Thursday 07/19/2007

Thursday 07/19/07

Last full day on Midway! I'm excited to come home, but will also miss it here. It was so nice not having to worry about the hustle and bustle of the real world for 2 weeks. It's almost like being at Cheers here...everybody knows your name and everyone is very friendly. I can't wait to have ice cream, though! OH, and a Chipotle burrito!!
We got to see the other 2 islands (Spit and Eastern...we're are on Sand Island...all three make up Midway Island/Atoll) and pick up debris. There's nothing on them except plants and birds...oh, and some seals and sea turtles. We found a dead baby seal which was very sad. It had bite marks from other seals on it's back. Apparantly there are Alpha male seals that get all the female seals and the less dominant male seals get angry and take it out on the female seals or the baby seals. They bit at this one and it drown. Very sad.
We got a historical tour of the island a couple evenings ago and it was VERY interesting. I guess the battle of Midway was the turning part of WWII. We saw places where Japanese fighter jets actually blew up portions of the island.
I don't think I mentioned prior, but the island is also used as an emergency runway for the Pacific. We had a Coast Guard MedEvac come last Saturday. There was a Japanese fishing boat a couple hundred miles out and one of the fisherman had and appendicitis (sp??). The wildlife manager met the fishing boat and picked up the ill fisherman, brought him back to the island and the Coast Guard plane took him back to Honolulu. Pretty exciting stuff around this place!!
One of the construction workers got bit by a centipede on the bottom of his foot last night. It swelled up pretty bad and he said it hurt quite badly. I think I'm more afraid of those suckers than a shark! I hear they're quite poisonous.
I've been biking around this island for 2 weeks...it's going to be so strange actually getting in a vehicle!!
Well, off to finish up work before we head out tomorrow. They're having a good-bye bonfire for us out at the cargo pier this evening, so that will be fun!
Have a great weekend, everyone! I'll be back in KC Sunday afternoon!

Pictures:

-Kristin retrieving tile cages that had been on ocean floor for a year

-Beautiful Coral

-The gang bowling at the Navy's old bowling alley

-Gettin' psyched to pick up that piece of netting debris on Eastern Island

-4 of us volunteers posing on Eastern