Thursday, March 5, 2009

Keep Your Fingers Crossed



The nice weather continues out here on Unalaska Island and if we can just sneak through another couple weeks I think we might have a chance of canceling winter altogether.  I just came in from walking Chico along the river, it's almost midnight and the sky is completely clear, a half moon and the stars blazing away.  There has been steady boat traffic in the channel; crabbers, trawlers and a few new boats I haven't seen before.

Yesterday I went riding, out to Morris cove and then almost halfway up the pass before the snow started getting a bit deep on the road and I had to turn back.  Just a few more days until daylight savings time gives us another hour of light in the evenings to play!


9 comments:

Lori said...

OK, what in the world is that large boat? Inquiring minds what to know - is that how all your supplies come in to Unalaska? It's huge compared to the boats next to it.

Have a great weekend and hope your mild weather continues. Probably is some sort of record for least amount of snowfall this year?

...Fizz Wood.. said...

Its a brilliant container ship! we get some good ones in Felixtowe from time to time. :O Are those "svitzer" tugboats??

Elizabeth Douglas said...

That container ship is huge! I love seeing the really gigantic vessels like that. Well, I hope you all get to stick with spring, it must be nice for a change! Your winter is more than welcome to swing south!

Mystic said...

Those container ships are like floating cities! Lordy mercy they are garganutan.
Steve have you guys missed your snowshoeing or do the "warmer" weather activites make up for the loss?
I have been meaning to request something of you. Could you blog Chico's story for us? How you and he became life friends; what kind of dog he is? etc.
I have considered blogging about Oscar, my three legged paralyzed dachshund, but I would really love to hear Chico's story.
Cheers!

Kimi said...

Enjoy your weather. Look forward to all the lovely pics of the boats! I know you will be taking quite a few.

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Did the ice clear out, and were the crabbers able to go out and start hitting their quotas?

BZ

Alaska Steve said...

Lori, container ship do bring some supplies here but mostly they are bringing seafood AWAY from here. It is staggering the amount of seafood that is shipped from here, it is the busiest fishing port in North America in terms of metric tons landed. We are the small guys and we still ship a container full of product every hour, around the clock. Add up all the other processing plants and you can see it takes huge ships to haul it away to market.

Fizz, I have to confess I had to go to the Svitzer website to see if the James Dunlap and the Gyrfalcon were similar. I've been on the James Dunlap - I blogged about it in 2007 - and both the pictured tugs have Z Drives instead of stern drives or conventional screw drives. Z Drives allow the prop to rotate 360 degrees, allowing full power to be applied in any direction. Both those tugs are just over 100 feet long, to give the container ship some scale.

Mystic, Chico is a pound rescue, saved on his very last day before being pit down. He is such a wonderful dog, I can't imagine anyone giving him up . . .

BZ, the crabbing has been steady and some boats are wrapping up their quota soon.

Lori said...

Thanks for answering my questions. Although, other people indicated it was a "container ship", you explained exactly "what" my inquiring mind wanted to know. My added knowledge of AK for the day.

Bren said...

I remember how amazed with those ships. I couldn't imagine something so big! It was fun to see it and bring all those fun memories back. thanks,
love ya, little bro