Arrival

Today I got up at 5 am. Well, I get up at 5 am every day these days, but today seemed especially long. I'm feeling a little tired for extra words, so the pictures will have to do.

We got to SCMI at about 6:30 in the morning. They were loading the boat with our stuff. Remember these wooden crates that keep following me around?

Brian used the crane to lift the crates, suspended by straps

and swung them out over the water, high in the air

and lowered them onto the boat.

View as we departed San Pedro--there's the Port of Los Angeles behind us.

Crossing the Channel looks like... well, it looks like pictures of the ocean. More ocean. Pelicans. I did not see a whale, or anything interesting like that. This morning was glassy calm.

First view of Catalina Island from the boat that isn't foggy and indeterminate.

Approaching the marine lab.

I should point out that everyone on dock, as well as everyone on the boat, did not hesitate to make fun of us (me) for bringing a lot of stuff. Arrival was a patient process. I knew it would take a long time. Everyone was happy to see me, even the people who only knew me by my reputation. It feels really good to be back.

More images of our stuff dangling over the water.
This shrink-wrapped pallet includes the 15 lbs. of corn chips pictured in a previous post.

The crane at the lab is remote-operated.

From there on, it was all uphill.

I asked nicely, and he dismantled the railing on the 3rd floor balcony
so he could fork our stuff up over the side and onto the walkway next to the lab.

Up!

Yeah. I brought 9 crates. That's right.

They also ended up bringing over about a third of our stuff last Thursday (this included my clothes and my own personal stuff). We spent about an hour running around trying to find all that, and carrying the rest of our stuff to the dive locker or uphill to our apartment. We got to unpack all the cheese and fruit from the astounding Costco run yesterday, and play the game of stuffing it into a normal-sized fridge.

Our lab space. Altogether, we get 7 of these room sectors, totally empty.
Might have to find a few more chairs.

So now we get to work!
Scraping all the caulk from the tanks so that we can re-caulk them.

Caulking has to be done first, or almost first, so that it has time to dry before we fill the tanks with water. This is arguably one of the most important jobs for the whole season. It doesn't seem like it until the caulk leaks and there is a flood on the 3rd floor at 5 am on a Sunday.

Some of the rest of our crew arrived on the afternoon passenger boat, and helped with the tanks.

Assembling light frames and mounting light banks.

The Boss gives an impromptu lesson in electrical repair.

Somewhere in there we ate dinner. Then we went back to the lab. Tomorrow we do it some more, until we get the lab fully set up.

I'm going to bed.