Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The ONLY Given In This Game


Many very valuable lessons are learned the hard way by doing things less than perfectly the first few attempts (especially when treading on new territory).  Successful people generally have enough personal drive to learn from mistakes and keep pushing forward even though there may be some pain and discomfort during the process.  Others may tend to collapse due to setbacks rather than staying focused on the achievement of the goal of success.  After a time, small setbacks can add up to a major failure, which may eventually result in the person giving up altogether on the endeavor. This is seen quite regularly in gold mining, when a person is in the prospecting phase and doesn’t find a pay-streak right away.


The business of dredging for gold in the Bering Sea has so many variables and unknowns that it can literally make your head spin!  That is the ONLY given in this game.  All the rest lies within the hands of happenstance (or so it seems), no matter what you've learned or not.  It is all a vicious cycle; hope the weather holds out, wait, wait, wait and chomp at the bit until it does, finally go out dredging, hope to select a good spot to prospect, wrestle with equipment, to sample or not to sample, move rocks and suck gold til you can't anymore or some system fails, wrestle with equipment AGAIN and head back to port, wander back home, finally fall into bed and crash into a deep sleep from complete exhaustion.  Of course, don't let me forget...REPAIRS and ongoing MAINTENANCE of the dredge and all of it's seemingly delicate parts.  More time is spent doing that than mining.  Ugh...  Did I mention clean outs?  (Always hoping the 'goes ins' far surpass the 'goes outs') It is what it is, and not everyone can do it;  plain and simple.



Click On STAYING FOCUSED


Great pic of Ian Foster, Captain of Sluicey 2 and cast member of Bering Sea Gold!  He is tired, but staying focused.  Or, I like to call it...dog tired.  Hang in there Ian!

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