the oversized enterprise

wondertastic-y-ness

Posted by rachel.Lyn , Monday, June 14, 2010 12:12 AM

so I haven't written a new post in a while... sorry about that.

So here's what's been happening in between my last post and present time.

We go on these random hikes during the week sometimes and it's fantastic. By the end of the day everyone is completely exhausted and ready to sleep, but one person says "hey y'all! lets all climb Old Woman (a small mountain nearby)." and so we do...
Usually on our midweek ventures we get back around 10:30 pm, which is just fine because it's light outside ALL the time. You can fit so much stuff into one day when it doesn't get dark until 1 am! So this week we climbed Old Woman and went gill netting.
Old Woman:
Old woman is this "small" mountain near Kodiak. It's supposedly the easy one. Chyea right! Almost died.. It's like 45 minutes of straight up. straight up. ....
But we made it! It was sooo satisfying. So now we're on to bigger and better mountains! There's one called Barometer that's like the mountain of all mountains. GRRR!!

Gill Netting:
WAAAAAAHHHHH!! This happened on Wednesday, which was pretty much one of the greatest days of my life.
The weather was b-e-a-utiful! Sunny and calm waters.
So what gill netting is, is casting out a large, really long net that the fish swim into and get all tangled up. We then either take a little boat and "pick" the net, untangle the salmon one by one from the net as they come in, or pull the entire net in after a few hours and get the fish at the same time. We picked the net.
So four or so, of us would get into this tiny floating boat, off of the larger boat, named Diakonos, and pull ourselves along the net until we reach the trapped fish. We then proceed to pulling the fish and part of the net into our tiny boat, so the fish won't flop out when we free it, and slaying the catch. All the while, this tiny raft-like boat is bouncing around on the waves, and is slowly filling with water.. and fish blood/slime/scales. It reached a point where I was sitting half on top of a friend of mine, and half in a large puddle of blood. Hard core man!!! Besides being rather gross, it was rather awesome. It seems like in the past i would have been totally grossed out by being covered in slime and guts, but I kind of embraced it! I felt so alive and in tune with nature. My hands were nearly numb from the cold water and pants were soaked completely. soooooooo wonderful. we caught ten nice Red Salmon!! Best tasting fish in the sea.

AHHH! Pasagshak!
So today was probably the warmest day so far, so we decided to go swimming at the beach!
What a wonderful day it was!
We drove about an hour to this fantastic place called Pasagshak, to surfer beach. There were actual surfers there! Like, people surfing! Now, they were in full body wet suits, but still! I think the water is about 40 or 45 degrees. Huge, crashing waves that were the perfect shade of blue rolled on in. The sand is black and nice and warm from the sun! Just perfect AHH!
So, because all of us here at KBM are a little crazy, we decided to go swimming! And by swimming I mean sprint into the ocean as fast as possible, leap into the frigid waters, scream a little and run back out. I managed to stay in for a minute or two, until my legs started to go numb. It was so exhilarating!! It's so cliche, but I felt so alive! not to mention, I was easily in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
The beauty of ANYWHERE in Kodiak is just so much more awesome than anywhere else.
ok so to top the day off, the Lord decided to give us more gifts! MORE!
We could see whales off on the horizon all afternoon, but they were too far to really be interesting. Then, Hannah screamed, "Look! A whale, RIGHT THERE!" About a hundred feet from the shore was a whale. A freaking HUGE WHALE! right there! Just rolling around in the surf. My mind still can't really comprehend the fact that I was staring at one of the world's largest mammals, in the wild, so close. Only Jesus can create such a perfect situation. We followed the animal down the beach for several minutes, as it would wave to us with it's gigantic fin.
To add the icing to the cake, there were cute little seals that would swim around every once in a while. it was pretty much the Discovery Channel in real life.
And to add the icing to the icing, we saw a wild buffalo in the road on the way home. just standing there, meandering along. so so so so so wonderful.
Thanks, again, Jesus!!

This morning we went to a Russian Orthodox church service. It was completely opposite of everything i'm used to. They stood, with women on one side and men on the other, and literally sang almost the entire three hour service. No pews, no hymnals, just standing and singing the must beautiful music! They had gorgeous voices! I really loved how everyone was creating the worship service, instead of sitting and listening to one person. It was one big family, worshiping together. They were so welcoming, and loved us being there! Afterward, they served a brunch of halibut, brown rice, watermelon and other deliciousness, and read stories of Orthodox martyrs in history. Greatly great day.

Should be posting pictures in a day or two! If you wish, go to facebook and look at my pictures there, and the ones i'm tagged in!
Rachel's Facebook
Click on "rachel's facebook" to go there!
Awesome.
Thanks for keeping up with my adventures!