Hauled Out

Last weekend, I got word that the ferry was closed, again. In fact, it was closed for the same reason it was closed the last time. The computers that work the drives (which work the motors which work the propellers) were faulty. Last time it was the upstream drive, this time it was the downstream. The electricians told us they'd have the part by Tuesday, so we were closed until then. As usual when the boat is closed, I took Sunday off, cause a 4 day weekend is pretty great. On Monday, I showed up at the shops, and knew I'd end up working up at the WL ferry, since it's been hauled out of the water for the Coast Guard 5 year inspection, and a lot of maintenance. It was so very strange looking. The whole ferry, up the ramp and on blocks on solid ground. It suddenly seemed way huger than it looks in the water.

I spent the day at various odd cleaning and painting tasks. I took down ceiling tiles and painted them. As I took them down, thousands of tiny dead spiders rained down on my head. After painting the tiles, I cleaned the roof of the cabin, getting more dirt, grime and dead bugs in my hair and on my face. I was happy to find a face mask to wear for the cleaning. It was disgusting.

While several of us were puttering on the boat, painting and cleaning, some of the guys were setting up the barge to dredge, since the river was low and they were already kicking up rock before they closed.

Of course, the following three days, the river went up two or three feet, making it impossible to dredge. I'm not sure if they can dredge even now. Supposedly, once they eventually finish at the WL, they'll come down to the BV and dredge there too. I have no idea how that'll work out, whether they'll dredge at night, close the boat or what. I'm also curious what my participation will be. A coworker who was running the boat, which you can see to the left of the backhoe, said it wasn't that hard to do, and actually a bit boring. That'd work maybe.

I just realized as I wrote this post that I've now written 103 blog posts. I don't think I ever would have expected this blog to last 100 posts when I started!