Mostly repetative nature pictures...

I outsmarted the internet to upload pictures...okay, okay, I just shrunk the pictures down to a reasonable size so I could actually upload them.  Here's a bunch of pictures from the last month!

Ugadaga Bay

Bald Eagles (obviously)...Have I mentioned that they're everywhere here?

OTTER!!!

Part of town from a walk I took.

 

My house (It's a bit nicer on the inside than it looks from the outside)

My "charges" when I was house sitting.  Blue is the beagle and Sadie is the lab.  They were great cuddle buddies!

The trail head to Ugadaga bay.

The cabin at the bay

The other half of the cabin...

Ugadaga Bay trail hike

More of Ugadaga Bay trail hike

View from the cabin

Ship wreck, a crab boat that a drunken sailor crashed.

ummm the TIME BANDIT!! (There ya go Dad)

My view from the house I was house-sitting (and the boat that we took out for crab fishing)

My kitchen....

 

My living room...

Morse Cove

Bucket of yummy yummy snow crab

I’ve been trying to make the most of my last few days in Dutch…even if the weather hasn’t been entirely agreeable.  However, I woke up today to a perfectly clear day with no wind and a strangely warm temp for the time of year…about 50 degrees.  Then, I went to work and saw that we had about 5 patients on the schedule for the day…soooo I decided to take the day off (we were told at the beginning of our rotation that we were “fully expected to take a day off when the weather is nice” so we could enjoy the weather here.)

My roommate and I went on quite the hike (for me at least…still out of shape!!) to Ugadaga bay.  Once again, I’m trying to upload pictures while I type, but my guess is I’ll still only get one or two.  Once I get home I’ll add more! 

To get to the trail head of the Ugadaga bay trail, you have to drive up Overland Pass, which we have driven over before.  It’s a road that weaves nicely up the mountains and out into Summer’s Bay, another very pretty little area.  The first part of the hike was pretty easy (it was about 2 ½ miles total to get to Ugadaga bay), and since it was fairly early, there was still a lot of fog in the mountains along the trail.  I felt like I was in the Lord of the Rings there for awhile…which was pretty sweet.  The trail weaved through a lot of the little streams that flow everywhere through the mountains here.  Most of them are pretty small but a few require jumping over (or finding a good spot to walk over the rocks).  On the one big stream we had to cross, I had to take off my boots and walk across.  Nate always jumps them, but in my opinion I’d rather walk across and get cold feet then jump across and slip and soak my whole self.

After about an hour, we finally made it down to the bay.  It was gorgeous!  Since it was such a calm day, the water was completely flat… and the water is soooo clean here.  You can seriously see about 20 feet deep, if not further.  It reminds me of Hermit lake in Colorado only a lot deeper!!  Once we got to the beach, we had about another half a mile to go to get to the “secret spot” a nurse at the clinic had told us about on our way out earlier.  Someone built a little cabin out there in 2006 and has it stocked with a wood stove, some pots and pans, mats to sleep on, flash lights, various other camping things and…drum roll….KAYAKS!  He built it out there simply for people to be able to camp out there, have a little shelter, and to use the kayaks.  Pretty freaking sweet.  And, had we not talked to the nurse on the way out, we would have totally missed out on it.  Since it was such a nice calm day I was thrilled to get to take a kayak out on the ocean.  It was by far one of my favorite experiences so far.  It was sooo beautiful, and with the water being so clear, it was a bit of a once in a lifetime experience.  I could have stayed out there kayaking around all day, but unfortunately, we had told the people at the clinic we would be back by four (since it is sooo remote out there and no cell service once you’re out of the main area of town, it’s good to have someone know where you’re going and when you’re going to be back in case something would happen).  I wish we had given ourselves more time, but I’m sure my arms will thank me tomorrow that I didn’t do more kayaking...they are already a little sore.

Now…the hike back was a little bit of hell.  Since we had hiked DOWN the whole way to the bay, we had a LOT of uphill on the way back.  About half way back I was starting to question the whole hike as I struggled up yet another steep hill (even though it was totally, totally, worth it).  If I could go at my pace it’d be a bit easier but I try to keep up with Nate without whining or sounding like I’m dying too much.  We took a break at a beautiful waterfall about halfway back up.  After we made it to our car, we finished driving Overland pass and made our way back home.  My legs are killing me, but it was a great adventure!!

So I remember, things I need to write about yet are crab enchiladas, getting attacked by a crab and our hike to a shipwreck... and pictures once I have internet that actually lets me do things on it!  (Edit: pictures added.  I'm an idiot...all my pictures were HUGE files...once I went and sized a coule down they loaded in about 1/3 of the time...more later!)

 

Little spiral rainbow

The stream I "jumped"

Kayaking!!!

The little cabin from the kayak.

View from the cabin.

Break time at the waterfall/cliff

 
 

Crab Fishing: My version of the Deadliest Catch

I’m a terrible blogger.  Oh well.  J  I tried uploading one yesterday with lots of pictures, but the internet is very, very slow here (just like there isn’t cell phone service unless you go with an Alaskan provider, the internet isn’t top of the line either!).  But, while I type this I’m going to try to upload a few so maybe this will have some…

Our first weekend here Laura, one of the providers at the clinic, and her husband, too Nate (my roommate) and I out to check their crab pots.  The first day we went out was just absolutely gorgeous- this place is truly breathtaking when the weather is nice!  It was cool enough just to be out on a boat.  I’ve been on a boat out in the sea/ocean before, but never on a small fishing boat, so it was a pretty cool experience.  Their boat isn’t large enough to go out of the bay, but it was great none the less.  The boat is very “bare bones” and doesn’t have any seats- just the motor, a crank for the crab pots, and a bucket to put the crabs (and of course other boat safety features and stuff).  

When we got to the first pot, Laura showed us how to get it up.  First you hook the float they use as a marker for where it’s at (he also marks them on his GPS) and pull it into the boat and hook the rope on the crank wheel (I guarantee you I’m not using the right words!) and then help guide the rope up.  It pulls it at 1 foot a second if I remember right.  The pots have a large range of how deep they put them but the deepest one we pulled was 130 ft (they have four out).   They play with how deep they are depending what they get up.  The females are usually at a different depth than the males (you can only keep males) so if they find females they know they need to change the depth…but that they’re in the right place.

                So…back to the first pot, they had set this one out deeper to get the snow crab.  They wanted to get some for us in case they didn’t find the king crab while we were here.  When you pull it the boat you have to check to see whether they are male or female then measure them.   The measurement of a “keeper” goes by their body and they have gauge that you just hold up to the body to see if they are bigger than it.  Then…they go in the bucket and you drop the pot back!

                We took turns pulling up the other three pots.  They were all in shallower in the bay (around 60-80ft deep) to find the King crab.  The first 2 were empty except for a couple snow crab, but the third one had 2 kings in it.  Unfortunately, one was female and the other one was too small: but at least they knew that they were getting closer to finding the kings!!

                After we pulled all the pots we went back and took the boat out and headed back to Laura and Duane’s house to cook them.  Hopefully the picture loads and you can see the pot.  They get the water boiling and put the crab in the pot and let them cook for about 15 minutes, and then you pull them out and dunk them in salt water for about 20 seconds to “quench” them, so that the shell comes off easily.  Laura and Duane have been here about a year and half so they have been learning how to do all this stuff and perfect their system.  Duane seems to have pulled it off pretty well though, because after we quench them, we hung out outside drinking some coffee and enjoying a few crab legs.  Pretty much nothing tastes better than that!!

                Oh wait…I almost forgot about the worst part…getting them ready to cook.  You have to take the crab and hit it against the bucket in the middle and pull the legs off…and then do that again on the other side to get the rest of the legs off.  It’s a little brutal but I guess the best way to do it…  Then, you have to take a knife and clean off the gills.  Yuck.  When you’re doing all that, it really, really makes you wonder what in the world possessed us to ever eat this creepy, gross creature…but hey, they are delicious!!

                We went out again with Duane last week before they left on their trip and found a couple kings!  Unfortunately, we did not find too many, but we did get two big keepers.  Soooooo tasty!!  I hoping that when Duane gets back on Thursday we’ll get to go out with them again…and that we find more Kings! 

Love y’all and miss you!!

Here's the pot of crabs and the pot they boil them in!  And boat in the background :)

Here's the view from my front porch: with a mini rainbow

 

And due to my impatience, that's all I got for pictures right now!

First Week at the Clinic

Well I survived my first week at the clinic!

A hard thing to get used in the clinic is all the lingo/cultural stuff.  There’s a lot you need to think about when it comes to your patients that you don’t think about every day in practice in Iowa, or somewhere less remote.  Like, is this a patient that’s just stopping through, are they going to have enough medicine to last through their next boat trip, how much longer is the season of why they’re here and when will they be going back home, where IS home for them, what’s their native language, is there anyone in the clinic that can translate for us, are they safe to go back out on a ship where they might not be able to come back in for a while, etc, etc.  It’s very interesting and challenging at the same time.  I didn’t realize how diverse of a population it was going to be here.  There’s a lot of Philippinos, Vietnamese, Hispanics, Samoans, and many others.  Working through translators is always a challenge because a lot of time it feels like you aren’t getting everything across.

Although this is a family practice rotation, it’s pretty different than family practice I’ve done in the past.  It’s much closer to working in an Urgent care clinic than anything (which I really like).  We have more patients come in with acute problems than the chronic problems like hypertension and diabetes.  We have that as well, but a lot of times it’s just refilling their medications till they are able to see their doctors back home.  We also see a lot of injuries: lacerations, smashed fingers (a LOT of people drop boxes of frozen fish on their fingers), sprained ankles.  A lot of it is kind of like working in an ortho clinic (which I also really like).   We also have an emergency room.  There have been a couple emergencies while I’ve been here, but for the most part our job is to stabilize the patient and get them life-lighted to Anchorage.  If they are stable enough to fly commercially but still need to go to Anchorage to see a specialist or get further imaging (the most we have is an x-ray), they’ll get “bumped” on to the day’s flight off the island.

One of the biggest things that is crazy to me is that there are no doctor’s here.  The clinic staff consists of 3 PAs, Josh, Lisa and Kim, and 2 nurse practitioners, Laura and Clare.  It seems crazy to me that they don’t have a doctor here!  While I think they all do a really good job, I don’t think I would feel comfortable working in the same situation.  At least not until I had waaaaay more practice somewhere else!

Overall, it’s a really great experience.  Everyone is fun to work with and the nursing staff is awesome.  There’s a lot to learn, but it keeps things interesting!

Getting to Dutch...

Well my Dad reminded me about this and hinted that maybe I should get at some blogging while I’m here in Alaska.  The internet at my house is pretty slow and spotty, so I’ll do my best at keeping up with it!

I’ll start with my journey here. Whew.  My first three flights went off without a hitch.  I even thought to myself, "wow this is awesome! Not ONE delay, all my flights got in early...no turbulence, etc, etc."  I went from Des Moines to Denver to Seattle to Anchorage.  Since I got into Seattle so late and my flight left very early, I just slept in the airport.  Surprising it was pretty comfortable but I froze my butt off so didn’t get too much sleep in.  Got to Anchorage fine and met a guy on that flight that was also heading to the island (“Dutch” from here on out J ) so he showed me how to get to the terminal for the Dutch flight.  I got off lucky there because I don’t think I would have found it otherwise! 

…So that's when things got messy :) our flight (on a prop plane, mind you) left from Anchorage to head to Dutch.  About two and a half hours into the flight (so, about 20 minutes away from landing), our pilot came over the announcer and said that there was a volcano that had erupted in the Russian part of the “chain” (the Aleutians) and we’d have to turn around.  It took a few seconds for that to sink in!  Actually I think he announced it again before I really thought about what that meant.  The guy (Jon) that I had met on the earlier flight came up to talk to me and told me that that meant it could even be up to a week before we’d be able to get out of Anchorage.  Needless to say I was a little freaked out!! 

Once we got back into Anchorage, they booked everyone for a flight the next morning and told us to be back at the airport at 4 am so we could find out if the flight would be able to leave (why this couldn’t be conducted by a phone call, I’ll never know)  I made all the necessary phone calls back home and to my program advisors and then found myself a hotel.  Again I was lucky that I had the Jon and the other tugboat guys to show me and good place to stay (and I also got their company’s discount too).  I hung out with the hotel’s restaurant with them as well as several other people that were stuck in Anchorage because of the flight…so I got to learn about some of the inner workings of tugboating as well as crabbing here.  It was pretty fascinating!  It was pretty cool to hear one of the crab boat captain’s talk about how the guys on the Deadliest Catch are a little overly dramatic J (sorry Dad!)

Anyways…I got the shuttle back to the airport bright and early at 4 in the morning.  Aaaaand no one was at the terminal to check people in.  However, they showed up soon and I got checked in and my bags rechecked and went down to wait to find out if we would be able to fly out.  Finally around 6 I got impatient with waiting and went to the bathroom to brush my hair and kill some time.  When I got back out: they were boarding everyone!!!!  I was so so so happy.  I had managed not to freak out too much but really, really did not want to be delayed anymore (especially not the WEEK that everyone kept talking about).  This flight was uneventful and did NOT turn around, and landed us safely in Dutch Harbor.

After getting to Dutch I finally figured out who my roommate was (I hadn’t found him on the flight the day before or waiting for the flight in the morning) and we chatted as we waited for our ride to come pick us up and take us to our house.  Kim, one of the PAs at the clinic took us on a short tour and brought us to our house.  We got settled then walked up to the clinic to meet Laura and get the keys to the car.  Laura showed us around the clinic then took us for a drive around the island to show us everything else (not that there’s much going on here besides the scenery J).  Since it was a sunny day (which is a rarity around here) she showed us all of the good hiking trails.  After the tour me and Nate headed back to our house, got ready, and went for a hike.  Nate lives in Anchorage and was in the military for 8 years and is currently a paramedic…I tell you all this to say that he is in A LOT better shape than I am.  I don’t think our hike went as far as he would have liked, but it was fun and just beautiful.

After we got back we went and got dinner to celebrate our first night here (and because we were both too tired to actually cook anything), did some grocery shopping, and came back home.  I promptly went to bed (after skyping with the parents) and slept for 12 hours straight!

Anyways, I’ll leave it at that for now.  I have taken quite a few pictures already, but I have yet to uncover my camera cord to be able to upload them.  Right now I’m just finishing dinner and chatting with my roommate (he’s in the middle of cooking some sort of squash soup that smells and looks delicious).  He’s a pretty neat guy.  He just cracked me up with this joke that I’ll leave you with… “I used to cry a lot when I chopped onions.  Now I just don’t get emotionally attached.”