 |
| St. Paul Island is notoriously foggy |
When you travel in Bush Alaska you need to be flexible. I knew that when I recently went to St. Paul, one of the Pribilof Islands, 300 miles out into the Bering Sea. The islands are notoriously foggy, especially in the summer, when warm air from the south meets the always-frigid Bering Sea water. So, I loaded five books on my e-reader, stuffed my carry-on bag with snacks and warned my family I might not be back when scheduled.
 |
 |
The day before I traveled had apparently been very foggy, and the regularly scheduled Anchorage-to-St. Paul flight made it all the way to the island before turning around and heading back to the city because the pilot could not see the runway clearly enough to land. I imagined the frustration of the people on the flight, having flown 3 ½ hours only to be told they would be flying another 3 ½ hours back to their starting point.
My plane, however, left Anchorage on time, making a quick stop in Dillingham for fuel and to unload some cargo (although my official, airline-issued itinerary said the flight was nonstop) and landed without incident on St. Paul only a few minutes behind schedule. So far, so good.
The trip home, however, was not quite so smooth. The flight was scheduled to leave at 4 p.m., stopping at St. George Island, about 40 miles south, then heading east to Anchorage (although I expected, despite my ticket’s assurance of a nonstop flight, that we would likely make another stop for fuel once we reached the mainland).
At 5:15, I was still sitting on the steps of the terminal building, reading a book and enjoying the first sunny afternoon since I had arrived on St. Paul four days earlier. I was beginning to wonder what was going on, though. A fellow passenger strolled inside and came out a few minutes later with the news that the weather on St. George was iffy and the pilot was waiting to see if would clear. The handful of people who held tickets for St. George shrugged their shoulders and resigned themselves to a wait. Most were Pribilof residents, so this was nothing new to them.
As the afternoon turned to evening, I pulled my jacket out of my carry-on bag and noticed that the clear sky I had been enjoying was clouding over.
By 6 p.m., I had moved indoors to escape the increasing chill and a few locals had given up and left, saying they would try for St. George tomorrow.
At 6:15, the gate attendant announced boarding, saying the pilot wanted to get off the ground before the weather deteriorated any further. As we taxied to take off, the pilot announced on the intercom that we would still head for St. George, but described our chances of landing there as 50-50.
I imagined we would zip over to St. George, assess the situation, then either land or head back to St. Paul to drop off the St. George passengers and get airborne again for Anchorage. At that rate, I would be home only about 2 ½ hours later than expected.
I was wrong.
An hour later, after circling above St. George, the pilot announced the weather was now worse than when we arrived and he definitely could not land. So, we were heading on to King Salmon for fuel and then to Anchorage.
Wait, what? What about the people from St. Paul who were just trying to travel 40 miles south to their sister island? They were now headed 750 miles east! And there was no flight back to the Pribilofs until noon the following day. I heard a lot of sighs from fellow passengers, along with one very excited request from a young traveler to his mother to go to Chuck E. Cheese while they were “in town.”
I started to worry if we would even get to “town” that night, however, when we stopped in King Salmon and were told we all needed to get off the plane and wait in the terminal while technicians looked into a maintenance issue. As we filed into the terminal, most of us pulled out our cell phones to let people waiting for us at home in St. George, St. Paul or Anchorage know that we would be late, or to try to reserve hotel rooms in Anchorage for an unexpected layover. But no one could get a signal. After a few minutes of confusion, an airport employee came over to explain that the satellite that provided cellular service in the Bush was down. “Great,” I thought. “I am stranded in King Salmon, it’s an hour after the time I was supposed to be home, and I have no way of letting my husband know where I am or what is going on.”
So, pulling my e-reader and a granola bar out of my bag, I settled in for a wait. It turned out that the maintenance issue was as simple as replacing a spark plug, and we were back on the plane and airborne in less than an hour.
As we landed in Anchorage, four hours later than scheduled, I finally relaxed, happy to be home. But, as I slipped into bed next to my snoring husband after midnight, I thought of the St. George passengers and hoped they had found hotel beds to slip into.
And I sent mental condolences to the poor mom who would be making an unscheduled trip to Chuck E. Cheese in the morning.