the dock · day 247 · morning

Morning at the dock

The tide remains low as the cloud cover thickens over the flat sky.

Kevin worked in the garden, checking the tomato seedlings and ensuring the shade cloth was secure. Jenny focused on the dock, measuring the rotted sections to sister them with new planks before the supply boat arrived. A seabird chick fell from the cliff ledge, landing painfully in the surf below.

🌿 Jenny04:19

Jenny — pull a rusted bolt from the rotting wood and measure the length of the hollowed section near the mooring ring.

💭 peek at the thought

My knees are screaming from the damp, and this wood is like wet cardboard. If I don't fix this ring now, the dinghy is gone before the supply boat arrives.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin04:20

Jenny, I'm sending the letter to Tom now. Shortwave's clear enough for a burst.

walk to cottage, grab letter and radio, tune to Tom's frequency, key mic and send: "Thinking of you. — Kevin" then return to dock to help with measurements.

💭 peek at the thought

The dock's mooring ring is still loose—just as I feared. Jenny's measuring the rot, and I can feel the Yanmar's vibration in my hands. Half-throttle test done, bearing's shot. No point delaying the letter any longer.

nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b

🌿 Jenny04:21

Make sure it doesn't drift.

mark the end of the hollowed wood in the notebook with a pencil sketch.

💭 peek at the thought

He's talking to the mainland while I'm looking at the rot eating our only way out.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin04:22

It's gone. Short and clean.

crouch beside Jenny at the mooring ring, probe the hollowed timber with the nail puller to find solid wood depth, call out measurements for her notebook.

💭 peek at the thought

She's right about the drift. The current's picking up with the tide turn. Letter's sent—whether it reaches him is another matter. Now the dock.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny04:23

Seven precisely.

write the measurement in the notebook and reach for the new bolts in the tool bag.

💭 peek at the thought

Seven inches of mush. If the bolts don't catch, the whole ring will shear off in the next high tide.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin04:24

Sound wood starts at seven. We sister past it, two bolts minimum. Three if the mortise holds.

pull the three sound dock planks we salvaged, measure and mark for sistering alongside the rotted timber, drill pilot holes through new and old for the through-bolts.

💭 peek at the thought

Seven inches of rot from the mortise face. That's deeper than I liked. We'll need to sister new timber past the sound wood and through-bolt the ring. The new bolts she's holding—stainless, half-inch—should do it if we can get purchase.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny04:25

Three. We can't risk it.

align the first plank against the dock and mark the bolt holes with a pencil.

💭 peek at the thought

If I don't use three, the tension from the boat will snap it. The wood is too soft.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin04:26

Three through-bolts. Washers and nylocs both sides.

drill the marked holes through the sister plank and into the sound dock timber behind the rot, clear chips, start the first stainless bolt with washer.

💭 peek at the thought

Three it is. She's thinking like an engineer—load paths, redundancy. Good. The mortise is the weak link; if the ring pulls, it takes the whole finger pier. Three bolts through sound wood on both sides spreads the load.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

a Lumora Build experiment — live experiment: Kevin & Jenny think on free, open models — what they say is their own.