How's winter in Alaska, you ask? I don't know. I imagine it is cold and wet. Kelli and I left Alaska at the end of August. Here's how it went.
The Alaska flying job was a seasonal job with the opportunity to stay year-round. I was officially offered a year round position sometime in July but was also in the process of getting hired by a medevac company in Colorado. I got an official offer from the medevac company and told Seaplanes I would not be staying for the winter. Flying in Alaska was fun but when I interviewed for the job I was leery about being gone from home for so long. I wanted a job I could commute for and Seaplanes wasn't a commuting job. So when I met the qualifications for the job in Colorado, I reapplied. Five months was a very long time to be away from home so I was ready to go back.
"What did you do with the boat?" Great question! The original plan was to sail south and leave the boat somewhere along the coast south of Canada at the end of August before I started my new job sometime in September. My original understanding was the Alaska job went until mid-August. Mid-August turned into September 2nd which removed the two weeks in August I had planned to sail during. My new job had a start date of.... September 2nd. What a conundrum. I made a deal with my boss at Seaplanes for my last day to be August 30th but that meant I couldn't move the boat, my start dates had collided. Nothing quite like being gone from home for five months just to fly home and start work two days later!
Leaving the boat in Alaska for the winter wasn't something I really wanted to do; they get very strong winds and sometimes they get enough snow to sink boats. I mentioned to Kelli that maybe we could list it and if it sells, great, if it doesn't sell, we'll figure something out. I listed it on Craigslist and got a very interested buyer out of Wisconsin within a week. He had been in Alaska for 20 years but was currently taking care of parents in Wisconsin but had an itch to get back on a boat in the great white north. He had a racing sailboat up here that wasn't terribly comfortable for cruising and when his wife saw Northern Light with the pilot house, she told him that was the boat he was going to buy. He flew up, looked over the boat, we went sailing, and we made a deal!
That was a big burden off my shoulders. We stayed on the boat a few more days until we each flew home and the Alaska adventure was done.
Link to above photo as a video
Crazy.
More to come later.
