Kept waking up last night to see if there was any aurora action happening, but nothing. Someone mentioned that it’s a long weekend this Monday, which apparently marks the end of summer. I’m starting to get a bit worried about this attempt at getting to the Arctic Circle, there’s no way I’m gonna ride there so I’m hoping to hitchhike, but not sure what my chances are.

Met a guy, Lejon, who’s planning on finding work on a fishing boat up in Seward.

It started raining last night and a very cold cross breeze was blowing through my part of the solarium. There were two other people sleeping in my area, one in a tent and another with a sleeping bag on a reclining chair like me. Everyone else in the solarium is in the more sheltered areas, but I found it far too stuffy there. So I contested with the biting winds and still I refrained from putting on my beanie or zipping up the bottom of my sleeping bag. I learned many months ago that leaving my feet sticking out the end of the sleeping bag was the only way I could regulate my body heat and not wake up soaked in sweat. I woke up several times in the night but no aurora because of the rain.

When we arrived in Valdez at 3am the ship’s female pursuer seemed to take great pleasure in making as many loudspeaker announcements as possible. Then security personnel started waking each of us up to see who we were. By this time I was alone in my solarium, the smarter pair had withdrawn to warmer and dryer locations.

In the morning I found out from Lejon why there had been so much commotion in Valdez. Apparently when Lejon had first got on the boat he’d been accosted, like many other people by a guy called Paul. Paul, who everyone had nicknamed Jesus, spent his day talking to most people about faith and God.