Working on the Earth Station (again)

Today finally had a little upturn.

The day started off pretty crappy. The weather was socked in, and it was raining. I had no chance to do any real work at a volcano, and resigned myself to another day on this irradiated hellhole of an island. Yes, my attitude had finally sunk to a new low. Here I sit, when I could be doing anything else at all... maybe, dare I say it, Working on my thesis? Yes, I've been starting to realize that I haven't learned a damn thing other than (and I already knew this) the fact that Aleutian weather is unpredictable. Actually, it is pretty predictable. "Crappy".

Today, any work at semi was out of the question. Instead, five huts and accompanying equipment were brought on board, and the trash was sent to shore to be burned. Meanwhile, I went up the hill with max and Cyrus. The weather was shitty. really blowing, this time from the north, with rain.

We dug holes for the hut, just to the er.. north of the existing structure. Also, we banded the flex-conduit together for the solar panel wiring. Mostly, though, we sat around in the weather port bitching about the weather.

Then, at the end of the day, we (Cyrus, Me, Max as trailer bitch) took a little 4-wheeler trip, and the outlook improved dramatically. We wandered down this-road and that-road in search of a nice beach on the pacific side of the island. After several wrong turns, we found a little collapsed cabin by a lake (more accurately, IN a lake). After exploring the ruins a bit, we made for the beach again. This time, it only took a few minutes and we found ourselves at the top of a cliff. Birds were flying in every which direction ... There were a couple Bald Eagles, and several seagulls. The surf lapped on rocky beaches; the rocks were nice and rounded, of various sizes, and included corals. A fish skull lay there, among much seaweed and other flotsam. A couple plastic bottles lay there, and a great number of old-looking ammunition casings. There were plenty of rock formations between the beach and an island, with the tides playing in and amongst them.
Pretty soon, I noticed that the brown boulders on the next island over were moving -- In fact, they were a whole bunch of sea lions that had hauled out of the water.
I played around here and there, looking at life in the tidal pools (all the while paying very careful attention to my camera...) until we decided it was time to head back to the dock. As we came to the top of our little bluff, an immature bald soared right past, low & slow.
Then we looked out, and noticed seagulls molesting a sea otter. I suppose they were trying to get at it's food. Yeah, it was a really great 30 minutes. Amchitka isn't a hell-hole after all. But I still would like a sunny day with no wind. Is that too much to ask???