Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Beware of Rocket Scientist

Hey everyone, just wanted to tell you about my first trip to an outer island on the atoll. The island is called Meck (easy to remember). I was sitting around the office at the end of the day last friday (Thursday in the states) and my boss walked and said, "By the way, did I tell you that you are going to Meck tomorrow?" My first thought was "awesome" my next thought was "awe man!" That was when I remembered that the boat leaves at 6 am. There are a lot of things that happen there especially during mission time. The island is an hour boat ride and I just missed the boat. I got to the dock as it was leaving the harbor. I was on the phone with Harbor Control begging for them to turn it around and pick me up. They said they would call me back. They called back and told me that another boat was going that way and that I could hop on that one. So all I had to do now was track down the captian of that boat. Not an easy task. I didn't know who he was. I did manage to find him and he was a nice enough guy to pick up a hitchhiker. It was a small boat but a very comfortable ride.

Well I showed up with a box full of parts and a few tools and nobody was expecting me. My job was to install a Hazmat washer and dryer. Sounds harder that it actually is. The first thing that really got my attention was this sign...

Only at Nasa and Meck can you see something like this. Meck is a very small island and it only took about ten minutes for my grand tour.
The harbor at meck




A tree overgrown with grass. Interesting.



Downtown meck. Not excatly your New York skyline is it? When I took this picture I was about 50 feet above sea level, the highest I have been in almost 5 months.



And finally, after a long moring and a rather boring afternoon and the lunch I finally got at 3 pm, the ride home showed up.

I wasn't sure how this thing was going to get out of that harbor but it will spin on a dime. It was crazy.


What a sweet sight to see after such a long day. It was an hour boat ride back to Kwaj I turned my ipod on and drifted away. I tried to name all the islands I saw on the way up there, I will need to know them when I get my boat licsense, and didn't see a one on the way back. Well that was my first trip to another island and I would do it again. Maybe next time I will actually catch the boat. lol.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a nice commute!
Paula

Anonymous said...

I wanna go there! Love ya, Mom

Cynthia said...

Nathan,
It is so good to see and hear about everything that you are doing. Love, Cynthia

Miranda said...

Thanks for updating! It is gorgeous there!