Pre-season June 16, Day 17

This is the next to last productive thing for the day. The last productive thing will be to take the truck to the beach access road to park it because we are due at the cannery tomorrow morning at 8 am, right at high water – and it’s about a 25 foot tide, so I’m not sure we’ll be able to get there via truck at that time.

The reason we need to be there at 8 am is because we will be poised, waiting for a break in this big wind we’ve been having, to drop the next two boats in. Mike, the crane operator, is afraid that if he picks up the skiff in this weather, it’ll become a kite. And we are all concerned that this is the weather for the season (not all that much fun in a skiff, especially in the surf break when we’re delivering to the trucks on the beach), so we need to be there, ready for a break in the weather, when they’ll pick it up and lower it down, and we’ll follow down the ladder and head back down to the sites. I sort of doubt that he’ll put us in on top of the tide. That’s more when the big boats go in - our skiffs require so little water that we can go in when they can’t, so it’ll probably be around 10 before we’ll get in the water. On the other hand, we do get a little priority when the weather breaks because we are so much lighter, we're more sensitive to the wind.

Tabs for the red truck arrived today and were installed (after tearing it in half removing it from the registration). It's good to be legal.

Harry went home today, not to return because of his knee. First, though, he helped me tow the New Boat up to Alfa welding to get the nose bobbed. It sounds like because of Roy’s help, Todd will be able to get to it fairly quickly. The bow has a really sharp point and as a result 1) it slices up the net as the crew pulls it up out of the water, resting the corkline on the bow peak; and 2) with such a pointy bow, there’s really only room for one person up there and it’s a job that requires at least two – that net is heavy.

They’ve been overly swamped at AGS with the acquisition of Baywatch. They didn’t really understand what it would take to get it running like an AGS plant, but I think they’re going to pull it off. A few things will be lost in the process – like some of the modifications to the New Boat, the mechanic-ing on the drift boat, all that stuff for all the fishermen, I think. Maybe next year will be a little calmer. It doesn’t take much to make friends with people this year, though. All I have to do is not crab at them for what they haven’t done and be grateful for what they have.

Today’s adventures involved changing out the hydraulic oil on the Bathtub, teaching splicing to Paul and Jeff, replacing the anchor in the Bathtub, dragging the New Boat to Alfa, removing the rowboat from the Grayling and bringing it down on the truck.

And Murphy is with us – last week I scheduled an interview for Thursday at 10 – what could I be doing at 10 on Thursday before the real fishing starts? Um, that’s probably the very moment in this entire week that Mike can drop us in. As Josh said, a conspiracy of circumstances…”Wait for it… wait for it… ah! There! Yes – 10 o’clock! Perfect!”

Liz