We are now just between Nunivak Island (known for its reindeer herds – though we won’t see any with the fog and cloud cover) and Cape Vancouver in the Etolin Strait.  We have Southeast wind about 15 knots turning to Northwest tonight.  It is forecasted to be lousy through next Wednesday.  We are going to “run” for Dutch Harbor and try and stay in front of the worst – at least during the night.  All are doing fine.  Pat made another loaf of his now-famous bread – cracked wheat and rosemary – delicious!

10 PM update: It’s still daylight.  Seas are rough (59 deg 35′ N, 165 deg 19′ W).

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We are 75 miles south of Nome approaching the Yukon River Delta. This river is huge and the delta area looks like the Mississippi; all kinds of low islands, shallow sloughs, and spoil areas. It is also populated with several native villages. It would be great to explore in the daylight especially with local knowledge, but we need to make tracks. We departed Nome at 6:20 AM in the dark. What a new experience after all the daylight we have had. Sundown was about 10:30 PM last night so we have quite a bit of darkness now. Seas are varied and sloppy, up to 2 meters. Crew changes are hard. We are missing Kip. At the same time we are breaking in Ed; so far so good; he is doing great.

I called Walt from the San Jose Airport at 8:30 am and was glad to learn his cell was still working. They had left the dock in Nome at 6:30 ADT and were encountering two meter seas as they left the Norton Sea heading for the Bering Sea. The weather forecast was for two to three meter seas on Thursday with winds and seas calming Friday and Saturday. As Randy said, they are headed for the area where the World’s Deadliest Catch was filmed and have more than a thousand miles to go before the trip is finished.  We know that they will continue to sense God’s protection as we surround them in prayer.

Walt reported Pat’s culinary skills were a big hit with his beans and fresh baked bread!

We spent Wednesday getting ready for our crew shift and for the continuing trip to Dutch Harbor. Laundry was done in a bar called Duds and Suds! In between we were back to Airport Pizza to upload more yummy goodies and down load our emails. We got back to Geraldine and put on CLEAN sheets, got out fresh towels and stowed our clean duds as Kip packed up for home. Pat assumed the chef roll and got the beans cooking as well as his next version of Geraldine bowl bread. Kip was in the way making another batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies to beak Ed in on the ice cream sandwich routine! We all took a checker cab to the Nome airport and within 30 minutes Ed Wright had his Geraldine hat on and had joined the crew while Kip went into the security line to board her red eye plane flight to San Jose. We were amazed that you could park right outside the passenger entrance and walk inside.

I felt very funny leaving the crew with more of the trip yet to be accomplished.  They say if you do something consistently for a month you have a new habit.  After more than two months aboard Geraldine and living a new way completely I sure have new habits!  I will miss not only Walt but Pat and Shane so much as we have become family together in this journey through the Arctic. We hope Ed develops his “sea legs” quickly and finds his portion of the trip a satisfying adventure as well.  We encouraged him to come with meds and patches to help him accommodate! 

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