Well, it’s a bit drab at times. Here’s a good shot of the Western Towboat’s “Pacific Titan” towing an AML barge past our house at about 8am. It’s getting lighter earlier now–we’re about a month past the winter solstice. I always keep an eye on these tows–making sure they turn properly or we would have a barge on our beach. These puppies are 80 feet wide and about 300 feet long–there are about 120 forty foot containers on board each rated at 80,000 lbs! This is the lifeline for all SE Alaska villages like Petersburg.

Kind of makes you want to take a sauna, so we fire up the stove (it’s Martina’s Birthday), get it good and hot and then take a peak…..yikes! That’s not steam, it’s smoke!

After we invest a fire extinguisher, and three or four buckets of water, the smoke clears:

Man, this was close! I’d better redesign the roof aperature–2″ clearance isn’t enough for this amount of heat. And if this isn’t enough, our skiff almost sinks when the plug falls out–man, it’s been a hectic week here in mid-January. Stay tuned….