Saturday, April 13, 2013

Winter work and Cali Holiday



Hello All,
It has been a very long time since I posted. I have been just busy living and working, yes the four letter word. In late January My best friend Daren let me know about a boat repair job in the port town of Seward. The gentlemen that owns the boat, Jon Andrews, fishes with Daren and I have known him a long time also. I gave him a call and he was very interested in hiring me to help out. I spent 8 weeks replacing generators, removing old fuel tanks, redo plumbing for the fish hold and many other projects. The boat I was working on was built in Oregon in 1944. Her name is "Trask" and she is all wood and is 75 feet long. It was a lot of fun to work on such a boat with so much history.

I was just days from finishing the project when I had committed myself to a 14 day holiday in California. Jon was supposed to be out fishing by the time my departure date came to pass but he managed to do the last finishing touches with out me there.

I went out to Sacramento California to mainly visit my grandma Morris that I havent seen since I had my boat in San Francisco Bay in 2009. She had been keeping track of my travels via my aunt Jill that made copys of my blogs because grandma doesnt have a computer. She showed me the stack of paper blogs, they stacked about 10 inches high. We had a great visit and I also got to spend Easter with my Uncle Mart and Aunt Jill and their 3 children. Everyone is getting a little older and the kids are getting so big. From Sacramento I went to visit cousins in the bay area, Bob and shelly, an old crew member Dan and a cruising couple that I had met in Fiji and New Zealand. They are working in Richmond at a Marina living on there boat. I spent 4 days around the bay and had a great time with with everyone. From there I went to Reno and saw my Uncle Jim and aunt Lynn and spent a weekend in the high desert.

It was really nice to see everyone and get warm after a really long winter here in the far north.

This summer I will be working as boats engineer on the Trask, the boat I worked on, and will be tendering for salmon in Prince William Sound. That means we will be anchored where the small boats are fishing and gather their catches, keeping them refueled and what ever needs they may have so they can be close to the fishing grounds without having to go to town. I have never done this before so should be a very interesting experience. I will have my computer with me out on the water so I will be bloging my adventure through the 4 month season.

That has been my winter in a nut shell and I will be keeping in touch as soon as the season starts.

PEACE