HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're home.

And I'm in heaven. I'm sitting at my new (Craigslist!) desk, with two nice monitors staring back at me, looking out over the Harvard Ave street sign, listening to the morning activities rumble by on triple axles. Last night around 12:30 Aimee and I went to Dick's for some burgers and shakes, after spending part of the day thrift-storing and furniture moving, and it was wonderful. To finally have the TIME to do what we want and not be on anyone else's time line is like... nothing you'll quite understand, unless of course you've spent 3 summers (or more!) in Alaska while only getting 6 days of that entire time off work together! Granted, it has far more benefits than set-backs, but we needed a break, and any later and things would have gone sour. So, upwards and onwards! Aimee and I are in town until Sunday figuring out small logistical things, like how to work with shared laundry bins and where my shoes should live, then we depart for Santa Barbara, California to visit my Mom for a week. When we return, I'll be home for a few days packing for a 14-day trip with my friend Christian, where we'll be departing San Diego and working our way down the coast to Cabo San Lucas, B.C.S.. We'll be killing and eating fish, getting tan, exploring and talking about women and engineering. When I fly back on the 31st (October), we'll have a whopping 3 days to pack up our lives for the two months that we'll be gone in the Western South Pacific (Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Salomon Islands). We'll be getting back in early January, and at that time I'll be going straight into work on my sailboat, Rafiki, for the next 4 months while she's hauled out at Delta Marine.

Well, that's the update! Below are some of my final photos from our southbound Alaska trip, and our one-week Pacific NW trip.

Cheers,

Danny

September 10th, 2010, Prince Rupert, British Columbia

Well, I sit here on the bridge of the Safari Spirit, drying out from the downpour that has engulfed us since early this morning when we departed our fair Alaska. Last night I was running the late shift through some technical navigation spots in Sitklan Passage and Pearse Canal (within 360' of shore at 10 knots, tightish turns, radars, plotter, depth sounder, anemometer, and autopilot all crankin' with zero visability), chugging along making minor heading adjustmets, tuning radar gain, adjusting VRM's for each point along the route, and everything was going smooth. Upon approaching a section where the "prudent Mariner" would slow to reduce potential for a minor error to be compounded by excessive speed, I pulled back the throttles and slowed to 6 knots, which allows for decent steerage and safety. Now, on the fine vessel Safari Spirit there is a duplicate radar display in the captain's bunk, which allows for the master of the vessel to see a copy of everything that is on the bridge display, and control it. The problem, however, is that when one unit is tinkered with, it affects the other, so, for example, if the range and VRMs are changed on the captain's display in the middle of a tight navigation area in pitch black weather, the bridge unit changes too. So my heart rate got bumped up a bit, but realizing what was happening, I simply slowed the boat to a near stand-still while keeping a close eye on distances and speeds, making sure that we weren't approaching "the hard stuff" at a dangerous rate. The slowing of the vessel caused the tinkering to stop, and seconds later the captain showed up in the bridge, where I informed him of the inner-linked navigation systems, and I then got the boat back underway to our anchorage at Regina Cove - which, by the way, is pronounced by the Canadians like "vagina, but with an R." Yet another Canadian language idiosyncrasy - who would have known. So that was fun!
My favorite part of these repositioning trips is that we get to navigate (especially in the increasingly dark Fall) at night a fair amount, and that we participate in a traffic control scheme that requires frequent communication, course alterations, passing arrangements with other vessels, and other bits of navigation that in our day-to-day operations we rarely partake in. Plus we see places that we only see twice a year, and get the chance to see strange things like Ketchikan, and Spirit Bears (the white black bear, as pictured above, seen with a black black bear, courtesy of T. Wadsworth at www.bearsmatter.com.)

Anywho, we'll be in Seattle on the 17th, and that will be nice - but until then, wish us fair weather and safe travels1

Cheers,

Danny

September 8th, 2010 - Petersburg, Alaska

Well, as I sit here outside Kito's Cave, the sun beats down on my all-black uniform and backpack, warming me like - gasp - a summer day! For the last two days we've had amazingly calm and sunny weather, and we're all hoping it keeps lasting all the way back to Seattle. We get back on the morning of the 17th for a 24-hour period, then back out through the locks for a week-long trip up into British Columbia and back on the 25th for good. On a different note, I've been obsessing over helicopters lately, the theory behind their various mechanics, manufacutrers, flight schools and costs, toy helicopters (just bought my first counter-rotor copter in the kids section of Hammer and Wikan), and anything else relating to them. I've got pages of my journal devoted to Bernoulli's law and the effects of torque and anti-torque, rotor hubs and swashplates, fixed vs. hinged rotors, and all sorts of other interesting specifics unique to helicopters. Whee! If any of you iPhone folks are wondering how to spend some cash, check out the AR quad-copter, which your iPhone can control via it's tilt controls, and it has wireless video feedback! Anywho, yesterday we got some neat Dall's Porpoise to come by the boat, and above I've attached some photos of them.

Cheers,

Danny

September 3rd, 2010, Juneau, Alaska, for the Last Time (this year)