First off I would like to make a disclaimer. Well, before that I would like to start with a quote I heard recently. "Approach life like a dog; if you cant eat it or play with it, just pee on it and walk away." My general approach to life involves the first two options, quite often. To get to the disclaimer: my coping mechanism for doing what I do is to downplay the potential severity of the situation; ie, "play with it". To someone who does not know me, it quite possibly makes me sound kinda like an idiot who has no business doing whatever I am doing. When I am rock climbing, I will casually ask my belayer if they are ready to save my life. Or when I going hiking I will make a smart ass comment about a bear encounter. You get the idea? That said, when I make a comment like that on here, it is how I deal with the fact that if I, or someone I am trusting, screws up, someone could die. I completely understand the severity of the situation. it's just how I deal with it so I can keep doing what I do. I am not an idiot, or insensitive, or an asshole or whatever, it's just how I deal and try to make everyone around me feel more at ease.
Anyway, with that nugget of knowledge about me, on to the story.
My first out of town job that is officially mine to handle is in Chignik Bay. I am finding there are quite a few logistical hurdles involved in working remotely. I always tend to feel overwhelmed with thinking about logistics. Because I like to over think and over analyze everything. My unease has not been helped with the minor detail that the trip plan has changed probably thirty times in the month leading up to the project. Unfortunately, this seems to be common when trying to coordinate multiple people with tight and variable schedules.
By the time I actually left for my first trip to Chignik Bay, I was just happy that I was actually on the airplane. One less thing to change. I mean I was still concerned about actually getting on a flight home but ya know, minor details.
Anyway, the final plan that we went with was my boss, Craig, and I would go out to the site to recon the area and collect rock samples from potential material sites. I was not sent alone for several reasons. The first being that I am new. I like rocks quite a bit but I am still learning (and will always be) the art of identifying rocks. I am also learning how to pick out drill sites. For the most part it is pretty logical, but everyone has their own opinion on how to pick them and mine is currently a little more errrr, random, than most. The second being that this is a remote area. 50ish people live there. The wild animals in the area are not used to people and don't know to be scared of us. There are bears all over from what I hear. Luckily, my boss and co workers like me enough that they do not want me to get mauled by a ferocious beast. Collecting rock samples and looking at drill sites involves hacking through high brush with in areas the locals have informed us a sow and three cubs have been seen fairly regularly. Perfect.
With all this background, this leads me to the airport at 6 am on monday. I park and unload my two bags. Luckily, my boss is bringing most of the gear so I can travel light. I wander into the terminal. Ugh, Penair is as far away from where I parked as possible. I finally get to the ticket counter. I go to check in. Hi lady, ummm I want to check a gun what do I do with it? She gives me a piece of paper to sign and fill out. I read it. Awww shitttt. I have to have it in a hard, locked case. Totally forgot. It is currently in a soft, not locked case. I figure that I am not going to be able to talk my way out of it so I tell her to forget it and I will take it back to my truck. My boss is bringing his gun anyway. I hope.
I get checked in and throw my gun in my backpack and go find coffee and my boss. I let him know I am actually here since I left my regular cell phone in my truck and I am not sure if he has my work cell or not. I explain my gun situation him. He has his, excellent. I wander back to my truck and put it under my seat. I get back to the gate just before it is time to board. As I get on the plane, they hand out earplugs. Well, that is considerate. It is a decent sized plane, like regional jet sized, except it has propellers. We have an uneventful ride to King Salmon. I read my book.
We land and the weather is nice, minus the swarms of bugs. It is about 9:00 at this point. Our flight to the Bay is not until 3. We collect all of our baggage and Craig goes to ask if we can get on an earlier flight. We manage to get onto the 10:30 flight. We wait in the terminal for a while. At 11:30 we are starting to wonder what is going on. I mean, planes running late is normal. Finally, at noon, the plane shows up and we are ready to board. It is s very full flight so I get to sit in the co-captain seat. This is really cool for all of 20 minutes..... until I fall asleep. I guess the sound of the propeller and having slept for about 3 hours the night before does that. I wake up when we make a stop at some unknown location before continuing to Chignik Bay. The piolet calls for the weather.... It is getting stormy toward the Bay. We fly low... at about 4 to 600 feet. The plane lurches around a fair bit. Mind you, this is a Cessna Caravan, an old small plane. My boss says that while it isn't a great ride, it certainly isn't the worst.
After lurching through a fair bit of rain, we finally land in Chignik Bay. It looks just like all the pictures I have been staring at for the last few weeks! We get out and get drenched as we wait for all of our baggage to get unloaded. We get a ride to our housing and get all of our stuff put away. We talk to the people in the city office about the project and the arera. They are confused because they thought we were coming later in the week. I know I sent several e mails that got responses saying we would be there monday and the drillers were coming friday... Oh well, they still have somewhere for us to stay. They are curious as to what we are doing with the runway and warn us that there are a number of bears in the area. Sweet. We rent a truck, which turns out to be a dodge, probably from the 70s with brakes that barely work.
Now that we have a vehicle, it is time to work! We put on rain gear and head out into the storm. In no time at all, I am soaked though my rain jacket. It is really more of a wind jacket that is somewhat waterproof. Luckily, my rain pants, which I borrowed from my roommate, are more waterproof. This is the last time I am too lazy to unpack and repack my rain gear for a trip... my real gear is siting back at the office waiting to be shipped.
We walk over sand dunes and try to find good locations to drill for a few hours. Craig flags some spots before we call it a day. I spend the rest of the evening reading and watching TV before passing out at 8.
During the night, I hear the wind and rain outside. The next morning, the weather is significantly worse than the day before. It is raining sideways. I get the feeling that this place is really pretty.... if I could see the scenery through the rain.
We spend the day in the bear infested overgrown brush with machetes and one gun since I had to leave mine :( I really have a lovely time seeing how big of a (small) tree I can hack down with mine. We mark some more test holes and collect some rocks to take back to test. We also come to the conclusion that there is no way we are getting a drill rig onto the hill behind the airport. Well, there goes a quarter of the test holes on this project. It is becoming apparent that things are not done changing on this project yet. Actually, I am guessing things will be changing until it is completely done.
Anyway, I am getting tired of writing this and you are probably getting tired of reading it :) So long story short, We get up the next day and make it out on the first plane. It is actually the first plane that has come by since we got in due to weather. We stop at Chignik Lake (another village about 10 miles away) to look at a material site. We collect some rock samples and I find some fossilized shells in one of the rocks. Sweet! I take a few fossils for my (super small) collection.
We make it on the plane out and get back to anchorage at 8. I unpack all my stuff, clean what I need, and pack it all up to ship the next day. I'll post up some pictures eventually :) they will probably get their own post.
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