Today we decided to go shooting. Matt has several rifles and we both wanted to go shoot the shit outta somethin. Matt has a 22, a .270, and a 30-06. The only rifle I’ve ever fired is a 22 so I was eager to try my hand at something bigger. We saw a fairly large ship in Mill Bay so we stopped to take a look. We had actually passed it while on the Celeste the previous day. Turns out it’s bringing Kodiak its first fiber optic cable; so that should help phone and data latencies immensely (something that driven me a bit crazy on this trip).

We headed out towards Termination Point, stopping at a few places before choosing a nicely secluded beach. We scrounged around for some appropriate target materials, set them up about 80 yards away, and loaded up the 22. I did pretty well with my first magazine, getting 5 on the 6 inch target, one more in the backing, and one misfire. Then it was on to the .270, which I was a bit leery to fire. Matt has an optical scope, so that made things easier although I managed to smack myself in the forehead with the recoil on the first shot. Son of a bitch. I should have known better.

We had some visitors at that point, so we stopped and explored the area. There was a stream emptying out onto the beach and there were fish still trying to swim up it. I couldn’t believe how many fish there were in this little waterway. After a bit, Matt and I decided to move on to another location to shoot the 30-06. We found a place that a lot of people seem to use for shooting crap. There were spent shells, electronics, targets, broken bottles, you name it, all over the ground.

So we set up our targets and loaded up the 30-06. It is an HK semi-auto and that thing is badass. I would tense up so much in anticipation of the recoil that I don’t think I got one round on target. But it was fun and now I have a better sense of how much power is in such rifles. I think I’ll stick to the smaller bores for a while.

Then we headed to the beach at Termination Point and hiked around a bit. Matt knew about this great overlook above the beach where I got some great pictures. After we headed for a party at one of Matt’s co-workers, the chief engineering officer. I had a hard time doping out who everyone was and how they knew each other. But it was good food and interesting to listen to all the coasties talk about coastie things. We had initial plans to go out for drinks afterwards, but we were pretty pooped. So we headed back the house where Andy, Betsy, and Renee were also planning to stay in for the night. We played an interesting game of DVD Roullette, switching the discs every half hour or so. It was a nice, quiet, final evening here on Kodiak.