Monday

---

Today I started my Comms job at the Anchorage Network Center. I am doing 6 hours of data entry functions, helping to track the racers along the 1,000 mile distance. The checkpoints record teams arriving and leaving, funnel the data to us, and we send it back out; we are the point where information comes in and goes back out.

After "work," I drove down Turnagain Arm, a long narrow finger of Cook Inlet, which has the second largest Bore Tide in North America (the largest is in the Bay of Fundy). Bore tides occur in narrow inlets where the incoming tide pushes a large volume of water against water flowing against it, causing a rather large wave pushing inland. This week in the Anchorage area, the average difference between high and low tides is about 30 feet in 6 hours. The Old Seward Highway runs along Turnagain Arm, with some pullouts along the highway for viewing. I drove there to scope out the area, and I am hoping tomorrow will be the day I can see it, because today the bore tide will happen when it's too dark to see it.

Today, I saw water that seemed to be pushing both directions in a shallow area, and it looked like it was boiling (even with the ice in the Arm!) - it looked like it might be just the start of the phenomenon. If you click on the picture, you can see an enlargement of the water surface.

It's interesting to note that in times of extreme tide changes (spring tides) people will surf the bore tide! But since I was too early to see the tide today, I took the opportunity to play a bit with my new camera and got some nice shots of the Chugach Range and Kenai Mountains, too.

I met a woman here named Heidi, who is volunteering on the same communications team that I'm on. She's from Toledo, and we've had fun getting to know each other over the past few days. We went to dinner tonight at a place called Pipers, so named because of the Piper Cub parked on the lot, and also because, I suppose, it's close to the airport. I had mussels in garlic/butter/wine sauce...Yum!

Tomorrow's another day of work at 6 AM! Time for bed!

---