The Boys

I apologize, no pictures BUT!  They are in with a another boat on a Claim and working the Ace In The Hole as well! The Ace has been on a nice vein, weather permitting.  The larger boat the boys are on has potential.  

Day 26

 

Headed Home

 

 Boats and Gear ready for the weather to let up!

 View of Nome Terminal from the COMBI plane (half passenger seating and half cargo).

 

Olympic Mountain range.

 

Bitter sweet...accomplished the goal but needed more time. 

Time and weather was my nemesis! 

The rest of the team will stay until closure of the season, I will occasionally post their progress as I receive pictures.



Day 25

 

Weather Day - Road Trip to Council

 

 Unknown structure.

  Roadhouse at Safety Sound.

 Safety Sound on left and Norton Sound on right.

Red Fox enjoying a walk on the beach.

 Interesting encampment. 

 Remains of Council Solomon Rail Road.

 Old Dredge.

 Another Old Dredge on the Solomon

 Council!

 Road to Council?



Nome - Modes of Transportation and Pets

Commuter vehicles

 Liquor store run...

 Pretty awesome, never have to worry about a flat.

 

Miners mobilizing material to their beach shanty.

 

Yes...That is a Caribou in the back of the Toyota

 

This little guys likes to hang out in his bag by the hours...no kidding!

Day 22

Rough seas...no diving today.

 

Fort Davis Wayside (Nome River mouth)

 

Polar Bears must be into tipping shitters over!

 

 

 Killing time down town



Day 21

 

Panning material from yesterday's operations 

 

 It's nice to see color (the yellow SPECKS are gold) but so far it's all "flower gold"

 

Today was spent correcting minor issues with our equipment.  The small boat engine is back running and ready to go back out tomorrow...if the weather allows!



Day 20

Heading out to begin dredging.

 

 Carburetor problems with the small boat lead to a long, wet and cold tow back to the Port of Nome. 

 Did I mention that it was a wet ride!

 

 Cleaning out the slues.  The dredge system worked great, but due to my lack of experience in operating the nozzle of the dredge we only had two hours of productivity, the rest of our time was spent wrestling with 30' of 6" diameter hose with 10% packed full of rocks (The dredge sucked so much material it plugged up, I kept the nozzle down and watched the ocean floor pour into it) 



 

We had are asses handed to us today!  The seas were mild, Rodney and I (the divers) fought the currents as the boat pulled the end of the nozzle all around the bottom of the sea floor (I muse how most objects retain there weight in water...except for the diver!).  Visibility was good but at times from our dredging plume we could not see our hands in front of our mask's.  All and all this was a successful day...we got material to process, first run of the dredge equipment worked as intended and...well...we finally did what we came to the Bering Sea to do.

Day 19

First launch

 

First dive in the Bering Sea

 Entering the water

 Emersion in the Bering Sea, first drop to the bottom with 2 foot visibility.

 

Today's operation was to test the diving equipment and make adjustments to our gear, run the boat through its paces.  Water temperature was approximately 40 deg.   



Day 18 Cont.

More Anvil Mountain Pictures

 

 Cold War Missile System 

 Seismic Monitoring System

 Anvil Mt. USGS survey monument (191??? vandalism has distorted the last number of the date)

A shed antler from a Caribou  

Rodney atop Anvil rock (Anvil Mt.)