Entries this day: Alaska_day Climbing_Mt_Marathon Down_Mt_Marathon Fishing_by_hand back_on_the_boat byebye_Alaska,_you_crazy_last_port... crazy_nutty_stag_party hello_from_Alaska

Alaska day

9:34am AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

Katt says the weather is warm here in Alaska. We are about to head out and go climb Marathon Mountain, if we can find it easily enough.

We came out on the 6th floor, but there is no building; just a ramp that comes all the way down. Muddy gravel surface we are walking on. Lots of shipping containers. Katt says there's a guy in NZ who made his house out of shipping containers.

Hahaah we got a bunch of pictures of Francois being naughty.

That started when I saw "CAUTION LOW RAILS" next to a rail so low it looks like a curb. And then a picture of him on a mooring line next to a sign that says STAY AWAY FROM MOORING LINES.

I found my boat!

Climbing Mt Marathon

10:34am AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

Katt and I are climbing Marathon Mountain, and it's pretty steep - about as steep as it could be without us slipping.

NOONish AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

I left Katt happily sitting with out backpacks. We were passed by some performers that are on the big ship parked next to our ship. They are on for a contracted period as passengers take week long voyages. They perform four shows twice each during each voyage.

Matt, Josh, Danielle, and Danielle.

I went up to chase them down and see what was near the top. The mountain is really windy, but not really cold. It's not SUPER windy and blasting cold like Mt Fuji, but still a worthy climb.

I got pictures of them and they got some of me and then we parted ways (I continued up, and they went down into a valley for lunch). I offered to take pictures of them from my vantage point and said I'd email them if they emailed me and gave them my card.

The picture of me sitting on the mountain is a self portrait; I set the camera on a couple of rocks.

Looking down from the super windy vantage point, I could barely see Topaz. It's behind the other two ships in this pic.

Down Mt Marathon

1:13pm AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

Heading back down. I did some scree sliding while coming back down to meet Katt. I basically got it on video and a cut my hand a bit, but nothing bad.

The mountains here are basically tree covered up to a point, and then there are rocks and snow above that.

We met Kyle on the way down; she was on vacation. She works in the tundra and to keep the bears away, was singing a song (about the tundra plants).

On the way back down, I told Katt about Char Crofut, who has been a sortof like spiritual guide for me. She always watches my crown chakra when we communicate.

We saw a little chipmunk. He let us get pretty close for photos.

Around the same time we were on the mountain, Natalie was on Exit Glacier.

Fishing by hand

3:13pm AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

I caught two fish with my bare hands!! If by catch I mean I held them out of the water long enough to get photos of them. I stood in this frigid glacier stream as the salmon were vying for space up the stream. I was just super patient and eventually scooped one up! I can see how bears would enjoy doing this. I stayed for a while, hoping to get a realllly good photo, and caught another fish. Katt got a good pic of it as well.

We were a bit low on time so I resisted the urge to walk upstream through the corugated tubes. They were perfectly straight (but certainly sprinkled with spider webs) and went to the other side of the street. I can imagine the faces of the other passengers when I popped out of the tube. 「！びっくりした！」 they would say. HAHAHahahahahaah that would have been a riot!

back on the boat

6:30pm AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

We are back on the boat now. We saw the fishing derby, but I didn't get a picture of Francois hanging with the fish; that would have been so so awesome, but I just didn't speak up before the guy started pulling them down. I was a bit embarassed to be a man with a rabbit in front of all these manly fishermen with fishguts and blood all around.

I thought for a long time about how to pose Francois vs a huge locomotive, but didn't come up with anything in the super short time we had before we had to be onboard.

byebye Alaska, you crazy last port...

8:30pm AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

This is the last port. We handed out champagne and watched the port go away. Funny is that we were right next to a huge ship and we all waved to them and they all waved to us, and there was some kind of cruise-ship connection, plus we were all emotionally high on this being our last port.

I chilled with Naho in a heated area of heat being dumped out from the lower decks.

crazy nutty stag party

11:30pm AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

!

hello from Alaska

8:37am AKDT Friday 19 August 2005

HI Everybody!

The fiords in Alaska offered more interesting glaciers and animals
than the fiords near Norway.  We saw ice calving from glaciers (summer
or global warming?) and otters floating around amidst small icebergs
between which we carefully glided.

Oh!  and we saw whales!  For a day there were practically whale
sightings every 20 minutes, though for the great majority (all but 2)
we just saw a bit of spray as the whale exhaled, then the dorsal curve
downward until the tail flipped up then disappeared.  That always
meant "the show is over."  Everyone would be all excited and
squealing..  I was never impressed; whales breathe.  They swim.  I
agree it was *neat* to see wildlife, but not worth squealing.

Except one time, when a whale about a kilometer from the boat leapt
out of the water with a spin and dramatic splash... "OH MY GOD THAT
WAS AWESOME!!!" and people talked about it for the rest of the day.  I
wonder if anyone got it on video.

Classes are over; my quiet girls' class left with nary a peep, and my
loud and crazy class made me a big card with my favorite class photo
and wrote things like "I came to enjoy English through you."  I'm so
so thankful.

Our jobs as teachers are basically done except for three big days of
events that will be held over the next few days after Alaska:
graduation, prom, speeches (teachers in Japanese then the students in
English) and project presentations: video, performance, and journal
teams will be featured for a couple hour event.

There's a man named George Meegan onboard.  He walked from the
southern tip of South America to Barrow, Alaska over a long period.
He has many stories to tell, and is promoting a revolution in
education where every child is rewarded for what they're good at
doing, not punished for being bad at certain subjects.  DEMOCRACY
REACHES THE KIDS is his book, though I don't see an ISBN or publisher.

His lectures are full of surprises and tangents as he brings random
people onstage as examples or has the entire auditorium go onto the
top deck to experience the world more directly.  Engaging, unique,
revolution, spirit.. these words come to mind but don't want to be
wrapped in sentences.

I've heard a rumor that the weather is beautiful outside; I'm going
now to experience it.  I spent some hours last night creating art
with Matt instead of writing an email like this one.
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