Magic and Homesickness

The hardest thing about me living so far away is being away from my family. I stress that they think I don’t care when they are mostly what I think about. This morning I opened a letter from grandma and it was a thick packet of notes from everyone in the extended family from our reunion last week. It made my heart melt with happiness. I never would be able to do the things I’m doing without there support and sure as hell wouldn't be the person I am today without them. Especially my grandparents. Up north at the cabin fishing with papa, doing projects with gram. The constant support and encouragement from everyone else. 

I regret not journaling my experiences and posting more on Facebook for my family to see. I think after today I will start blogging again and fill in with pictures later. 

This morning even before the letter I woke up happy. I feel like a huge stress tumor has been removed from my chest after deciding to move on from M last night. I thanked him for all the great times and left it on a good note. I feel much freer now and more like myself. 

I feel so safe here. I haven’t been this anxiety free in years. The last time I was this much myself I was in high school. I could do crazy things and dress up and feel super comfortable in my skin. I don’t know what happened the last few years and I thought i had lost that part of me until I got out to the Glacier Lodge. 

Maybe it was the lack of guys here, the beautiful scenery, the lack of proficient internet or no cell service to distract me from the things right in front of me. I feel whole again. Like the conversations and experiences i have with people are real. I am completely myself with zero shame. It truly is a magic place. 

Acid Eyes and Downpours

Thought for the day: 

This umbrella was the best 36 bucks I ever spent, along with my wool 50c thrift store sweater.

Waking up and organization are not two of my strong suites. Beth had mentioned for our mid season evaluations that she has noticed some guides being not prepared before their trips in the morning. I took that as a direct hit toward me and decided to make a change.

This morning I was ready. I had gone to sleep early and set my alarm for 6:40. The rain beating down on the roof of our tent cabin wasn't going to hold me back today. I geared up and ran for the bathroom. 

I was putting in my contacts and couldn't find solution. I grabbed Kaylins’, it said “no rub” Sweet! I’ll still rub my contacts and they will be EXTRA clean. I popped the first on in my eye and immediately regretted it. The fire started spreading into my eyeball. My first thought was that I had just put acid into my eye and I was about to loose it. I spent the next 15 minutes rinsing out my eye. So much for getting up early. 

I was scheduled for an Abra outer bay kayak trip today with Riley and 8 guests. The rain continued to get harder as we gathered gear from the dry room. I switched from rain pants to waders, I’m done ringing out my underwear after spending 5 hours outside.

Pumping out the canoes this morning was a race against mother nature. They were filling up faster than we could pump out and people were dropping from our trip like flies. 

Bananas

We have a bit of an issue here at the lodge. In order to get anything out here, we need to order it and have someone on the mainland get it. So for a Costco order last week we ordered 1 pound of bananas. This is already an issue because bananas on the boat is an old back luck superstition for captains. It is said that on long voyages the chemicals in bananas when they started to rip would cause all the other fruits to ripen and rot before the boat could reach its destination. B, one of our main captains wont allow bananas onto boat. Sometimes we are able to sneak them on if we label them as plantains. 

So we had this Costco order filled out saying we needed one pound of bananas. I was in town last week when C, one of our office workers was excited saying she was glad B wasn't working so we could finally get all the bananas on the boat out to the lodge. I didn't pay much attention to that statement until I walked into the kitchen a few days later to five crates of bananas. Who ever interpreted the Costco ordered interpreted 1 pound as 100 pounds. 

The kitchen has been trying to freeze them and make everything banana. Banana cake, banana break, bananas on dessert, banana desert. With all the effort if feels like barely a dent has been made.

Now, I felt extremely prepared for this banana crisis after my roommate in collage attempted a banana cleanse with her boyfriend. She had given up after 7 bananas with over a hundred to go I learned the best way to consume them is to blend them up and drink them for breakfast, can get about 5 down in a morning that way no problem. So the bananas here are starting to go, so this morning I made banana yogurt, strawberry coffee smoothies and knocked out almost thirty of them. Over did the coffee, everyone is tweaking out now. 

Turning Tides and Lost Boats

The other day I was doing a Slate trip with two older ladies, P and M. The weather was extremely bad coming in from Seward so the boat was canceled and they were stuck another day. This wouldn’t normally be so bad but it was the last day for a group of 22’s vacation and many of them had to catch flights out of Anchorage that night. Rebooking was a nightmare, it’s hard enough to rebook over the phone but we don’t really have that out here. We have a satellite phone for emergencies and it costs 1$ a minute and you sound like an alien talking on it, limited internet for e-mail. 

Everyone was pretty stressed out trying to re-book and the fees were pretty intense. One lady had to pay over $800 to fly out one day later. Guess they should have taken our advice and bought trip insurance, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them that. 

So my two ladies were part of that group. P was in pretty good spirits and trying to figure out what to wear and M was a ball of stress trying to get her stuff rebooked, she was almost in tears. An hour after we were supposed to leave I got them all suited up and we headed to the beach. On our walk out there M was still pretty upset about the situation but couldn’t believe how we, the staff were all so positive and encouraging. 

We talked about life and priorities on the 15 minute walk out there, I gave them the kayak safety speech and we all stress hugged the morning out. I got them into the double kayak, and I’m not gonna lie, it was a bit of a pain and we headed out.

The wind had stopped blowing from the morning and the rain and subsided to a drizzle. The bay was glass calm except for the tiny ripples from the rain drops. It was beautiful with the mountains all around us reflecting in the water. The trip can only get better from here I thought.

We kayaked and talked, they were painstakingly slow. We saw seals, pigeon gillimonts, marbled merletts, and other good things as we made way to the island. We got to slate and poked our nose in what I like to call a “kayak garage” (a hole between the towing slate walls) and checked out a sea arch before making our way over to a rocky beach. 

The landing went all right and I pulled the boats up. The ladies were ecstatic to check out the plant life and I made us all some hot coco and pulled out some snacks. We sat under the branches of an alder out of the rain next to what I can best describe as a zen pool of waterfalls dripping down the side of the island.

M was still pretty emotional and us three ladies stood around having a heart to heart and tearing up a bit. They were each talking about things they had done in the past year that were dumb mistakes that caused them a lot of stress. P is a counselor so it was a pretty sensitive moment. I was trying to think of something I could add when the ladies looked up and pointed out to the bay, “Don’t we need those?” I looked up to see the boats floating away with the tide. “Yep, we sure do” I said with a chuckle of oh shit but all I can do is laugh, as I walked toward them. 

My first solo outer bay trip with guests and I had managed to loose the boats. I was too proud to call it in and they weren’t too far. i debated weather or not to crawl along the rocks to grab the single but the surf was beginning to smash it into the side of the island and I didn’t want to risk getting bashed my self or sucked under. I slowly began walking out into the water toward the double. i was surprised to find my rain pants suction to my legs and I stayed dry up to my waist, The boat was still further out so I made a few more steps and the water came up over my pants and soaked me way down to my boots. Thank goodness for the wool base layers and neoprene socks, the cold felt mild, not like the 45 some degrees it actually was. The boat was almost within reach but I was too short, I couldn't grab it and it was pulling further and further away. I made the choice to swim. With a few short strokes I was able to grab the double and swim her to shore.

Unfortunately P had tried to assist me in the rescue and assumed she could walk into the water and stay dry, she was in rain gear anyway. We looked at each other a bit shocked as she felt the water spill into her boots and I felt the situation get a little more serious. But instead of being upset or panicking, we both just started cracking up. “whelp, good thing I brought the immersion bag” I sent her up the beach to start stripping under the alder as I hopped in the double and paddled out to the single to tow it in. 

M helped me get pam changed, we both looked pretty good in our new XXXL fleece pants, but we were dry. They both still really wanted to see the glacier but with our late start and swim session we were about out of time. They said they didn't care about missing lunch and I really wanted to get them the opportunity to see the glacier. i felt they deserved to get their monies worth after having to spend so much extra. 

I radioed our trip coordinator and asked if we could have an extension. “Hey Beth,” I was too nervous to tell her I had just lost the boats and went swimming and soaked a guest so I took a more subtle approach. “We are taking our time out here, do you mind if we stay another hour?”. “Surrreee” she said in her very suspecting Beth tone.

We got back in the boats and started paddling to the glacier. They wanted to get close but it was still 3 miles away and at the rate they paddled it was going to take us a day to get there. We made it a half mile, sat and watched then turned around. 

I didn’t think it was possible, the the pace got even slower. I was starting to get hungry and I had a presentation to get ready to give at 3. I looked back to see what was going on and M looked about the same color as the inside of an avocado. I asked how she was doing and she said she thinks she was feeling a little sea sick but assured me she could keep paddling. P and I tried to make up excuses on how to cure sea sickness but she really looked rough and we had another mile and a half to paddle and it was already 1:30. 

I made the executive decision to tow them. I had a tow rope already harnessed to my waist so I daisy chained it out and hooked it to their kayak. P was awesome helping me talk with M to make her feel better and also helped with the paddling. I radioed Beth when we got close to shore to bring out the ranger. 

The ladies and I had joked about keeping what happened on the island on the island but Beth was at the beach helping us get the boats up. I knew I was busted when she pulled my soaking wet base layers out of my back hatch and we came clean. Thankfully she laughed with with us as we spilled the beans. The ladies hugged me and thanked me for a great trip and the next day I found both their names on my trip sheet. 

That day just really proved how much a positive outlook can shape an experience. Thing after thing can go wrong, but we have the ability to choose how we handle the situation, and why not just make the best of it eh?