World Photo by Susan Chambers

Friday, Sept. 5, 11:38 a..m., by Susan Chambers, Staff Writer

Scraptopia is no more.

At least for now.

Titan Salvage was finally able to get a floating barge out to the site of the New Carissa shipwreck on this week, thanks to the Skookum tugboat. Salvors finally transferred heaps of steel off the Karlissas A and B and onto the floating barge.

Now there’s room to work.

The painstaking slow transfer process dragged on and on -- well into the early evening hours.

Salvor Mike Pacheco warned early in the day it could be a late night.

Most of it was nearly invisible from shore. Salvors spent their time in Scraptopia -- the bow of the Karlissa B barge, the side facing the ocean -- most of the day. The crane Big Red and the engine room on the Karlissa B blocked the view of Scraptopia from shore. Indications of progress came via the handheld radios each crewman has:

“Down on de wire, down on de wire, Bille-e-e,” Panamanian Yuri “Tarantula” Mayani could be heard saying in his distinctive accent.

Crane operator Billy Stender’s reply often was silent -- but visible instead. It didn’t take long for Big Red to swing right, a multi-ton hunk of steel and metal parts caught in its web of cable and chains.

Salvors on the Karlissa B cut and cut and cut some more. Holes had to be made for chains and hooks to pick up the big pieces. Often, an upside-down corner piece of hull was used as a catch-all, a garbage bin full of smaller metal fragments.

The weather, thankfully, was nice. The wind and ocean swells died down enough so waves weren’t sloshing over the deck of the floating barge.

I gave Titan Managing Director David Parrot a bad time about being gone. He’d returned to Florida for a few days and Tuesday was his first day back.

The project needs its good luck charm, I told him.

Parrot -- also called General Chaos or Captain Chaos -- wasn’t buying it. He just shook his head and laughed.

Regardless, it was a nice homecoming for him. He shook hands and said hello to each of the crewmen and spent a lot of time with visitors to the barges and with Salvage Master Shelby Harris.

Parrot and Harris said work this week will be concentrated on the engine. Its full  300-plus-ton weight must be trimmed so that Big Red can pick it up.

But northwest winds continue to beat the hull as salvor use its protection while they cut the engine. The hull is smaller, significantly lighter and resembles nothing of the behemoth that once rose out of the surf. The ship now looks like a dead beast whose best parts were sacrificed to turkey vultures and scavengers, not much more than a carcass.