This year’s crew (Adrian, Hans, Al, & Tony – regrets: Bruno & Stu) along with Erik in his Beachcombing boat got the floats disconnected and the ramp pulled up onto the Granthams pier on Tuesday Oct 15 as planned. With the GWA’s new swim ramp as the caboose, the three big floats were towed to Gibsons Harbour at high-tide and pushed up on the beach as usual.

Our regular truck hauler (Lonnie) was not available and we had a very short low-tide window the next day. So we arranged with the good guys at Readi-Mix to bring their truck for haulage. Their truck bed is 22 feet long, and our floats are close to 25 feet long, but we didn’t expect that to be a problem (since the floats could hang a few feet off the back of the truck)… until they showed up at 8:00am on Wed Oct 16. Their crane was mounted at the back of the truck !… so 22 feet was their absolute limit. Instead, we used the opportunity to lift the floats and scrape the mussels (thanks Adrian, Randy, Al, and Tony!) to keep the neighbours and the ducks happy.

Our floats rested in the harbour for next 9 days !… until a sufficiently low tide and Lonnie (with Bruno and Tony as helpers) were available on Friday Oct 25 to get them off the beach and into Elphinstone Park by our Community Hall. It all worked out in the end, even for the ducks… and here’s the photos to prove it :o)