Stay in Seattle

Stay in Seattle

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My first morning there, I mentioned how I had been unhappy about never getting out at Labor Ready. So, Ben sent me to the Seattle Science Museum (I think it was the Pacific Science Center), but there was some confusion and they sent me home without work. Then Ben took a group of out to Trident Seafoods where they maintain their fishing boats. They had five fishing boats in for refurbishing/painting. To the left is the largest.
I was able to work on the Gladiator which is to the left here. A few years ago they had spent about a million dollars to have the Gladiator widened about six to eight feet. New the Gladiator probably cost about seven million dollars and has a crew of five (or captain and four). On the right is the Columbia which was not widened.
I spent most of my time on the Gladiator painting with a very thick heavy paint (blue white). There were three or four other temps working on the Gladiator (though they mostly seemed to be long term temps who had been there months) along with the crew. This is Mike,the crew member I worked with most often as he was putting away painting gear. They will put out for two to four months for a season and then head in to port to drop off their cargo of chilled fish/crab (kept in water just above freezing). These boats are some of the nicest in the U.S. fishing fleet and are hard to get a slot on.
The second day I was there, the boats were out for sea trails (in the sound) and I helped paint 'fences' that had been taken off the boat. There I helped get rust and loose paint off with pneumatic devices, the most common of which was a 'needler' with about a dozen steel rods, each about 1/8 inch wide that went back and forth, knocking off the loose paint, etc.. That was dirty work, but I quite enjoyed it. However, there wasn't enough work for the full day and they let me go after lunch. I then spent a couple of hours at a downtown car wash vacuuming the interior of cars.
Here is the view of the bridge from the deck of the Gladiator. The third day I was back at the Gladiator with an afternoon (4PM) office move at Bekins.
Here is a view from the Gladiator of a ship in dry dock being painted. It is to the left and you really can't see the ship itself, just the plastic around it. There is also a ferry on the other side of the harbor being refurbished (I presume).
Also across the harbor from the Gladiator was a 'Processing Ship'. These ships receive the cargo from smaller fishing boats like the Gladiator and process them (resulting in frozen filets or whatever). I heard from some of the other workers that the best way to get a slot on a fishing boat is to sign on a processing boat and then try to get the 'deck time' which you could use to get a slot on a real fishing boat.
On June 23, Jim drove a semi and I drove a 'pack van' to the ferry which we took across to Kingston. As I was driving I took my camera and took several pictures. Parts of Kingston are quite rural and the semi could not make it up the packed gravel driveway. However, I seem to have lost the diskette with those pictures. Drats! We'll hope it turns up.
For the last few evenings I have been mostly staying in a large empty commercial parking lot. While it has lights, they aren't on and there are other vehicles there overnight. It has signs which say 'no semi trailer parking' though the street beside the lot (next picture) often has semis and trailers parked along it (along with lots of cars overnight).
This lot also has the usual signs for commercial parking lots in Seattle area which says 'Unauthorized vehicles impounded', and then an ad for a towing company, Shannon Towing in this case.
On July 1st, I had my first day off in two weeks (though the weekends jobs had been very light) so June 14 (when school ended in Washington) to June 30 was really busy. Their next really busy time is in August. So, I got together with Les, a friend I made through Mensa, and we took the ferry across from Edmond to Kingston. This is the other ferry as we passed it on Puget Sound.
The fee is $5.10 for most people, about $11 for a car with one passenger, and $2.50 for Les (as he just turned 65 and qualified for their senior discount). We boarded at a level above the cars and on the left of the boat as you approached. Here is the passenger boarding ramp.
All the Washington State Ferries (WSF) that I have ridden were wide enough for eight lanes of cars. The center four lanes were ultra-high with over 15 feet of clearance. The outer two lanes were much lower and double deckers in the same space with a ramp leading up and others leading out. The cars/trucks/buses pay and go into a sort of parking lot where they are then directed on two lanes at a time. Here is a short five second video (120K, about 40 second download) of the cars driving on.
Here is the view of the Edmonds, WA ferry dock as we were pulling away.
Here is a short video of the ferry docking. Unfortunately it takes about thirty seconds for them to get everything set and my videos are only five seconds, so this video is a little dull. What to do?

This page was last updated on January 1, 2004