Thursday, July 27, 2006

On Pavlof

First day out. Visited BLHA on the North side of this area. Handle was very rusted, so we had to pry it open with an iron pipe. All the guy wires were loose, so I tightened them. Also, we reburied seismometer cable with rocks. The whole while, I took lots of photos of the station and surrounding area.

From there, we tried to get to PN7A, but were thwarted by winds. the collective was at 100% just to stay level. So, we backed off and went to PV6.

At PV6, we replaced a broken solar panel, tightened guy wires, and did general electronic testing. Once again, we had to "break" into the hut, because the handle was so rusted. Along side the hut were a compliment of used (and chomped-on) aircells which we transported out of there. While Ed worked the panels with Tim (the pilot), I replaced the fuse in the powerswitcher and changed the dip-switches to tell the McVCO to do calibrations every 12 hrs instead of 48. Turns out, though, that I forgot to reset the McVCO afterwards, and another visit was required (that, and I needed to replace the spare fuse, rather than change the fuse). Many more photos, and then we were on our way again.

HAG was up in the clouds, so we didn't even get near it. Actually, the weather in general got so bad, that we had to park the helicopter over by the airport, because we couldn't navigate the pass to King Cove. Called the police department to get Guy to come get us.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Getting it all together


Lots of work in the Conex... we removed batteries from the pallate to FP, and are sending off the soaker hose and a bunch of solar panel frames.

The helicopter arrived today... Children came out of the woodworks to watch. Gotta say, I like Tim the pilot -- he's heavy into movie making as well as the mp3 thing. This should be pretty good.

Lots of struggling to get the waypoints, but now I do. Tomorow I'll print the map. Tomorrow, also, we'll hopefully hit up PV1A.

LUNCH: Sandwiches. Dinner: Tacos. Bought ammo & breakfast.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Back into the void

After much fussing about and getting ready (including 3am runs to the grocery store, library, and bank), we set off for Cold Bay.

Flight to Anchorage uneventful. I sat next to a person in the dental profession, but couldn't hold a conversation on 2.5 hrs of sleep. The only thing that sticks out in my mind is that she was sort of rude towards the stewardess, making the comment that her hair looked like it had been stuck in a propeller. (She was right, though) she even took a photo.

In anchorage, I grabbed luggage and re-checked in at pen-air. I've got 3 peices of luggage (I had to pay $50 for the extra)