So Neglectful

Yes, I've been a bad blogger. BAD SARA! BAD BAD SARA!

Had the most harrowing take-off of my brief bush teaching career. This afternoon, I had to go into Bethel for our last (!) New Teacher Inservice. Waiting at the airport where there were no buildings, I noticed even more than in the village how windy it was. The guy who gave me a ride there (the local agent for that specific airline) said about 40 knots or so. The plane landed, but wasn't able to turn the corner to meet us on the access area (where trucks and cars and stuff pull up to the planes). So we drove out onto the (still gravel) runway.

Got into the plane, which was shaking quite nicely in the wind, mind you. The pilot turned to me and said "We're going to take off going this way, it that all right with you?" He kind of gestured out in front of the plane.

I nodded, mostly out of good midwestern politeness, without really taking the time to think about it. Bush pilots generally know their shit. Only after the engine had started up did I look out the front of the airplane... we only had maybe 1/3 of the runway in front of us. This is not a long, paved, can-land-jets kind of runway to start with, so 1/3 of it is pretty dang short.

I think to myself, he's not going to go that way, I must have misunderstood him. Oh, but I didn't.

So we start moving forward. Now, I know that you're supposed to take off into the wind, but I figured we'd go to the other end of the runway, or at least part of the way down, before turning around and taking off. But noooooooooooooooo. We just went. Straight forward, towards the place where a few orange airport cone thingies marked the place where the runway drops off into the tundra.

I'm usually a fairly relaxed flier and I pride myself on not shrieking or tensing up when we go over big wind bumps, but I'll freely and gladly admit that were I not a compulsive nailbiter, I would have had fingernail marks on my hands from clenching them so tightly. We made it into the air going pretty slow (strong winds are good for that) and climbed basically straight up. I'd never ascended that quickly in a bush plane before.

Maybe I should have said "No, it's not OK if we take off on this little mini-chunk of runway. Turn around and do it proper." But from what the pilot told me after we landed, turning the plane around in that wind would have flipped it over... that's why he didn't make the turn to come over to the loading/unloading area. So had I said no, I would have had a choice to either get off the plane or suck it up and take it like a woman.

Got to Bethel just fine and am now relaxing at the bed-and-breakfast (or what passes for one in Bethel) with a friend from another village. Said friend informed me that calories don't count in Bethel (the stress of being in Bethel makes up for any calories that you take in). I decided that was a wonderful thing and proceeded to order a double bacon pineapple cheeseburger.