The Crab Festival

So last weekend was the big Crab Festival in the lovely town of Kodiak but before I get into detail about that I wanted to share some pics from a couple weeks ago. A group of us from the refuge went to the end of the road system to a place called Fossil Beach. It was a very cold and rainy day but it was still gorgeous! Plus I was able to see a sea otter, seals, a bald eagle, and mountain goats all on this day. (I also saw buffalo but eh.) But as you can see it was spectacular!

 One of the huge fossils I found.

 Liz & I just enjoying the rain.

Okay in the pic below this is where we saw whales... I know you can't see them but I promise they are in the water! We weren't positive what kind they were but they looked like gray whales.

Alrighty then on to Crab Fest! It is pretty much a miniature fair-like event. There were rides, musical performances, a parade, and of course that wonderful fried food. I think I ate a month's worth of calories in three days... it was great! From the very first day here I have heard about every year Crab Fest has horrible rainy weather but this year was nice and sunny... it even got in the 60's! (thats pretty warm for Kodiak).

Here's Adia, Lexie, and Liz riding one of the awesome rides.

 Here is the refuge's float that was in the parade. We had the Kodiak High School jazz band playing on there as well... woot woot!

 Here I am on parade day with our bear Pat, he had quite the dance moves that day!

 This was actually pretty neat to watch.. the Coast Guard did a rescue demonstration. They dropped a couple of their guys in the water then did the rescue procedure. And it's so appropriate I'm talking about this because at the moment I'm watching The Guardian, the Coast Guard movie that is half-based in Kodiak.Gotta love that Ashton Kutcher.

 So this was a first for me, below is a pic of the survivor suit relay contest. There were 13 teams of 4 people, they had to run down the dock, put on their survivor suit on and have it okay for being all zipped up, swim across, and all four members had to jump into a rescue boat. They were timed and the winners received a prize. It was interesting to watch and I think the first place time did it in a minute something, which is quite impressive.

Well I appreciate everyone who reads my blog. I am doing very well. I am learning and seeing so many new things. It's a beautiful place and everyone in Kodiak is super friendly. I believe I've mentioned that our house was full with 12 people.. since then we've had some of the biologists leave and go out into the field and we've had some new ones come in. This morning Matt left so we're down to 6 in the house and before you know it we'll be back to 3! Which will be somewhat nice but I'm going to miss everybody but some will be stopping in from time to time. On the plus side my camp starts on Monday here! We'll be working with K-1st for the first couple weeks and I'm excited! We have been preparing the last two weeks and are ready to go! Well I wanted to leave you with a pic I took of Ross here, we went out to Fort Abercrombie last weekend and got to see the sunset. Oh and by the way this is at like 11:00 pm but it was a wonderful sight. God bless and please keep our camp in your prayers as we start this upcoming week!