Icewind's Ramblings

Friday afternoon we head out to sea leaving the boat harbor in Homer heading 265˚ while running about 16 knots.  The fishin’ area we wanted was 26 nautical miles from Homer in the direction of Augustine Volcano which we could see in the distance with a plume of steam rising out of the top.   The "Ring of Fire" (map) is an arc stretching from New Zealand , along the eastern edge of Asia, north across the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and south along the coast of North and South America . The Ring of Fire is composed over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes. This huge ring of volcanic and seismic (earthquake) activity was noticed and described before the invention of the theory of plate tectonics theory. We now know that the Ring of Fire is located at the borders of the Pacific Plate and other major tectonic plates.  Alaska has many active volcanoes ranging across the Cook Inlet from Anchorage winding its way down along the Aleutian chain. ...

We are in the throes of winter now with our daylight winding down each day as we approach the winter’s Solstice. The snow has arrived and the winter storms are now lining up along the Aleutians and heading in one after another. The interior has dropped well below zero now and the night sky can be lit up with the always vibrant colors of the Aurora . For many Alaskans the images of Alaska are embedded deeply within our Alaskan consciousness. It does not matter what time of year as we have seen first hand images of sentinel pine trees frozen in time. The sight of our native people gathered together on the beach harvesting a whale for their subsistence lifestyle; of glaciers with a majestic azure blanketing the peripherals with giant walls of white. The huskies hopping through a snow drift glad to be pulling a sled through snow now and not a four-wheeler across the tundra, the tips of their fur crystallized and glistening. We need these reminders now as the day...

Today has been a mixed bag of things going on here in the northland. Anchorage finally dropped the price of gasoline to below $ 3.50 a gallon today while word on the news is saying the Lower 48 is seeing gas prices about a dollar a gallon less than here and a few areas that the price has dropped lower than $ 2.00. That’s great for those areas and hopefully we will see something around two fifty before long. There was the rumor of traffic here today as the traffic engineers were working on the traffic lights by the Dimond Mall. They turned them off at 9 AM this morning for maintenance and other work and should have them operational around midnight. It did not make for a fun day for anyone who had to drive around the area as there were vehicles backed up in all directions while the flaggers directed traffic in the below freezing temperatures. It was only 9 degrees this morning and rose only to about 25 when I left the office at 6 PM tonight. I could see th...