Repairing the Fish Cleaning Station and Park Dock

We had already left Star Valley when our Winter Park asked, using Facebook, their winter Texans to bring tools, (Seems money is tight, and workers are scarce as many have lost their homes and moved from the area). The park didn’t have the budget to hire someone to repair the fish cleaning station and fishing pier, (they weren’t insured or, so the story goes).

When we arrived, there was already talk about what we could do and couldn’t. There was only one dock and pier left undamaged on the bay. Our dock had lost all its railings, the table of the cleaning station, the gate, and lots of floor planking.

Alan and Larry had done quite a bit of planning, (Larry is from Iowa and Alan from Kansas). They had even calculated the amount of woods and screws needed, and the park had bought enough to get started. At happy hour they announced that the work would start the next day.

I forgot about it till I saw them working and, so I went down to the pier to offer my help. As I didn’t have any tools I was basically grunt labor but at least I could be a gopher and run for tools or carry wood. There was quite a crew, besides Larry and Alan, Dave from Washington, Jim from Kansas, Minnesota Joe, Both Larry’s, and Tom.

By the time I got there, they had started to rebuild some of the planking and the entrance gate. Eight of us helped to carry and move the heavy frame, holding it upright in place as it was screwed and bolted to the pier floor. Some of the flooring and side panels were rebuilt using recycled wood from the fence and it didn’t take very long before we ran out of materials.

Several days later the park delivered more wood and screws and so the group continued their work. Railings wee built and strengthened, along with more flooring and some major replacement of cross members and flooring of the fish station., (Again, I was mostly a gopher, carrying wood and holding boards as they were sawed and then attached). Three hours seemed about all the time the crew could stand before we broke for another day.

The next work day, the park manager and park workers had arrived to help, so we had too many people. Larry organized us into crews working different tasks and the work progressed rapidly. The work had stopped for a couple of days as Larry had fallen and broken some ribs, but he still insisted on directing the workers, as he said Army Strong!

 I missed the next day’s work, on a Saturday, as Renita and I had volunteered to teach a class on wire wrapping at the Gem and Mineral Club shop. By the time we returned from Corpus Christi almost all the work had been done.

Walking out one could see Larry’s well thought out plans. We still didn’t have any electricity or water, but the park was planning to install a new power pole and run the electricity to the station. The group discussed the problems with cleaning the fish without the electric fillet knifes. But you do what you must do, (the problem is the large ocean fish have thick rib bones making cleaning challenging).

I did go fishing and got to use the new cleaning station, and as I have cleaned thousands of fish the old Dexter Russel fillet knife made short work of my sheep head, (not the fresh water variety). Thank goodness, we can clean fish back at the park and the station promises to be a busy place. The pelicans have already retuned, and were begging for scraps as I cleaned my fish.  One more step back towards normal. Clear skies