ARIZONA TO ALASKA

Ho! First post.

I'm going to bed. Good night.

Congratulations! When you get the station on the roof, better guy wire it well. Yes indeed snow. I've been watching it at the coastal dock. It lays a magic blanket over the ugliest scene. A couple of guys have been out tramping up and down the dock in it.

F/V Pavlov docked and unloaded frozen something in just a few hours time. I think they were in a hurry to get out before the weather turned bad (chuckle). F/V Alaska Mist is still there — can't figure out what they are doing. Such a big boat; so little activity.

A very strange looking truck spent several hours alongside Pavlov. I think it might have something to do with engine or AC maintenance. Here's a link to a photo of it:

Funny Truck

Have you seen it before and know what/who it is?

We had about 5mph winds today with a couple of gusts of 15, just enough to move a few leaves. Our high was 75º. We are supposed to cool down into the low 60s with a 30% chance of rain Friday.

Bogon - you stayed up late just to beat us to it didn't you? You should consider a lie in on Wednesday to recover from the exertion...

Dave, I had a look at that funny truck. It occurs that it may have taken a detour through some Mardi Gras celebrations and exited covered in bells and whistles feeling like it had gotten a whole new lease of life after UPS.

Now down to the serious business.
Dave, in your bank of monitors that you doubtless have set up in a NASA style configuration you should pay close attention to any UFO's this week. We need co-ordinates, description and ideally still photo's.

It's the only way he's going to find that weather station again.

i thought i was the only one up at ths time of day 3:30 am (now 4;30), i too sat and watched the snow falling on the docks and thought how beautiful, then grabbed my coffee cup because even tho its 75 here i was suddenly cold. talk about mind control..lol..80mph is definetly high, wonder where HOPPY was in all this? congrats joe on finally getting it up and running,,stayed tuned for joe's weather station report :) meant in the best way of course.

Oh, I think any UFO would probably look a lot like a pre-fab house with blue siding with some peculiar looking antenna on top.

I think Joe's place is almost on top of a ridge with respect to the wind direction. I'd be sure that it was well anchored before worrying about the weather station.

Way back in the 70s, folks in Casper, Wyoming who lived in trailer houses always guyed their trailers thoroughly. If they didn't they would get blown over on their tops at the first strong storm.

I feel like a very proud grandmother!

Congrats weather station momma. You have just given birth!

Please forgive me, Joe, for taking your blog off track, I didn't want to e-mail you personally since, though we have talked a time or two over the past several months, you don't really know me well, so I didn't think e-mailing you would be appropriate.
Anyway, I thought I might ask you for some assistance. I have decided, partly motivated by your stories....maybe accounts would be a better word. It has been a lifelong dream of mine to live and work in Alaska. If you don't follow you dreams, all that's left to do is die.
I am finding it hard to find information about employment opprotunities there though. There seems to be an abundance of employment services but they all charge from mid-priced to large fees, and the Alaska employment agency (I can't think of the exact title of the agency) repeatedly advises against paying these services as many of them do nothing more than send a listing of businesses and their phone numbers/addresses, calling it a "job hunting guide"
So, anyway, I thought perhaps seeing as you are "on the ground" there, perhaps you might be able to point me in one direction or another.
If you don't know or don't want to, no hard feelings, I certainly wouldn't want to put you out or to any hassle, if so it's up to you if you want to e-mail me or just post it, whatever. I'd appreciate whatever help you can offer.

Midwest: Trident Seafoods had some listings on CareerBuilder.com. not sure what they were or anything but might wanna try some of the career sites and just put alaska in maybe? hope it helps.

I tried that, nearly everything that comes up turns into a series of links that ultimately asks for my credit card number. I somehow neglected career builder and now that I think of it, I also forgot about Monster.

MidWestChaser,
I just took a look as Monster.com. They have all sorts of jobs listed. Here's the link:

Link

I don't know what sort of work you're looking for, but there seems to be a good variety. But, I think a key to success in trying to locate in a remote, somewhat unique place is to go with the local flow. Adapt. Good luck.

Oh, shipboard jobs seem to be mostly unionized from what I can tell.

Thanks alot, I can't access that right now but I will deffenitely check it out later.

Thanks alot Joe!
I've got a bit to work on tonight, and I'll see where that takes me.

Joe, I've been watching a lot of the action unloading the Clipper Epic. Where it's docked has given me the clearest and closest view yet of dock operations out of any of the boats that I've watched.

I see these frozen flat boxes or bags coming out of the boat's hold in slings consisting of two long loops which are stitched to some sort of mat about 4' square. The loops are drawn up into the crane's hook for hoisting the load evenly. Bags, sling and all get dropped onto a pallet which the dock crew places under the suspended load.

I assume there must be some supply of these cargo slings on the boat. What puzzles me is that, as the fork lift drives off with its load, it looks like the sling has been removed. Also, I occasionally capture an image where a dock worker is folding one of them up or dragging it off to somewhere.

Do these slings get recycled back to the boat or do they remain with the load but hidden? If they are removed and recycled, how do they get them out from under what must be at least 1000 lbs of load?

This is a case where 1 movie = 1000 snapshots!

Me again Joe,
I may have just answered my own question by capturing the missing image. It looks like these slings do stay with the load on the pallet.

I got a really clear shot of a load on a forklift with the straps clearly showing and all neatly laid out on top. I also saw a dock worker in good light and plain sight attaching an empty sling to the crane hook so that it could be hoisted into the ships hold. All of this in the same photo with the sun out and a clean lens on the camera.

I'd still like to hear your description of how this operation goes. Thanks Dave

I published what I thought were some interesting photos about the unloading of the Clipper Epic to my MobileMe Gallery. It illustrates all this sling, pallet and forklift stuff. In addition, I managed to capture the removal of the main hatch cover during the snow shower last night. Here's the link:

Unloading the Clipper Epic

Joe, I think I've been dealing with Epic all day too, now that I think about it. I've certainly wasted much of the day at it. Not really a waste %u2014 the ship was positioned the best for armchair observation than any boat yet. I could actually see some detail of what was happening.

I did see a flatbed truck with a white cab at one point. But I could only see about half its length. What puzzles me about a delivery at 7 PM to Epic is that it cast off and left about about 4:30 (?) your time.

I sensed that something was happening when they started loading 6 pallets of big white bags using a strongback with slings. That done, they parked the crane in its yoke. Minutes later a guy dragged the gang plank aboard. Minutes after that I see guys headed for the hawsers. Almost faster than I could capture the images, the lines were hauled in and the boat started to disappear out of the picture. The last I saw, it was well past Tuscarora Rock. No messing around!

I caught most of the action and have posted it to MobileMe:

Clipper Epic Departs

It was an interesting day.

P.S. Ah, that explains things. They should have webcams at more of the docks! I am a little confused %u2014 they didn't look like they were headed to Captain's Bay unless they are taking a scenic route.

DHaupt: Going to your link with the Clipper Ship was interesting. I NEVER see anything that busy when I look at these dock cameras. Wonder why. dotmom

dotmom,
I worked up a sweat reloading images and grabbing frames. Mac Grabber yields TIFF images that need to be run through PhotoShop to convert them to web-ready JPEGs. There was a flurry of activity while this ship was docked. They were unloading about a pallet/minute for several hours. Finally there was a change in the tide of action: they stopped offloading and started taking stuff on board. Then, suddenly, the crane got parked, lines taken in and away they went.

Joe, I think I know why Epic took off in the direction it did. First of all, that was the direction she was pointed. They couldn't turn her 180 in the narrow channel between the dock and Alyeska and needed to get to wider water, off the mouth of Dutch Harbor to do so. I broke for dinner and missed seeing her coming back headed for Captain's Bay and OSI.

dotmom, what I've noticed is that when the docks are busy, they are really busy. When they're not busy they are dead.

Thanks DHaupt. What you are doing is way to technical for me. All I can do is "refresh" and hope there is a change. I believe you are so right with the either busy or dead part. It is all very interesting though.