Yesterday turned out to have some nice sunny breaks in the weather so  I used one of them to take a short tour of the coastline and snap off a few photos.  I really wanted to see some fur seals beached up somewhere but I didn't.  I did see one swimming though and attempted to try and capture it while it was breeching the surface.  I switched my camera to it's hyper shutter mode, but even still you could only see either the back of it's head or tail for a split second.  So all it really looks like is a rock sticking out of the water. 

 

I learned that Saint Paul Island is a bird sanctuary and that dogs are not not allowed.  I suppose at one point they realized the dogs were molesting (not sexually I hope) the birds so they became banished.  I've heard some people refer to Saint Paul as the Galapagos of the north becasue I guess there are some birds that you will only see here.  I found a great birding web site that I have yet to fully peruse.  But they have some great information about the many species of birds here among other things so be sure and check it out.

 

Later last night I received a call from the Coast Guard base station here on the island reporting that a 20 something year old man was to be medevac'd off the marine vessel on which he was working.  It's still not clear exactly where the vessel was loacted but it took about 4 hours for the H-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak to arrive there in order to extricate him off the vessel.  The patient had a non-traumatic internal bleed of unknown origin.  The Kodiak Coast gaurd had also intitiated a medvac from Anchorage Regional Hospital's LifeFlight Air Ambulance.  They informed me that they were not going to bring the patien to our clinic, it was just more of a courtesy call and that they had planned to land their chopper at the airport and ramp transfer the patient onto the LifeFlight jet.  About 40 minutes out the chopper radioed the clinic that the patients IV had failed and the needed me to restart the IV at the runway.  I have to admit, I felt almost child like at the thought that although this being a minor brush with the Coast Guard operations, I was still involved and I have a higher liklihood of more action with these amazing heroes.  I got goose bumps thinking about this on my way to the airport and my adrenaline started to flow ever so slightly.  By the time I had arrived, LifeFlight was inbound and I knew I wouldn't be needed for the IV restart so I used my time to photograph the awesome aircraft.  There was not only the Jayhawk chopper but also a C-130 airplane on the apron.  What an awesome sight and I have the photos to prove it.  Be sure to also check out the Saint Paul Island album periodically as I will add new photos as I take them. 

 

I can't help but thank all my visitors yet again for enjoying this Space as much as I do.  Your encouragement keeps me keepin on.