Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Why I haven't blogged. by JDPlumma:

I should start around 2:30 AM, Saturday:

The alarm beckoned as it was the right
time to drag my groggy arse up and get
some java in me to enable driving across

an empty city for morning coffee before
the highway was met with headlights
on, no less. There was a smell of success
lingering in the air from the start.

The PMI crew that was available to go
met at the shop about 3:30 to load gear,
coolers, and eats and car pool to Seward

for an all-day outing in the Gulf of Alaska.


We got out of Seward Boat Harbor around
7 AM and had about 2 1/2 hours of traveling
to reach fishing grounds. Resurrection Bay
has small numbers of Coho, yet, and would
take most of the day to catch a limit for the boat.



If we could have just kept Calvin out of
the bait. He might have gotten the idea
that it was set out for snacks to compliment
our cheap beer.


Joe - on the other hand - found the trip out
to be a perfect time to catch up on much needed
sleep and meet the hangover awaiting him
from a night of drinking. The morning beer
probably softened the blow, right? So did
numerous power naps throughout the day.



Calvin obviously had jealousy issues over Joe's
little nap and decided to have his own. It could
have been the half-rack of cheep beer he
consumed before 1 pm, but I'm suspecting
the Canadian herring bait breakfast.


Good day on the Gulf as the weather seemed to
welcome us peacefully and never blew up.


Although it took us just over an hour, all
of us had our limit of silvers and went out
deeper for flat fish. No big halibut was
caught on this fine day, but we had plenty
of smaller 'but to retrieve from the 250 foot
depth.


One big Ling was caught (with the
salmon head soaking) and a couple of
Yellow-eye added color to the bins full
of salmon and halibut.


After driving down to AP that night, about 5
hours of sleep was absorbed in a blink and
progress was made with the help of near
everyone in the pit. Stan and Terry were
an excellent crew to work with, as they were
energetic and motivated. We recruited the
pit dwellers for brute force when the big
walls needed standing and Tad stuck with
us after he awoke around 1 pm. It was
definitely a productive day come 5:30 pm
and I turned a lap around the pit to load
up belongings, say thank yous and
goodbyes, and hit the road North to LA.



Carpenter's tip:
Always remember where you laid the last two
rows of sheet nails down that are needed to
complete nailing off the siding. If you can't
remember where, look for the tall spot and
pull a couple of nails to retrieve them. This
was the Eagle's end of the sheet when we
positioned it. One would expect attentiveness
but his mind was, probably, planning a good
salmon smoke
for his wolf buddy - thus, forgiven.


And I haven't posted until now due to exhaustion
and the clock running me over with every move.
My apologies for slacking off, 'net peeps.
This week, we see Josh off to his next stage
in training and Heath & Erica back to Nebraska.
Another trip down is planned for this weekend
to continue with construction before leaves fall.
Maybe, in the pit, I can get some rest for my
tired body.....right!?

some pictures weren't posted here due to the
theft of one of my best shots of the cabins.


5 opinionated prattle:

Heidi said...

You shouldn't have shown me were you keep the. Remember in a good marriage whats yours is mine and what mine is mine. luv ya!

Stan Harrington said...

You were shooting nails, therefore it should be the "shooter's" responsibility to remember where he laid his ammunition or at a minimum look at what you are shooting. By the way, have you seen my cats paw? Have not been able to locate it but there is a distinctive bulge in the sheeting on the south side of the cabin. Never saw a charter boat that had to revert to deck loading their catch, were your fish holds full of chilled beer?

john r mclay said...

Yeah, we deck-loaded it.
We had a top ADF&G officer as a guest of the boss and his daughter - the sky's the limit, right?
The fish were, actually, just out to be filleted on our way in.

Stan Harrington said...

Worked a little today on your cabin. Framed in your second door, did not cut it out until we finished installing the loft. Took awhile to figure out the loft, thought we had made an error but lady Eagle assured me that you were aware that part of the door will be under the loft since you moved your door further from the front. Took an inventory of the 2x8 stock, took awhile to fiugure out what went where, I think I have it right but if not to late, I started cutting! Got it framed in today and secured to the side walls, will install the floor joists tomorrow. Hard to handle a 2x8 that length by yourself, but I improvished an apprentice out of scraps of wood and nails. Only had to pull the outside wall in 1/4of an inch to square everything up. The only problem that I see, you may want to but the head of your bed on the south wall as that side of the loft is about 2.5 inches higher than the north wall, that will give you a little extra head room on the north wall if that is where you plan you stairway to your bungalo. I also took stock of 2/x6's, we may need a handful of them to complete the roof, if you recall, we used several extra studs in the wall to insure we had solid structural support for the sheeting. If needed, we can pick those up in Homer so no need of you to haul a load of lumber down on the roof of your Volkswagon bus. Between, catching silvers, I think we should be able to roof it this weekend. Lady Eagle saved all the plastic from the other roofing job so we can conver it until we get a weekend to lay shingles. I wonder if Josh has any leave coming from the Army?

john r mclay said...

Good thinking - with grade to the loft, and all. Hate for water to not shed right. Did you drill scuppers in the lower side wall to eliminate pooling, also?

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