6/2/07

Sent to town

I've spent the past three days in town and I can say with great assurance that I wish to spend no more time there. I awoke on Thursday (I think it was Thursday, my concept of days has receded to a vague outline with little bearing on day to day reality) to the news that I would be accompanying our fearless leader to town. We sent several shipping container from Seattle in April with most of our supplies for the season, including: fifteen thousand pounds of lumber, a seven thousand dollar Costco run (you should have seen the looks we got as we corralled thirty five of the big flat orange carts stacked with various essentials), a Kubota tractor complete with backhoe, auger, box blade and brush box, four brand new carolina skiff sixteen foot jon boats, nine new weaterports and four thousand dollars worth of new power tools. As a result we have been making daily runs to town on the tide with The Ark. Someone has to be in town loading the materials from the container, into vehicles and having it all ready to go when the boat arrives. I did not realize I would be the one staying in town until after we had left the dock and, as a result, I was grossly unprepared. Foremost on my list of items lacking were shoes and pants. Oh I had waders and boots, but those aren't really what you want to work, drive and eat in for three days. There were some items I borrowed at the house, so it worked but these are the details one likes to know about before hand.

Life in town breaks down like this. The phone begins to ring at four in the morning (this is because people on the east coast either don't realize where we are or don't understand time zones). At seven I begin answering the slew of calls from clients, prospective clients, my boss on his sat phone, his wife trying to figure out where he is, telemarketers and the occaisional wrong number for good measure. By nine I'm on my way to the shipping container to unload two van loads worth of equipment, having already picked up whatever other supplies they called me from camp requesting. At two(ish) the boat arrives and we scramble to get it loaded before the tide starts to recede, then I meet him at the gas docks to help him get fueled up for the return trip. Come five I'm exhausted and wind up going to the one bar in town and spending far more money than I earned in the course of the day and get home just about the time the phones start ringing again. Like I said; town sucks.

6/4/07

Home sweet weatherport.

Back in camp, I am glad to spend ten to thirteen hours a day, carrying lumber, building walkways, fixing boats and painting cabins...okay that last one is a lie. I hate painting cabins, but I really don't mind the rest of it. I finish my days sore and ready for sleep and wake up tired, but not hungover and broke. Best of all my weatherport is completed. Yes my glorified tent on the hill is erected and I am currently laying on my bed...

This message was just interrupted by the roar of the Ark. Just as I lay down to rest my bones the inevitable growl came rolling upriver with a load of gas and lumber. I can't wait to start guiding.

Despite my complaints, I am hopeful about this early push that we are making. Last year we were behind schedule and were forced to spend whole days guiding immediately followed by whole nights building. At this rate, we will have most everything done by the second week of clients, whereas last year it went until mid-July. I do not wish to repeat that experience. We are even ahead of schedule on our gas supply. The new boat allows us to transport so much at a time, it's amazing. Our load capacity went from three hundred gallons to nine hundred gallons. Last June, when the fuel barge pulled into the lower river we made a mad dash to get all our gas upriver in one night because they were leaving in the morning. Every boat, down to the smallest little jon was called into service running fifty miles down to the barge. At two am I was driving a nintey horse outboard up through the braids in the dark, bouncing off rocks and hoping I didn't run up a gravel bar. I had a three hundred gallon poly tank but the weight capacity of the boat only allowed me to take one hundred. Three miles from camp I ran out of gas in the engine tank, and pulled over to a mid river island to refuel. At that point I discovered a minor hiccup, my siphon hose was not long enough to reach the fuel line in the large poly tank, so despite my hundred gallons of gas, I was dry where it counted. As I was in the process of unhooking the hose from the bilge pump to extent my siphon, a thought occurred to me. "Maybe I should keep an eye out for bears". Lifting my head and turning my attention to my surroundings, I realized that I could see the outline of a bear swimming accross the river in the twilight. He was coming directly at me. Immediately I began yelling at the bear and banging a wrench on the aluminum boat. He changed direction slightly but still swam to the island on which I was stranded. He never made any attempt to board my vessel but I could hear him rustling in the grass near me. I stood my ground and yelled and banged until the next boat came behind me, about a half hour later. I don't need a repeat of that SNAFU, I'm glad to make a few extra trips pre-season and save myself that particular stress.