HOOD CANAL — The Washington State Department of Transportation is navigating closer to its goal of renovating the eastern half of the Hood Canal Bridge by reaching the 52 percent completion mark this week.

The first set of 10 anchors were sunk at the bridge site, finishing May 31, said WSDOT interim communications manager Theresa Gren.

“We are on schedule and still move forward to our 2009 closure date,” she said. “We’re over 50 percent completed right now, more like at 52 percent.”

This is good news to crews after the start of the project was overshadowed by the August 2003 discovery of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s ancient village, Tse-whit-zen, at the graving docks construction site in Port Angeles.

After relocating the graving site to Tacoma, the project, which will completely replace the eastern half of the bridge, has been buoyed by the success of anchoring the foundation of the new section.

During the beginning of the anchor setting, workers hit a minor snag in the form of a jellyfish, said WSDOT bridge site construction manager Greg Meadows. While putting the more than 1,000 ton, 29-foot-high anchor in place, crews ran a camera down to four different points to observe the connections between the barge and the anchor. He said it also monitored whether the pins had loosened during the process.

“The first anchor, we were really anxious about, and during the first and second connection everything went just great,” Meadows said of the first two points on the anchor. “The third one we had just started when a jellyfish floated in front of the camera. It was like watching a baseball game, guys jumping in front of the screen yelling ‘Move, move!’ All that equipment and time and money could have been affected by one little jellyfish.”

The next set of 10 anchors will be moving to Port Gamble Bay June 20, and they, too, will be placed along the bottom of Hood Canal. The third cycle of pontoon construction is also getting underway a little ahead of schedule, said WSDOT construction manager Scott Ireland.

“This is the busiest time for the whole project — the next six months,” he said. “We have a number of activities spread out all over western Washington, we have anchors, pontoons, bridge trusses, all in different areas.”

Some of the activity will spread to Port Gamble Bay, which WSDOT is employing as a storage area for many of the different pieces. They will be moved to the site during the May and June 2009 closure and put together to open the bridge as quickly as possible.

“We’re seeing the fruits of a lot of labor getting kicked out now,” Ireland said. “Really one of the highlights is the assembly process. We’re building pieces to the puzzles, and we’re getting ready to put them together.”

Gren encourages residents to visit www.hoodcanalbridge.com, which has updates as the process continues, and will provide more information about the 2009 closure as it gets approaches.