⛏️ Our off-season projects
Got the Eroica stashed away and buttoned up, the compound turned over to a friend for the winter, and it's officially the off-season.
The Eroica sits like this in the boatyard all winter. Where you put the thing is always a gamble with the snowdrifts. If the wind is blowing the right way you might get a dusting of snow around your dredge and it's easy to work on right away in the spring.
We've been losers in that sense two seasons in a row. The last two years the dredge (in two different spots) has been basically buried up to the deck in snow with the tunnel between the pontoons stuffed full of ice. We're starting to feel a bit targeted by the weather. It makes certain projects difficult or impossible to do early in the spring, and forces everyone to waste more time digging than they'd hoped.
We're in a third, different spot this year - and three times is a trend. We'll see if we're just cursed to get buried every winter.
My first project this off-season is to do the bookkeeping and prepare for year-end financial decisions.
We book-ended the season with two big, expensive projects: brand new pontoons and brand new diver housing. For scale, it cost us $20,000 in materials shipping costs alone to put a boat on a plane and a house on a boat and send it all to western Alaska. This season we've made the biggest single-season investment in the operation since Emily bought the Eroica, and I'm relieved that this off-season won't be as hard on the 'ole checkbook.
The big projects I'd like to do are re-power (go to 115s from 60s on the back, and get 5-10" more length in the lower unit to help with cavitation) and drop two fuel tanks in the pontoons so we don't have to deal with as many 5'ers and fuel the dredge every other day we're running. It also gives us the option to run further afield if we decide to go to a more distant lease to mine.
I also have big dreams of doing 8 knot cruise speed, instead of our usual 4-5.
The new pontoons can take the added fuel weight and it should help us get more time in the water both by decreasing travel time to the mining grounds and by fueling less-often. Those hours add up over time.
We also picked up a nice custom aluminum davit for cheap from a local boat builder. It will allow us to pick the hose up high on the bow of the dredge so we can get a little more hose length without running the nozzle back to the outboards.
There's also a safety aspect to the davit. The new pontoons put us much higher out of the water, so climbing back on the deck without a ladder is even more difficult than before. If a diver is unconscious (God forbid), injured, or something happened to the ladder, the davit should give us a good way to get someone out of the water to safety. Take a 200lb diver and put a wet 7mm wetsuit and 60lb weight vest on them, and it's a lot more than one or even two guys can handle without some mechanical help.
Also thinking about doing something with the sluice box, but not sure what, if anything yet. I'm hesitant to even mention that because the sluice box is the one thing EVERYONE and their mother has an opinion on. Emails, social media messages, comments. It's endless. If I took every suggestion we got about the sluice box it would be 8 levels, with a trommel, 10 special nugget traps, and a some new device to collect the invisible microscopic gold that we're apparently dumping out the back by the truckload.
In my opinion the sluice box is not just a gold trap, it's an energy trap for people in this business. You need better ways to high-grade ground, set anchor, get in the water fast, keep good crew, and minimize equipment failures before you think about the sluice - as long as it basically works.
Like all businesses, success comes from incremental improvement, recruiting and retaining the right people, and generally staying ahead of an organization's natural desire to descend into chaos. It doesn't come from the magic sluice that catches microscopic gold. Microscopic gold is the purview of the Newmonts and Barricks of the world. There's much lower hanging fruit for us in the Bering Sea.
Anyways - the northern lights came out in Nome before we left. It was perfect clear skies and only about 18 degrees, so you could actually stand there and enjoy them for a few minutes without freezing. Since we won't be ice mining this year - that was our last chance to enjoy them unless they come south.
Have a great weekend!
Alex
PS - gold prices are staying high!
We only have a limited quantity 2 Gram Eroica Paydirt, and the Paydirt Bundle (which is one bag of Eroica Paydirt and one bag of Diver Dirt Paydirt) left for sale until we restock.
All of our paydirt contains gold recovered from the Bering Sea by our team on the Eroica and the really fine gold has been screened out, so you only get nice chunky 30+ mesh gold flakes!
Don't Forget to use the code BSPD10 for 10% off ANYTHING in the shop, including gold, with your first purchase!
That's it for this week's newsletter. Drop me a line at Alex@BeringSeaPaydirt.com if there's anything you think we should cover.
Until next week!
Bering Sea Paydirt
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