I’m a lucky girl.

Looking out the window of the Saab 340

Yesterday I left for Dutch Harbor, where another scientist, two observers, and I will meet the boat for the survey.  The flight from Juneau – Anchorage – Dutch Harbor was fine.  We had a nice view of Glacier Bay National Park just after leaving Juneau.  I even saw a cruise ship below us.  We had some turbulence just before and during landing in Dutch Harbor, but nothing horrible, and not enough to keep us from landing.  The guy across the aisle from me was saying it once took him 5 days to get into Dutch Harbor…every day the plane would take off, make the 3 hour flight, only to be too windy or too low visibility to land, so they’d have to turn around and go back.  Five. Times.  That would get old in a hurry – the plane is small (34 passengers) and very loud since it’s a twin engine turbo prop.  BUT, I can see why they had trouble…the approach to the airstrip takes you right up next to a mountain (scary close, in my book) and then you make a sharp turn to the runway, which seemed awfully short for any plane bigger than ours.   It was cloudy for most of the flight between Anchorage and Dutch Harbor, but we could see two volcanoes poking up at one point.  

Volcanoes in the Aleutian chain

It is beautiful here.  I love it.  

Temperature-wise, it’s in the low 40s (for a high and low). The mountains got a dusting of snow last night, but you can see a lot has melted off already since winter.  It’s windy, and it’s the sort of place that seems like it would always be windy.  There are almost no trees here, so the mountains look very different than those at home.  My hotel room is bigger by at least double, maybe 2.5 times, than Irv.  

First view of Unalaska and Amaknak Islands

Today we check in with the boat to see if there’s anything we need to do.  If there is, we do it.  If not, we can go sightsee a bit.  It doesn’t take a genius to guess which I’d like to do. J  We depart on Saturday and if I don’t get a chance to post again, I’ll tell you all about it when we get back ~June 15.