7/30/2008 by Melinda the Captain

Final Update!!

We're on our merry way to Cold Bay where Josh and I will frightfully leave the Minnow in Bob's and Mike's hands.

We had an excellent couple of days full of sunshine, volcanoes, and puffins. We saw a steaming unknown volcano and an old, blasted
volcano. They were very pretty.

Yesterday was the ultimate adventure. We stopped at Amagat Island where we were bombarded by puffins in a foggy, windy madness. Bob
and I climbed to the top of a ridge and hid in the grass. Puffins barely missed our heads, zooming around at hypersonic speeds in
hypersonic winds. We spent 1+ hour trying to take a decent photo of a puffin. All of us have spent countless hours trying to take a
decent photograph of the quick little buggers since we arrived to Alaska. They're really shy.

The fog eventually blew off and we continued playing around on the little island in the sun.

But then tragedy struck and the wind blew out one of my contacts, which isn't all that big of a deal except it was my dominant eye
for taking any sort of photographs. Tragedy! So I asked my father for the kayak or a dinghy ride and we walked back to our landing
pad (which I'll point out here, was my father's choice of landing where he also warned about 8 foot tides).

What we found was a dinghy with seawater filled to the brim. We didn't have any buckets for bailing but we did have one kayak pump
and some waterproof gloves that I later found out weren't so waterproof.

We continued bailing as waves washed over us and back into the dinghy. Bob used the kayak pump, pumping water "accidentally" back
into the dinghy and in my face. We hurriedly pushed off once we had the water level low enough (it was too heavy to lift to empty,
plus too much swell) and set out with the paddles. The largest set of the waves washed over us as we frantically paddled around
rocks. I think we could've flipped if we really wanted to. Maybe I would've earned the $100 to push Bob into the water.

We finally started the motor and got back to the boat. I was drenched in my last pair of dry (not clean) clothes, which isn't a bad
way to end a trip.

I baked a lemon cake with chocolate pudding as a treat. The treat disappeared in less than 12 hours so I baked brownies a couple of
hours ago. Less than half the pan is left.

Everyone had a night of "Animal House" watching and computer geeking. Josh and I packed. Then something strange happened... Josh
went into the shower and 15 minutes later, a completely different person appeared. Josh was no where to be seen, which is pretty
impressive seeing how most people don't last even as long as he did around Bob. Now there's this clean-shaven guy running around in
bright yellow pants with long hair who speaks with a funny accent.