Visiting Family on Kodiak Island

Hello All,
After getting the best nights sleep I have had since Sand Point I got up and called my Aunt and Uncle that live here. I told them I would walk up to the house but only after finding a cruising couple that are leaving there boat here for the winter. Nick and Jenny on Bosun Bird. I have never met them but they wrote some very nice cruising notes for the Solomon Islands and Japan. I found this info on a popular cruising website when I was looking for information to cruise the Solomon's. They were a year ahead of me but they spent a year in Japan so that put us both leaving Japan this season and they were headed for Alaska. The long and the short of it is I met them tonight and they will be leaving on the 26th to head south to Washington on an Alaska ferry boat. They are British but now reside in Canada and Nick works for the Canadian government and has used up his time off and has to go back to work for a spell. They are staying at a local hotel and we plan to have dinner together tomorrow night. We had a great visit at there hotel room and I look forward to having dinner with them.
After I found Nick winterizing the boat that is hauled out in the boat yard and to say hello and I would talk to them later I walked my way up the hill to my Uncle Carl and Aunt Nina's home. I worked here with my dump truck in 2001 and 2003 so I knew my way around. It has been a long time since I was here but like I told my family, it is like visiting an old friend. I had a nice visit with my family and my Cousin Burt loaned me his spare car to get around. I will go back tomorrow and let them know my plans and the dinner I have planed with my new cruising friends. After being absent from the Island for 9 years I was surprised to see my Aunt and Uncle haven't aged a day. They are just like I remember them and their home was the same. My Aunt Nina says "its the Island living". She was born here and very proud of, like she says, her Island. She told me, Rick, don't go telling everyone how nice it is here, then I will have to share the place.
This is most definately a special place in Alaska and I am really glad to make landfall here to see family and new friends and see Kodiak from a new angle from the sea which is how a person should see it from.
I will keep you updated and it looks like I could leave here by Saturday, weather permitting of course. I want this trip home to be smoooooooth sailing, that is asking a lot for a crossing that could be the worse sailing I have had. It is only a 24 hour crossing, so should be, watching the weather, not to bad.
Where the Cook Inlet meets the Gulf of Alaska is a in my lingo a "Bad ass piece of water" I will do my best to make it a mill pond.
I will keep in touch.

PEACE