Sitka was great!

I'm back from Sitka, Alaska now, and can report that the trip and the job went smooth and turned out better than expected. Sitka is a fascinating place, an isolated little fishing community of about 9,000 people located on the Pacific side of Banarof Island, which is largely a wilderness island defined by the jagged snowy peaks of the coast range and dense conifer forests inhabited by large populations of brown bears and Sitka deer.

While there I had as my accomodations the 90-foot motoryacht, Gloria, that I went there to work on. The yacht is docked right near the heart of downtown Sitka in a municipal harbor, with fantastic views of snow-capped mountians all around. The vast majority of boats in this and other harbors in Sitka are commercial fishing vessels. Practically all the boats there, from the smallest runabouts on up are set up to handle bad weather and especially rain, most having generous dodgers or pilothouses of some sort to provide shelter for the operator. Gloria, of course, being such a large yacht, offered lavish accomodations and a large, well-equipped pilothouse high up on the bridge where the captain has a commanding view of the decks and surrounding waters.

My work involved sanding about 300 square feet of teak decks in the main aft cockpit, on the swim platform, and the steps leading up to the bridgedeck, fly bridge, and crow's nest. All the seams in these 20 steps had to be reefed out and re-caulked, adding considerable time to the job that would not have been possible to complete in the time I had there if the owner had not helped me the last three days with the work. The decks were fairly weathered, requiring us to begin sanding with 36-grit discs on the Fein 8-inch sander, but by the time we took it through the progressively finer grits of 60, 100 and 150, they looked almost new again and the owner was pleased to see that the planking was still thick enough for at least a couple more such treatments.

Deck sanding is without doubt brutally hard work, due to being on your hands and knees all day and handling powerful vibrating sanders. But despite 8-9 hours of this everyday, I still found the energy to go hiking every evening after dinner. The good thing about Sitka being located at 57 degrees north is that at this time of year daylight lasts until after 9 p.m. I used the last two hours of light every day to explore a different trail.

More about the outdoor recreation opportunities around Sitka in an upcoming post after I write an article about the area for South Mississippi Outdoors and Recreation.