Anchors Aweigh!

 

Today has been an interesting day around here.  Some studies and sampling are being done on the Musconetcong River, which is just across the parking lot from our rig and the office trailer.  It’s a small parking lot, so it’s really just a hop and skip and there ya are at the river! 

To do the studies, a pontoon boat was needed.  Since there’s no boat ramp, getting a boat the size of this one into the Muskie was a bit . . . interesting.

The boat – those cylindrical things on top are additional pontoons that will be deployed once in the water.  They are on both sides.

The crane.  Yes, a crane! 

Notice that the parking lot is white in the two photos above?  Well, it started snowing during this process and was coming down pretty good for quite a while.  Made standing outside taking photos a bit fun.  Had two cameras going for a while.

 

It was indeed a process to get to this point.

 

Almost there . . .

 

Success!

The launch process took close to two hours and went smoothly.  Pretty impressive.  Following this photo, they turned around to the bank again and deployed those additional pontoons on the sides and finalized setting up the boat before once again turning downstream and boogieing away.  As I type this, the process is being reversed.  Mission completed!

You can’t tell from the photos, but it was snowing during the entire launch process.

Cool, eh?

I say it’s like a garage sale around here.  It can be dead quiet for days or even weeks and them k a b o o m people swarming all over the place.  Not only were these folks here, but we had a couple of different crews and a visitor or two.  Crazy.

Well, it was a balmy 31F at one point this morning and we even saw a bit of sunshine for a while earlier this afternoon; however, it’s back to dull and dreary out.  I dashed to the grocery store for just a few things and I do believe I’m good to just stay here over the weekend.  Nice.

There’s talk of possibly another hefty snow storm early next week . . .

Well, we got a mail packet today, so I’d best tackle it and see what’s inside.

Thanks for stopping by!