kodiak to dutch....3

thought i'd toss in a few pictures from getting under way on the ferry. travel by ferry in alaska is it's own unique experience. i've taken ferries in southeast alaska and from whittier to valdez. now i add this ferry from kodiak to dutch to the list. this one only makes the run once a month. it used to go twice a month and may go back to that. for the tiny communities it serves, the ferry can have a great impact. i was on vacation so it was easy to forget that for many this was the way to go home. thier connection with the outside world. the community would get up and meet the ferry and thier family and friends who came home. they are at home on the ferry. the rest of us had to figure out a few things.
luckily my friend maria had gone the month before and gave us hints. there is a place to eat on board and the food is pretty good. it can be pricey to eat every meal there though so we utilized the microwave when we could. i decided to buy breakfast on the ferry and make sandwiches for lunch. dinner was a baked potato a few nights and cheese covered chips another night. betty crocker supplied desert. tasty!
above is a fin whale we saw en route. we saw several fin whales. i'd never seen these in the wild before so i was excited about that.
the first night after leaving kodiak we followed kodiak island for quite a few hours. as we settled in to sleep on the rolling vessel we crossed over to the peninsula. it wasn't too rough out there in our large boat, but it was like getting rocked to sleep. sandra and i had a room on board which was nice. i got the top bunk. our other friends tanya and maria found places on the floor on the solarium. there are heat lamps up there to help keep you warm. a few people put up tents up there on the top deck. windy, but commonly done on the ferries. other families settled in on the next, more enclosed level. any tables on the boat were taken over for the duration for the most part...which was a bit obnoxious. we did steal tables outside the dining room to play cards.
our first stop was chignik. the below sites are seen on the way there.

above is a shot i took leaving kodiak. i can see my B&B from the boat. it's a green building with a red roof. middle right.

the next picture is of sandra and tanya in the solarium. it's a rush onto the boat to score your spot. many spots were already claimed as many of the other passengers actually boarded in homer and came to kodiak from there. it's a 9 hour trek.

as usual these are in no particular order. below is us waiting outside the ferry terminal. sadly...in such a wet environment they have no dry area to wait for the boat. lucky for us the rain had calmed when we were waiting.

below is one of hundreds of puffins we saw as we traveled. we saw loads of them. never seen so many. we saw many,many birds. i'm no birder so i'm not very good at naming them. the puffins are obvious. most we saw were the tufted ones. i know there were thousands of shearwater??? birds outside dutch. the naturalist on board said it's the most he's seen for years. he was pretty excited. puffins can swim underwater...this one is taking off.

these last two pictures are back in kodiak. sorry. above is just one of hundreds and hundreds of crab pots laying about in all the communities. they just await the crabbing season. below is a seal playing in the waves on my tuesday drive.

watched my netflix "on a clear day" last night. it was a good movie. a guy losing his job and decides to swim the english channel. i liked when he was training in the local pool, he tries to rescue this cerebral palsy kid....those with the kid tell him the kid is fine. he just swims that way. the kid splashes about but makes his way to the other side of the pool. it's obviously a tough gig for him, but he shines brightly at his accomplishment. it inspires the man to follow through on his goal. i have it easier than so many others on this earth. it's amazing how those with disabilities will surpass all expectations while the rest of us fall so short of our potential.

i made it to the gym and did 44 laps in the pool myself. it was raining again but i managed 2 walks. blossom, rio and i got out to the bog and then later i took blossom up the road.

watching a show now about kids with mopd type 2. tiny kids who are proportionally okay, but the life expectancy is low. i'd be terrified to have kids..so much can go wrong. back to work tomorrow night. guess it got busy while i was away. 3 kids passed away this week. that is a sad number in a peds icu. suicide, car accident and liver. i'll stick to dogs. it's hard enough losing a beloved pet.

left my book on the ferry...dang it so i started a new book. it's about a guy who spends a summer walking with his dog, jane, from valdez to deadhorse. i picked it up as i was planning on doing the drive to deadhorse this summer. i called julie and cancelled this morning. i just fear that i will re-injure my back driving and lose more days of work. i had no issues driving on this trip...well it was getting sore in kodiak and was sore after the card game in the bar at the hotel in dutch. sitting is still an issue...i need to get it officially checked out. think i'll head to bed. more pictures of the communities we visited tomorrow hopefully.