Prince William Sound, Alaska.  March 1998. Matt and his co-workers were hired to use the company’s boat The American Patriot to drag a grappling hook along two proposed fiber-optic cable routes, monitoring line-tension to determine whether there were any impediments.  The crew met and loaded the boat at the harbor in Astoria, Oregon. They spent a week doing the first part of the project off the coast of Bandon, Oregon. Then the crew headed for Prince William Sound, Alaska, sailing north up the Inside Passage and making port stops at Whittier, Valdez and Juneau.  Matt reports they had to dig the big cleats and bollards out from under snow to tie their boat up in Whittier.

Fortunately, the only impediment the grappling hook snagged was an old WWII telephone cable, which was not marked on any charts or records.  It took three weeks to determine what the cable was for.