7/10/2008 by Melinda the Captain

Today we went walking! Bob successfully anchored in the middle of the night at Attu (by himself even) so everyone else should've gotten sufficient sleep. We went to breakfast on shore, got a grand tour of the island, including a showing of a controversial Japanese monument. We hadn't felt a heater in eons; beautiful. After that we were dog-tired. We retreated back to the boat for some rest while the anchor alarm kept going off. Speaking of dogs, there were three semi-friendly dogs on the island.

Everyone was very friendly and surprisingly young. It sounds like it gets awfully dreary there during the winter, but they have target shooting, mountains to hike, snowboarding, skiing, rock-climbing, basketball, volleyball, and pool. We saw a neat C-130 land and take off. Mike shot a gun. Josh learned how to put the motor up in the dinghy. Bob considered vandalization. I took photos. We went biking and walking around but decided to clear out before the fog engulfed us. We motored around the island and found a pure Aleutian shoreline with rocky outcrops covered in moss, gulls, and puffins. There were a LOT of puffins. All tufted. And very pretty landscape.

It was glassy with long swells rolling in kelp and hundreds of birds scattering. Mike took Bob and I on a sunset cruise. It was rather embarrassing... all of us showed up wearing the exact same thing. Red coat, dark pants, black gloves. Simply embarrassing. Josh was the smart one and went for a kayak instead (much safer). He made friends with a harbor seal too.

Mike and Bob paddled the dinghy into a cave-like opening where I promptly stowed the camera gear and braced myself for a dinghy breach. We barely survived. After that I finally took a shower! It's becoming more and more difficult to strip off the million layers of clothing and survive the initial shock of a shower.Now I'm clean with cold feet and baking cinnamon rolls since they take the longest time in the oven (for heat).

The end.