Man vs. Wild?

Well, after having a great Thanksgiving with our new friends here in Kodiak, I was lucky enough to partake in the required survival training for being stationed here in Alaska. Monday and Tuesday we're just classroom days, with a trip to the tide pool. They taught us about what we should carry on us, and what to do if we were ever stuck in the wilderness for any length to time. It was a very informative couple of days.

The highlight of the training was the trip to the tide pool. They informed us that the tide pools are one of the most abundant sources of food if you are ever stuck in the wild, and the best part is that you don't have to cook any of it. Well for a individual who didn't like pizza when he was a kid, this trip was approached with much caution. So we arrive at the tide pool and one of my fellow pilots who has been through this training scrapes a shell off a rock and tells me it's a limpet. Well a limpet is a snail, yes a snail, that attaches it's self to rocks in near the shores. It's very abundant. Well Bill (the other pilot) scrapes the snail out of the shell and hands it to me. I look at him and say there is no way I'm going to eat that. Well, I ended up eating it and it was really good. It was like a little neck clam, and was already salty from the water. I ended up eating a few more.

After the limpet, we moved on to the chiton. Well a chiton is also basically a snail. These are bigger though, and you only eat the foot. Well they weren't all that bad either, but much more chewing which was kind of weird. After that we finished with sea cabbage, and uni. Uni for those that don't know is sea urchin roe or eggs. Believe it or not the uni is very expensive (Japanese delicacy) and also tastes really good. It's like a salty mushy peach. So when everyone comes up we'll be taking a trip to the tide pool and having at least one meal there. =)

Well after two days of training we were marched out into the woods and forced to live for 2 1/2 days on what we could fit into a quart size bag. Well if you try to do this, it's not much, especially when they don't give you fire until dinner time on the second night. This proved to be interesting since we all brought rice and bullion to cook as our food. Secondly there is only about 7 hours of daylight right now. It's very interesting being stuck in the woods at night when it gets dark at 4 pm and you aren't allowed fire. It gets very dark and cold. It was 30 and night and 40 during the day for our stay with misty weather. It was great !!!!!! Well we built our shelter and found some items in the woods to keep us entertained. I hope you appreciate the pics. We were "rescued" on Friday morning and proceeded to head home and peel our clothes off and warm up. Needless to say, I'm glad I won't have to do this again for 10 years.

That's all for now. Hope all is well with everyone.

Jason