So, didn’t get another run. So I am in Seattle for awhile. Classes start in May. Taking French classes until then.  Give me a shout if you want to get together in Seattle!
Archive for April, 2007
Woke up to find dolphins surrounding the boat as we approached Beaver Cove last month.
Hoping to get one more run before I start school again in May. Since the trip leaves on Friday, and I haven’t heard back, I am assuming I am not going.
This winter has been really great, and I have really enjoyed my job. Made a full on committment to Dunlap last week, and we signed a non-binding agreement that I would stay after I get my license, and they promised best intent to hire me as a mate.
If we treat people as they are we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
Will be back in Seattle tomorrow morning. Hopefully I can get back out immediately - possibly next week on a South East Run if I am lucky. If I don’t, then I am set back pretty bad. I’ll be 40 days behind, and be out one month of pay.
This part of sailing is the most frustrating part.
Babbington looked wretchedly from one to the other, licked his lips and said, “I ate your rat, Sir. I am very sorry, and I ask your pardon.” “Did you so?” said Stephen mildly. “Well, I hope you enjoyed it.” “He only ate it when it was dead,” said Jack. “It would have been a strangely hasty, agitated meal, had he ate it before.” said Stephen.
Last night the fellows at Harmack had finished offloading our chips. We cast off lines at 0100 and started for Beaver Cove to get a load of Hog Fuel.
I now understand what Hog Fuel is, as I got a complete tour of the Harmack Mill. It seems an oiler there had just finished all his daily duties, but still had an hour left of his shift. He found me walking off the dock and into the plant to stretch my legs. Out of want of something productive to do, and no small amount of reserved pride, he showed me the whole process.
I saw that our chips were already being processed, sorted and heated in a soup that goes through several stages finally becoming a white cardboard like material that is cut in about 2 meter square sheets, stacked and wrapped by larger sheets and automatically wrapped in heavy baling wire. These 600 pound blocks are stacked into 2 ton pallets and metal strapped down.
The machinery in the final packing phase was fascinating. It has to be packaged precisely, because robots at the customer sites (paper mills) grab the blocks and cut the wire - then the whole block is dissolved, wrapper and all, to be once again soup to be made into paper.
Kind of like paper bouillon.
This is a hungry plant, consuming a barge worth of chips a day, and since the local mills are all closed, it must come from somewhere else. By now, 48 hours after we docked at Harmack, all of our chips are in the warehouse as pulp sheets, ready to be put on a ship to Germany, Korea or Japan.
For the last month, we have been going to Gray’s Harbor or Klawock to get more chips for the beast, but now we are on a different mission. Whether because chip prices are low, or too high - or hog fuel price is low, or demand in California is high, or it’s just time for more - we are going to get hog fuel, since we are now close to Beaver Cove - where they have lot’s of it.
Any way, hog fuel is the knots and bark which gets sorted out of the chips. We don’t take Harmack’s hog fuel, because they burn it to generate steam for their own power.
So, we heading to Beaver Cove to get some to take to Eureka, California to be burned to generate electricity. Because the assist boat runs bankers hours, we have been cracking on at 10.5 knots all night in order to get there by 1600. However, upon calling them this morning, the Captain discovered the plant is closed for Easter — and there is nowhere to tie up. So, no we are putting along at 3-4 knots, killing time so that we will arrive tomorrow morning. Our regular cruising speed is 8.5 knots.
Bonus: ran thru a pod of dolphins as the sun rose.
Man wants to see nature and evolution as separate from human activities. There is the natural world, and there is man. Butt man also belongs to the natural world, and if he is a ferocious predator, that too is part of evolution. If cod and haddock and other species cannot survive because man kills them, something more adaptive will take their place. Nature, the ultimate pragmatist, doggedly searches for something that works. But as the cockroach demonstrates, what works best in nature does not always appeal to us. Mark Kurlansky, “Cod” 1997
The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.
Passing thru again on our way to Canada. All is well, weather is calm but chilly. Should be a good passage thru Dixon Channel.
Been reviewing my Stowage and Cargo Handling books. It’s hard to keep this stuff in my head, as we don’t use this information much. But it’s good to know.
Going to cook chicken curry tonight. Don’t have all the spices, but I’ll wing it. Let’s see how the crew reacts.
