're suppose to follow him and he'll lead us through without getting our boats, stuck.

Saturday, June 21st
We spent the night there, (on the boat not in the cabins) and then in the morning our guide lead the way. Once we got through the worst part, we bid farewell to our guide, and continued on our own.

Things, went well for the next couple of hours, but unfortunately, we got stuck. Shiloh did his best to "unstick" us, but to no avail. Brandon and Richard were throwing out lots of crazy ideas to get us unstuck, but the only thing that we could do was wait.

I wrote in my journal while I waited, Brandon and Richard played rummy, and Hillary and Tal watched a movie. They watched "40 Year Old Virgin" I came in in the middle of it and it only took about 30 seconds before I knew that the movie wasn't the kind of movie that could fit my standards, so I went back on deck and continued writing. A little bit later, I heard something that caught my ear, a song. A theme song from a TV show in the the 70's. And it starts with, "Believe it or not..." What is the TV show? My family would know, but I don't know about the rest of you. The TV show is "The Greatest American Hero." It's a funny show, they are constantly making fun of super hero steriotypes and stuff. There is another story about how we got introduced to that show, but I'll tell it some other time.

Anyway once the song finished I went back upstairs and continued writing. We finaally got unstuck after a couple more hours, when the tide came back up, so we were back on the read, so to speak.

The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful. Something was burning down in the engine room, but we put it out and fixed that. When we got close to where we were going, we again had to wait on the tide to come up, so that we could cross a shallow section, and enter into the harbor.

Sunday, June 22nd
We pulled anchor and parked in the harbor when the tide was high enough, which was at 4:30 a.m. Shiloh and his crow went to their boat, so we're pretty much just sitting around until Rick gets here.

We've been doing stuff like cleaning the boat and getting it ready and such. There isn't a lot to do so Brandon and Richard are playing rummy a lot, and I'm catching up and typing up my journal, so that I can send it off. There is a library in town, and they have wireless internet, so I am able to send stuff.



Rick got here on the 24th and we have been getting ready to go out and not comeback to shore for several weeks, I have no idea when my next update will be, so this is going to pretty much be it for a long time. Have fun everyone, I'll talk to you guys when I can.

Pray for me. :)
Timothy Petersen

Pictures are up!


I don't have time to name them all, but I named as many as I could.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27950064@N02/2608353990//

Alaskan Adventure part 2

Here is the continued story of my adventure, I am up to date with my writing, but it is all on paper and I have to type it up on the computer.

I tried to upload photos on Facebook, but it isn't working for me, and I don't know why.
I'm working on getting pictures up, hang with me.

Sunday, June 8th
We slept in and got up around 7:30 or so. Rick and I got some showers, and by shower, I mean we heated up some water, put it in a bucket, took it into the shower place, and powered it over your head with a pot. That kind of shower : )

After washing up, we had breakfast and then Rick ran to get some of our running water. Then we went to church, Calvary Baptist in Ninilchik.

When I was introducing myself to people, a lot of them would go like, "Oh, so you're a Petersen, ok. Missionaries to Poland, right?." And then they would usually ask something about Poland, like what it's like or, what the weather is over there. After I introduced myself to someone a girl, who over heard me, turned to me and asked, "Did I hear you say that your name is Timothy Petersen?" And being the honest person that I am I said, "Yes."
Then she replied with, "Cool, when you guys were here last time you stayed in our cabin. We were away right then, so we didn't see you, but I remember that you guys stayed there."
Then I probably said something like, "Oh, cool, yeah I remember that. You have a trampoline, right? Yeah, we had a lot of fun on that trampoline."
(For my family: It was the place with the wood stove, and the chickens, and the trampoline. I don't know if you remember, I'll post a picture. Sometime.) Later I found out that the girl's name is Sarah Cobbs, just fyi.

The morning service was about studding our Bibles, and giving us some advice and challenges. I enjoyed the message very much, it was very good to hear. Right after the service Rick cutout to go finish up with any thing else that he needed to do on the Deacon. (Deacon, that's the name of the big boat. The Harpazo is the name of the small boat.) Etta and I, along with what seemed like half the church, were invited to dinner at the Cobb's place. (The same place that we stayed in '03)

Dinner was good, we had our choice of either lamb, or rabbit, or halibut, or a little of each if we wanted. After dinner the other kids and I had a lot of fun playing capture the flag, it ended in a stalemate, but we all had a great time. I got to know the kids some too, which I enjoyed quite emphatically.

Afterwards, Etta and I walked back to the cabin, where we met up with Rick, and drove down to Whittier, to go fishing the next morning. We spent the night on the Harpazo, (little boat) it was pretty cramped for storage space, but it worked out ok.



Monday, June 9th
I slept pretty well on the boat, even though it was rocking around some, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be though.

We had a 48 hour opener, starting at 8 a.m. that morning. A 48 hour opener means that fishing will be allowed for the next 48 hours, so we could (and would) fish until 8 a.m. Wednesday. At that time everyone's net had to be out of the water, or else you could get a huge fine and something.

The Department of Fish And Game decides when and how long people will be allowed to fish. Sometimes there are 24 hour openers, sometimes there are 72 hour openers. I'm pretty sure that it's based on how many fish there are, if there are more fish, then they give longer openers, if there are fewer fish, then they give shorter openers.

At first I just watched Rick and saw how hi did everything, and then I jumped in, and started picking the fish, and grabbing the buoy, and getting the nets ready to set, everything that I'll have to do at Bristol Bay. (The main place where we will be fishing.)

I'm sure glad that I was able to get some practice at picking here at Prince William Sound, (commonly called "The Sound") before we go out to Bristol Bay, because fishing is much more relaxed over here than it will be at Bristol Bay, so it takes a lot of the stress off of me. I know that I'm not able to pick very quickly yet, so being able to get some experience before the "real deal", is nice.

The fishing was pretty slow all day, though it picked up a bit in the afternoon. We caught about 30-40 fish per set (per set, meaning, everything time we threw out the net.) for the first couple of times, but if kept getting a little better as the day progressed, and by the mid afternoon, we got one or two 90 fish sets, which are still on the small scale normally, but they had a cold spring here, so things are a little slow still, they should pick up soon though.

During the night we did 3 hour sets, so that we could get some sleep while the net was in the water. (A 3 hour set means that the net was in the water for 3 hours before we pulled it in and picked it. (picked it, meaning picked the fish out of it.)) Normally we were doing 45-60 minute sets, if there are a lot of fish then we would pick it more often.

Picking is hard, but I know that I'll get it, I can already tell that I'm getting better.



Tuesday, June 10th
About the same as yesterday. The fishing was very slow, (slower than yesterday) and I was still getting the hang of everything. By the end of the day, I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of how to do everything, like preparing the net to go out, or come in.

We got one set that was 142 fish, but the rest were mostly in the 40's or 50's.

I haven't been out here for very long yet but I can already see how this is going to be an endurance contest, it's not really strenuous work most of the time, but you have to work quickly and without mistakes. You can't forget a step when getting ready to pick or set the net, otherwise you could have a major problem and end up ripping your net. Also while picking and setting, you have to be constantly watching for problems, like your lead line,
(bottom line of the net) going over your cork line, (top line of the net) if that happens, then the net will get all tangled and messed up. There are other problems that can occur too, like the net catching on the drum, or snagging on a rock or something, so yeah, there are things to look out for, so you have to be paying attention.

The scenery around here is beautiful. There are mountains in every direction of the compass, some of them are snow covered, and others have luscious green grass and tall, full trees. The water is a deep, royal blue. And the sun is blindingly bright, reflecting off of the water's shining surface. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can, but even they don't display it's true beauty. The weather has been really good, no rain so far, just the sun and the big blue sky. And some clouds, we've had clouds too.



Wednesday, June 11th
We kept fishing until about 7:30 a.m. we were getting very few fish at that point, only about 20 or so each set. The fishing closed at 8 a.m., so there were a lot of boats at the tenders waiting to unload their last fish. So we had to wait our turn, Rick talked with some of the fishermen in our group. We are in a group of fishermen, they don't do much as a team here at Prince William Sound, but at Bristol Bay Rick said that they kind of work together to fish where the fish are and they help each other out that way. Everyone in the group, has a group radio, so that the guys in the group can talk without being on the public radio wave lengths. Mostly, they talk about how many fish they are catching, and commenting on other people's catches, and bragging about how well they did. :P Stuff like that.

Well, we dropped off our fish and then drove - well what do you do to a boat? You don't float it, and it's a motor boat, so you don't sail it, so I guess that you drive it - anyway we drove or whatever you want to call it, over to the harbor and docked.

Etta left because she was going to pick up another deckhand that night. Rick and I fixed up the holes in the net, then I cleaned the boat, the windows, the cooler, and anything else that needed cleaning. Then Rick and I got showers at the harbor master building, and then we each took a nap. After that we went over to the store, and Rick bought some ice-cream, and I bought a pad of paper, which I am actually writing this on, since I didn't bring my computer on the boat. (I wrote this up on paper, and am typing it up on the computer.)

Rick and I too the ice-cream, and went and shared it with one of the guys in our group. We went over there and Rick and Coltan (That's the guy we went to see.) talked about engines and stuff, because Coltan's clutch had broken that day during fishing. One of Coltan's deckhands was an MK from the Philippines, so we talked a little. He is the 10th kid out of 13 in is family. He is 17, and this is his second year working in the States for the summer.

After that we pretty much just wrapped it up and went to bed.



Thursday, June 12th
We got a new member today, and his name is Richard, Richard Hawks. He flew in to Anchorage at 1 a.m., and Etta picked him up and brought him over to the Harpazo right away, (little boat) so that we could leave to go fishing at 6 a.m.

Richard is about Jeremiah's age, 19, just finished his sophomore year at college. He's from Oregon and is interested in making a lot of money.

Last year Rick had one guy that had been around for a couple of years, and then he had two new guys, Jeremiah and someone else. This year we are all new; as green as a premature banana. None of us had fished before, so that's one of the reasons that Rick wanted us to get some practice here at Prince William Sound, before going out to Bristol Bay, where the majority of the fishing will take place. It was great to have Richard aboard, I wasn't the newest guy around anymore, so it kind of helped me, because he had to learn the same things that I had to learn. I trued to help him when I could, but some of the things just take practice.

At precisely 8 a.m. we were out there with our net flying off of the bow. And then we waited. Waiting the agonizing wait. Waiting for time to pass. Waiting for signs of fish hitting the net. Waiting for the fish. Waiting. An hour passed us by, and still we waited. Waiting for the command from our captain. And then long expected words were finally called out by our lowly commanded. "Let's pick this one up." The long awaited order. I flew out on deck, threw on my gear faster than I ever though possible. Then I stood there, again waiting. The icy breeze slapped against my face. My finders numb from the cold, twitched in anticipation, as Rick drew in the net. I stood read, prepared for the onslaught of fish. Then came the fish. Like clockwork, Rick and I, side by side, picked the hordes of fish out of the net. Fish were flapping, blood was flying, adrenaline was pumping. So many fish they couldn't be counted, all of them hopelessly caught in out net. Their outlook is bleak until we free them, only to dash their hopes once again, by grabbing one of their gills, and ripping it in half leaving the fish, gasping for air, and slowly bleeding to its death. Oh, the thrills of fishing, I felt them. I am now a fisherman, through and through.

Ok, well that was exciting. Now do you want to know what really happened? It was pretty chilly, and it can get pretty exciting, but it isn't quite as described in the previous paragraph. Firstly we only caught about 20 fish in that set, so they certainly weren't innumerable. Secondly, I exaggerated about pretty much everything else too. :P

The day was pretty slow for fishing, we were normally only catching about 20-30 fish in a set.



Friday, June 13th
My day started with an awakening at 4 a.m. to go out into the cold and pick fish with Rick. Out on the water it's pretty much sleep when you can, which is not necessarily at night.

Rick decided to call it off early and go up to Ninilchik to work on the Deacon. (Big Boat) So we finished of around noon, and fixed up the nets, then drove up to Ninilchik. We arrived at around 9 p.m. or so.

Etta's parents were visiting from Oregon and they were staying at Rick's cabin, so we had to stay on the boat.



Saturday, June 14th
Today was a lot like Saturday the week before. We worked on the boat, doing all sorts of different tasks, cleaning, organizing, tweaking, welding. One of the things that I did was put up some insulation in the galley. (Where the crew is going to sleep. We call it the galley.) The insulation not only helps keep things nice and toasty warm, it also keeps the condensation down. When the galley is warm, and the walls are cold, because they are in contact with the icy sea water, the water in the air condenses on the walls and drips down and gets things wet. So we wanted to avoid that is much as possible.

We ate pizza at Save-U-more and they have free wireless internet there, so Rick told me to bring my computer, because he wanted to check something. So I brought it. I downloaded E-mail, and then Rick looked for tachometers, because the new one that he bought wasn't working correctly, it was reading about 5 times to high. So, anyway, he didn't find what he wanted, but I was able to check E-mail.

After lunch we continued working on the boat until about 11 p.m., by that time the only thing left to do was the welding of the hatch down, and Rick had to do that himself, so we pretty much had nothing to do, and just stood around in case Rick needed us until about 12 o'clock midnight, at which point I decided to turn in. Richard wanted to stay up a little longer to keep Rick company. Rick and Richard ended up going to bed around 1:30 a.m.



Sunday, June 15th
Happy Father's day!
Rick didn't quite finish up the welding last night, so he got up around 6 and was finishing it up when we got up and 7 a.m.. Then we all cleaned up the boat, and then drove over to Rick's cabin to get showers. I took the first shower so that I would have enough time to walk to church in time for Sunday School. Rick and Richard were still waiting for the water to heat up, so they didn't make it to church until the morning service. I was much more relaxed this time, because I knew some of the people already, or at least had seen them before. Mr. Pherson continued from last week about speaking in tongues and spiritual gifts and stuff. When Rick and Richard got there I introduced Richard to some of the young people, so he met them, but he mostly stuck close to Rick. I went out and sat with David, the pastor's son, he's 16.

After the service, we were invited to go over to Buzz's (Someone in the church, everyone calls him Buzz.) place for an after church dinner. That was fun, I got to talk to a lot of people and answer their questions. One girl in particular I talked to her for quite a while, Misty is her name. She asked about what Poland is like, about the language, about the people, the works. Something interesting about Misty. Last week, when I was here, Misty came up to me and was like. "Hi! What's your name?"
"Tim, Tim Petersen." I replied.
"Oh, really? Wait. Are you the guy with the YouTube video? The one with the juggling, and riding on the..."
"Unicycle" I finished.
"Yeah." *smile*
"Yes, that is me" (Incorrect grammar, I know.) I was honestly fully expecting her to ask, "Are you the missionary to Poland?" Or something to that effect, so her question was a huge surprise, completely not what I expected. So as soon as I recovered from my shock I asked,
"Where did you find out about that video." And then I think that she said that someone E-mailed her the link. So that was really cool, it's the first time I've been asked something like that.

Misty is a really nice, sweet, friendly, and outgoing girl. Last week, she came up to me, all smiles, and introduced herself, and then after the conversation above, she showed me around and introduced me to some of the other young people. And then today when ever I looked at her it seemed like she smiled at me, it's possible that I'm just imagining it, but I don't really think so. At first I thought that she might like me, but I think that it's just part of her character. Her friendliness, and outgoingness. So I talked myself out of thinking that she liked me and decided that she was just trying to be friendly. Etta noticed me sweating when I was talking to Misty, so she teased me a little about that. (I sure hope Misty isn't reading this, because if she is I'm going to be so embarrassed. :P )

Anyway we had fun at the dinner, afterwards, some of us went for a walk to see a waterfall. The water fall was pretty cool, I took pictures. On the way to the waterfalls, we saw some bald eagles, and I was able to climb pretty close and get a nice picture. I was wishing that I had my DSLR and a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens, (Which I don't own, by the way.) because tat would have been sweet. That lens is a great telephoto zoom lens often used for birding. Anyway, I got a good enough picture with what I had, so I'm happy. It still would have been sweet to have one of those lens. :)

Rick and Richard cut out pretty early because they had to get back to Whittier to go fishing in the morning. I didn't go with them because Brandon was flying in that night at 1 a.m., and was going to go fishing with them. And since there isn't enough room for 4 people on the Harpazo, (little boat) someone had to stay back, and I was the one because I had the most practice at picking, so to let the others get more practice I had to be the one to stay behind. It's not like I wasn't going to be doing anything though, Etta and I had errands to run in preparation for the upcoming trip to Bristol Bay.

After the dinner we went to the evening service, and then after the service we went over to the Cobb's place. (Same place as last week.) We stayed there for a while, the kids played some games and stuff, and the grown-ups talked. I did a little of both. : ) And then after everyone was good and tired, we went home. I was staying at the pastor's house which I was looking forward to. Hopefully I'd be able to get to know the Phersons some, while staying at their house. Kit Pherson, (the pastor) and his family used to be missionaries in South Africa, so we had something in common already.

There was Kit and Joy Pherson, Diane (20's), Easter (I forget), David (16), and Carla (15). And then Emily who is also (20's)
I had met most of the family at church already, but I hadn't met Diane, or Emily. Well Emily isn't really one of Phersons, but she was staying with them; she was also down there in Africa with the Phersons so they know each other quite well. So we went through the introductions, and then they showed me my bed, and then I unloaded my pictures from my camera, and then went to bed.

My Alaskan Adventure

For those of you that didn't know, I'm going to be working this summer as a Fisherman, in Alaska with Rick Mill. Rick Mill is a fisherman, who goes to one of our supporting churches in Alaska. He came over to see our family on two different occasions, about three and four years ago.

So this is my modified journal for you guys, to keep you all updated with my progress.

I'm sure that there are mistakes and problems in the writing, but I don't have the time to correct them. I am sorry, but that's the best that I can do for now. :)

I hope that you aren't too bored reading it. :P

I'm also sorry, that I can't post any pictures yet. :(



June 5th:
Well the first day of my trip, I was up until about 1:45 the night before, doing some packing and straightening up, but I was able to get it all done and have everything nice and pretty neat, so I knew that I wasn't leaving behind a big mess.
Mom, Aunt Rachael, and I left for the airport at around 7:20 A.M. The drive was pretty good, but it did get a little crowded there when we got near the airport. We got there on time though, we went it and got my bagged checked. That morning before we left and had checked in via the internet, and had printed out my boarding passes too. So it was really easy going, all I had to do was scan my boarding pass and then give my bag to the man who was checking the bags, and that was it. After that process the twins and I parted. I went on to continue through the airport routine, and they were going to "hit up" some of the Publixs that were nearby. After that I know not whither they whenist, but I, I alone went on, to brave the fierce and mighty terrors of the... "AirPort." Da da da dum...

Yeah, yeah, over-dramatizing much, I know. Well started walking to my gate, on the way I walked through security, and I didn't even beep. Which is strange, because normally I always beep. But I guess taking off just about everything: camera, wallet, phone, belt, watch, flashlight, and shoes; helps. Back at the house I had taken off my knife and leatherman, so that they wouldn't get confiscated, and I don't want them taken away from me because I like them. : )

I got to my gate and sat there for a while, well not a long while because right away I started to write my letter to BJ, requesting that I might work security. Somehow I don't think that it was very convincing. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I wasn't able to finish it there, which was a shame because at the Tampa airport they have free wireless internet, so if I had finished it there I could have sent it right away, but since I didn't I wasn't able to sent it until later that night

We boarded the aircraft. I had seat 24F, which was a window seat, I was happy enough with that, I can lean against the window when I want to sleep.

The flight went well, but when I came out my overall impression with American Airlines was that they were cheap. No meal was served, but you could buy some sandwiches or snacks, and they didn't supply headphones as standard, but you could buy a pair from them for $2, which isn't a lot but it's the thought of the matter. Every other airline that I've flone with supply headphones as standard, if they have some sort of entertainment.

Well anyway it was a good enough fligtht, what really surprised me was that I wasn't constantly yawning like I normally do. And I think that was a first for me, every time that I can remember flying I've had to yawn constantly. So anyway I thought that that was interesting.

Well anyway I landed in Dallas, and I had a 3:45 hour layover so I had to find something to do. Well I had a plan that I wanted to execute; it started with finding something to eat, so I looked around and I found two places that I liked, TGIF and McDonald's. It was a really had decision but I ended up going with McDonald's. I got a double quarter pounder with cheese meal, and it was tasty, yum, yum. The next step was to find a power outlet. So I scoured the walls looking for a power outlet, I found one, but kept looking because ideally I wanted one close to a seat, and I found one, looking across the way at a waiting area, I noticed a small something on the wall about a foot off the ground, and so I walked over a sure enough it was a power outlet. "Perfect", I though to myself. So I sat down and claimed my prize spot. Plugged my computer in and launched it up, I had downloaded a movie called "War games" a couple days ago. Well I'll tell you how I decided on that movie. On Tuesday Peter was watching a movie, and it seemed interesting, but I wasn't able to watch it because I had some packing to do and some other things to do, and it was called War Games. And since I wanted to see how it turned out and knowing that I had some extra time at Dallas I decided to download it, and watch it in the Airport. So, anyway I watched it, and I'm glad that I had downloaded it because it cut down my wait by a lot.

I got on my plane to Anchorage. Again I got the feeling that American Airlines was being cheap, because even though it was over a 6 hour flight a meal wasn't supplied, you had to buy something if you wanted to eat. I mean come on, it's a 6 and a half hour flight, from 3:45 p.m. to 7:25 p.m. (3 hour time difference between Dallas and Anchorage.) it's a long flight and prime time for dinner, I think that they should have supplied a meal, but that's my opinion. And you had to buy the headphones again, and they didn't even have LCD screens that folded down from the ceiling, they had the old analog style, and most of them were discolored. So anyway, it got me from point A to point B, but I wasn't impressed with what they had to offer.

I landed in Anchorage a little late, and they it took forever to get my bag. I waited about 40 minutes for my bag, they were being really slow. Not just my bag other people were waiting for their bags too. But while I was standing there Etta (Rick's wife) came up to me and asked if I was Tim, and I said "no" just to see what she would say. :P Ok, so I didn't really, I said yes, and so she pointed out the truck and then said she had to wait by it other wise they'd tow it away. And we didn't want that, so she went out a waited a just stayed there and waited. Waiting for my bag. It did eventually get there, but I was getting pretty worried that it wouldn't get there, but it did, finally.

When I got my bag, I hoped in the truck and we drove off to where we were staying. Rick just went out on a 72 hour opening, and he would be on the water until Sunday, so that's when we were planning on going down and meeting him.

We got to where we were staying, at around 9:00 p.m. The sun was still shining. It was Etta's Aunt and Uncle's house so we went through the introductions, and they got me a room and I dropped my stuff off. We had a desert type thing, and then I asked if they had any internet there that I could use to send an E-mail or something. And thankfully they did. It was a DSL line so I just unplugged the cable from their computer and plugged it in my computer. So I was able to send an E-mail back to Florida, which was good that I was able to do that, because I haven't had internet since I left that house the next morning. (As of Sunday the 8th.)

I took a shower and then took some pictures out my window. It was 11 p.m. and the sun still hadn't set.


June 6th:
I got up a couple minutes before 6 and was the last person up. We ate breakfast and then Etta and I left because we were going to her parent's place where we were going to hang out for the day. But first we stopped at the fish and game and I got my fishing license, $165 for an out of state resident, and $60 for an Alaskan resident. After that we contiuned on our way to Etta's parent's house. We made one more stop on the way though, we stopped to get some groceries for Etta's parents. Then we were back on the road for Etta's parent's house.

We got there just in time for lunch, we brought in the groceries and then sat down for lunch, Etta's parents had some other guys over who where helping Etta's dad bulid a barn or something, I forget; so we exchanged some witty conversation over lunch. They asked me questions about Poland and stuff, and I answered them.

Our plans for the day were disturbed when Etta got a call from Rick telling her that the fishing was really slow and he wanted to take the weekend off so she needed to come and pick him up. So then we drove all the way down to Whitter where Rick was fishing. So that was about a 3 hour drive. There is an interesting tunnel there right outside Whitter, it is a 2.5 mile one lane tunnel, so in order to allow two way traffic they have to take turns going through it. Ever hour on the hour they let traffic through to Whittier, and every hour on the half hour, they let traffic through going from Whittier. It's a pretty interesting tunnel, tall enough for people with big boats on trailers to go through, but only wide enough for one lane of traffic. It's a pretty big deal to time your trip just right so that you hit the tunnel at the right time.

Well anyway we got in there and picked up Rick and he wanted to drive back all the way to Ninilchik to his cabin to stay for the weekend. Weekend, meaning Saturday, because it was already well into the evening on Friday, and we were going to be coming back on Sunday. So we drove all the way back where we just came from and a little more. Through the tunnel and over the hills, we drove, late into the night, well not really late, we arrived on location, Rick's cabin, at about 9 p.m. and got ready for bed and hopped it.

Rick's cabin certainly isn't anything fancy, it has one big room and in the back it has a small back room where the shower is, there isn't any door between the too, so you just have to trust that no one will walk around the corner while you are showering. A curtain would make it feel a lot more private. And by the way, just because there is a shower does not mean that there is running water. There is running water, but you have to run and get it. It's a stream about a mile away. So there is a nice outhouse about 50 feet away from the house in the bush. Nice for keeping the smell out of the cabin, but not so nice for when you get up in the night and have to go.

June 7th:
Well, this was a long day.
We got up at 6 or so, and had breakfast of English muffins, oatmeal, and salmon. The oatmeal was eat-able (able to be eaten), the English muffins were excellent, and the salmon was, well... I couldn't really make up my mind, at first I thought that it was really good, but as the day progressed I kept tasting that salmon, and I couldn't decide. I didn't even have to burp to taste it, I was just going along and then I'd all of a sudden taste it. It was very strange. Evenutally I decided that I'd better like it because I was going to be getting a lot of it this summer.

Rick wanted to work on his boat, fix some things and stuff, so we left soon after breakfast, and went over to his boat in the dry dock. I grabbed a pair of coveralls and got busy changing the oil in the engines. Pump, pump, pump, out with the old oil. Walk, walk, walk, to the oil dump. Pour, pour, pour; pour the oil into the dump. All 12 gallons of it; 12 gallons is a lot of oil. It took a long time to pump all the oil out, and it got pretty hot down there under the deck with the engines where I was working. But it wasn't too bad, it was actually kind of fun.

After taking out the old oil I changed the oil filters for the engines, and when I was doing that, evidently the o-ring on one of the filters came out of place, so when it was screwed all the way in it didn't make a tight seal. I didn't realize that until later after Rick warmed up the engines and then when down to look at them afterwards. Because the gasket hadn't sealed, oil was spewed all over the engine room, and the thing about oil is that it doesn't evaporate like water does; if you spill a little oil, it'll still be there a week later, unlike water which would have dried up by then. So anyway, I had to clean it all up using the vacuum and paper towels. I vacuumed up the puddles , but had to wipe every thing else down with paper towels, so it took some time to do, and it got pretty stuffy down there, and I got tired from having to squat down all the time, because under the deck where the engines are, the ceiling is only about 4 feet high. I did finally get it all cleaned up though, and it wasn't quite as bad as it first appeared to be. Because of how the o-ring was pinched, it only sprayed in about a 90º arc, so instead of spraying all 4 sections, it only got 2 of them. Even so it took a long time because, I had to really scrub hard to get the oil out.

Rick went out and got some pizza for us for lunch; it was pretty good, they aren't as stingy with the toppings as they are in Poland. In Poland often times they put as few toppings as they can get away with.

After lunch we continued to work, doing a lot of various things, I drilled some holes, helped Rick with some wiring, we put in some depth finders, I swabbed the beck. :P At the end, Rick was running out of things for me to do, most of the stuff left were things that he needed to do himself.

We finished up at a little after midnight, and we didn't even have to use any lights to see, because the sun was still shining. It's still pretty strange to be, but I'm getting used to it.





I have more written on paper that I haven't transfered to the computer, and I am I behind because things are really busy and stuff, so that's why I'm not up to date with things.
Bare with me, I'll get to it eventually. :)

Fierce Fisherman,
Timothy