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No problems on the flight to Bethel at lunchtime, and had plenty of time to pick up some groceries, pet food, and Subways Only had to hang around at Yute Air for an hour an a half as they left an hour earlier than scheduled since everyone was there and the plane loaded. So it ended up being only 23 hours round-trip

Think I’ve also found my new favourite website after picking up a link in Flying magazine – LiveATC.net. It’s been fun after getting a cheap $10 voltage converter to get my radio scanner from England working to listen in to the air traffic around here, but it’s not exactly constant transmissions as it’s mainly just picking up on Common Traffic Advisory Frequencies (CTAF) so is just short messages from pilots announcing their intentions to land at a certain airport or when taking off. LiveATC has feeds provided by people around the world connecting their scanners to the computers and broadcasting them across the Internet. Pretty cool listening to flowing traffic at Las Vegas or Seattle in real-time!

Oh look, I’m back at Anchorage airport again. Feels like I never left since I was gone less than 2 hours which included a taxi ride, bus ride and coming back through security. Oh, and less time at the social security office than in the taxi on the way there

All sorted though – the lady was spending more time asking how on earth I ended up in Tunt, much like at the embassy in London when applying for the visa. I’ve got a receipt showing I’ve applied for a social security card now which I can give to the school until the actual card arrives. They claim two weeks, but that doesn’t always go to plan given the mail out there!

I’ve also been a little surprised at how much cargo traffic comes through Anchorage right through the night. Seems like every other plane is either Fedex or UPS, or a Boeing 747 from Cathay Pacific Cargo (there’s 4 of them parked up right in front of me now), JAL, Korean Air Cargo, etc. Looks like most of the cargo from/to Asia must come into Anchorage either en-route to or from the lower 48. Shame I don’t have my scanner with me to listen in to all the traffic, but reckon security might have took the antenna off me I’ve tried to bring it through as carry-on

Made it to Anchorage – just have 10 hours or so to kill before getting a taxi to the social security office The power went out as I was waiting for the flight out of Tunt, but Ed helpfully came by to let me know it was coming in. Then went on to tell me how he went caribou hunting and after having shot two or three and started taking parts of the carcass back to the boat, when they returned, 3 of the legs they had removed from one of the caribou were missing. He’s also convinced there are signs of black or brown bear near the airport. Kinda adds a bit more emphasis to the idea of bears in the area, though I’d be amazed if they were coming that close to the village, even if they are desperate for food!

Anyways, I managed a good shot showing the width of the Kuskokwim – no idea the exact distances, but considering we’re flying at 1,200 feet, down at ground level you’d probably be hard pushed to figure out the far side of the river given it’s so flat:

I also remembered to keep my camera out on the flight from Bethel to Anchorage so have a few photos to put into the photo gallery at some point. Even given the $50,000+ worth of debt to cover flight training, 18+ months as a flight instructor, and a starting salary of around $20,000 as first officer for a local or regional airline, sitting in the left hand seat of a Boeing 737-400C on night’s like this would be worth it:

Maybe it’s just a pipe-dream…

I got signed up to the Rotohog fantasy football league over the weekend as a few people from school are doing it, and figured it would be fun after the exploits of Wooden Spoon FC in the Greencroft fantasy football league back in England. The blokes over here don’t kick the ball though, dunno what that’s all about… Kat’s been very excited the last couple of weeks since pre-season started as there’s been one or two matches on TV But after negotiating the draft 2nd time round after the first attempt was caught up in network problems on the server end, my team lines up like this at the moment:

• QB – Chad Pennington (NYJ)
• QB – Ben Roethlisberger (Pit)
• RB – Willie Parker (Pit)
• RB – Maurice Jones-Drew (Jac)
• WR - Terry Glenn (Dal)
• WR - Reggie Brown (Phi)
• WR - Marques Colston (NO)
• TE - Jeremy Shockey (NYG)
• K – Josh Brown (Sea)
• DEF – Buffalo Bills

Was kinda hard as your team budget and player pricing made it very difficult to find a well balanced team. You had $300 for your team of 10, and someone such as LaDainian Tomlinson was $93! I think Jason went for Tomlinson and Payton Manning at QB, then a bunch of $5-$10 players as that was well over half his budget gone! So long as neither gets injured, will rack up a decent amount of points I guess, but I figured I’d spread the wealth a little. You also get to buy three additional players after the two week draft window is over, but have to wait and see how that works and whether I can pick up any other decent players.

I’m heading off to Anchorage later on this afternoon to drop a form into the social security office tomorrow morning. Really looking forward to it It wouldn’t be too bad if Anchorage wasn’t so expensive for a hotel room or daily rental car as I might have stayed a day or two rather than arriving at 9.30p.m, sleeping overnight in the airport, and flying back out again a little before 12 noon the following day. More concerned about hanging around for the flight from Tunt to Bethel than the Alaska Air flight though!

The weather was a little moody this evening, but was still fairly warm and pretty much bug-free after some rain. There was a nice rainbow right out the living room window just as we were heading out for a walk:

But, thought since everything was so green after the rain and with overcast skies, it would be fun to take some photos showing the contrast between the snow-covered landscapes of winter with the grass-covered landscapes of summer. I tried to remember where I’d taken photos over the winter, so hopefully the scenes will be familiar, just with a completely different feel to them! First up, the lake we look at out the living room:

The other pair of windows out the living room look across to these two houses, though we have the school’s sewer lagoon smack in the middle of our view – this view from the boardwalk is much better!

Out the back of the school, the lake behind where Marie now lives:

Although it always seems like a weird placement within the village, the cemetery looks quite pretty as they regularly place flowers and wreaths around the grave markers:

Looking completely different to the end of January – the Moravian church:

From the river bank looking towards the airport – very calm waters, although after experiencing this calmness on the canoe, it’s deceiving. The tide is creating a pretty strong current just under the surface.

The community center is easily visible from a couple of miles out the village on canoe trips as it’s the only two-storey building. Looking quite dominant with the dark skies around it and shadows on the lake:

We then headed out towards the dump to let Mia run through the tundra off her leash – she really enjoys playing fetch and seems completely content with a stick in her mouth. Is still a little unsure about exploring when we’re just walking, but get her something to fetch and she’s sorted!

She’s quite happy just following me as I wander across the tundra too. I was trying to see if she would try swimming in one of the little ponds but she was happier just drinking the water and splashing around the tall grass instead!

But, school was due to start tomorrow, however as there’s still work to be done inside the school to bring it up to scratch (i.e. cubicles in bathrooms, running water in faucets, fire alarms, etc.!), it’s another teacher workday and hopefully the kids will be be in on Tuesday. Gives Kat a little more time to prepare, although her new classroom is pretty much sorted. Is a lot bigger than the 4th grade classroom last year, and there’ll only be around 12 kids too! Is kinda sad it’s taken some of the workmen so long to complete there jobs, as some of them such as the carpet layers really knuckled down and got everything sorted quickly, but others are spending as much time taking cigarette breaks and complaining about how they’re sleeping in the library (as opposed to working more than 4 hours a day for the past three weeks so they’d have been long gone by now…). Still, nice to know contractors are the same as back in England – can remember Greencroft having the same problems most summers with work going slowly and limited resources in science labs or kitchens by the time school started again

After heading up river for a few hours fishing this afternoon, I found an easier way to get the canoe home after an hour’s worth of hard paddling back – get the kids to carry it

Usually I carry it there deflated in the carry bag and then haul it back inflated to dry, but I couldn’t be bothered to do either tonight. Thankfully there’s usually a bunch of kids hanging around when you need them and think it’s great to carry things. Same with telling the kids you’ll race them to the post office whilst they’re on bikes and you’re on the 4-wheeler so they’ll carry the heavy boxes for you

Still, least my canoe doesn’t usually have three kids floating around the river with a net tied to a tree on the bank and using a shovel (just the one, between three of them) as an oar… They seemed to be having fun though as I coasted up to them coming back into the village this afternoon – having more luck too, they caught a pike yesterday.

Seems like so long ago when we took the cruise to Portage glacier, but Nick + Dana got round to looking over some of their photos and had a nice shot of the four of us:

The photo doesn’t really show quite how wet + cold it was But, I’m slowly moving through uploading and annotating/mapping our photos from the summer into the photo gallery. Hopefully I’ll get them all sorted within the next week or so.

Nick + Dana were buzzing around the river a couple of days whilst I was out on the canoe and got a good shot of me with the canoe packed up:

No fun today though, has been raining pretty much all day

Yesterday I hopped in the canoe and headed up river a couple of miles or so to try some fishing along there. It was a really nice day, pretty hot, but also thick with mosquitos and gnats The plan had been to camp overnight and return today, but after six hours I was being bitten on top of existing bites! I’ve got over a dozen just on one hand, and after my right hand swelled up to twice it’s normal size a week ago off just one bite, I thought it was best to run with the tide back yesterday afternoon instead.

Not even a nibble whilst fishing, but at least it showed the canoe handles really well even when pretty much fully loaded. If the weather stays fine tomorrow will try fishing for a few hours again without carrying so camping gear! The little bivvy shelter for around $20 would be perfect for camping out, especially with a 0F-rated sleeping bag.

Still not convinced about stories about a bear in the area though. A few of the locals have said they’ve seen one recently, but almost like a running joke when people head out on boats or berry picking – “Watch out for the bear!”. Seems like an awful lot of wetland without a huge amount of food for a bear, and since these guys know the land like the back of their hand, would have expected them to have come across bears before if they’re in the area. Still, Nick offered me his ‘Alaska gun’ when I went out yesterday which was a very high calibre rifle that would certainly have stopped a bear in it’s tracks! He’d gone out on the boats with Mark with salmon nets on the Kuskokwim and returned with 10 silvers and a straggling King salmon – we grilled one of the silvers tonight and it was very nice indeed!

A couple of new teachers also arrived from Bethel after their training today. Frank gave them the guided tour back from the airport as he was coming back from a bunch of meetings whilst I hauled all their luggage back to school with the 4-wheeler. They both seem really nice and are trying to take in all the wonders of the village! Made me think back to when I first came out here, but think the middle of winter was one of the worst times to be introduced to the area – is a lot nice coming in when it’s the middle of summer Angie has an 8 year-old yellow Labrador who’s sure to make friends with the other dogs around here, and her husband and young son are flying out next month too. The other lady, Pamela, will be teaching 4th grade with Kat moving to 3rd grade, and Pam seems really nice too. Came prepared too – had a case of Ramen noodles with her!

The weather has been crappy the last 4/5 days with pretty much constant rain, ranging from that ‘orrible light stuff that gets you really wet without you realising it to raining proverbial cats + dogs where you nearly get knocked off yer feet by the wind + rain! It started clearing up a little yesterday and continued today, meaning I got a chance to try out my new Sea Eagle SE330 canoe:

I’d read about inflatable canoes in the past and dismissed them, thinking back to the inflatable dinghies and such kids play in (including me + my sister freezing on Loch Morlich in Scotland on one in the middle of summer whilst kids!), however after reading about them in Hiking magazine over the summer I looked again. There are some that pack down to the size of 3 season sleeping bag and weigh 3-4lbs which are designed for backcountry hiking + paddling, however I figured something a little heftier would be needed in the waters up here. Saw a YouTube video of a group using Sea Eagle canoes on the Kuskokwim which gave a good indication these were pretty sound, and have seen a couple of people in the village with canoes. The kids certainly thought it was different!

The canoe itself is split into three chambers which take a little under a minute to inflate each of them. Including sealing the one-way valves and inflating the front + rear skirts, it’s easily out of the bag into the water in five minutes. Although I initially had the seat around the middle of the canoe, it was a little unstable, however after sliding it further back it became a lot easier and more comfortable. Although not quite as stable as a regular hard-hull canoe, it was infinitely more stable than the kayaks we had in Lake Tahoe

Hopefully the weather will keep clearing up (it’s due to be sunny and around low 70′s by Wednesday) and I can load up some fishing + camping gear and head down the river a little bit. Since there’s a couple of months where I should be able to get some good use out of it, it’s a good way to get out of the house and trying to catch non-existent fish… Plus, it’s easy to mail to the lower 48 when we move next year and Kat thinks it would be pretty cool way to spend a day on a lake or river. Just not up here as the water’s a bit too cold for her!