Well, to give you an overview of the what's happening.

Rick and Etta got a house since last year. Last year, they had a cabin with no running water. This year they have a full house. Kind of smallish, but big enough for 3 people. Overall it's a very nice house. It's nice to see Rick moving up, even though he says that he misses his cabin.

There is another deck hand here, Dave. He is in his mid-late 30's. He's a Christian, but he has some interesting beliefs, it should be good to work with him. He fished for a couple years as a teenager, and then he started fishing again last year and liked it so he wanted to do it again.

Dave and I are sleeping on the Harpazo (one of Rick's boats) which is parked at Rick and Etta's house.

The temperature is about 30 at night and 60 during the day. So I go from wearing two sweat shirts and two pairs of socks at night (There is no heating on the boat, so when it's 30 degrees OUTside, it's 30 degrees INside. :P ) to wearing just a tee shirt and only a singe pair of socks during the day.

For the next week or so Rick and I are going to be working on the big boat, The Guidance, ready. It needs a lot of work. :) Today, (Monday, 18th of May.) I did a lot of grinding, cutting and little odds and ends.

Tuesday I spend all day (6:30 a.m. through 9:23 p.m.) tying a net. With a total of 2 hours of breaks for meals. It was a very long day.

Wednesday, I did pretty much the same, but we finished sooner so that we could go to the service at the church.

As far as birthdays goes it wasn't very special until church time, because after the service we had cake and sat around and talk. It was very nice, it wasn't a big thing, but it made the day special. :) and that made me very happy.

Thursday, I finished up the net and Rick and I are going to work on the boat in Homer. We are probably going to stay there until Sunday.

I'm not sure when we are going to start fishing, right now we are working on the boats and nets and getting stuff ready. I think that Rick wants to start fishing about mid June, but we'll see.

Thank you so much for your prayers.

Tim

Fire!

We started the day like any other Sunday, had breakfast, then got ready for church. Church went normally, I said hi too many people that I met last year when I was up here. I noticed David Pherson had his radio with him. Pastor Pherson and many others in the church congregation are volunteer responders to fire/medical emergency/accident. So, they get radios and if they hear anything, then they go to the site and help out. They have to go through training first though, so that they can get certified. Anyway, Pastor Pherson was the first to get involved with that; it is a good way to get out into the community and help out.

Anyway, the morning service went well. Afterwards, the Cobbs came over the Rick and Etta's house for dinner. And things were going along well until Sarah Cobbs's radio went off with a beep and then we hear over the radio, "There's a fire. . . " Sarah and her mom scrambled to action and are out the door in no time. We just kept on going as normal until Mrs. Cobbs called Mr. Cobbs and asked him if he could come. So, he asked if anyone else would come, so Rick and Dave (one of the other deckhands), and Jim (Etta's dad), Mr. Cobbs and I all got in the truck and drove over there.



I was able to help get a pump set up to help get the water from the river over to the truck. I helped run the hoses from the pump to the trucks and I helped with other things too. And then at the end I helped clean up, and roll up the hoses and put them in the trucks.

I didn't have my camera for most of the time because I didn't want to bring it with me at first, because I didn't have anywhere to put it, so I left it in the truck and then the truck got driven over to the fire station and got left there. So, I had to wait until I was able to catch a ride to the fire station, before I could retrieve my camera and get pictures. I caught a ride back because they had to go back to refill the air tanks. I helped refill the tanks, that was pretty cool, it was a lot like filling paintball CO2 tanks.

I was there for a little over 4 hours, most of fire men were there for just under 5 hours.

It was tiring, but definitely an interesting experience that I won't soon forget.

I have pictures on Facebook, they tell the story better than words.

Tim

Back to Alaska

Well, first year of college done with, now what?
Fishing in Alaska! :D

Well, I made it safely to Anchorage, AK. Praise the Lord. :)

It has been a long trip with more delays than I had planned. It started in fact before I even got to the airport. I got a call from American Airlines, and the lady told me that my flight leaving from Tampa was going to be delayed, late enough that it would cause me to miss my next flight leaving from Chicago. (What she didn't tell me was that every flight going to Chicago was going to be delayed.) So she put me on a United flight that was going to Chicago at the same time. Well, that wasn't too difficult, they would let me check my bad only to Chicago, (not all the way through to Anchorage) so I had to go get it at Chicago and check it to Anchorage. Aside from the half mile walk I had to walk to get my bad and then check it again, it didn't hurt me any (except for my hands, which got tired of carrying the bag.)

Anyway, my flight leaving Tampa was delayed. We boarded about at 3:45 instead of 2:45. Then, once we were all on board we sat at the runway until 5:00. We sat at the runway waiting for Chicago to tell us that we could go. Chicago was having some very bad storms in the area and it was causing all the planes to be delayed.

Anyway, we finally left Tampa, and then arrived at Chicago at 7:02. I went and claimed my bag, then checked it again, went through security and then waited for my flight to Anchorage. It didn't really matter that my flight coming into Chicago was delayed because my flight leaving Chicago was also delayed. My flight leaving Chicago was delayed because it was delayed getting into Chicago, so, obviously the plane couldn't leave Chicago, until it had arrived at Chicago.

But enough about late flights. I was feeling hungry because it was about 8 o'clock my now, so I stopped at the McDee's and grabbed a double quarter pounder with cheese. Very tasty. Then found an outlet and plugged in to power and watched an episode of mythbusters before my next flight. :D

I caught my plane from Chicago to Seattle. I arrived at Seattle at 12:04 am Saturday morning, a few minutes after midnight. There I stayed the night on a bench until 5:30 when we started boarding for my flight to Anchorage.

I arrived safely at Anchorage, I claimed my bag and met with Mr. Dicks. He took me out to breakfast, and then to his hotel room, where I am right now, sending this from.

So, that's what's happened so far. This afternoon I'm catching another flight to Kenai where I will be picked up and then I'm not sure what'll happen.

I'll be at Calvary Baptist Church tomorrow for the service. Abi Dainels, and Anna Sutton, students at BJ, go to this church.

Then, Monday I'll get busy with work probably.

I'll try to keep you guys updated if possible.

Added:

Ok, Here's the plan as far as I know it. Salmon fishing season just opened yesterday, but I won't be fishing right away. The first thing that I'll be doing is working on the new boat, getting it ready for the end of the season. It's a larger boat, a seiner. I'm not sure what we are going to use it for because it is too large to fish with, it's 50 some feet long. (32 feet is the maximum length by law.) But we'll see.

Thanks for all your prayers,

Tim Petersen

Tim Petersen