There are Oil Spills - and then there are Oil Spills.

A great weekend.  Sunday was as fine a day as I've had in many a moon.  I went over to Joan's about noon - we worked in her garden for a couple of hours.  I got to use my three  favourite tools - the hammer (for disassembling an old potting bench), a crowbar (used like my second favourite tool, the pick) to pry out a bunch of Goatsbeard roots and the shovel (to level a bit of her back yard).  Big time satisfaction.  I'm a manual labor kind a guy....

Then Joan coached me through making a great marinade for chicken drummies.  A shitpile o' butter, garlic, minced ginger, scallions, and a cup o' Thai hot sauce.  HMMMMM...

Then off to Kris and Dave Gray's for a pic-a-nic with the hosts, Marla Berg, John Greely and their son Matt..

When we got there some of us sortied to Point Louisa to check-out the progress on taking the bunker crude off of the sunken passenger ship, the Princess Kathleen, that went aground there in 1952.  Pretty impressive.  They have booms around the site and a barge VERY carefully and firmly anchored over the wreck.  There are two large buoys with anchors off both the port and starboard forward and aft quarters of the barge.  And another line firmly anchored to the shore.  Bet that puppy doesn't move a foot in any direction regardless of current or wind.

They're pumping the crude off the wreck - so far without incident.

This afternoon I happened to bring this up with my landlord and his sister, Jewlee, who has a friend working on the project.  The word on the street is that the project is costing the feds about $250,000 a day. I don't doubt it.   They've been at it for a couple of months.  You do the math.  An Uncle Ted legacy project. 

When observing the clean-up, one could not help but contrast the well organized and careful Pt. Louisa project with the chaos in the Gulf of Mexico.  The only thing the two situations have in common, of course, is petroleum.  The amount of oil in the Princess Kathleen is nothing - the spill in the Gulf vomits more oil in minutes than the entire amount on board the sunken princess. 

The Princess Kathleen in the prime of her life

The Princess Kathleen goes down on Pt. Louisa in 1952

Taking the oil off the Princess Kathleen in 2010

Note the diving suits drying on the deck.  Divers are really expensive.... 

Matt Greely, Marla Berg, John Greely, Dave Gray

Same 'ting. 'cept me on the left instead of Matt.

Got some more pics and news...so will post again tomorrow.

Cheers!