⛏️ The last days of dredging
All the signs of the end of the mining season are here.
We're waking up to frost on windshield some mornings. Divers are getting cold as the temperatures in the Bering Sea plunge (I clocked 46.4 degrees yesterday).
And dredgers are starting to let crazy ideas come out of their mouths like "we're going to mine until November."
My best guess - which is always subject to change - is we got two days left in the water. We have a nice strong southern wind today. Tomorrow and Saturday look fairly calm. After that it looks like we get 25 knot+ north winds on Sunday followed by 20 knot south winds on Monday and a lot of orange and red on the wind forecast as far as the eye can see.
I think it's likely we hang up our cleats after Saturday, clean the box, pull the dredge, and batten down the hatches for the winter. No one wants to hang around town for two weeks hoping to get a few days in the water and we have a 16'x24' cabin to dry in before the snow really shows up, so we're probably switching gears.
Gold isn't the only thing we've found in the Bering Sea this week. Dan found an enormous crystal and a little metal seal of the United States. Here's a picture of his finds.
Speaking of Dan, y'all will finally get to meet him and the rest of our new dive team next week on Discovery Channel, because the new season of Bering Sea Gold starts Friday, October 6th, just 3 days after ice season wraps up on Tuesday, October 3rd.
Someone took a video of the preview and put it in Bering Sea Gold Discussion Group on Facebook.
Original Productions really knows how to whip up a trailer, because it looks awesome. It helps that there's a lot of interesting stuff going on. Vernon and Zeke get new dredges - Zeke's is particularly cool in my opinion. We have a new team and some major upgrades on the Eroica. Chris McCully is coming back as a full cast member.
And finally - Typhoon Merbok. Merbok rolled into town in September and was a natural disaster the likes of which I've never seen.
The storm surge came up almost over the high wall, houses and cars and dredges floated away, streets flooded, buildings burnt down, and there was a beach mining bonanza as it revealed some rich new gold resources.
Make sure you tune in, and have a great weekend!
Alex
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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This past week gold crept over $2,000 an ounce for the third time since 2020. As commodity producers we're slaves to commodity prices. Traditional gold miners are killed by low gold prices or high fuel prices. Bering Sea dredgers aren't nearly as sensitive to the price of fuel since operating on the water means, pound-for-pound, we can move equipment and dirt from point A to point B very efficiently. But the gold price matters deeply to us all. I have no idea what the price of gold will be...
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. goodnight sweet prince 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...