I have been working a lot, that is for sure. Pretty much as soon as I got here on Wednesday I was put to work. It seems that the oven onboard has been acting up lately, and the morning before I arrived it had produced an soot explosion which had covered the inside as well as the outside of the boat with soot. By time I got in, the inside was clean except for the floor, but the deck was far from it. Jonathan and myself have been involved in the task of cleanup the last few days, as well as a fair amount of other chores including changing the engine oil, retrieving the extremely large fishing net out of storage, loading the net onto the boat, removing the old and torn net OFF the boat, replacing the anchor chain and cable, replacing rigging lines, greasing various deck hardware, and installing the huge block which the net runs through. Tomorrow we get a day off though, so that will be nice.
The kids here seem pretty cool, and I believe that they feel the same about me. There are several different groups which hang out together, and I've interacted with a few of them already. Right now I am still just trying to meet everybody, then I'll attempt to become more familiar with them. I'm not sure how much I will really end up hanging out with them, it depends on how often we have to return to Cordova due to breaking something on the boat.
As we were landing in Juneau I snapped a few pictures before my batteries died on me. Here are a couple:
Only 12 days until the fishing season opens for the first species of salmon. It turns out that there are something like 3-4 different species which we will fish for during the summer. So while we won't be fishing for one species throughout the summer, we will be busy with some sort of salmon the whole time.
Anyways that is my trip so far. More to come in the next few days.
-Jack
