Father's Day Mission 2007- Part 3: Or, Whatever Happened to the No Child Left Behind Act?

So I guess it probably comes as no surprise, that the infamous Grumman Goose didn't make a landing on Akutan on Sunday.....morning or evening. Alas. In fact, come to find out, the good old goose is cancelled on more than just the rare occasion. About a month ago, it didn't land for 12 days! The average is somewhere in the 4-7 day range, but you never can tell. If we had only known! We booked another night at the Bayview plaza and called our dads for Father's Day.

The next morning, the wind was howling and the sky was gray. We knew that if the plane hadn't come the day before (when it actually seemed pretty nice to us), that we were surely sunk for today. The agent (the local person who has a 4-wheeler, helps load and unload the plane, and reports the weather to Dutch), took one look at the weather and, a man of few words, said, "doubt it." We went for some more consolation bacon and eggs at the restaurant. The girl there told us that sometimes you can hop on a Trident fishing boat. We called over to Trident, however, and they said there were no boats heading that way today. Alas again.

So Dawson called into work and we entertained ourselves walking around town, checking out the museum, etc. It was just about 4:00 as we were headed back to the hotel when the VPSO came running out of his office and informed us there was a boat, headed to Dutch, leaving in 45 minutes. "Quick, grab your stuff!"

So we ran over as fast as we could. "You might get sea-sick," Dawson said under his breath as we were running over. I hadn't really thought about that. The ferry was so big and smooth. I started getting a little nervous.

When we got to the fish plant, I went immediately to the company store for some Dramamine. I had the first pill popped in my mouth and was chewing it up and trying to get another pill from the package, when I walked out to the group and saw a surprised look on the plant manager's face. "A baby? I didn't know there was a baby." He called down to the boat captain, "Um, the 2 people who are going to Dutch are actually 3 people, one's a baby." He explained to us that he has a child and he's taken him on that trip a few times. The kid was fine at 9 months and 15 months and then on his most recent trip at near 2 years old, there was so much projectile vomit and tears that he promised his wife they would never take him again. So he said we'd probably be OK, but he'd leave it up to the boat captain. The captain called back on the radio....not excited about Baby on Board. We went down to talk to the captain, and it was again a no-go. The weather was supposed to be choppy and he wasn't even excited about taking a girl, but he would take a strong looking fellow like Dawson.

A quick decision was made, and Dawson jumped on board. After all, he earns the bacon in this family and many a hearing was scheduled for the next day. Alas. A tummy full of Dramamine and no boat ride. It was only then that it occured to me that maybe breast-feeding mothers shouldn't OD on Dramamine...

The Columbia sailed away. According to Dawson, his ride was straight out of the rough seas of the Deadliest Catch. 6 hours of lurching waves coming from all directions (up, down, side, you name it). In retrospect, I think I'm very happy the captain wouldn't allow us on board!







How will Boo and I entertaing ourselves all on our lonesome in Akutan, you might ask. We didn't have any toys, but luckily we can always count on some of Boo's favorite stand-bys for entertainment...mmmm....garbage....