We returned to less than stellar weather this spring so we spent some time inside, cabin cleaning.
Unfortunately, every time I cleared an area, JR brought in more things to pile there. With the weight of us, the snow, and rain in the logs we were hanging precariously low. I mean, waves were washing over the decks and lapping at the doorstep.
For too many years we have been looking at different air bladders and floatation devices. It had become time to act. With the time crunch, we went with the time-tested low tech method of putting barrels under the float.
Over time we have collected the odd barrel floating by (hope that's not because they escaped from under other people's floats!). We also made two quick (HA HA!) trips
Lar and I spent a day running down a local guy who dives for hire. Now here is a job not for the faint of heart, diving in Alaska. It was also not an easy task to find this guy. People truly move to Alaska to hide out. After driving around having numerous conversations with suspicious people or suspicious conversations with people along the line of we are looking for Jeremy and them saying Jeremy who, we gave up and went to the mail drop to wait on a plane. The island drums must have worked their magic because as we sat there up walks a guy who says he is the elusive Jeremy.
We agree on $100 an hour (chump change for this type of work) and the day of service. Then we had to hurry back to the float to ready the barrels. That consisted of, unreal as it seems, removing one of the bungs from each top. Larry siliconed the other bung in tight. The rule is, top bung in tight on the float barrels, bottom bung open. Who knows these things? Supposedly, magic air pressure keeps them in place and dry under the logs. We laid out our water bilge pump and our extra generator and air compressor and we were ready. I could hardly sleep a wink waiting for the dive day to arrive, but arrive it did.
Jeremy dressed in his wet suit and spoke not a word but slipped straight in the water. He didn't even shiver! Wrong story, but it felt like the wonderment of Christmas.
We had amassed 23 barrels for this first effort. This was by Jeremy's estimate about 60 barrels short of what is needed to raise the place but hey, he is the guy getting paid to put them in place.
Placing them consisted of us bilge pumping water in to each one until it sank enough that Jeremy could swim it under the space between two logs then he displaced the water with our air compressor and voila! We had rise!
It truly was that simple! He could place barrels as fast as we could sink them, about 10 per hour. As if all that swimming around in a balmy 40 degree ocean wasn't enough he started cutting off the fouling that had grown under the raft that was further weighing us down. The theory is you can stack barrels under a float like an upside down pyramid adding about 450 pounds of lift per barrel.
It may not be enough yet but we are all ready four inches above sea level and more ready for the next gale that will blow our way.
We were more than grateful to this intrepid diver for all his work and that was before he produced rock scallops that he found hitchhiking on the bottom of our home. All that floatation and dinner too. Where else but Alaska could you get that?
No comments:
Post a Comment