June 15: All the nets in the water

Big day today - we were able to launch two skiffs, the smallest two and the simplest: the Bathtub and the Grayling. The Beach Gang guys pick the skiff up with their big forklifts and carry it down the hill to the dock.
Then they put it into slings - one under the bow and the other under the stern - and the crane operator (Mike the Crane Master) lifts it, swivels the crane and its load and lowers it into the water. Here is a photo of our boat being lowered:



Oh, no -- wait! That's not our boat. This one is. This is our Grayling.












The crew then climbs down, hangs on to the pilings,
tries hard to get the outboard started, slides off the sling straps, tries to appear to maintain control of the vessel and gets away from the scary dock and current as soon as possible, heading to our sites.

















Roger drove the Bathtub down,
with Evan, Yin and me as crew.
























I just couldn't resist adding this picture of Evan.














Back to business. Jeff, in his first hours here, had to jump into the truck and head down the beach to tend the net before it went dry. We had planned to have Trevor pace us on the four-wheeler as we ran the two skiffs the 4 or 5 miles to the site. I don't completely trust them at the beginning of the season. But we had some delays in getting the boats in and I don't like anyone to tend the nets alone, so Trevor went down after him on the four-wheeler. The Bathtub finally arrived at the sites and found the Grayling crew waiting for us. We gathered up tag lines and v-lines and together put out the rest of the nets.

We decided not to go back into town to try to finish getting the Ambi ready - we'll start fishing the flood and the ebb now so we'll be getting up early. Instead I asked the crew to make more progress on the inside of the cabin and I finally remembered to pull out a box that I picked up at the post office for Jake when I first arrived. I figured he sent himself something. It turned out that it was something his mom had sent him last year! And that something was cookies. He said that he checked twice a day at the end of the season last year, but even though it was postmarked July 13, 2010, it didn't arrive before they left around July 25. I didn't get that gene that protects people from food poisoning. So I didn't object when they opened the year old cookies and tried them. (OK, I tried them too.) They were well wrapped. Jake said they shouldn't have had that minty flavor. And I thought they had a little
bit of a stale taste, but pretty good. Maybe they froze all winter long?

Must go - up at 3 for the am flood pick.