A Mailbox

We must officially be Canadians now, we have our own PO Box!

PO Box 34

Denny Island, BC V0T-1B0

Here's how we got it.

The post office is inside the grocery store in Shearwater (I'll do a "shearwater" post soon with pictures). I had been in the grocery store about a 50 times, and finally remembered to ask about a PO Box. So I go up to the desk.

"Hi there, I was just wondering what the process looks like to get a PO Box"

"Um- do you live here?"

"Yes, we live in Whiskey Cove on our sailboat in front of Ian and Karen's house"

"OK"

She looked at the boxes and gave me my choice of box numbers, then went behind her desk, found the piece of paper with the keys for that number attached, and brought it over to me.

"Sign here"

"Can we also put John's name on it"

"Sure, just sign for him too"

Then she handed me the keys, and I left. It was free.

When I got back to the boat, I scrounged up the keychain I have not carried since we left Seattle and attached our new box keys. Then I tossed the keychain back into the depths of the nav statio.

When we need to pick up our mail, I will simply ask for our mail. They know who we are. 

*important note: Sending us things is expensive and very slow so do it if you dare, but be sure to allow a few weeks for it to reach us.

Going 'up the mountain'

I've mentioned before (like here) that one of the projects we've been working on is a site at the top of a mountain behind Bella Bella. It is here that we have a relay site complete with a tower, wind turbine, solar panels, transmitter radios, and a big box full of batteries and electrical gear. I thought I might walk through what a trip 'up the mountain' entails, since it's not as simple as it may seem.

First, we load everything we might possibly need, and a bunch of stuff we probably don't need, into a boat.

 

Then we drive the boat over to Bella Bella, 5-10 minutes (depending on the boat and how much stuff we're taking). John drops me off on a breakwater and I scurry up the rocks to where the truck is parked. He takes the boat over to the dock, I drive the truck down and meet him. Then we take all of that stuff we might need and all the stuff we probably don't and unload it from the boat, cart it up the dock (best to do when the tide is high) and load it into the truck.

Then we drive this truck:

 

Up this road:

Which turns into this road:

And park it here:

(where's waldo?)

Then we unload the stuff again and hike it up the last 300 feet through ankle-deep mud and over roots and dump it all here

Then the very next thing we do is start a fire, because the bugs are so bad up here we are unable to get work done.

 

 The smoke helps a bit, but it is still a tough work environment! 

Then we stop and enjoy this view for a few minutes

Before finally getting down to work. This particular trip, we stayed up there for 27 hours because we had to recharge the deep cycle batteries from well beyond discharged. This involved hooking up 2 generators to 3 chargers to 4 batteries for 15 hours.

The chargers, working overtime trying to revive the batteries

We slept in the truck and got up occasionally to check on the system and refuel the generators. Once the batteries were recharged, we did various other tasks, like wiring in a low voltage disconnect (so we don't have to recharge the batteries from 6 volts to 24 volts again), and replacing one of the wind generator blades (it was broken, which was why the batteries drained in the first place)

Then we load everything back into the truck, drive back down the road, unload everything from the truck, carry it down the dock, load it into the boat, park the truck down the street, drive the boat back to the house, and unload everything one more time into the shop.

So when I say we're going 'up the mountain', it's not a small feat.

Sunday cruises

Although we basically live with our bosses, our jobs inherently come with a lot of autonomy. We dictate when we start and finish, what tasks take priority, and when we spend time in the field. Coming from an hourly position, this is something to get used to.

To keep us from working seven days a week (and to keep the growth off the bottom of our poor boat) we have instituted a Sunday Sail. We take at least part of every Sunday off from work and go sailing. Or if it's really crummy, we go motoring, drop the anchor, and goof off. We have even been able to cajole a few new friends into joining us on these sails.

The first time we went, Alex, the bar manager at Shearwater, set up a wetbar in our cockpit and made martinis all afternoon, while simultaneously entertaining us on his guitar. 

The next week, Alex couldn't go but Jaime and Pete, who own a Contessa 26 (sailboat, 26', also dark blue hull), met us in an inlet where we dropped the hook and rafted up (they tied their boat to ours). We didn't sail, because it was POURING down rain, but we donned our rain gear and went for a kayak anyway. I have discovered a very useful fact living in the northwest: there is only so wet you can get. Once you are saturated, there is nothing left to do but ignore the water dripping into your eyes and down your sleeves and through your socks and just have fun!

 

 That's Jaime

 

 It was still so beautiful, despite the painfully large raindrops.

The next Sunday sail was the opposite. We still didn't get any sailing done because it was very calm, but that was OK because the sun was out and it was warm! 

 

 Just look at the difference :)

The boys (John and Pete) went fishing, but came back empty handed, 

 

so I went out to show them how it was done, and came back with a salmon (by the time we got back to the boat and my camera, the salmon was not in a picture-worthy state...)

And the lesson is: rain or shine, take a day off!

A little more about what we do

Here is the link to a video that gives a bit more information about one piece we are working on.

It was filmed about 2 years ago, when the project was in it's pilot program.

http://tidescanada.org/support/pacific-wild/

If the link doesn't work, go to tidescanada.org, and search for PacificWILD.

We eat like kings

Here is our meal last night. One Dungeness crab (for you east-coasters, this may not sound like a lot- but check out the size of that crab! One easily makes a meal), boiled in salt water and dipped in old bay/butter; one half of a salmon, baked in a caramelized onion glaze; two ears of corn, grilled in garlic butter.

The salmon was alive 5 hours before dinner, the crab- 1 hour.

The whole meal cost us approximately $3.