Pre-season June 15, Day 16

Another long day in town. Two fish on this morning’s tide, but others that were breakfast for about 4-6 seals. We found the roller for the Ambi – it was upstairs in the stockroom – for I don’t know how long. I asked Roy to make us new hydraulic hoses, and he told me about food grade hydraulic oil which I thought was great, so we drained the old hydraulic oil and replaced it with … what smells like salad oil. It’s sort of complicated to get the power hose and the return hose properly hooked up, even though when Roy made it for us in the first place, he thought way ahead to make it as easy as possible.

The throttle on the power pack was stuck and messing with it, I pulled the little wire off the choke. Sigh. Harry fixed that for me – it took a little time, but he’s patient. Josh brought up the battery for the boat, we got it hooked up, installed the radio, got the little rabbit ears for the hose to test the outboard (without burning it up). It (finally) started, though the steering mechanism wouldn’t budge and the throttle cable looks and acts really corroded.

Josh and Jake got much of the painting done on the boats. The sides of the boats take a beating – pulling the nets over them so many times. It just scrapes the paint right off. So we should repaint each year. We needed a new plug for the Ambi. The one I brought from Seattle was too small, as was the one available from the stock room. Luckily, the one we found at Napa fit – yay!

The freezer saga continued, but I think with Roy’s help, David was able to complete the work and I think it’s running properly now. We put this afternoon’s catch of 20+ fish, headed and gutted, in it and turned it on to “MaxFreeze.” We’ll find out tomorrow how it worked. Those fish did raise the temp of the freezer from -10 to 23. Yikes!

We unpacked two black garbage bags of clothes from the net locker. Some perfectly wearable clothes – so we did five loads of laundry. Josh and Jake got them started; I finished them.

Roy cut us a new fairlead for the Grayling – I think that one is ready now. Tomorrow we’ll get the Bathtub ready. That requires the placement of the roller and power pack (after checking its oil and gas) and replacing the hydraulic oil with the food grade oil, and the installation of the Yamaha 60 – it’s a great outboard, but it’s heavy!! As well as finding and installing the plug in the boat, getting out the accessories (fairleads, bailing buckets, anchor, fuel tank… and nets! I think we’ll bring nets this time -- uh oh, we can't find them!)

They brought down the Bathtub and Roy said he’d try to get the nose cut off the New Boat. It’s really pointy and hard on the nets.

Bob and Erik have achieved water at the edge of the cliff! They used a submersible pump out at the glorified pond we call a lake, 600' of romex electrical cable to run power out to it and 600' of hard plastic hose to run water from it. It accumulates in a barrel at the edge of the cliff and gravity helps it over and down the cliff where we'll use it to wash down. That will be great! And the siphon is enough to refill the barrel. Even better!

And my tundra-ator can testify to the water in the tundra. The tundra-ator is a hole in the floor of the cabin with a basket in it where I keep food that needs to remain chilled. Out of the sun and 18" away from the permafrost, it does a pretty good job. But every now and the, it floods. It was hard on a bag of smoked salmon which had to become Sage's dinner. Dang.

Paul came in today. It was great to see him. He’s like one of my kids. I think he named Lynnie's cabin: "What's with the SpaceHut?" He's the one who, when he came in 2007 the first time, crested the cliff and announced, "This is the most-ghettoest place I've ever stayed. It's cool."

Harry will go out tomorrow and won’t return this season because of his injured knee. It is very difficult for him.

Liz