Not too much to report here.
Things have been trucking along at a pretty casual pace for me, here on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. These trips are really not all that exciting, and to be honest with there’s not all too much to report about them. It’s pretty much Locks, Locks and more Locks. It’s interesting the first couple times, but after that……
The good thing is my job is keeping me entertained and happy. I’ve been learning all about the ships systems and how everything works. The last couple of days I’ve learned all about the safety systems on the engines, and more importantly, how and why they work. It’s actually all stuff that is pretty much what I’ve been dealing with in my own vehicles for years now. Good to know either way. Other than that I’ve been learning about the Oily Water Separator and bilge pumping systems, which have been something new and exciting for me to learn about. To simplify the subject, water and oil spill into the lowest level of the boat (the bilge) from multiple places in the engine room, and in order to pump it out I have to separate the water out from the rest of the fluids so that the water can be pumped over board and the fluids can be off loaded and recycled. The OWS (oily water separator) is a filter that separates the two and sends them off to there proper place, and the machine is pretty complicated as well as easy to break. Lots of training needed on that one.
Sonya has made it out to Utah with Eli in the past couple of days, and now it seems as if Donna and Mia have settled into a place in Grass Valley. The problem is still there, on what is the best way to deal with this. One day at a time, I’d guess.
