World of Z: Beautiful Turbulance

You have not known turbulence, Gentle Reader, until you've flown into the Kenai Peninsula, in a treacherous wind and rain storm, on an aero plane no larger than a Cadilac.

This flying demon's altitude seemed to fluctuate by what felt like 30 meters up or down at what seemed to be its own whim. Every 40 seconds or so it would jerk upward or down, seemingly trying to swat the rain and wind out of the sky as a three year child would while absorbed in a swarm of mosquitos. Luckily this last short flight of the day lasted a mere half hour and somehow set me down finally on terra firma. The flight itself seems in a way to have been a prologue to my Alaskan experience up until this point.

Here I found myself, Gentle Reader, in the Alaskan countryside. The final frontear. A land that is equal part wild and beautiful, dangerous and thrilling, peaceful yet mysterious.

I was greeted at the airport by my host, Captain Seth Ellis, helmsmen of ocean going vessle Afishunt II,

and set about my Alaskan experience. The first thing we did was head to a lookout pub that overlooked the mountains and that waters and rivers and streams of this land. We sampled some local lagers, enjoyed some delightful pub fare, played a few rounds of biliards, and then decided to call it a night. I had been awake since 3:00 am Toronto time that morning, thus leaving me quite exhausted. So I went to sleep and was not that first night able to fully appreciated the intensity of an Alaksan evening when time slows down but the sun does not.

The next day, I climbed aboard Afishunt II, and headed out on the waters in search of the largest beasts that the northern Pacific Ocean had to offer. I will say that there is a certain Ahabian qualify to captain Ellis and I wondered if our ship would not that day suffer the same ignoble fate as the one in Melville's great book had. In the end aquatic beasts were hunted down, captured and killed, and I could not escape the adventure without somehow feeling that blood, Gentle Reader, was on my hands.

But I also had a great time. It was both thrilling and disheartening, savagely wild yet breathtakingly beautiful. Much, it appears, as the Alaskan landscape itself.

That night I was able to experience my first Alaskan midnight, a midnight both earily bright and dark, beautiful yet chilling.

This leg of my trip has left me to ponder many things Gentle Reader.