Naknek Seafood Gone Fishing

July 30: Season's goodbyes

2011-07-30T22:36:00.000-07:00

This is my least favorite part of the season. Though I sorely miss the people I leave behind when I go fishing and am eager to see them again, some important part of me feels at home in the mud, on the cliff, in the wind (and even under water sometimes) in that part of the world as it does in no other. Still, even if that part of me can't actually be at home all the time, it is a great gift to know what home feels like and to be there for part of the year.

I cherish the time alone at the beginning of the season and at the end of the season as well (even though I miss the crew greatly). This year, I got to experience the joy in sharing the end of the season with an old friend (not that she's old!) Because of Jean's help, a few of things were different: 1) I'll be able to return to a clean cabin, probably rodent free, and I'll be able to find things; 2) closing up was a far less stressful experience; 3) I got to live side by side with an old friend; and 4) we were early to the plane.

After taking the crew and all the salmon to the airport on the 27th, we were too danged tired to stop at AGS to wash down the new four wheeler and the trucks. Instead we went back to the cabin to do some of the work waiting there, catch up on the blog and maybe get some sleep. We should have pushed ourselves through the tiredness, though, because by the time we got to AGS on the 28th, the water down on the dock was turned off. Dang. That'll be OK for the trucks because I can ask Eddie, who will work on them over the winter (and there's plenty to do on all of them) to wash them down. The new four wheeler, though, will sit there under a patina of salt over the winter.

Roy let us use the shower and laundry facilities in his bunkhouse, so we spent the afternoon doing that laundry, trying to change the oil filter on the Ambi (no good - had the wrong filter), and when we couldn't do that, we just tried to keep the winter off by using tarps and bags to protect the outboard and any plastic or rubber parts (like the steering console, the throttle control, the fuel lines). Maybe it'll be stored inside.

We hadn't been able to get one of the generators going so I took that in as well to ask Roy to have a look at it. He is very good to us - he stopped what he was doing (I think he was on task # 1076 of a 10,000 item closing list) to walk through the steps of figuring out why it wouldn't run. 1) Is it low on oil? It has an auto shut off if the oil gets too low (thankfully). 2) Is there goo in the carburetor? (Turn the little screw that releases whatever is at the bottom of the bowl through the tube - is it rusty water or gas?). 3) Unscrew the bolt under the bowl to see if it's full of sea monkeys (it was), but that didn't explain it. 4) Take off the cover that goes over the spark plug and look at it (is it wet with gas?). 5) Realize that you didn't check the most obvious thing: is it out of gas? (Yes. I was mortified. But I did learn steps 1 - 5 and will endeavor to do them in a different order in the future.)

We returned to the cabins with clean laundry (to carry up the cliff without getting it dirty again - no stairs) and tackled cleaning the top of the cliff of the materials used to bring up the stairs (pulleys, wire rope, other line, shackles, chains...), securing the stairs in case the cliff erodes a lot, and finishing the final sweep of the crew cabin (there are the graham crackers!), the bunkhouse (there are the missing headlamps!), Lynnie's cabin (sorry, Jake - you left your mom's yummy cookies and Jeannie and I felt we had a responsibility to them), and Debby's cabin (there's the lower unit oil, the hacksaw, my hammer, the tool bucket, the shackles...), before finishing boarding the windows, installing the padlocks, and boarding over the doors. It's a big job, much easier with help.

I went back into town and didn't get back till it was dark and the tide was high. Hugging the cliff as I picked my way along the beach back to the cabin, I worried about not being able to find "our" cliff face. Those stairs were a great landmark. Happily, I noticed our neighbor's fishing sign seconds before I saw a large shape bounding out of the dark on the tide line into the beam of my headlights and away from the truck. Of course, it was a bear, disturbed by the truck. And I admit that I was disturbed by the bear. I tracked its path as well as I could in the dark and saw that it bounded up the cliff between the neighbor's site and ours. Uh oh. I was planning to do that myself (except maybe more by "mincing" than by "bounding"). So I pulled up to the spot where we mince our way up the cliff and considered how to avoid further surprising the bear (and endangering myself). I decided on a preemptive surprise and honked the horn several times before getting out, headlamp in place, and purposefully making my way to the cliff belting out a stirring rendition of Delta Dawn, a belt-able song made popular by Tanya Tucker... in the 70s(?). The ascent and the trip back to the cabin were uneventful. Whew.

The 29th was spent cleaning up and packing up my cabin. The potential tools of destruction are now stored in the loft, along with about 6 sleeping bags and other bedding, and sleeping pads; the dry goods are stored in translucent or well-labeled plastic containers (that lemmings won't be able to chew through); the cans of food that won't suffer from losing structure by freezing are in other hard containers with rice thrown in to absorb moisture and prevent rusting due to condensation; the mudroom/porch is clear and organized; the shackles have been opened and oiled or discarded; the disused outhouse was completely dismantled; the blue glove liners were collected from all over and either washed or just dried and put in the laundry for the spring. Even though we weren't done and we had much food to finish eating, we decided to go to the D&D for a farewell dinner. It was a good decision, though it did nothing good for our schedule. Once there, the woman waiting on us said she was told to ask to see my driver's license. Huh? For hamburgers? She said she heard that I looked like a model in it. ??!! You bet!! (I thought briefly of taking up going to bars just for the chance of showing it off, but realized that no one would actually ask me to show it. More airplane travel? Actually, it's probably more a comment on the gap between my Naknek appearance and my Seattle appearance (on a good day) than on my Seattle appearance. Sigh.)

This morning we still needed to deliver our leftover food (some bacon, potatoes, milk, mayonnaise), create a board for one of my windows (drilling holes to match the holes in the cabin wall) and board all the windows, close up and bring in the propane, take down the Internet antenna, bring in the solar panels (except the 5 attached to the roof), empty out all water (except the big water jugs because it's nice to start the season with water, and water that came from the clean fall pipes rather than the dirty spring pipes - but I don't want to find dead lemmings in it in the spring, so it calls for care), cover cooking tools... We were off the beach by 10:05. Once I moved my bags to the edge of the cliff, Sage went over to sit by them. I think she wanted to be sure we wouldn't forget her.

Closing up takes a steady pull. Living with the tide puts defined beginnings and ends on tasks. Some tasks (like setting the nets or fishing them) require the tide to be in so that's the time frame of those tasks; other tasks (like working with the anchors or anchor lines) require the tide to be out so that's the time frame of those tasks. Others require certain offices to be open or support staff to be available. "Closing up" doesn't really have those limits. It starts when the nets come out of the water (except that David got us started earlier than that this year) and ends when the cab is taking us to the airport. For me, there's about a week between those points. For others, it's a matter of 1-3 days. I don't know if I'm relatively slow or relatively fussy - or maybe we just have more stuff.

The final photo in the sequence is the view from the window of the plane on our return to find Seattle still reliable in many ways including its beauty.

People have asked me how the season was. Several factors go into that computation:
1) crew health and welfare (max points - no injuries)

2) fishing productivity and price (this gets a solid "good" and if it's compared with others' season, that score goes up. We did miss an opportunity on that 30 MPH tide that we sat out (and could have fished), but I still value factor 1 more, so even though it turned out to be an overly cautious decision, no regrets). I learned today that we were competing with many drift boats that had come up from Egegik when that district closed up - that means the available fish are divided into more nets, accounting for this year's lower catch when compared with last year's catch in a comparably sized run; overall profit is related to this factor, but I don't really know how this worked out yet

3) weather conditions and other freight trains (challenging - I learned that this season set records for the consistency of the level of wind. I heard people say that the wind that caused our boat to swamp so many times was 45+ MPH. I bought an anenometer. And we had a lot of equipment problems - Roger plans to learn more about mechanic-ing (yay!!))

4) crew courage and competence (max points - whatever challenge came their way: weather, equipment, nearly impossible round hauls, exhaustion, cold, they faced it with good cheer, mutual support, and growing competence. The only exception to this broad claim has to do with cabin conditions. Euwwww. I think there's room for improvement there. I want them to think "ship shape" in living conditions, or at least no new life forms.)

5) interpersonal relationships (max points - it seems that each person was crucial to the season's success and everyone was supportive and cooperative through the whole season, no matter how tired or hungry or cold they were. And they were hilarious. At the end of the season, I asked for social security numbers so I could send W-9 statements at the end of the year. I noted that last year, I got a phone number instead of an SSN for some of the crew members. Hugh, with a perfectly straight face, asked, "Is there a difference?" Jeff, looking earnest, asked, "You just add a 1, right?" Even as I was grieving their imminent departure, they disabled me with laughter.

So overall, this season gets an A. Crew factors are weighted more heavily in my computation than fishing productivity and profit. And the negative points accrued by the challenging conditions factor were entirely overcome by the crew's courage and competence. Challenging conditions don't matter is the crew is equal to them and this crew was greater than them.

Thanks for the company this season (and Llyra, thank you for the cookies! They were delicious and I kept forgetting to tell you so. I even got to eat more than I should have (being the one to pick up the mail)). It was a pleasure reporting in.

July 27: Naknek time

2011-07-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

How can it be so long since I posted something? On the other hand, how did so much happen in just four days?

*Got the Ambi into Naknek Lake (OK, so maybe Chris had to come up with the idea of tying it off to the last cleat on the dock and driving the trailer out from under it. Everyone else thought, "Yippee! We're on our way!!" I thought, "How will we get it back on the trailer?")

*Drove it around for a while - got to have an up close visit with a bear on the other bank. (I think Roger got some good photos and I saw that Chris got a photo of the crew taking photos of the bear. But I didn't have the time to harvest others' photos before they left. I'll try to remedy that...)

*We had every intention of taking Sage and even took her for this trial run. But then I got to wondering why I thought it would be OK to bring her, and I called. It wasn't OK. Nor was it safe for her... and probably not for us, either. So that morning, we worked hard to find a place to keep her safe and comfortable enough for the possibly two night camping trip. Once again, we were rescued by Roy.

*Went to the Red Dog and danced all night!! It was so much fun. It's so late in the season to learn that I have a crew of dancers! And singers! Now, when Hugh has a request, if I remember, I make him sing it. On the way back from Katmai, Evan, David, Hugh, and Jake sang us home. Billy Joel's got nothing on them.

*Picked up my very dear friend of 40 years (40?? When did that happen?) and packed her into the Ambi to travel 25 miles through the wind and rain to Katmai. I was on frequent bailing duty. Most of us wore our rain gear, but we didn't have rain gear for our sleeping bags. We reduced the wind's impact by hugging the coast most of the way, making the trip more tolerable (it's tough to make our way through an anticipated vacation, drenched and cold), and longer.
Here they are. As much as possible, they tried to sleep. That's Hugh under the tarp with the blue rain pants sticking out. Jeff is napping on ... something. Jake, Roger, and Evan are manfully taking the spray that regularly drenches them. Jean, as always, is being a good sport. Chris is napping sitting on the dog kennel that contains our backpacks instead of Sage, wrapped in a tarp instead of rain pants (oversight). David is doing his best to keep the spray out of the boat, but with the wind we were in, that challenged even his skill.

*On our arrival, the rangers told us to store as much of our food and gear as we could in the main food and gear cache's since the campground's were pretty full. It turns out that they weren't full and perishable items (like the hamburger we'd planned for the second night's dinner) is discarded from the main food cache at the end of the day. Dang.

*But never fear - we had lots of extra food because the food that had been packed to go on the southbound barge (the canned good that won't freeze well)... went to Katmai with us by accident. It was Roger who finally figured out why we had so much food with us. We had enough for 9 people for 30 days. That knowledge made me feel better every time I heard a funny sound in the outboard. The clear and beautiful water of Naknek Lake is probably potable (despite Roger's fear of intestinal parasites), and we had plenty of food. And, it turns out, Chris and Hugh can probably build a fire on the water, using only water. But the extra weight of the southbound freight did make for slower going, and encouraged a bit more spray into the boat. We took a break during our trip there - warm up at a fire, roast some hot dogs, do a little exploring. The water is this clear throughout the lake.

*This brave crew set up our tents and when I realized that I was torn between taking them to the lodge to warm up and fixing dinner for them, I decided to spring for dinner at the lodge's buffet - achieving food, dry, and warm all at once. And this crew made it worth it. They ate pounds of pounds of food. Each. And the food was good. After Jeff got seconds, we overheard Chris explaining to Hugh that he needed to get a new plate each time he went to the buffet line. I looked at Jeff and Jeff looked down saying, "I hoped no one would notice. But how am I supposed to adapt? I use the same plate without washing it for three weeks, and now I'm supposed to use a new plate for seconds in the same meal?" (He was exaggerating, really.) We were so exhausted, we didn't even make it up to the falls to see the bears on our first day there. Chris and Hugh went back to the campground to make a fire. (How did they do that? It was raining and everything was wet.) Jeannie and I dried our sleeping bags over the fire.

*Next day, we eventually made our way to the falls - after the crew ate breakfast: 36 eggs, four cans of black beans, and four lbs of Chinese sausage (with none of the grease poured off. Well, everyone but Hugh made it to the falls - Hugh wanted to fish. And fish he did. He even caught 7. But didn't get to keep them - sometimes because they were snagged other than in the mouth and sometimes because when the bear approaches, the fisherman is required to break the line. Sigh. But the fishing was successful. In fact, Hugh did better than the bears on the falls. Here are some photos with Hugh, Jake, and Chris fishing, and an interested bear, watching. Seems to me that prospects of actually keeping a fish under these circumstances are pretty slim.

*We saw many bears - including one that charged another on the trail right ahead of Jeannie and me as we walked from the campground to the lodge. That's an awesome site. Nothings seems to stop a bear, or escape it. So I think the best hope is to be not at all interesting to one.

*Several crew members seemed to be succumbing to a cold that's been going around. We decided to visit the Bay of Islands and if a good camping spot presented itself, camp; otherwise, head back home. The Bay of Islands is beautiful and deserves much more time than we gave it. But we didn't fall off the edge... and we didn't find good camping spots - Chris noted that the flat spots looked like they were probably swamps and would be alive with mosquitoes.

*As we were heading back for Lake Camp, David drove slowly so Jeannie and I could cook without stopping the boat (we didn't want to be trying to get the boat on the trailer in the dark). We cooked the bratwursts and polish hot dogs, and some chili, followed by s'mores. All on a moving skiff (though not moving very fast). The return trip had much calmer weather... and we even saw the sun!

*Driving slowly gave us the chance to note the trees on one of the islands seemed to be steaming. It made sense to all of us, considering how wet it had been and now the sun was out. We went in for a closer look (David is a spectacular tour guide) and found that what looked like steam was really a spire of mosquitoes, erupting from each tree. Aieeee! Run away! Run away!
If you squint at this photo you'll see a little dark smudge above each tree - it's not steam.

As the sun came out, spirits rose (except in the stern of the boat where they remained serious and nautical about their navigational responsibilities. There was some question about Evan's qualifications to navigate given the poor luck of his wandering ancestors. And we do note that he is the only one in a life jacket. Ahem.) The bow crew celebrates the appearance of the sun as only those from Montana can truly appreciate. See why I love this crew?

David had estimated our time of arrival and he noted that this detour has put us completely off course and should not be counted when evaluating his time estimation. "That's right," Evan noted, "We are completely off course. Course is over there," he added, helpfully pointing a few feet away.

*Arriving at Lake Camp (remarkably quickly ... and close to David's time estimate), David was able to get the boat onto the trailer without the use of the capstan winch. Yippee!

*We dropped off the boat, picked up Sage, and staggered home, collapsing into bed by about 2 am.

*Slow start the next day - we still needed to winterize the Ambi, do some laundry, start winterizing the vehicles, and pack up the salmon homepack we had spent the summer creating. Then returned to the cabins to finish closing them up (almost), and (dreaded project), raise the stairs. Eek! It's probably the closest the crew has come to wanting to toss me over the cliff. It was late and dark; they all wanted to be done. David had said over and over that he didn't want to be up till 2 am the night before it was time to leave finishing the last minute things. After breaking lines, overwhelming the winch, and scaring ourselves a few times, we took a break for dinner at about midnight (thank you, Jean! It was roasted chicken, and ravioli from the freezer). It didn't take long for us to throw in the towel for the night when we returned and found that it actually had gotten darker (I didn't think it could) and the bugs were impossible. (I think they may have followed us from those bug spires.) We got to bed by a little before 2 (sorry, David!)

*Jean helped me figure out what to do differently with the winch to enable it to lift those stairs. We needed to move it closer to the cliff, so the direction of pull is pretty much vertical, and not taking a turn once it reaches the top of the cliff. That would entail using chain to affix it to the screw anchor, and wire rope to overcome the stretching and breaking problem.

*David's plane was scheduled to leave the next morning (this morning) at 9:25 - he had to be checked in and ready to fly 40 minutes before the departure time. Anxious, we arrived quite early. He called from Anchorage to tell me that his flight had been delayed in King Salmon for two hours, due to fog. During his wait, he learned about how to preserve roe, and he got some fringe impact of an exploded can of bear mace. He reported that talking to his seat mates, he saw the PenAir staff running flat out into the terminal. They ran out too, ahead of the staff, but not completely ahead of what they were running from. Bear mace hurts, and for a while.

I returned and started the biscuits for breakfast, with Spanish Chicken Stew (from Trader Joe's) for the gravy, and three lbs of bacon. Finally, I noticed that it was getting late so hurried out to get the final effort on the stairs set up while I still had the help of this stellar crew.

Roger was already out there setting it up as Jean and I had envisioned the night before. I joined him - shackles, caribiners, chains, wire ropes, guide ropes, line of pull... ready! While the stairs were still somewhat in place, the crew took their luggage down to the white truck (under cover of the canopy). Finally they were all there; they were ready. This rigging lifted it! And Jake was right, pulling up from the bottom, with the winch to the left would pull the bottom of the stairs to the left and drop the top to the right. Yep. Rearrangement of the guide ropes and securing the top to another anchor farther back. Pull again. A big boulder in the way. Lift the stairs, move the boulder. Pull again. Caught on the support for the winch... running into the hook... binding the rope... need more slack! Tie off the other support and let the wire rope out... Finally at the tipping point (it's getting late... we should be going!) Hold it down, change the pull position. Finally - it's up. (Note: next year, try grabbing it in the mid-section, just below the tipping point.)

Now, quick! Eat breakfast! (Jean has finished the biscuits and stew, and cooked the bacon.) The first three to finish breakfast take the red truck into town... Go! You have 30 minutes. Pick up Roger's fish (Evan's fish spent the night in his duffel... in the freezer), look for Hugh's missing clothing in the laundry (he suffered many clothing losses due to laundry mishaps this year), pull all the heavy containers of fish-to-be-air-freighted to the truck, and get to the airport! I chased around after those who were not yet packed and piled them into the white truck and headed in. Jake shadowed the red truck on the four wheeler. Having all the vehicles in town helps me finish putting them up for the winter.

*It was a race to the airport - we were in contact by phone. Did we need to stop and help at AGS? Did they find Hugh's clothes? They had it all under control, so we sped past AGS and went straight to the airport. Hugh and Jeff went in and got in line to check in. Jean and I brought in everyone else's luggage and called. They were almost there. We had 8 minutes for everyone to be checked in, including their baggage. I saw Chris going past to the other terminal in the red truck and just yelled for him. He is quick (though the truck's brakes aren't), but he arrived shortly with the air freight fish just heaved into the back. (They were right not to take the time to arrange it neatly.) With maybe one or two minutes to spare, they were checked in and on their way to the other terminal for the security check.

Chris observed that the red truck may have achieved a new speed record on its way to King Salmon in their desperation. "Yeah," added Evan, "50."

*After seeing the crew off (they were excited - some wanted to see the sun again; I was sad), Jean and I ran many King Salmon errands, including the beginning of getting the salmon freighted. That was the first 476 lbs. We rushed back down to AGS to pull the rest of the freight-able salmon from the freezer... the next 505 lbs. Hmmm... almost to the 1000 lb price break, and the AGS freezer wouldn't be open till Saturday when Jean and I will be leaving. Ok, we went back to AGS to get the last 250 lbs to send by air freight instead of luggage.

And then we went back to the cabin and ate smoked salmon.

July 22: The bears come closer

2011-07-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

Today was a slower day and I got to stay at the cabin all day long! David, Evan, and Jake went into town and did the mountains of laundry we found in Josh’s room. Not that it was all Josh’s – though we do have to wonder what other people’s laundry was doing under his bunk. Hmmmm?

The rest of us stayed at the cabins, preparing to close them up (until the swimming pool opened and they went in for a swim... and mug up). The plan is to migrate the four who remain in the crew cabin into the bunkhouse because that takes a plywood covering over one window and a padlock to close, while the crew cabin requires mouse-proofing, condensation-proofing, inventory, many windows, and the door.

When the town group returned, David came back to my cabin to tell me that he saw a bear at the pond behind my cabin - the one we draw water from for our wash-down. Happily, Roger had also just arrived, with his wonderful camera. These are my favorite of the photos he got. I believe he was standing on the bunkhouse with the rest of the crew...

That was the photo I got, not of the bear, but of the bear watchers.

July 21: Driving a one-ton truck, he ran over my purse. Twice.

2011-07-22T15:09:00.001-07:00

We worked so long and hard yesterday that I couldn't muster the energy for a post until today.

For me, it's a relatively small thing to fish for days in a row with no more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep per day. The fish and the wind (and this season, the constant splash of water over our heads) keep us awake and alert. To me, anyway, that's energizing and I can't wait to write about it. But yesterday... oy.

Jake, Hugh, Chris and I started out early to get Jake's fish to the airport. We took a little extra time for pancakes, bacon, and eggs (enough extra that what had started out as a leisurely schedule became a rush to make the deadline for the freight).

I dropped them off at the freezer and ran to the service station to fill up the truck's two tanks. Fuel is expensive here.

I rode in the back of the truck to the airport because I expected a call that I didn't want the crew to have to deal with. From that vantage point, I was able to see, but not hear, what was happening in the cab. Happily I had my camera with me. Chris filled in the rest of the story later. It turns out that Hugh also sings along in his sleep. Here, he fell asleep singing "Don't rock the juke box," by Alan Jackson, I think.

Once at the air cargo office we learned that not only would Jake's fish not go out till Saturday, none of the fish we had already brought up had gone out yet and it also wouldn't go out until Saturday. I worried about the family members who might have made long and fruitless treks to their regional air cargo offices. I'm sorry!

While in King Salmon, though, we checked in at the Ranger's station about our planned trip to Katmai and heard about the Bay of Islands, a little beyond Katmai. The locals are ho hum about Brooks Lodge, the vacation destination of adventurers from all over the world. But mention the Bay of Islands? Then their eyes light up with the beauty and glory of the place. We can camp freely there and they tell us not to worry about the bears because they are full of salmon and we don't smell that good to them. This discovery, with the combined courage of this wonderful crew to overcome my own amygdala-deep fear that the world really is flat and we'll be lost forever on that lake - if we don't fall off the edge first, has led us to consider the possibility of camping for two night, which means that my dog will have to come with us. She'll probably hate it.

Here is a map of the area. I've marked the approximate location of our cabins - the leftmost star on the map. We're on the Kvichak Bay. If we follow that river for about 60 miles to the northeast, we'll arrive at Igiugig (which I grew up pronouncing Ee-gee-og-gee but someone recently told me is pronounced Ee-gee-og-gik) and Lake Iliamna. Instead we'll drive the five miles south into Naknek (following the beach and turning the corner following the Naknek River), pick up the skiff at the cannery, and then continue onto the Alaska Peninsula Highway (which I learned this year is the shortest highway in the U.S.) to its end 15 miles down the road in King Salmon (the second star from the left), and then follow the dirt road another 10 miles or so to Lake Camp (the third star), where we'll launch the skiff for our trip. Chris, Jake, Hugh (and really, the rest of the group as well) want to hang around fishing out of the skiff there at Lake Camp, sleeping there for an early start Sunday morning. (I think we'll make a special trip back to Naknek, though, to participate in the Fishtival by dancing the night away at the Red Dog, enjoying the delightful live music of the local talent, Wendy Lee and Todd.)

Sunday morning, we'll meet my wonderful long-time friend's plane for the beginning of our trip. We'll probably depart Lake Camp by 10:30 or so and cross the 25 miles to Brooks in 2-3 hours (depending on whether we dawdle along the way). The water of Naknek Lake is clear, blue, deep, and cold. The trip can be rough if the wind is up.

We had originally planned to camp overnight on the 24th at Brooks, visit the bears at the fall, maybe take the tour out to the Vally of 10,000 Smokes, and head back the next day (the 25th), giving us a good day to finish the closing up. But with the idea that the Bay of Islands is potentially within our reach, we may camp a second night there and return on the 26th, the night before everyone (except Jeannie and I) leave. This will take more shape... as we're in it. There won't be any postings while we're gone - I'm sure we won't have Internet access and besides, I won't have my computer. But plan on seeing some pictures when we get back.

We returned to the cannery to start finishing putting up the boats to find the beach gang already in the process of adding the Bathtub to the stack of skiffs. Luckily for us, they put it on the bottom layer, right next to the water outlet, with no other skiffs on top of it. So we were able to finish it after it had been stored.

We lifted the Bathtub's outboard onto the side boards of the propane truck to winterize it. Winterizing the outboards consists of running it with fresh water (to rinse out the corrosive salt), spraying fogging material into the carburetors until it dies, and then removing the spark plugs and spraying it in there for about 3 seconds. Then changing the oil in the lower unit - this involves removing the screw that is hidden at the very bottom of the lower unit and one higher up, letting the oil drain into a receptacle, and then replacing it with a few tubes of gear lube oil from the bottom hole until it starts to come out the top, then holding a finger over the top hole to stop (or at least slow) the exit of oil, quickly replace the bottom screw and then the top one. Roger led this process - on all three outboard. (The screws on the Grayling's outboard were almost stripped - the answer? Roy's manual impact driver. It felt like a little miracle when it worked. Maybe we should get replacement screws for next year, along with a safety clip.)

We also winterized the power packs for the power rollers (changing the oil, making sure the throttle handle moves, and spraying corrosion block on the throttle moving thingie). Then buoyed by Roger's courage and competence, we tackled the replacement of the Ambi's throttle control (successfully!).

All these activities required many trips down the hill to the stockroom or Roy's shop - to borrow tools, to pick a brain, to borrow more tools...

Meanwhile, Big Brad located another of our lost brand new nets (yay!) so we now have 50 fathom of hung gear in the net locker and 100 fathom in the conex. Almost ready for next year!

Anyone who had been working on the Ambi had been smelling the smells of grilling burgers and salmon. And we were hungry. We were finally finishing at about 9. Another very long day in town. So when Hugh suggested the D&D for burgers, it was met with great enthusiasm.

As we were arriving at the D&D, I pulled my purse out of my backpack and found it covered in mud on one side. "What happened here?" David braced himself and explained, "Um, well, I ran over it in the propane truck. Twice." And then hurried to add, "But I had Jeff look inside to see if anything was broken and he didn't see anything!" He explained what happened - especially the "twice" part, but I wasn't tracking so well at that point. No one knows how my purse came to be on the ground under the tire of the propane truck. Not much was lost. Roy thinks the 10 lbs of coins I had in there may have offered some protection. A mirror was cracked, the Altoids tin holding a thumb drive, mailbox keys, nail clippers, tweezers... was crushed, but Chris was able to open it and repair the nail clippers. The case for my business cards was crushed and the case for my reading glasses was dented... but the glasses were intact. The crew thinks the case might be bullet proof.

The burgers were delicious.

Chris revealed that Hugh can be induced to sleep by rubbing his head. After we finished eating, Evan and Jeff double-teamed him and though he struggled mightily to resist, he was powerless. It made me tired just watching it.

July 20: Done fishing for the season

2011-07-21T00:03:00.000-07:00

This was an especially full day for Jake, Evan, and Roger, and the rest of us were busy too. The fishing crew was up at 5 to tend the nets and got five fish on the flood. David advocated pulling the nets for the season and Jake checked with me - yep, it's time. So they pulled in all the nets and ran the Bathtub into town to be lifted out of the water for the season. David followed them at about 7. He shared the beach with a bear... and got a photo! My crew had been up till 2 finishing the fillets the previous night, and they had been short of sleep for a few days before that, so I let them sleep till about noon.

David kept his crew in at the cannery, stripping nets (cutting off the web so only the corkline (with corks) and leadline remain, ready for new web to be tied to it) and putting up the boats. They found the missing new nets!! And they found the missing stripped nets!! That was a great relief to me. We were missing 100 fathom of brand new net. Argh! And when they took the nets that had been cycled out during the season into town in the Grayling to strip them, they were immediately moved to... we didn't know where. But since our stripped lines didn't make it to Seattle last year, I'm a little sensitive about it this year. They spray painted the net bags with my name and SB (southbound) 2011 in orange. 11 bags for 325 fathom of gear.

When the tide was down, I went out with my crew on the ranger to pick up the buoys and the anchor lines, and to attach "finder lines" with a cork tied to it to the anchors, along with just a stiff line to help us find them next season. For the first time in several years, we were able to dig down to the eye of the anchor and get it to stand up a little (thanks to engineering and paddle-bailing by Hugh and Chris, and the use of a line through the eye of the anchor so that two (or more) people could pull on the anchor to either turn it or bend it back to a straighter posture and in either case, get it out of the hole) for next year's hunt. It is muddy work. We saved bringing in the running line for high water so we could pull it through the tide and wash it.

I went into town with some warmer clothes (you can't expect the weather here to be the same in the afternoon as it was in the morning) and with some experience in winterizing the outboards. The town crew was cold and hungry. I realized I should have brought food. Dang! We stayed anyway because the beach gang was eager to start putting away our boats. I asked for the person who understood how wrenches work to come help me with the New Boat outboard. David said that they all understand how wrenches work... except maybe Evan because he's a math major. And maybe not Jake, either - an English major. Roger volunteered (after I pointed at him). Even though it only went down the beach and then came right back because of a failed steering ram, it hadn't been winterized the year before so we thought we should do it. But first, the battery was dead. Grrr. A borrowed battery, and a bunch of other borrowed tools and several hours later, we had done it. The nets were all stripped and being loaded into bags with orange spray paint. (We're not losing them again this year!)

When we returned to the beach - at about 8:30, the tide was high and it was time to pull in the running line. We were going to eat left over chili, but it had taken on a life of its own - bubbling without benefit of fire. Huh? The fermentation process seems advanced in the crew cabin. So we shifted to the spaghetti - it was good and no bubbling.

The beach crew was ready to go out and detach the running line from the anchor (I think Jeff will need a new raincoat next year...) so I joined them on the beach with Hugh, while Chris and Jeff motored out in the little dingy to the end of the running line.

These two photos show them motoring out - I had to show the first one for the sake of Jeff's and Chris' parents because it confirms that they were in a boat. The second one is more interesting, though, because the boat is hidden by the waves.

We are all very excited because we're all on the same schedule and that schedule is letting us go to bed before midnight, even if we do have to get to town sort of early to get Jake's fish to the plane.

July 19: Ace Sleeper

2011-07-20T02:55:00.000-07:00

I started this entry last night, but the battery was low that powers both the computer and the antenna for the Internet and the sun was down, so solar regeneration was out and I didn't want to start the generator, so, it's a day delayed. Next year, I'm hoping David will be able to get us set up with other alternative energy. Though we have sunlight in abundance, we also have wind in abundance and if not one, then almost always, the other.

We took Josh and Trevor to the airport today (waah!) and at the same time shipped out the fish for Hugh, Chris, Jeff, and some of Evan's to his brother. Although they had made reservations to ship it on the 19th, when we got there, we were told that Alaska Air had decreased the portion of the plane dedicated to freight so everything would be delayed by 24 hours. I hope the crew all gave the recipients the tracking number so they wouldn't make a vain trip to their respective airports. One of the hazards of shipping fish is that it doesn't arrive with the same punctuality as a passenger does... and we all know that sometimes even that is questionable.

Hugh was part of this operation, so much of this post will be about his remarkable ability to fall asleep. Two things are fun about that: one is just the image of Hugh sleeping in the mjst unlikely places, combined with the fact that he will talk and respond to questions in his sleep; and the other is Chris' glee about it all. I got to have both today.

The air freight office is around the corner from the passenger terminal. I went in to start the paperwork while the guys got the salmon unloaded. The paperwork was a bit of a challenge - apparently Hugh's and Chris' handwriting is illegible, even when it's typed. I think we got it all straightened out. Hugh and Chris were preparing for a trip down the street to the Alaska Commercial (AC) store that carries everything from avocados to power tools to fishing equipment. They were on a quest for fishing rods. On the way out the door, Hugh was holding the door for Chris who needed to step back in to check on something. Stepping back out 10 seconds later, he noticed that Hugh was in the same position. Looking more closely, Hugh had fallen asleep. He stood there sleeping long enough for the mile-wide grin to spread across Chris' face, for the women behind the counter to understand what had happened and to come around and look at him, and for me to go out and get a photo. Right after I snapped this, he started to tip over. We woke him up in time.

Having just awakened from his nap, Hugh, still bleary and confused, asked Chris, "Where are we?" Chris told him, only later lamenting the fun he missed - he could have told him they were in Rome, or just arrived in King Salmon and it was time to go fishing...

Then we waited in the crowded terminal - around July 19, there is generally a loud, frustrated, and excited rush of people trying to leave the area to return home. It's a small airport, designed to be able to stretch to accommodate the thousands that pass through in the summer, but small enough to reasonably serve the area of only a few thousand residents. Hugh nodded off here shortly after he sat down. At least I think it was after.

Of course, he fell asleep again on the way back from King Salmon, but I didn't get the camera out in time to catch him asleep - so here he is, just waking up.

After we arrived back at the cabin, I used up some of the meat we'd brought back from the freezer to make chili for today and spaghetti for tomorrow. This doesn't look much like chili, but we've also been trying to use up the canned items that will not winter well - which is anything where the structure of the food matters. Not tomato soup, but definitely legumes, fruits, and vegetables. So we also had a black bean and corn salad, and chili is so good with salsa, so I made that too. And thinking earlier that we'd finally be able to have a bonfire on the beach (a lucky combination of weather and timing - I was wrong, though), I'd gotten some hot dogs. So this turned into chili dogs. Hugh hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, so he took a nap while waiting for me to finish getting dinner ready. When it was ready, Chris woke him up (I think threats of tickling were involved) and Chris says that Hugh bolted up and sat on the foot of his bed... and fell asleep.

I can't remember if this next photo was taken during dinner or after, but this was before we rushed off to town to fillet the rest of the salmon, but here he sits at the table, asleep.

We timed dinner for just after the fishing crew came in. Trying to remember all the final pieces of the meal (this was a complicated one with many parts), I glanced over and saw that Evan, a member of the fishing crew, seemed to have lost interest in dressing himself partway through the process. He had the sweatshirt over his head, but hadn't mustered the energy or determination for the arms to do their part. "A scarf," he explained. See why I like so much to be around this crew?

After dinner - that was about 10 pm - Hugh, Chris, Jeff and I left for town to fillet the day's salmon while David and Evan did dishes (there were a lot - we may have finished the salmon job before they finished the dishes), and Roger was assigned the task of photographing the sunset (those photos will have to wait until I can get his card). On the way into town, Hugh fell asleep again. But this photo also shows Chris, with his head turned away to hide his smile. The thing is, he can't hide his smile by turning his head - his smile seems to reach his ears as well.

Roger fulfilled his job responsibilities admirably - it was really hard to pick just one of his sunset photos. He also stayed up to take pictures of the moonrise.

July 18: Accidental exile

2011-07-19T02:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was grouchy. At first I thought it was because I was tired and sick and hungry and worried about not being able to find many of my nets. But I don't think that was it. I think it was because I inadvertently exiled myself today - and I've already been missing Josh, Jake, Evan, and Hugh because they've been on a fishing schedule, which has been very different from the ground crew's schedule. Today I made it worse and missed the whole crew, missed fishing, missed cooking, and missed writing. What was I thinking?

David has been the picture of drive and determination to get things cleaned up early to avoid having to rush around at the last minute (which is my style). It's giving us the time to do a great job of sorting through things we rarely sort through - it will make next year so much more spacious and self-explanatory (the rope shelves are labeled!) Last year, Bob asked his wife to send up some tiles to mend the floor of my cabin - the vinyl had developed holes in front of the door and the refrigerator. I added the task of installing those tiles to the end of season "to do" list and David just assigned tasks - install my tiles, sort out the mudroom of Lynnie's cabin, fix the door on Debby's cabin, get the garbage out, take the rangers into town that we won't be using this year; bring the ranger we have been using back to the sites (it was on the beach access road for some work).

Instead of driving the rangers into town, we decided to try to use the boom truck to both lift and transport both rangers. David, Chris, and I undertook this project. David is the crane operator; I'm the knot tier and worrier; Chris is the line-of-strain reasoner. It seemed like a bit of a miracle that we were able to do it without catastrophe. I don't think any of us had the occasion to say, "Oh, I don't think that hurt it, did it?"

The boom truck has some serious challenges, though. The shifter that puts the truck in 2 wd or 4 wd seems attached to nothing and there's a disconcerting squeak that seems related to the going around bits. So I wanted to be the one to drive it in with the rangers, being the most qualified to drive like an old lady. I got into town by a little past 4. (Roy diagnosed a u-joint that's going out, a torn rear motor mount, and a disconnection syndrome with the transfer case.) David and Chris were going to take the ranger we used this season and the red truck back to the cabins, and then come into town after me to take care of some of the town tasks. But they got caught up in cabin tasks and assured me that they would come soon. I decided I'd try to take a nap in town while I was waiting for them (a wrong number woke me up too early this morning), but it was too noisy in camp. So I tackled the net locker. It was sort of gratifying, but not exactly restful (and besides, what was that smell?)

The crew finally appeared at about 10 pm and I was in full grouch. After spending a few hours filleting fish with Chris and Hugh, my foul mood began to dissipate. But there was still work to be done - they needed to wait around for the fish to freeze.

David, consistently kind and patient with me, brought me home. I don't get to be with the crew, but at least I get to be on the beach after nine hours in town. They'll wrap up the freezer tasks. Tomorrow, I'll go in with Josh, Trevor, and Chris to pack up the home pack for several of the crew (uh oh - I think I need more details than that...) and get it up to the airport a bit ahead of when Josh and Trevor will be heading out.

It's always sad for me when the season ends, and it's especially sad when I need to say goodbye to such a great crew. It seems perverse to be grouchy with my crew because I like them so much and missed them. Go figure.

Now, I'll turn off the phone and get some sleep.

July 17: Cleaning in the corners

2011-07-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

Most of our activities these days are getting us ready to leave. It is a fine time to practice remembering experiencing actually being in this place that I love and not spend these last couple of weeks thinking about how sad it will be when I must leave it.

We're getting faster at our fillet line. Today, Chris, Trevor, and I filleted about 100 fish - maybe a few more - in 3 1/2 hours. David led the vacuum sealing crew of David, Jeff, Hugh, and Roger. They started when we'd finished about a dozen fish and gained on us slowly so that they were almost caught up with us by the time we finished.

While we were processing the fish, Chris and Trevor took a break to watch the bear we noticed on the mud flats in front of the dock. I tried to get them all in a photo - and I added a little arrow pointing to the bear. It looked bigger in real life.

The other thing that I notice about this photo is the beautiful red cliffs of South Naknek. They aren't always red like that, only when they reflect the light of a glorious sunset. I wonder if our cliffs ever reflect the light of a glorious sunrise?

After our rice and curry breakfast (with potatoes, onions, broccoli, canned beans, chickpeas, coconut milk, and chicken), the ground crew tackled Debby's cabin which suffered from our abrupt and premature departure last season. A lot of the items in that cabins seemed to be just removed from the boat and placed there, intact. Sorting it out this year - at the end of the season, unfortunately - reinforces the importance of not doing that. When something has been sitting, wet and undisturbed over the winter, no one really wants to explore it. It smells bad, might have dead things in it, looks dirty and feels icky. But in the bottom of a crate, for example, I found the one quart 2 cycle oil bottles we've been wishing we had all summer. Sigh. And the lines were in a jumble. I think the crew understood why it's important to have them clearly marked and in a designated place - because the time we're going to need a particular line is when the current is rushing in, something has just broken, most of the crew is holding the boat or holding the line, and we need XYZ. There won't be time to then sort through the various crates and piles of rope to find it - it will be important to be able to step into the cabin and lay hands on it in a few minutes. Hence, sorting, organizing, labeling.

Tomorrow, a little attention to Seattle work then maybe another 100 fish to fillet.

PS - Josh saved the day on missing the sunset. He was on the beach with Jake and Evan and his camera. I couldn't pick just one so here is the progression.

July 16: Beginning to button it up

2011-07-17T01:53:00.000-07:00

The crew went out for the night tide, leaving me to sleep and prepare the hamburger and gravy with mashed potatoes. I've been thinking for much of the season that it's really no wonder that I like this as much as I do because I get to do my favorite things: fish, cook for people, and write. And I get to feel lucky because although things befall us - after all, we are fishing - they do it in the most considerate way possible.

After breakfast, while the crew slept, I used up the egg whites left over from Rhett's cake, along with some of the remaining shelf stable whipping cream to make a milk chocolate orange mousse (making a few substitutions for missing ingredients). I think it came out pretty well. Then at about tide time, everyone sprang into action.

We've now split into two crews (and I'm not on either one). Today, Josh's crew (Josh, Jake, Evan, and Hugh) tended the nets, and put things away back in Debby's cabin, while David's crew (David, Sarah, Jeff, Chris, and Roger) began to pick up the things at the bottom of the cliff, took the Grayling in to come out of the water, stripped nets, and worked on homepack. Trevor and I both tagged along with David's crew. Trevor is a cheerful addition and a great hand. I came along mostly to help with the homepack and because I've winterized the outboard before.

At the end of the whole thing (we worked till midnight), I was a bit daunted by the prospect of picking up a full 5 gallon can of gas from the tailgate of the truck and lifting it to put it into a crate a bit inside the truck but above the bed of the truck and under the canopy - without spilling any. Trevor saw what I was trying to do and ... just lifted it up and put it in. I don't know if everyone who knows him know this, but he is very sweet.

Here we are on our little fillet line. Roger and I are filleting the old-fashioned way that is a bit slower but saves a bit more meat - especially the delicious belly.

Jeff and Chris are using the faster but less belly-preserving sportsman's style that sort of scoops the fillet off one side of the fish, turns it over and scoops the fillet off the other side. Here is Jeff having scooped off the first half.

After filleting about 3/4 of the salmon, a few of the crew went to start the vacuum sealing process using our nifty new chamber vacuum sealer. It takes a while to get through all the steps, but we were finally ready to freeze them... just as the freezer closed. Roy let us in with his key and we broke the rules by laying them out so they would freeze faster, while running the fish we already had out to the scale to try to figure out what we already had and what more we needed. We had to wait around a bit until these sides had frozen enough so that we could stack them like Lincoln Logs inside empty wooden boxes in the freezer. It wouldn't do to put them in a heap to freeze - they would freeze much too slowly. But other people use the freezer so we couldn't leave them spread out all over everyone else's boxes. And we have been warned that some people are not all that careful about whose fish they take. Our beautiful, well sealed sides would be very tempting. So before we left, we got them all stacked into locked boxes. I think we have a little more than half our home pack done. More tomorrow. For now, good night.

July 15: Happy Birthday Rhett!

2011-07-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

It is the birthday of one of my nephews, Rhett. Is he 20 today? It could be true... He is here in Naknek with his sister, Berlin, his Mom Jenny, and his girlfriend Amanda. I promised him a chocolate chip orange cake for his birthday and now, they are ready.

As we came in from the morning (afternoon?) flood pick, I was luxuriating in my dry feet. For two tides in a row, my feet have been dry. It occurred to me that although there is much to recommend the big blessings, like a great tide or being able to come up fishing at all, those small blessings are so much more delicious to count. The fit so snugly between life's many and varied challenges, nice little cushions between life's bone-jarring events. Dry feet on a cold day definitely falls into that category. Two tides in a row? Heavenly. Add to that not swamping the boat when we delivered our fish and it feels like a banquet of blessings.

Related to that, here is a photo of my accessories closet, Alaska style. You'll notice two somewhat goofy but decidedly warm hats, three pairs of poly propylene glove liners, a pair of wool socks, and a pair of Sorel boot liners. Most of these had been drenched and were here to dry. The dog-ear hat was just mildew-y, not that that stopped me putting it on my head for the warmth it offered. I foolishly went out to the boat this morning with the idea that it was warmer now. And it was. Right up until I felt the wind blow. Not so warm. So I dug this hat out of the dry box where it had stayed over the winter. It smelled like mildew, but my head was cold.

We had an adventure on last night's tide, but I'm happy to say that it didn't involve swamping. David and I went out in the little foldaboat at about 2 am to bring in the Ambi to pick everyone up. The wind had died down a lot from the previous tide (which seems like a week ago). But our plan was to come in by the running line, collect everyone, and pull out on the running line until the water was deep enough to confidently put the outboard down. It's more important to get ourselves out good and deep when the wind is strong and the waves are high because even if the water is waist deep, when a big wave stands the skiff on its stern, the bottom of the outboard extends much deeper in the water than when the water is still. However, the running line (or pull out line) is a nice, controlled way of getting the boat deep enough to run, regardless of weather.

We have that little outboard on the foldaboat and David is able to use the force when he operates outboards. He was confident that we could just run over the neighbor's net, lifting the outboard out of the water when crossing it, to avoid tangling the prop with the web. It worked. But I still worried when it was time to pass over our net. I was sure we had anchored the Ambi on the other side of our inside site, so I was confused when we didn't have to lift the outboard to skate over the corks and the web. Hmmmm.

When we got to the beach, we understood. The beach crew had gone to the running line, and found only about 30' of running line, with a mangled end. Rope forensics experts that we are, we recognized the work of a truck crossing over the running line, lifted up by the incoming tide. Caught, pulled, and cut. Dang. After the running line lets go, the next thing that happens is that the current pulls the net and running line, still affixed to the outside anchor, so it flags down current from its remaining anchorage point. Indeed, there was our flagging net. Of course, it was pitch black out.

We knew it would be quite difficult to fix it in this current, in this high tide, in the dark. The most reasonable thing for us to do was to pick it up and reset it on the falling tide. But we didn't have to pick it up immediately.

So we picked through our outside site first, then decided to pick through the flagging net, even though we'd be going sideways to do it. (Since it was dark, this wasn't likely to be as disorienting as it could have been.) Then, staying on the end of the net, Hugh pulled in the extra running line that continued down current. With all that tucked into the boat, we decided to motor into the current and onto the net and running line so that Sarah would pull the running line into the Ambi's middle bin while Evan and Hugh pulled the net into the front bin, up to the buoy. It worked smoothly. David made the excellent suggestion of storing it all in the Grayling, which we did.

We then came in for the rest of the flood and waited till part way through the ebb (and light) to go back out... about 6 am. After picking the few ebb fish and delivering, we were able to reset and repair the running line (yet another splice in the poor old line), and then reset the net - as it turns out, for the last time this season.

Today at noon we got the announcement that as of 6 am today 1.1 million sockeye had made it up the Naknek river to spawn (these are the salmon we'll see the bears catching on the falls at Katmai) and 2 million have made it up the Kvichak, with another 150,000 below the tower but beyond the reach of nets. (These are the salmon or the ancestors of the salmon that are imperiled by the proposed Pebble Mine project.) Because both systems have reached their minimum escapement goals, fishing has been extended for set nets until Monday, July 18 when the fall fishing schedule starts. That schedule is from 9 am Monday until 9 am Friday. So we'll fish continuously until Thursday night's tide, on July 21. Then we'll pick up, pack up, and go visit the bears (with me hoping they don't come to visit us first).

Jake mentioned that he saw bear tracks by our wash down faucet - they had to have been made between 4:20 am when we came in from the flood pick and 6 am when we went back out for the ebb. The crew was saying the front part of the print was the size of Jeff's foot - Jeff said it was the size of his head. I think we have the company of a large bear. It is my hope that we don't get to discover the details of this particular creature.

It is the end of the day now. We're trying to go to bed, but the sunset isn't letting us. How can we be expected to close our eyes when this is out there for us to appreciate. The skiffs are our Grayling on the left and the Hakkinen's skiff on the right. David plans to take the Grayling in tomorrow to have it lifted out and put up for the season. This is definitely not my favorite part of the season. But it's hard to beat the sunsets. And as much as I appreciate the cozy small blessings, dry feet can seem like quite a small pleasure compared to the glory of a sunset.

This last one is from Sarah. She was taking photos of the irresistible sunset too, and then turned around to go back to the cabin she and David are sharing with Jake and Evan. The plywood was getting ready to give up and we had planned to skin it over with tin. But we couldn't find any, so we went with flashing and it has since been called a number of things - beer can, space hut - I think this photo proves that it's the moon cabin.

July 14: Nets are back in the water

2011-07-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

We did pretty well this tide (almost 8000 lbs), but because it was so ridiculously windy, it felt like 20,000. The common rollers were 4 1/2' to 5' (so estimated by John from Alaska Shore Fish of the DNR, who has much experience in bigger water - but maybe not trying to hold a boat still on it?) and the uncommon ones were more like 7'. And that was on the beach.

I think it was blowing more than 30 MPH - I just looked up the weather and it said 14 MPH with gusts to 30. Ha. Maybe 30 MPH, dropping to 14 when it's inhaling to give a really hard blow. We swamped the Ambi on both deliveries - filled 'er up with water - and the second time, with sand, too. I'm just grateful that the motor bits are up high - in the transom or on the transom. The Bathtub crew swamped once. Hugh got pretty sick today so we took him in and he slept most of the tide (now he's off on the town run, sealing and freezing the king, getting probably 25 gallons of gas for the skiffs and four-wheelers, and getting a new anchor line.) We're already thinking about how to give rest to crew - it's Josh's and Roger's turn to sleep out. David thought that if it's slow, we can let Chris come in too because he and Hugh usually take the tide off at the same time so they'll be able to catch up together. Sarah mentioned that Chris is our long-armed crew man. David said we could have MJ out of his boat. MJ? Mighty Jeff. I'll take him.

I believe Roger's arms are getting longer, so we may not need to rely as heavily on Chris. When it's windy like that, it's a real struggle to keep control of the boat under the net (or anyplace else). We're always pulling against something. Usually it's the people on the corks who have to keep the boat still while the people on the leads pick the fish. We had three people on the corks and their main job is to hold the crosspick open and prevent the wind from blowing the boat along down the net. Sometimes this is best accomplished by sitting on the corks. More than once, Roger found himself sliding toward the wrong side of the boat.

Chris and I both filled up our boots. Man, that was cold. I thought I had the dry suit mended enough. Naah. I found an enthusiastic leak in the seat of my dry suit which I mended last night. There, I thought. But it must not have worked because I took water down my backside from the spray that came into the boat when we weren't even swamping. Plus, I asked my zipping assistant not to close the zipper because it always splits for the last 8" or so and is really hard to unzip. So I figured I'd just leave it unzipped from where the zipper is injured (unless we were going to have to set in deeper water than Chris' waders. Then I'd get it zipped it all the way and be able to go deeper, almost waterproof. Didn't need to do that, though.) I didn't bank on taking buckets full of water down the open part of the zipper. But as we were swamping the second time, I was trying to hold the bow into the waves and wind, but the waves just laughed at us and filled up the boat, crashing over my head and down my back. I found myself gasping and at first I thought I was panicking because of swamping, but then I realized it was just because that water was so cold as it was washing down my body to settle into my boots.

I mentioned an anchor line earlier. We had a 1" soft line - sort of braided, but soft and easy to tie. We were filled with water and in addition to bailing, all I could think of was to get pulled out of the surf. That is one of the many ways the Brad and Tony - the drivers of the Gehl and deuce and a half help us. Horsepower. So we used the anchor line as a tow line... and broke it. Thinking it was just a weak spot on the line, we tied what was left of it and tried again... and broke it again. Brad hauled out his towing straps. This time they didn't break, and neither did the chain through the bow of the Ambi, but the truck couldn't pull it far. That water is heavy. But it was far enough to actually get ahead of the waves. I do wish for a tender that we could deliver to on the water. We'd have been beaten up out there too, but at least not beaten up and swamped.

When we're swamping, there's nothing to do but bail. Try to get out of the incoming water, and keep bailing. With as big a bucket as you can find. And don't give up even if more water comes in than we're bailing out. Evan, Roger, Sarah, and Chris were tireless bailers. Well, maybe not "tireless," but unceasing despite developing jelly-arms. It was a very long and exhausting tide.

We tried to push the Ambi back in the water after we de-swamped it using the propane/ boom truck. The shifting knob that shifts between 2 wd, 4 wd and 4 wd low range was just flopping around. It felt like it had become detached. I was told that the transfer case is broken. I think that puts the propane truck out of service for the season.

However, the ranger is back in service. David suggested not bringing it down the beach because we're in for another 25'+ tide, with a strong onshore wind behind it. Good call. So the four-wheelers are here and parked up high. Trucks and two of the rangers are off the beach on the wide spot of the access road.

In other equipment news, the Ambi's outboard stopped spitting out water, making us think that it might not be cooling properly now. (Though as cold as it is, it could probably run for half an hour without the water cooling it, but that's not a mechanic talking. And actually, my inner mechanic shuddered as I wrote that.) So in the midst of all this weather, we had to take the cowling off and try to unclog the tube. Chris did that with Sarah's help and a wire. I think it may have suffered somewhat but not irreparably during the second swamp.

Fishing was extended so we have two more tides of fishing without pulling our nets. Rhett might not get his birthday cake on his actual birthday. Or, maybe the wind will slow down. A nice 15 MPH SW breeze would be perfect.

Time to nap till 1:30 am to go back out at 2 am for the flood pick.

Trevor came back today. I guess the Italian Leprechaun is out of the water. He goes next Tuesday when Josh goes (Josh has to manage some issues related to his able-bodied seaman internship. I wish Trevor would stay and go to Katmai with us...). Sarah goes on Sunday (she had only three weeks from her job). Then we'll be down to 8.

July 13: Waiting to fish

2011-07-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

But we're making good use of the time. This is one of the many great qualities David possesses. He is leading a group on "a long explore". Pederson Point has put in a new road and we're curious about it. So they're hiking down there, fully armed with cameras (and a phone!), to see about this road. David is also the reason we finally learned that we can get to Katmai by skiff. I was pretty sure we'd fall off the edge of the lake if we tried and really resisted trying, but he finally shamed me into it - when I had to admit that probably, I really was just afraid of falling off the edge of our flat world. It may be a true fear of my stomach, but it's not much of a justification for saying "No." So we went and it worked out well (even though I thought the bears we saw on the way could probably catch up with the skiff and maul us of we didn't stay out of range).

And we had a really nice visit today from John and Raymond, from Alaska Department of Natural Resources - John worked with Mom and me to get the lease of her site transferred to me since she has stopped coming out fishing. It was a complex process and he was extremely patient. They would have liked to have seen some fishing, and I would have liked to have shown them some. Alas.

Today's update said about 50K went up each river - not enough, so we're still not fishing. And I remain confident that fish are still coming, so I'm baking bread, working on taxes, trying to get equipment repaired, and sleeping. Tomorrow night might be a good night for a bonfire. We have responsibility for a whole bag of marshmallows...

Not everyone is as optimistic as I am - Harry has decided to pull up early. The Janice E is out of the water and just about buttoned up. They're flying home to Palmer tomorrow. It's so sad for me!

End of the day update: the crew successfully hiked all the way up to Leader Creek on Pederson's new road and Chris and Hugh also hiked back. It's a very long walk. David, Sarah, Jeff, Roger, Evan, and Jake met up with Harry and Makenzie and they all came down in the truck. Josh and I stayed at camp to keep Sage company. They came across a bulldozer (or is this a backhoe?) that Jeff just fit in. And I've never understood it, but we've always had a cotton crop here on the tundra - Grandma Nicklet used to say, "Lots of cotton; lots of fish." We have lots of cotton. But it did seem to be especially thick where the tundra fire from 2009 left its scars.

They got back just as the cinnamon rolls were coming out of the oven and the tacos with fresh salsa and Spanish rice were ready. We do eat a little better when we're not fishing.

But the very big news is: we have an opening! I hope John and Raymond find out so they can come out for a spin in the skiff. It is a surprise - we weren't expecting to hear an update until noon on the 14th. Dare we hope that this opening could mean that there is a mass of fish out there and they want nets in the water ASAP? I do wish the ranger were running. Maybe it will be by 11 am on the 14th. I think it could be a big tide. And if they're Kvichak fish, we may have a lot on the ebb, which means... we'll need a ranger. Tomorrow will tell us.

For tonight, it's clear and beautiful with a stiff onshore wind. Probably about 20 MPH. With an already high tide, we decided not to chance it and moved the trucks and the new four-wheeler off the beach. Two of the rangers are already down there and the other ranger and the other four wheeler are parked up pretty high on the cliff. The wind shows no signs of laying down. Walking back from parking the trucks, I was struck by the vivid colors. And what would the end of the day be without a sunset.

I'll let you know tomorrow how the opening goes.

July 12: Happy Birthday Chris!

2011-07-13T02:29:00.000-07:00

It’s probably just as well that we’re not fishing today. The wind is blowing hard. Today is the day Mom returns to Palmer. She came to the beach for some farewell photos and a visit before heading to the airport. It was so windy that when she was climbing up the steps (in four wheel drive), I wasn't so much afraid she'd trip and fall off; I was more afraid the wind would blow her off. But David and I had her surrounded and all was well.

It was really stormy today! Between taking the farewell photos (and here we are - all except Jake who was still in the cabins) and returning from the airport, two neighbors’ boats swamped. Here are photos of Boat 1 and Boat 2 - these are sights that no fisherman wants to see. And come to think of it, the second swamped boat is barely possible to see, it's buried so deeply in the water. But you can see a little bit of the outboard peeking up and a little bob of the corks. All that is attached to a skiff with a power roller and a power pack... aieee. Terrible. Our boat didn't swamp (thankyouthankyouthankyou!), but the caribiner holding the Ambi to the buoy gave up and stretched out so that the Ambi slipped out of its anchorage and drifted in with the incoming tide and wind. David said that when they saw the conditions of the neighbors' boats, they looked out and counted ours. But it's kind of confusing, because, in addition to our three skiffs, the are the Williams', the Hakkinen's and the Webster's. So at first, they didn't notice that the Ambi had made a break for it. Jeff finally noticed and they went looking. The Ambi tends to come in and it did this time too, thanks to its natural tendency and to the help from the onshore wind and incoming tide. Also, it didn't swamp and didn't end up in a bad place - just about a half mile down the beach, past the swamped skiffs. It looks great; just in the wrong place. If we had to have a problem with one of our boats in this tide, this is the boat, this is the way to have a problem: no harm done.

After resolving a false alarm about the cable that controls the throttle (it was just pinched, not stuck due to corrosion), when the tide came in, we used the propane truck to push the Ambi to the water's edge, and then the crew pushed it on into the water so that David and Josh brought it back home... after recovering from it being out of gas.

For Chris' birthday, we (sadly) did not get 30,000 lbs, but I think we can hold out hope that we'll approach that much more in our remaining fishing time... if we get more fishing time. Fish and Game is rightly concerned primarily with escapement and if they don't get enough fish up the river, we don't get to fish. It's reasonable... and a little nerve-wracking. So instead of 30,000 lbs, we had about that many calories in lasagna and lemon cheesecake. Mmmm.

Anticipating another high tide tonight, we parked the trucks up on the beach access road and when we went to move the ranger up, we discovered that the starter has probably gone out. Sigh. So we towed it with the four-wheeler. And then called for help with it.

The next fishing update will be tomorrow at noon. The soonest we may fish is tomorrow night. Several people have seen jumpers. That's promising. Chris and Joe fly out tomorrow. Boo!

But for tonight, though - we had a glorious moon. Poor Roger - he has an excellent camera (I have camera envy) so it's 2:30 am and he was awakened to "Roger? Roger! Bring your camera!" I think it was worth it...

I want to stay away from town. Many have given up on the season (and I don't like that vibe) but our buyer wants us to keep fishing (as they are sending their extra processing staff home). I don't think we're done. I keep remembering that five years ago, we got slammed by fish on the 12th after no real fish for the rest of the season. I think they surprised everyone. Harry said it's possible except there's no data to support it. He's talking about the Port Moller test fishery. Our fish have to come around the corner there and they have test boats out to see how thick (or thin) they are. They crank their catch through some sort of equation and come up with an estimate of what we'll see in about 10 days. But I have a thought about that - earlier in the season, those indicators were pointing to a massive body of fish coming through ... and I don't think they did. So if that predictor can be wrong in one direction, isn't it possible that it could be wrong in another? After all, it's just an indicator, like the weather report is an indicator of what the weather will be like... Keep your fingers crossed!

July 11: Backward whitecaps

2011-07-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

We opened this morning at 8. The wind is howling... off shore. That is good for keeping off the mosquitoes, for holding back the tide, for stirring up the fish, but not for bringing them in and not for ease of managing the boat. However, fish bumped into the legs of several of us while we were waiting to set and we saw a lot of strikes immediately... but the actual catch was disappointing as we went through it.

Harry called to let us know that they have 7' rollers out there and gusts up to 50 MPH. After setting the net, Jake went in (it was our tide off, but I wasn't about to go in on what promised to be a big tide) so David and Roger took the Grayling... and they managed to get through more nets than the Ambi did. Josh, Hugh, and Jeff powered through one of the sites in the Bathtub and Sarah, Evan, Chris and I fought with the Ambi to get most of the way through one site but decided that the small number of fish didn't really justify the extreme effort it took to harvest them. So we threw off and went in until either the wind calmed down some (naahhh) or the tide started to drop.

The announcement at noon said the return is still too slow to justify another opening, so Chris will have his birthday dinner (lasagna and lemon cheesecake) on his birthday (and not the 40,000 lb tide he's been predicting) and we'll have some more sleep.

Josh was sick a few days ago - a cold. I seem to have contracted it, although that is strictly against my personal policy, and Sarah seems to be coming down with it now. Sarah has also been plagued by tendonitis in her left wrist, which limits the roles she can have in the boat. But she's game and keeps up.

It occurred to me as I was putting on my boots for the morning set that conditions like this - barely enough sleep, struggling against elements that are much stronger than we are, trying to keep everyone on the right side of the boat with all body parts intact - is incompatible with those painful existential crises. We're too busy trying to perform our tasks or stay warm or stay intact to worry about the meaning of it all. Everyone is tired and wants to sleep (some more) and we're considering being disappointed with our poundage (though we just broke 150K), but no one is questioning the meaning of it all. It's not even on the table. That may require more spare time than we have here.

The announcement at noon said that the return has slowed down and not really picked up so they do plan to close us at 4, and will make another announcement on the 12th at noon, meaning that the earliest we could fish would be tomorrow's night tide.

July 10: The fleet is in, many happy birthdays

2011-07-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

To me, July 10 if first my sister's birthday, then my brother-in-law's (Happy Birthday, Bruce), and then Paul Chukan's, a local oldtimer, long ago passed on.

Today was the first day we weren't allowed to fish for about stinky two weeks and the fleet was in port, in force. Everyone wanted a shower and a chance to do laundry. I overcome both problems by never removing my clothing unless it's wet - and then it's kind of washed so I just hang it to dry, beat the salt out of it, and start over.

My crew also headed in to town for showers and laundry. Roger got a photo of the boats tied up at the dock.

This day also saw some serious sleeping on the part of the crew, the scattering of my sister's ashes (the one whose birthday it was), and some bread baking (with cinnamon rolls).

My mom will return to Palmer on the 12th and my nephews, the next day. Mom has been staying in town with a friend, but Chris and Joe have been here... and they've been dynamos. They got the kerosene heater working again; they repaired the bunkhouse so it's dry inside (that'll probably last for two years); and just this morning, they offered to go into town to get water (and they ended up with a list of groceries needed for crewmember-Chris' birthday). We got an opening on the 11th from 8 am to 4 pm. "Bankers' hours," says Makenzie.

July 9: Dog-napper

2011-07-09T17:54:00.001-07:00

Yeah, that's me. But it was with the best of intentions! My mom arrived today so I didn’t go out for the ebb pick and instead took the truck to town to seal and freeze the beginnings of Jake’s homepack, to check the mail, and to go get Mom. But on the way, I noticed a shape on the tide line. At first I thought it was a stack of rocks, but it turned out to be a black lab puppy, about 6 months old. I got out and talked to her – she came right up, friendly and wagging. No collar. Soaking wet. I looked around and didn’t see anyone fishing there, didn’t see a truck or a cabin with any activity. I thought she had chased a truck or something and ended up on the beach.

So I bundled her into the truck and when I got to the beach access road where we unlock the hubs, I asked a family there if they recognized her and they didn’t. Another person stopped there and I asked her – no. I went to the post office and saw a young woman with a little girl and asked her. “Yes,” she said, “With a pink collar? It’s my mom’s.” So I took her up to the pool, found the mom and was on my way, feeling like a virtuous Good Samaritan.

Several hours later, after collecting my mom and depositing her to Violet’s home (and taking advantage of the opportunity to visit for a little while), I returned to the cabin whereupon my crew asked if I’d found a dog and that the owner had come looking for her. Uh oh.

So I went to the owner’s cabin (in front of which I found the “lost” dog) and found that this dog might be the object of a dog custody battle… and I had just removed her from the rightful owner and turned her over to the aspiring owner. Argh. He remarked that when he retrieved her last time, she was sporting a new pink collar with a rabies vaccination tag, which made him think that someone was trying to “own” her. "Well, it's OK. Where is she now? Is she in the truck?" he asked. "Uh, well, no. Uh, she's with the lady at the pool." Dang.

So I apologized about 100 times and skulked away.

In fishing news: the catch continues to be low so Fish and Game has not given us another opener after we close at 4:30 tomorrow morning. (Violet thought it was 4 this afternoon, which was an alarming piece of news when I received it at 2 this afternoon. Maybe it was just time for me to leave, which I did, rather abruptly. However, when I reached the beach, I calmed myself with the sight of all the other setnetters’ nets still out.) This doesn’t mean that we’re permanently closed, but they want to wait for more fish to show up before they open us again. So I’ll have time to do dishes, bake bread and fulfill some Seattle-work demands.

My nephew Chris asked about some family history today. There are many Wilsons here in Naknek and many of them fish. He met Violet Wilson in Seattle and before long they identified their common fishing heritage. But when she discovered that he is part of the Moore clan, he got the impression of a feud. What I want to know is: why didn’t I know about a feud?

Bear news: tracks of a big one on the beach by the stairs. Important to look around carefully before skipping out of the cabin.

July 8: Back in the rhythm

2011-07-08T03:21:00.000-07:00

Days can be so long here and each one so different from the ones around it that a day seems like a week or more. I was out of the boat for the last two tides - trying to get equipment fixed and a birthday dinner made during the early morning tide, and then taking my turn out during the afternoon tide. I woke up at about midnight to find the crew had just come in from the afternoon tide and I felt strangely out of touch, on a different sleeping pattern and doing different activities. After just two tides. I'm looking forward to getting back in the boat.

My sister and her kids have arrived in Naknek. When I went to the crew cabin to find out how the tide had gone, I found my niece Berlin, and her friend, Promise, standing there, in search of Chris and Joe who were asleep. It was a pleasure to see her. My mom comes in tomorrow. My nephews decided to scatter the ashes of their mother (my sister) here in the water of Bristol Bay. We're approaching the first anniversary of her death. At first, I was thinking of this process as their small private activity that I would help facilitate being the one with the skiff. But Harry persuaded me that it is an important part of the healing process and that her other sisters should have the opportunity to be part of it. So I talked to Chris and Joe about it and they agreed to let their other aunts know about it so they could come if they wanted to. Some just were not able to attend because of the short notice, but my younger sister did manage it. I think the scattering of the ashes will occur on Sunday, the 10th, Debby's birthday. It remains very sad for me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. This part doesn't really have very much to do with fishing, but it began to feel funny to be holding the very significant part of the season back from this blog. So there it is.

Shifting gears, fishing continues to be slow and the weather is variable. This morning, the weather was quite calm to the extent that we were bother by mosquitoes. This evening, it's blowing pretty hard and the current is running hard. Sometimes, when we use the bow chain to clip to a buoy (instead of anchoring) we regret it when we go to disconnect in a ripping current because the current pulls the buoys down and it takes a great effort to pull it up enough to disconnect. Tonight's enchiladas were moving in the wrong direction due to the pressure exerted on them as we tried to pull up the ring that our boat and the buoy were attached to and an innovation was born. Once the ring became visible, we threaded one of our tie-off lines through it and cinched it through the rail inside the boat, then as the waves bounced us closer to the water, we took up the slack and pinched it to keep it from going back out. This provided enough slack to detach the carabiner and free the boat. I hope we remember that one.

Right now, we're waiting for the tide to go down a little bit so we can go out and go through, deliver, and pick up the nets. Chris is holding out for a big tide on the 12th. Fish and Game seem to be still expecting significant numbers of fish as they are still fishing us around the clock despite being only 3/4 of the way to their escapement in the Naknek and not quite that much in the other rivers. Come to think of it, we're about 3/4 of the way to the catch we hope for, for the season.

Today, Roger let me pull photos off his SD card. He hasn't taken as many photos as he did at the beginning of the season, but they are great. When David and Sarah came in, they brought fruits and vegetables, among other things. Hugh was enthusiastic about the pineapple.

He had wanted to get a good shot of an eagle so when he noticed that one landed on the roof of my sister's cabin just as we were coming in from a tide, he grabbed his camera and went on an eagle hunt. He says that the eagle put up with it for a while, but with mounting suspicion until he got fed up and flew away. Here he is, early in the process.

And finally, I guess I'm not the only one who thought it was worth giving up a little sleep to photograph the sunrise. When he handed me the SD card, he thought it was a sunset. (We do get night and day confused up here - in the hours between 6 and 10, if it's overcast, it's very hard to know whether it's night or day. That also makes it difficult to know when to brush and floss.) But it's possible to tell that it's a sunrise because in the summer, from the perspective of the crew cabin, the sun rises over the tundra between my sister's cabin (the corner of which is on the left edge of the photo), and the tripod that holds up my clothesline (on the right). And it sets over the water (or the mud, if the tide is out).

It's about 11:30 pm and we're about to head back out to the nets. We have another two-tide opening beginning at 6 am on July 9 and going until 4 am on July 10. We've fished every tide since 6/28 except for the one with 30 MPH winds predicted. We're still doing fine.

July 7: Equipment, groan - and Chris and Joe arrived!

2011-07-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

When we started setnetting here in 1959, everything was pretty much by foot, hand, and back. We carried the nets over our shoulders, 25 fathom at a time, meaning two trips for each site; we carried the fish in on our fingers. Or we pulled out little 6' fiberglass boats and line, filled the boats with 100+ fish for the truck to tow in... and did it over again until all the fish were in and delivered.

Even when we started fishing the outside sites, ending about a quarter mile off shore, for 10 years (from 1969 to 1979) we still carried the nets over our shoulders and the fish in on our fingers, on a tow string, or in the little boats. (We learned to strategize which gill to use for which finger to maximize the number of fish we could pack for a quarter mile without dropping any.) It was hard work, but it built strong shoulders and a powerful grip. We understood the "equipment" we used and could understand its feedback.

Now it's more complicated - with trucks and rangers, four wheelers and outboards. Last year we had Bob and as Chris said, he's still the MVP this year and he's not even here. Roger also has some mechanical ability and certainly the ability to understand mechanical directions he's given (how to rewind a pull cord, for example), and he's not terrified at the concept (like I am), but this is all new to him. He just joked that he used to think that he understood how mechanical things work, but now he thinks he understands how nuts and bolts work. So we're pretty dependent on nothing going wrong, equipment-wise, which doesn't seem to be in the cards for us this year.

My alarm was set for 3:30 am for the 4:30 am set, but Josh woke me up. I immediately assumed that I'd overslept or something and the first thing out of my mouth was, "Why am I asleep?" (Just yesterday, when I went back to bed at 5 am I saw that the clock still said 2:30 which was when I'd awakened. Again?) No, Josh was waking me up with a problem. He had taken the truck into town with two kings to put in the freezer, and Evan, anticipating a tide off, went with him so the two of them could get showers in the same trip.

Coming back down the beach, Josh forgot to shift back into 4 WD (easy to do), noticing it when he got stuck. What happened next is a little fuzzy to me, but it involved enough struggle to get it really buried, and then coming and getting the ranger, and much of the crew (not me), to try to pull it out. The ranger is amazing because it can go through the mud where nothing else can, but it's only a little Briggs & Straton (or maybe it's a Kohler - is that the same thing?) engine with one cylinder. It doesn't have the horsepower or the weight to pull the truck out (though in the past, I have tried the same thing myself). However, trying may have harmed the ranger as well as the truck. Josh told me that they may have broken the truck's transmission in the effort to get it unstuck - it didn't seem to want to go into reverse any more. Aieee.

I had noticed that the rear tires of the ranger were low and filled the lower of the two with the air I brought back from town but the air tank didn't hold enough for both. I know I mentioned the other low tire to a couple of people but either not to the right people or they didn't understand the implications. So in the process of trying to rescue the stuck truck, the other rear tire went completely flat and pulled away from the rim, no longer eligible to be filled out with compressed air. I didn't know yet that the gears on the ranger had also become stuck. It may have been from trying to pull something it couldn't pull, or it could be that it was just going to happen, so it's actually a good thing that it happened on the beach instead of the flats. I recall that that happened last year as well and Bob took things apart to realign the bits and get it going again.

When the ranger wouldn't pull the truck out and seemed to fail to function itself, they went into town (by four wheeler, I assume) to get the red truck to try to pull the white truck out. That was also unsuccessful as the truck was now too buried for something as puny as a 3/4 ton pick up truck to dislodge. The lesson here is: when you get stuck, try one or two things (a lower gear, a lower range, reversing) and if those don't work, stop trying. Go get help so you don't make it worse.

They towed tow the ranger to the beach access road, out of service, but also out of the range of the quickly coming high tide. By now, it was nearly 3 am and Josh decided he had to bite the bullet and get me involved. The truck was not above where the tide would come, but it was high enough on the beach that we did have some time. We also had nets to set in an hour and a half.

Josh knows me well. After just a few of the pertinent facts, I had on my coat and boots and we were heading out so I could see it myself. He made no effort to tell me it wasn't necessary to go see for myself or any other effort to control my reaction. Just sat beside me for the process. Of course, I was afraid of getting the red truck stuck on the way, but we arrived without incident. The white truck was covered in mud from the unsuccessful efforts to remove it. I'm not really sure what caused the mud spray, exactly - it must have been the other truck? But I was relieved to find that the reason the truck didn't seem to want to go into reverse was because they didn't have it firmly in 4 WD or 4 WD low range or 2 WD, for that matter. The way to do that when it's making grinding noises and not shifting well is just to turn the truck off to stop the turning that is causing the grinding noise. Then shift. Then turn it back on again. I was able to do this and get it in gear, but even in 4 WD low range, it wasn't budging. By this time, it was nearing 4 am and we had to get ready for the set.

Returning to camp, we found that the crew was still asleep (Josh is the alarm clock). Everyone was hastily roused while I called Brad, the truck driver (at 4 am - something no one really appreciates) to ask him to come down the beach a little bit early to pull us out. He said 5 am. So I geared up and followed the rest of the crew out for the set.

We had some problems from the previous tide to resolve, but other than that, the sets went smoothly enough. In the previous tide, we'd lost the v-line on the inside site during the tide and created a make-shift one. That one had to be removed and the original v-line restored. (The Ambi crew remembered the problem and attended to it on the way out to set the first net. Yay them.) Additionally, the outside site the Ambi usually fishes had a v-line problem that was evidenced by the marked unevenness of the two lines coming off the anchor. That needed to be understood and corrected before we could set it. Chris discovered that one of the lines was wound many times around the screw anchor and he straightened it out.

The water was easy. Though the wind is strong, it is blowing off shore so we had to wait a few minutes for enough water to set. Much better than wishing we could set a few minutes earlier so we don't take on water.

When I was sure the sets would be successful, Jeff (scheduled for a tide off) and I headed to the truck to wait for the big deuce and a half that was going to rescue us. They weren't there yet, so we went beyond the waiting truck to the ranger to see if we could inflate the tire using the portable charger-air compressor unit I got from Costco. That was when I saw that it was completely pulled away from the rim - any air we put in wasn't going to help. I didn't know about the stuck-between-gears problem yet, but I couldn't have done anything about it anyway.

Brad still hadn't arrived, so I sent Jeff back to camp to get my phone from the Ambi so I could call Brad while I stayed with the truck in case they came. I used that time to get water from around the wheels to try to wash some of the mud off the windows so that if I ever could drive it again, I could see.

Brad and Tony both arrived and pulled me out - with considerable effort on the part of their truck. I drove our truck back to the sites but heard a new whine I hadn't heard before. Maybe all was not as well as I had dared hope. That problem is still awaiting diagnosis.

Once I got to the site, I saw Jeff struggling mightily to get the rowboat to the water. But it has that little outboard on it so it's heavy. I realized that he was trying to go get my phone - no longer necessary, of course, so he was now trying to put it back.

I went to try to get the new ranger going. But it just isn't ready for beach duty. It's all tidy with its exposed little connections (just asking for corrosion) and the throttle is on the other side of the exhaust, just a few melted sleeves and burned forearms away. So I don't think it's going to see any duty this summer. But the little ranger did start. We'll use that one if we have to, but we'll try not to have to because it is a very expensive proposition to get them reconditioned after they've been in that very determined mud.

I keep my phone, the camera, the permits and the crew licenses in a little orange not-so-dry bag. I wanted to phone but remarked that I wanted to be sure to the permits on board, just in case the troopers come by to check...

Then I went up to the cabin to return to yesterday's partially made birthday preparations and to try to get help for the equipment, while the crew went through the sites. When they came in, David came over to tell that just-in-case had happened. The troopers stopped by to check our compliance this morning - at 6 or 7 am. They wanted to see permits and licenses, buoy lights, life rings, and flares. All present and accounted for except the licenses were all soggy and unreadable so they took names and birthdates. When he got to the Bathtub to take names and birthdates, Hugh must have short-circuited or been half asleep. He said his name was Evan. (Evan had the tide off.) But he gave his last name and someone else's birthday. I imagine we might see them again.

I remain worried about the new whine in the white truck - Roy said it may mean some damage to the transfer case; or maybe just a rock stuck somewhere. Peninsula Auto will call me back about the ranger. Since Bob could fix it on the beach with available tools and a tarp, I think they'll probably be able to fix it too - the problem is... when? The birthday cake is now cooling on a rack, awaiting peanut butter frosting and a jar of salmon is now pickling on the counter.

And all that happened before 9 am!

So far, not many fish this tide. I hope I have good news to report later in the day.

This is the last report of the day.

People: We did have Evan's birthday dinner/ lunch. Channeling Yin, Sarah took some food photos. The hamburgers were a success (with bacon crumbled up and mixed into the hamburger meat) and either pan fried or grilled on the portable propane grill. Here is the hamburger pile Jake created

The orzo salad with broccoli was actually an Israeli couscous salad (due to lack of orzo).

Carmelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, along with avocados, tomatoes, and lettuce rounded out the main meal.

And here is Evan trying a bite of his giant birthday chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.

When finishing up the dinner/ lunch my nephews (Chris and Joe) arrived! I had intended to pick them up but the whine in the truck scared me and I didn't have any way to reach them. When I didn't show up, they just solved the problem themselves. I was glad to see them. Here they are - we finally got it together to get a picture of them a few days later.

Equipment: the ranger is restored and maybe even improved with two good rear tires and a fixed "dog?" in the shifting mechanism. The process of getting the ranger repaired spurred me to talk to them about the new ranger about making it Naknek Beach-worthy. They invited me to bring it to the location where they would drop off the repaired ranger and they would make it heartier. I was afraid we'd need to tow it because I hadn't been able to keep it running earlier and then it seemed that the battery had given up. But when I went to start it again, it worked, so I asked Chris and Joe to follow in the truck (they wanted to go - going to town was always the highlight of their time on the beach).

We arrived with the new ranger just as they were dropping off the old one. I got to drive the new one onto the tilting flatbed trailer. I was supposed to drive it on far enough to shift the balance so it would stand up, but I stopped too early. When I tried to go the next few inches, it lost its traction and slid backwards, sideways. That was kind of scary. I've rolled a ranger before and found that jumping off is a good thing. But it wasn't necessary in this case. I was just able to sort of back off the side and try again, this time not stopping short.

Chris, Joe, and I got back into the white truck to continue into town. We struggled a bit with the truck to get it into 2 WD and after running the truck through its gears (with difficulty - it seemed pretty sticky), the whine seemed to resolve itself. Maybe it had been stuck in low range? I'm hoping that means it's all fixed.

When I asked them to drive anything they drove like an old lady, Chris assured me, "Don't worry, I'm past the point where I drive everything like I stole it." What more could I ask for?

Arriving in town, we learned that the steering ram for the New Boat had finally arrived (after the people we ordered it from had forgotten to actually order it the first time). But it wasn't quite the same thing, though Roy thinks he can get it to work.

July 6: Happy Birthday, Evan!

2011-07-06T03:51:00.000-07:00

I'm back up again - it's 2:30 am and the wind is blowing hard. I rode quickly into town last night at the end of the tide to get ground beef and bacon out of the freezer. Evan decided on hamburgers and a dessert of chocolate cake with broiled peanut butter frosting for his birthday. Two people have also predicted that this will be the day that the fish hit. If so, hamburgers and cake may wait a day or two.

I took the new (to us) four wheeler into town because the old one had a low tire. I noticed that the new one has a speedometer, giving me a way to figure out wind speed. When I got the wind to my back, I rode to find the speed at which I couldn't feel wind in any direction and the speedometer would then tell me how fast the wind was blowing. And what I learned is that our typical blustery day that we go out and fish in without much comment is at least 20 MPH.

Our opening is at 4 am when there will be 9' of water at the mean low water mark for the Nushagak. That means it could be anywhere between our thighs and our necks here, depending on how the wind blows. The wind is blowing hard, but it's southeast, slightly offshore. Not so great for fish, but it makes setting the net in a lot of water a much safer and drier proposition.

My dry suit is on the bench for the rest of the season. I considered breaking it out again for this tide but it has a sure leak in the zipper and the leg, weighed against the possible leak down the top of the waders. Well, the waders also have a sure leak in the heel - like a worn out sock. But I finally remembered the neoprene wader socks that have languished in my mud room for a few seasons. Water still seeps into the foot of my waders, but my actual feet stay sort of dry because the wader socks are sort of waterproof and their heels don't yet leak. Dry feet is a luxury that I appreciate very much.

We ended up setting at about the limit of everyone's waders (except mine which had retired to the inside of the boat). I'm glad the opening didn't start 10 minutes later. It's an expensive fine if we're in the water early (or late) and minutes count. We went through the nets, and finding little, came in for a nap before the later pick of the morning. It seems funny to be many paragraphs and events in before showing the sunrise of Evan's birthday that I thought it worth giving up my warm bunk and a few minutes sleep to snap a photo of. I figure that I appreciate the warm bunk right when I'm in it, but I'll appreciate the photo for much longer.

After the morning pick, I took a trip into town to get avocados, mushrooms, lettuce, tomatoes and hamburger buns for the festivities in Evan's honor and since the truck was going in anyway, I took in a load of garbage; filled five gas containers and five containers of drinking water; filleted, sealed and froze two 10 lb kings; filleted, skinned, de-boned, and cubed two reds (one of which a seal took a swipe at, leaving not enough of it to sell in good conscience) for pickling for us to snack on; remembered to get feta cheese out of the freezer for the orzo and broccoli salad (I hope we have orzo); got an air tank filled (the rear tires on the ranger are low - maybe accounting for lame pulling power? and one of the old four-wheeler tires is low); got tire gauges (needed a very low pressure gauge for the four-wheelers and a regular one); and stopped by the post office - Huge's box finally arrived! Yay! And Trevor's mom sent me my own package of brownies, not wanting me to have to order something from Amazon when I become desperate for the fun of getting a package in the mail too. Thank you, Meredith!

I'm not sure I've ever reviewed how the days here go: I already mentioned that we were up at 2:30 to set the nets at 4. We went through them and found almost nothing so we came in at 5 and decided that that could count as our flood pick. We geared down and napped till 7:30 when we geared back up and went through the nets again. A little more, but not much. We came back in at about 9:30 and with Evan's help, I started roasting chicken and potatoes for breakfast. Josh and Roger gathered up garbage and empty water containers for the town run. I asked Jeff and Jake to be responsible for getting the dishes done - not that they had to do it, but if they didn't get done, I'd come looking for them. They got done and not a moment too soon. Luckily it's pretty cold over there, retarding the development of new life forms - or old life forms, for that matter.

They went back out at 10:30 when I put the food in the oven and then left for the town errands detailed above. When I got back, they were napping (no doubt, exhausted or possibly traumatized from the dishes experience) to get up again at 5:30 for a 6 pm flood pick. If there are few fish, we'll come back in for a short nap and go out for the ebb pick, when we'll also pick up the net. Somewhere in there, I'll bake a cake and cook the meal (we also decided on sweet potato fries and the orzo salad with burger extras of bacon, carmelized onions, sauteed mushrooms, and the other fresh vegetables). Then we'll nap for a few hours and get up again at 3:30 am for a 4:30 am set. That's what the day is like. We keep busy.

It's a little past midnight now. I had planned to stay out of the afternoon/evening pick to make Evan's birthday dinner. But it was too windy (probably at least 30 MPH since last night's "breeze" was about 20) so they came and got me. Exactly what I want them to do and the fact that they will do that is what makes me comfortable sitting out sometimes.

We had a very busy flood - no high water rest. The net on the third site was sunk. That's always a daunting site. Just how full is it? We helped the Bathtub crew pick through it and ended up delivering a total of 10,500 lbs for the tide. It slowed down for the ebb (or we'd still be out there picking through the roundhauls). We picked up the nets and will set them again at 4:30 am. I noticed that I didn't experience the anxiety I've experienced in recent years in the face of such full nets. I think it's because I have such a high level of confidence in this crew. I mean no disparagement of previous crews. We've had a run of really good crews for the past several seasons. But there's something special about this one... they are fast, smart, willing, energetic, and good learners. They still make mistakes - and so do I. And we fix them together.

Without a birthday dinner, we opened a couple a #10 size cans of stew (and I added a couple of cans of garbanzo beans because I think they are so good for us) and will postpone the birthday dinner till the fish slow down.

David told us that he noticed that one of the windows in the cabin he's staying in was just duct-taped over a hole in the wall and the duct tape is coming loose. We all immediately identified a whole roll he could use "to make it permanent again" and Jeff added the suggestion of using Gold Bond, which is the panacea that has been suggested for just about every disorder. I love this crew.

I told them that I needed to come back to my cabin to sleep before the next tide but my knee hurts and I didn't want to walk. Huge and Chris jumped up, each took one side of the chair and carried me. They are hilarious.

See you in the morning.

July 5: Yin returns to China today

2011-07-06T00:40:00.000-07:00

And I have an empty nest. Here are a couple of photos of the entire crew, including Yin. She had been sleeping in my loft and now it's just Sage and me in the cabin. She was such a help - I'm worried what will become of the crew cabin without her to keep them from being crushed under the weight of their own dirty dishes. We'll all really miss her! My nephews are due in in a couple of days and they may take up residence there... or they may decide that the leaking bunkhouse is preferable.

Fishing slowed down again today - the good part of that is that I get to take pictures. Sarah took Yin to the airport, so we plucked Hugh (whom I have a sometimes irresistible urge to call "Mitch" - huh?) out of the Bathtub and pressed him into Ambi service. He did great. All that energy found much to do - check and stow the lines, check the fuel, go through the net, help the inside site turn so it doesn't foul on the anchor lines... always busy.

Here are Chris, Hugh, and Evan pulling the net back to get the skiff positioned underneath it so we can pull along and remove the fish as they come into the boat.

Here is another of Hugh and Evan puzzling a fish out of the net.

We didn't have much this morning or this afternoon - a total of not quite 5000 for the day. But we go again at 4 am. It's a bit of an intimidating set. If the wind keeps up - and judging by the sound now, it will be howling - we'll have too much water for a walking set, which means almost without fail that we'll lose a buoy or wrap a prop or something equally undesirable. But... that's fishing.

I just have two more notes for today. First, a culinary one: Chris discovered a sacrilicious combination: chocolate protein powder... and Tang! It's delicious! And second, I continue to be thrilled with this crew. They are from very different parts of the country and different subcultures, and they get along great, know how to work together, laugh at each other's jokes (because it's impossible not to laugh because they are hilarious), and just enjoy spending time together. They all even give up sleep just to linger a little longer in each others' company. I do, too. I even like eating with them because they are so much fun - and they're a bunch of young men. I feel very very lucky.

July 4: Traditional Peak of the Run

2011-07-05T00:08:00.001-07:00

But I'm thinking of it more as a mid point. However, fishing did pick up for us today. We picked furiously to clear the flood fish in time for the ebb. It was a short tide so there wasn't much time to do it. In those ... 5 hours of fishing, we ended up with about 12,000 lbs.

I couldn't remember much more about this day by the next day (actually, the whole concept of "day" has become sort of fuzzy). But I did finally remember that Yin made us some panna cotta, her favorite dessert that I made during her year in the US. It calls for vanilla beans, so I asked Evan to give up his tide off to take her to town on the four-wheeler in search of some. Kind gentleman that he is, he agreed even before I offered to trade him the flood of his tide off for the flood of the night tide (which was to be my tide off).

Her last dinner with us was salmon chowder with panna cotta for dessert (that she made). She found (and no doubt cleaned) a bunch of cups to hold the panna cotta. I made a quick strawberry sauce from frozen strawberries I'd gotten from town in a previous trip. The warm strawberry sauce with the panna cotta was lovely. The chowder was delicious.

While we were fishing, she was doing more than cooking. I was very happy about how active she was with her camera. When I see someone else's photos of a place I love so much, it's like having a whole different kind of conversation about it. These photos tell me how other people see this place. She took this shot of my cabin at the end of my boardwalk. Seeing it makes me so happy. Daisies and irises are my favorite flowers. Daisies might have the edge because of their stubborn and cheerful heartiness.

Most of us slept through fireworks.

July 3: Zombie Bullheads

2011-07-04T23:28:00.000-07:00

This day was one of extremes. In our night tide, I discovered, in the pitch black of an overcast 2 am set with a howling wind that... the throttle control of the Ambi was broken. What@!!?? My immediate response was panic, denial, and despair: "We can't lose the Ambi!" I wailed. Chris, however, kept a level head, messed with the broken throttle, and discovered that a pair of needle nose pliers could substitute for the spring and broken little plastic piece. Then we realized that the job of the broken plastic piece is to facilitate the shift from forward to reverse and back without breaking stuff. It enforces a pause in neutral. So I think that means... shift slowly. To my mind, that means me at the helm.

The high of the day was the delightful pleasure of welcoming the Trainer family from Seattle for a brief visit. Melissa (www.melissatrainer.com), the mom, is a food and travel writer. She came to Bristol Bay with her family to begin to compile information, recipes, and oral histories for a possible cookbook on Bristol Bay.

This was the perfect day for visitors - calm weather and a respectable supply of fish, but not so many that we couldn't focus on the Trainers.

They just came for a few hours - at the predicted peak of the run. We were getting ready to go out for the tide, so we rounded up life jackets for the family and shuffled them off into the boats. Here they are, all geared up. The Bathtub bristled with people including Melissa and her two older children, Caroline and Will. Here we all are, trying to get organized into the Bathtub to ferry us out to the Ambi. Will was determined to be part of the fishing experience and at first I think he thought he would miss out. I said I wanted James in my boat - it's the more stable of the two and he's only 8. (Compared to the Bathtub, the Ambi is the Queen Mary.) I was pretty sure Will, an accomplished Sea Scout, could handle the Bathtub (and be a help to his mother and sister if needed). The Bathtub is much closer to the water and the fish than the Ambi. Afterwards, Will agreed that he'd been put in the right boat.

My crew loved showing them around. We even did the $3 tour (as one of the drifters we passed called it), taking the short skiff ride down to Pedersen Point where the Maverick was tied up. The Maverick is a crab boat featured on The Deadliest Catch that moonlights as a tender for Pedersen in the summer. (As an aside, I have a friend who captains a crab boat and sometimes tenders in Bristol Bay in the summer - and hates it... because it's so hard. Wait a minute - you think that's hard? The tender crew gets to sleep in a warm place, change into dry clothes, work hard mainly at the end of the tide, not all through it. So if that's harder than crabbing, and setnetting is harder than tendering, then by transitivity I figure setnetting is harder than crabbing. Eat your heart out Deadliest Catch! I think setnetters are the toughest fishermen.)

It was fun to have kids in the boat again. James and his older brother Will are definitely future crew material. (I hope they keep in touch.) And Caroline is a budding photo journalist (and she even pitched some fish!) I can speak for James, as he was in my boat. He knew what to do with the fish in the nets (pick 'em), the flounders (release 'em), and the fish on the deck (pitch 'em into the brailer). And he was the first to identify the Zombie Bullhead. Bullheads are ugly enough - but when they're dead, with empty eye sockets, they're even worse. When we delivered the fish, he was fascinated by the "floaters" along the tide line, piling them up in the hopes that Brad, the Gehl driver, would run over them and squish them. Euwww. What is it about boys?

They had a six o'clock flight to catch so David ran them up the beach to their 2 WD rental and came back to try to help with the rest of the tide. It isn't that we really like slow tides so much, but there are some benefits. David used the low stress tide to see how much service the rowboat could be. Here he is, going through a net in it. And I got to take pictures (everyone else fished).

Sarah, Roger, and Evan were in my boat for the rest of the tide. Here are Sarah and Roger on the roller. Sarah is standing on the rail looking out for problems in the nets - "ghost" fish that we don't want to catch; "hangers" that we don't want to lose. Roger is picking something out of the net.

And here is Evan wrestling a fish out of the net.

July 2: Broke 100,000 today

2011-07-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

All our hard work is paying off. We achieved an important milestone before the traditional peak of the season (July 4), when the Naknek River has achieved about half its escapement (ahead of schedule, I think), and when the Kvichak River is on schedule (I think) but nowhere near half its escapement. All that should mean that more fish are expected, so we're doing well.

We had a lot of fish on this morning's tide - more than 12,000 lbs and most of those on the flood. In the dark. In the fast tide. When we took the Ambi to the beach to deliver, we had to wait a little bit because another skiff was already there. Our skiff was riding low with almost 4000 lbs on board so when a big wave got us broadside, we took on a lot of water. Together with the 4000 lbs of salmon on board, we started taking a lot of water. The only thing you can do then is bail!! And don't stop bailing even if another wave comes in. Brad, on the Gehl, worked quickly to get the weight of the salmon off (more waves! Bail!), As soon as she could, Sarah got us pointed bow to the weather while Roger and Chris bailed valiantly (and successfully). Anyway, it got the boat clean and all was well.

The power roller is fully functional on the Bathtub (they were happy!) The propane truck is working (I think). The New Boat is still out of service. Roy will check on the part tomorrow.

The mud remains difficult, but David is adjusting to it and has become the Ranger Captain. The crew is in a rhythm (that doesn't really involve much showering or dishwashing - we just put the next meal over the remains of the previous one and try to think about the perpetual soup pot in reputable restaurants). Roger remarked that it comes down to eating, sleeping, and certain other bodily demands - and we can only choose two. Showering, checking Facebook, cleaning house, laundry - those don't even make the list. They all know how to do all the needed tasks and they are all willing to do it. It really is a great crew.

We have an opening that starts at 1:30 am and goes for two tides. It should be an easy walking set (except it'll be dark and the tide will be fast, rising about a foot every 15 minutes). We'll fish the flood - we've been loading up on the flood of that tide so the beach gang has been parking their trucks down by the site and then bringing the Gehl down while they can still cross the creek (when the tide gets high, the creek gets wide) so they'll be here when we need them. So far, so good - except last night, they ran out of capacity and had to wait till the tide dropped this morning to do anything about it.

We'll probably work the flood until about 5 or 6 (high water, about 24'), then go take an hour's nap and come back out to wrap up the ebb, finishing at about 10. Then we'll go back out again for the next tide at about 2:30 in the afternoon and because it's such a short tide (16'), we'll probably stay out the whole tide till 8 or so.

We're rotating people out, two at a time, to sleep through tides (except I insist that everyone be out there for the sets - those can get dangerous fast and I want to stack the deck in our favor just in case). Today was my turn.

I ran into town to try to find some gloves, replacement buoy lights, and to freeze some kings. I was inspired as I drove past the D&D and stopped in (in full fishing gear) to order some pizza and salads - a rare (and expensive) treat. I thought they were good. Evan said, "Please." I guess it's a New York thing.

The weather has been quite windy and cold. It's good for the fish and for fishing; it's hard on us. The last two days have been windy and sunny/cold/sunny/cold. Sometimes sweating; sometimes shivering. A clear day does produce a more beautiful sunset.

One other newsworthy item: Yin saw the picture of the bullhead that Chris was holding in an earlier post and said that those are eaten in China. My question was, "How?"

July 1: Deep water set

2011-07-01T12:23:00.000-07:00

Deep water sets are very difficult. This one was just after midnight. The Fish and Game people try to give us openings so that set netters who fish in the traditional locations (along our beach, for example) can set nets on foot. But the tidebook is just an estimate, and Fish and Game can only estimate conditions when they decide on an opening for us. And the openings are very strict - the fines are steep if we "fish in closed waters" even if they'll be open waters in 2 minutes. The fine used to be $1500, the guilty gear, the fish in it, and a demerit on the guilty permit. With enough demerits in a few years, that permit must sit out a whole season.

When the wind is strong, pushing the tide along, it rises faster. I think I wasn't the only one taking water over the waders, but I ended up with a cold boot full. (The drysuit is in semi-retirement because of not being able to open the broken zipper at the end of the tide.) In deep water, the Ambi is very hard to control on foot and the big bow acts like a sail in the wind. Nevertheless, wet and bedraggled, we got it set. I had some untangling to do at the inside end of the net and told Chris to jump into the boat and drive it (how do these guys jump into a boat that is far over their heads, through water and in full gear?) Jeff and Evan also jumped in but I'm, uh... vertically challenged. They tried to haul me in, but I was packing a few extra pounds in my boots and I'm not sure whether they couldn't find something to grab and haul me in by, or were just too polite to do it. So I hung on the outside of the boat with Chris driving toward shore in the hopes that we would get in shallow enough water so that I could help with a little jump.

Then we went to check on everyone else. The Bathtub had successfully set and was heading to the inside site, but David and Sarah were in trouble trying to set out of the Grayling. The current had pushed them too fast, they couldn't catch the buoy, and the 25 HP outboard was no match for the wind and current, especially with the net filling up with fish.

We got to them and David, an excellent skiff pilot, jumped in and tried to save the set. Couldn't be done so we just roundhauled it, picked out the 1600 lbs or so from it and tried to reset it.

Argh.

In a deep water set, the 50' anchor lines allow the target buoy to sit 50' away from where it is needed to reach the end of the net. So we need either extra line or some way to hold the buoy or both. Also, the 50' of anchor line is a downright hazard to the outboard. We had the net stacked to set (it whips out of the boat fast, before the current has a chance to sweep us away from the target buoy), and were getting it attached to the buoy while David was maneuvering the boat so it would be pointing in the right direction. Don't forget that this is in very strong winds, a very fast current, bitter cold, new moon, and dead of night with the cloud cover blocking out any residual light from the sun. Oh, and a fog set it. Sheesh.

So I was gathering in the cable anchor lines, trying to keep them out of the prop as David positioned and we were ready to run so I let them out and clunk! We wrapped a buoy line.

Unwrapping a line is very difficult because it anchors us by the outboard, turning us stern to the weather, and to reach the wrap to untangle it, the outboard must be lifted out of the water. But lifting puts it too far away from the boat to just lean over and clear it. So we have to do some complicated positioning to keep legs in the boat, stretching upper body and arms to the end of the outboard to negotiate the line wrapped around the prop - in the wrong direction, of course, for easy removal. Did it. Started over and clunk! This time we got the anchor line. A harder problem to solve. This time David and I were both hanging out of the boat with crew members hanging on to us to keep us from falling all the way out. My gloves were full of water because of how far I had to reach to try to free the anchor line. We must have struggled with it for 30 minutes. At one point, David was ready to climb on the raised outboard like a horse to get closer to the prop. Aieee - if he fell, we wouldn't have any way to go retrieve him because we were caught by the anchor line. Finally, he suggested disconnecting the net, which was still in the boat, from the anchor line (great idea - I should have thought of it - David has an extraordinarily creative mind, even under stress. Mine tends to suggest "work harder; try again.") That gave us the slack we needed and we were free.

On the third try, we made it, needed to add only about 5' of extra line to connect the end of the net with the target buoy.

Soaking wet and cold. Still quite a bit of work to do, so we went through the remaining nets that the Bathtub crew hadn't covered yet and delivered at about high water.

We came in for an hour or so - I thought I would never be warm again and excused myself from the ebb pick (on the promise that they would call me if there were a lot of fish). We ended up with about 7500 lbs for the tide. I got a couple extra hours of sleep, time to start a big pot roast for the crew... and time to catch up on the blog. That also showed me that we can start sleeping out 2 crew members at a time for half a tide. No one is complaining, but they have to be tired. Hugh is the king of sleep - given a 15 minute period when he's not active, he'll fall asleep.

June 30: Chris touched it!

2011-07-01T11:34:00.001-07:00

The early morning tide brought about 6500 lbs and this bullhead. I think its real name, according to the Fishes of the North Pacific Coast poster in my cabin, is "Irish lord" (apologies to my Irish friends). We had enough time to get a photo of Chris touching it - he was fascinated that you could see the... was it the esophageal or epi-gastric sphincter? We took it around to the other boats for show and tell - they were suitably grossed out except for Hugh who wanted a closer look. Chris told him to stick his hand in its mouth. That, I wouldn't do. I don't know whether Hugh did or not, but he still has all his hands.

On the afternoon tide of this day (almost 6000 lbs) we made an unfortunate discovery: the ground has changed out by the outside sites to a sand bar without the couple of inches of slick mud.

The ground consistency, starting from the cliff goes: clay-y mud from the cliff to about 20' from the cliff, giving way to 10-20' of sand and a few big rocks (scary for outboards and walking in the water - can't see them so we trip and fall if we don't remember to be careful) to 20'-30' of gravel and a few big rocks, to a strip of sand, to an expanse of sticky (and slick) mud that extends to about 600' and then up until this season, it was hard sand covered by a patina of sticky/slick mud. The difficulty of sticky/slick mud is the sticky part: it's hard to walk through and impossible to drive through (except with a ranger). The advantage of sticky/slick mud is the slick part: the Bathtub, with its perfectly flat bottom, will slide over it easily enough that when the crew is feeling energetic, they can push it by hand the 600'-1200' to the sand where the buyer can take delivery of the fish. Now, we still have the very sticky 600' that only the ranger can drive through, but if the boats are farther out than that, it's very hard to drag them across it, especially with a load, because we don't have the slick part.

Our sites are arranged as one inside site and three outside sites. The inside site could be fished anywhere in its 300' lateral space from way up on the beach in the gravel (so the net would extend from the gravel to 50 fathoms (300') out into the water from there, putting a little more than half the 50 fathoms of net in the sticky mud), or starting at 300' away from the beach and extending to 600' out, all in the sticky mud. Or any place in between. Some people split their nets into two 25 fathom pieces and fish one piece on the gravel and one deeper. We fish the whole thing deep. Our outside sites are set beyond the sticky stuff in the hard sand (now without the patina of sticky mud). So when I glance over the beach to check our buoys, our boats, our sites, I start with #1 which is set at about 900'-1200' out from the beach; then looking 300' to the north, I see the "inside site," set at about 300' to 600' out from the beach; then another 300' to the north is our #3 site, set at about 900'-1200' and 300' north of that, also 900'-1200' from the beach is site #4. I think our outside sites are about a quarter mile from the base of the cliff and are now on hard sand without slick mud, but past the sticky 600'.

We try to deliver as many of our fish as possible out of the skiffs, but when the tide recedes enough to reveal that strip of sand before the sticky mud starts, it's hard to get the boats in and the Gehl and truck can't come out. After that, it's delivery by Bathtub and ranger or by hand or by little sled or by however we can get those last ebb fish delivered. That's the big challenge of the outside sites and the reason that seasons with mostly ebb-caught fish are so difficult. The neighbors have had a "drag bag" developed that I wanted to copy but I couldn't quite communicate the order successfully and will have to try again.

So instead of the easy delivery our crew expected at the end of the tide - towing the Bathtub full of fish in for delivery using the ranger, and then towing it back out again to be in position for the 12:30 am set, they ended up pitching the fish into the box on the back of the ranger and bringing them in by the 1000 lb load to the beach for delivery.

This was also the day that the neighbor's ranger died out on the mud flats (one of my equipment nightmares) so David rushed out there to tow it in (definitely the priority) and then went to delivering our fish.

This was also the tide we decided a) to change out the nets - two of our nets had big holes torn in them; and b) to set the three outside sites at the same time, meaning anchoring the Grayling with its net on one of the outside sites instead of the inside site. I noticed on the last 11:30 pm set that we were in pretty deep water by the end of our set.

Because of the strong wind and current, it is much safer and saner and more successful to set the nets on foot, pushing the boat along in the rising tide with the nets popping out behind us as we walk, rather than setting it without any foot on the ground to control the movement of the boat. But when the tide gets too high, we can't really do that without taking a bath in the very cold water.

My concern about the night sets was that we started the set in about hip-deep water and by the time the Bathtub finished setting #3, it was closer to waist deep. That tide can rise very quickly - from 0' to 23' in six hours. With the wind behind it, it is moving. That means that in 15 minute's time, the water will go from ankle deep to just below the knees. In another 15 minutes, it's halfway up the thigh, and so on.

So I thought that at least we could set all three outside sites immediately after the opening commences, and then walk a boat with the second net to set the slightly shallower inside site.

The process of getting the ebb fish delivered, the nets ready to set and the boats in place required a lot of extra time that the uncomplaining crew would have liked to have spent sleeping.

Equipment update: the propane truck seems to be running again and is now filled with propane; the outboard on the Grayling is working as well as it ever has (doesn't idle well) and we thought the power roller on the Bathtub was repaired, but it still doesn't have enough power to help. Still no New Boat.

June 29: Back in the water

2011-06-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

It turns out that the predictions for last night's winds were... uh... overblown. But we got some sleep. David did some reconnaissance and found that we missed somewhere between 4000 and 8000 lbs. It's not nothing, but I think the extra rest will stand us in good stead in the coming week or two.

We were out at 8 during a big hold up tide to set the nets and ended up with about 2000 lbs for the tide.

An item for the glossary: a hold up tide is one that doesn't go out very far. If the mean low water mark is the edge of where you'd find water at an average low water, an 8' hold up is when the water would be 8' deep at low water at that same spot.

June 28: The season is upon us

2011-06-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

I think posts will be short for a while. We fished yesterday, starting at 7:30 am and ended up with something like 23,000 lbs for that tide, most of it on the ebb (and yes, I was right to be confident in this crew - they did great. Even when we needed to pull the last of the fish into the net without picking them. When the nets are heavy with fish, it's really hard. But we were racing the tide - we did not want those fish left in the mud because the buyer doesn't like it and I was outside the boat in knee deep water, lifting. It was a real race). We individually handle every one of those fish. It's very demanding. This picture shows us with a full boat. This is the biggest boat in our "fleet," the Ambi (short for Ambi-fisher referring to when we also used it for drift fishing and setnetting and I was ambivalent about the drifting part. We weren't very good at drifting, but David was really good at maneuvering the skiff and the net.)

We got in from the tide at about 8:30 PM, knowing that we had another opening at 10 that night, to continue into the next tide - 19 hours. That means only a few hours sleep between tides. We ended up with almost 10,000 lbs on the night tide and a little more than 6,000 for today's tide. We got another opening starting at 11 tonight and going till 5 tomorrow afternoon, again two tides.

We've also been having very strong winds and cold, wet weather. The winds started offshore, from the northeast and swung around from the south and then southwest. They feel about 25 mph. (I estimate that by trying to imagine what the wind feels like when I'm in the back of a pickup truck going 25 mph). We're told to expect 35 mph winds directly out of the west tonight.

I heard about the possibility of a strong wind during an overdue trip into town and I started considering not fishing the tide then, wondering how the crew would feel (and wondering how much of the thought about not fishing was due to my growing fatigue - here, where sleep is for sissies). (Even though we're here for the fish, we still have all the regular things of life to tend to - we were low on drinking water and gas, and we needed advice or help on the Grayling's outboard (no help available; advice was to drain the carburetor), update on the New Boat (the needed part has been ordered), advice on the power pack for the power roller which seems stuck in low throttle (new carburetor), and to process some kings we've been saving out. It took a long time - but less because Yin came with me and was wonderfully helpful.) It turns out that the crew also heard about the weather and their discussion came to the same conclusion I did. I guess that decision was easy even though I hate not fishing when I have the chance. Still, I hate beating up our crew and equipment even more.

There are many problems with fishing in really heavy weather: 1) it's scary because it can be dangerous. The waves are high and sometimes water crashes into our boat; when we have to beach it, it pounds down on whatever is underneath it - rocks, which the outboard doesn't like and if we're struggling to control it, assorted body parts may be in the way. It's possible to swamp which approaches disaster when the outboard is on it and all the gear and fish and people are in it; 2) it's hard. Setnetting calls for working against whatever elements are in play, usually wind and tide. We're stationary and we struggle to stay on our nets, while the effects of wind and tide are to move us along. We have to hang on; so 3) it's exhausting. Fighting against the wind and tide wears us out tremendously and I have a feeling that we haven't really seen this year's run yet; 4) we're sort of stuck in the boats even if there are no fish - it's too hard to get into shore with the rough conditions and surf break; and 5) things tend to go wrong and those conditions make it really hard to recover.

Additional problems, as we learned with last night's tide, is that we have few options for delivering any fish we do get. The drivers who came to pick up our flood fish did everything they could to take our fish, but they were pinned by the tide and the giant forklift couldn't move to the skiffs to offload the fish and if it could, it could move to the truck to deposit them. I guess the weather was too rough for our tenders, which is disappointing because that's when we need them. And there we were with a boat full of fish in very stormy conditions, carrying about 5000 lbs of salmon in really rough weather with no place to deliver it. And now they tell us the wind will be stronger, there'll be no tenders, and the trucks won't be out till even later? I found myself thinking that we would be safe only if we didn't get many fish. But if we weren't going to get many fish...

We definitely had our mishaps during the dark 20-25 mph tide. One of the rings we use to connect the corkline with the anchor must have had a flaw or just too much strain so it cracked and the corkline slipped out, leaving the leadline to do all the holding of the net. We really couldn't fix it during the tide and the process put quite a few big holes in the net. Josh fixed it as the tide went out. Also, we are required to have one red buoy and one white buoy with a black stripe to let drifters know that we're a setnet so they'll know which side to pass the buoy on. That white and black buoy is important (and the fine is big if we don't have it). As we were putting on the buoy lights, I noted that the line that was holding the buoy on was frayed and would need replacing. As we were struggling to try to fix the disconnected corkline on the other net, I saw a white and black buoy floating by. We chased it down and indeed, it was the one with the frayed line.

In preparation for the big wind, we've moved everything as far out of harm's way as we can. Three-wheelers and rangers have climbed partway up the cliff; one truck is in town, another is at the beach access road, and the boom truck, which runs on propane, ran out of propane part way to higher ground. That one might cost me sleep tonight.

We'll put our nets out tomorrow at 8 and sleep now, hoping we're not missing much but still feeling OK about the decision even if we do.

June 26: Reading the net

2011-06-26T22:50:00.000-07:00

Doug Olsen, aka "Hippie Doug," stopped by to visit last night and talked about learning to "read the net." I'd never heard that expression before but it's exactly right. There are simple things - is the fish on the inside or outside of the net? (This is important because you want it to drop out of the net when you disentangle it.) Is it under a single or a double layer? Is it caught in more than one place? If so, where does it need to be disentangled first? Which fish should be removed first? And things that are more complex – is this basket fish just twisted? Or through a hole? Where’s the hole? Was it also caught again after it went through the hole? Is it a hanger or a roller or is it gilled?

This is a really good crew and they seem to automatically know how to read. They are learning to mentally pick the fish as it approaches them. And the crew who were new last year are picking like pros. Oh wait - they are pros. We got a beautiful big king this tide. Here are photos of Chris and and Roger with it. (Trevor did predict that we'd start getting big kings once he got off the boat. Uh oh...)

Today started out still and sunny - even at 6:30 am. The search was on for insect repellant and sun screen. It was a really slooowww tide, coming in to a short tide from a hold up (meaning coming in to a low high tide from a high low tide - not much distance to travel in the 6 hours to do it). We had to wait for water to set the nets. Here we are, with our neighbors, doing just that. Part way through the tide, the wind picked up - off shore (not so great for fish) and became downright strong - maybe around 20 mph by the end of the tide - and I hear it blowing out there now as I type.

The New Boat is back up on the dock with a broken seal on the steering ram. Not that I know what all that means - there's a rod that goes side to side in response to the steering wheel. It looks sort of hydraulic-y. When it gets to the compressed position (which it takes many revolutions to achieve), it squirts out oil. I'm pretty sure that's not good.

Roy diagnosed it over the phone and David, Sarah, and Jeff took it back up. A few more days to order in the part and get it put back together. Sure glad we have the Bathtub. That outboard is a champ. And Roger fixed the antenna on the Ambi so we almost have a radio.

Despite the still weather and then the offshore wind, we got 6000 lbs, pretty evenly distributed across the flood and the ebb. In 2009, everything we caught was on the flood – that’s easy fishing because it's easy to deliver the fish. In 2010, it was all on the ebb which is tough because the tide goes away so the Jacqueline W, the seine boat that tenders our fish, can't stick around because they draw too much water, and we can't reach the trucks because the water has gone out, and the truck can't reach us because they can't get through the mud. That’s hard and stressful – a constant race. I’ll be happy for evenly distributed. The best news is that this crew managed 6000 lbs with time to take the New Boat to the outboard clinic, mess around with the 2 ½ HP outboard, stand and watch the person with the fish do the picking… we didn’t break a sweat. If the wind turns and we end up with a 23,000 lb tide, I’m confident that this crew can handle it.

When we deliver on the beach, we bring the skiff in to where the giant forklift (the
Gehl) can reach it without getting stuck in the mud. Brad lowers the forks over the skiff and we attach the brailer - the bag that holds the fish - and he takes it to a "deuce and a half," a big truck that carries six totes of slush ice and salmon. It's really important for us to do it as quickly as possible - if there's a wind, being on the beach beats us up, threatens us with swamping and/or damaging the outboard on rocks, and even if there's no wind, if it's on the ebb, we're always at risk of going dry and then we're in trouble. Brad had lifted the first bag out of the skiff and was waiting for the truck to catch up. But it seems that it was stuck between gears, meaning Brad was going to have to back up to it... and it was all going to take a long time. We just needed to offload, so Evan and Roger held a brailer out of the boat that we filled up to leave on the beach for Brad to get when he could. This photo is of us pitching the fish into the brailer. Do you see the fish approaching Evan's shoulder? They get pretty blase about fish flying past them. Though everyone usually gets a fish slap at least once in the season.

In other news, Kyle, the young man we gave a bunk and friendly faces, has found a boat at Peter Pan cannery that needed a deck hand. Marilyn, the office manager gave a call this afternoon. One of her captains lost a crewman (he quit) just about the same time that Kyle came to apply. I hope that works out well for him. He seemed pretty happy.

Yin came on board with us for a while and got lots of photos. I felt so terrible because I caused her to have to stand in wet boots the whole time she was with us. She was standing on the beach waiting for us. I thought she was wearing waders with knee boots over. I saw she was reluctant to step into the water but people often are and I thought she was worried about getting the inside of the boots wet. I knew we'd be able to restore them easily enough so I kept gesturing her in and she finally waded in. It turned out that she was wearing sweat pants, not waders, under her boots. And she was worried about getting her feet and her legs wet, not the inside of her knee boots. I felt terrible. But she’s right, she’s not a sissy! Here is one of my favorite of her photos. I think we were pitching fish from one boat to another, holding them together.

And finally, my brother told me that he saw Trevor today on the Italian Leprechaun and he seemed happy when he waved to him. I hope we'll have more news on him later. For now though, dinner has been cooked and consumed (curry with all the vegetables I could find, in addition to chickpeas and chicken), followed by strawberry shortcake (David and Sarah brought strawberries with them and I wanted to be sure they got the celebration they deserve - and I found some shelf stable whipping cream. It worked!) The seven loaves of bread and cinnamon rolls are out of the oven.

We fish again tomorrow from 7:30 to 4:30. Another slow tide... sounds like we'll have some wind, though; might have more fish. I kinda think so...

June 25: David and Sarah are here!

2011-06-25T18:00:00.001-07:00

First, the catch: it was a very calm day which usually reduces a catch and anyhow we had 2,870 lbs on this morning's tide. It was pretty evenly divided between the flood and the ebb. And the crew did most of it without me (I was on my way to the airport).

Now comes the part that I'm embarrassed to admit. First the good part of it: the New Boat is now in service!! The embarrassing part: it wasn't the CDI - it was that we hadn't remembered about the safety clip that the outboard operator is supposed to attach to himself/herself in case s/he is thrown from the boat. In that case, the clip goes with the operator and the two pieces come together telling the engine to stop. The clip keeps them separated so the engine will go. It wasn't installed. Boy, did I feel dumb. I know that patience is always a virtue, but I think it is especially a virtue in people who end up helping us with mechanical stuff. Here are Trevor and Jake who volunteered to go with me to bring home the New Boat.

Another piece of good news: the Grayling is also in service. David and Sarah have arrived; we are ready. We picked up the outboard today. And with David here, we are bound to get the little 2 1/2 hp outboard running to make it a little easier to get to and from the skiff when it's anchored out and we're in.

In another piece of news today, Trevor changed jobs and bunk locations - he is now working on a drift boat. This was the goodbye (until the end of the season when he'll come back and we'll go to Katmai together). He came up with us even though we didn't have a crew position available, we did have bunk space and I was willing to give him a place to be, some exposure to commercial fishing, and a phone number for people to call who wanted to possibly hire him. He posted some information about himself at the two main fishery supply stores in town, starting with 6'4", 250 lbs. He has received three calls so far. In several ways, the setnet job he initially secured would have been perfect. It is with the people who fish the site just at the foot our stairs, so he could have stayed with us (we like his company) and kept an eye on their net when they're not there. But they haven't started fishing yet and he was becoming worried about how well that would work out. Meanwhile, a couple of drifters called, he went to meet Mario, and they hit it off. Mario has been fishing here for 27 years. This year it's him, his 19 year old nephew (also new), and Trevor. He fishes in Naknek in this traditional Bristol Bay gillnetter made of fiberglass. So we went up to SeaMar to get him outfitted as a drift boat deck hand. I met Mario (I was in full "Mom" mode) and it turns out that he is from Monterey and has long known and worked with someone I know well and think highly of, so I think it'll work out well for him.

Today's crisis occurred when I dawdled getting Hannah to the airport. It's a small airport, the plane heading into Anchorage would not be crowded, so I wasn't awfully worried about the time. We took the time to clean today's kings but when I looked at my clock, we had only a few minutes before David and Sarah's plane was to arrive (the same plane that would take Hannah back to Anchorage) and it's about a 15 minute drive. We hurried then, arriving at the airport something like 45 or 50 minutes before flight time. By the time we got to the agent, she said Hannah couldn't fly. Hannah was very disappointed - she had been looking forward to seeing her mom. I think they made some special adjustments and got her on the plane, though not her luggage. It followed on the next one.

Trevor and I made a second trip to King Salmon (air freight came in) in the same trip drop him off at his new home for the next few weeks. On the way, we saw a person on the side of the road dragging a bag toward King Salmon. We offered him a ride and it turned out that he had just arrived from King Salmon, having finished the school year at his college and leaving his job at the factory in Indiana, and his younger brothers with his grandparents - to come to Alaska in the hopes of making some money to allow him to continue in school. He was heading back up to the airport (15 miles) to sleep, to walk back to Naknek tomorrow to look for jobs. Wow. I thought about what it would be like to be that 20 year old. I told him he could sleep in our bunkhouse and eat with us, and we'd help him while he looked for a job. His name is Kyle.

We fish on Sunday from 7:30 to 4:30. The wind is building; we may have a few...

June 24: White-Bearded Dinosaur

2011-06-24T18:29:00.000-07:00

It's so much fun when we get someone who talks in their sleep. At least it's fun for the rest of us. Hugh is the guy. He was sleeping and Jake heard him talking, calling "Look out! Look out!" Not able to resist, Jake went to explore and this was the exchange:

Jake: Hugh, what are we looking out for?
Hugh: A white-bearded dinosaur!
Jake: Where is it?
Hugh: It's coming; it's in the net!
Jake: Hugh, how are we going to get it out of the net?
Hugh: Shhhh, don't tell Liz... we're going to cut it out!

Several minutes later, armed with her camera...
Yin: Hugh, did you get the dinosaur out?
Hugh: No, I killed it.

June 24: That was refreshing!

2011-06-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

We had a 6 am opener today. We were out there 30 minutes before time to set. I had the chance to remind everyone that we don't always have the opportunity to prepare - untangle the anchor line and v-line, check knots, check for frays, check shackles and carabiners... just check everything. But when we do have that 30 minutes to prepare, use it.

It was a very slow tide. No wind, little current, few fish. This photo shows what happens when there are few fish. Before coming in, we all pile into one boat and go through the last net, fighting over the fish.

And actually, it was slow for everybody. When we finished our first net, I checked over for the other boat and saw a big drifter motoring in between the sites. That doesn't happen much - they were asking how our fishing was and whether we got any fish at high water. That drifter must not have known very much about setnetters. We don't usually like drifters to come and set their nets right in front of ours so we'd be unlikely to tell him to be sure to set right off us just after high water when the fish are running through here hard. We don't want to invite competition. Another thing to notice is that everything was the same color of gray today... kind of cold and still.

After the set, mending the running line that was severed ... was it just last week? ... with a splice, and going through the nets once (about 25 fish so far), we came in to wait for the just-prior-to-tide-turning pick, except Jeff, Roger, and Hugh went into town to try to get the New Boat running (probably with Roy's help). Part of the reason for being early into AGS is to be first in Roy's line, sort of like lining up for a rock concert. (If Roy ever sees this, I wonder what he'll think of being likened to a rock concert.)

When I looked at the outboard last night with my infantile mechanical skills, I noticed that gas was leaking from around the fuel filter. I tightened the clamps, but it still leaked from other places in that vicinity and wouldn't start anyway. Toolkit empty, Josh, Evan, and I came home on the three wheeler - very slowly. Now the mechanically inclined are going in for another run at it.

We went out again for our last pick of the flood - one red and one king. Our next trip to the nets will be the last one of the tide. We're not expecting many fish on the ebb (though last year we were surprised by that just about every tide), so we want to go at sort of the last minute, run through the nets and pick them up, stacking them into the boats for the next set, whenever that will be (probably tomorrow). But we won't know till 3 this afternoon. Before the last pick through, the goal is to anchor as deeply as possible (so the boat will still be floating after the tide has dropped) but still be shallow enough to walk in without getting wet. So we run the skiff in, estimate the depth 50' toward the shore from where we'll drop the anchor (try to figure out where 50' forward is), call the anchor drop, continue to run until we reach the end of the anchor line and spin around, getting us another 20' closer to shore. Now very quickly, before we start drifting into deeper water, someone must test the depth usually using a fairlead or a gaff hook and if shallow enough, jump out and hold the boat so the others can get out. I thought it was probably shallow enough for me in the dry suit so I quickly moved to the stern and jumped over. I was surprised to find that my feet didn't reach the bottom, and happy to find that my dry suit actually does have enough floatation to keep my head above water.

I didn't waste any time trying to get back into the boat and instead started kicking my way toward shore. I've been struggling with the zipper on the dry suit for several days now so except for the shock of the cold, I wasn't surprised (but was unhappy) to feel the very cold leak seeping water over my right shoulder and down my back. Brrrr. On the bright side, I was
still floating and after a few more teeth chattering minutes, was in shallow enough water to stand. After the crew knew I was safe, they decided it was funny. It sort of was. A perverse combination of funny and cold. They just reanchored the boat a little shallower. Here's what happens next with that sort of adventure. Wish the cabin were warmer so these would actually dry. Heater has stopped working.

Well, that was a slow tide - a total of 165 lbs. Harry called to say it was his worst day of fishing ever. He got 2 fish; one to eat and the other to send home with Hannah tomorrow. I'm going with the still-early theory.

The New Boat is not coming down any time soon unless a real Roy-miracle occurs. He thinks it's the Capacity Discharge Ignition. (I think that's a brain box for the outboard). So we're ordering a CDI ($$$) and I'm hoping that'll be just a few days. Uh... plus the weekend. Sigh. But really, we've fished plenty of successful seasons with the Ambi and the Bathtub. Plus, the Grayling's outboard is ready! Yippee!

Yin took this beautiful photo a couple of nights ago.

We go again tomorrow from 7am to 3:30 pm. I won't be there for the ebb - going to King Salmon to collect David and Sarah, put Hannah on the plane home, and swing by Charlie's Sport Shop to pick up the Grayling's outboard.

June 23: First emergency period announcement

2011-06-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

This was probably our last day of pure preparation. It felt luxurious. I didn't tune into how hard it is to prepare and fully fish two tides a day at the same time. It's hard to figure out when to sleep. Setnetters often don't fish the flood and instead just come out on the ebb. This is especially true when fishing is slow. The effect of tying down our leadlines is that it creates a basket that holds anything that's loose, including loose fish. (Also including flounders, tundra, garbage, floaters, and more.) Because I feel like we're asking fish to come to our nets to become someone's dinner, I think our part of the deal is to be there to help move them along their way to those dinner plates immediately, respectfully, and carefully. Part of that is being out there early in the tide, before the fish get beat up in the net and before the net turns inside out, dumping its contents. So as soon as we start tying down the leads, we fish the flood.

The effect of that, though, is that even when there aren't many fish, we have only 5 or 6 hours between tides, and maybe 1 1/2 hours between flood and ebb pick. If we're trying to finish preparations, one of those 5 or 6 hour windows is the logical time to do it, but that leaves only the other 5 or 6 hours for sleeping. And that wears on a person after a while.

But I think today will be the last day of preparations. Roger, Hugh, Chris, Jeff, and Trevor went into town to finish getting the New Boat ready. Yin also went in and, brave woman that she is, she took everyone's laundry.

The gas tank came in for its power roller (sans gas cap and hardware) ... and it's the right one! Roy suggested using a thread chaser to rethread the bolts... and they were given the wrong size, so they needed to get new size nuts (and it was dinner time), but that was the only snag. Roger installed the fuel filter earlier in the day and it works (yay). And now, assuming that is easy enough to get the new size nuts to hold on the gas tank, they'll wrap that up in time for Josh and Evan to bring the boat down to the site so we'll
have it for the first emergency period opening, which is Friday from 6 am to 6 pm. I hope I'll soon have a photo of the New Boat anchored out here in front of our sites. Meanwhile, here is a photo of my cabin: the crew Internet cafe. This is 1/2 of today's town contingent, Roger, Chris, and Hugh (without the head - sorry about that!) and the baked loaves of bread.

While they mechanically inclined were in town, I cooked ham and bean soup, baked bread and made cinnamon rolls, and the rest of the crew straightened up the crew cabin. Even the counters! It felt decadently cozy.

End of day update: no New Boat yet. They were launched at 9 or 9:30 tonight. At about 10, I began to worry and called the beach boss to see when they were launched. About a half hour ago, he told me. I took the four wheeler along the beach looking for them in the water and most of the way there, I was picking my way across the strip of rocky beach not covered by the incoming tide and called back to the cabin to see if they had slipped past me and already arrived at the cabin. Roger said no, but while we were talking, another call came in from the beach boss' phone - it was Josh. They couldn't get the New Boat started. That was a surprise as the town crew had had it running. So I proceeded on into AGS and found them tying up to the dock. I saw that the fittings on the fuel filter were loose and the hose clamps were falling off. I tightened up what I could (I feel like I've done a day's work when I can't get the gas smell off my hands)... and it still wouldn't start. Too bad I don't know what I'm doing. Roy.

June 22: Happy Birthday Sarah!!

2011-06-23T04:37:00.001-07:00

I'm looking forward to David's and Sarah's arrival. We'll have to celebrate her birthday when they get here.

We pulled our nets tonight. Free week ends Thursday morning at 9, but that would be just an hour before high water and without a doubt a struggle, and for few fish... we pulled at the end of this evening's tide after about 1000 lbs, for a total of almost 7000 during free week. Not bad. And now we wait. Maybe for a few hours or maybe a few days.

Josh arrived today. His first duty was to work with Hugh to get the king sides sealed. It turns out that if we combine two extension cords, we're more likely to flip breakers with the vacuum sealer than if we confine ourselves to one extension cord. So I filleted 15 or 20 salmon this morning and they sealed and froze them. Then Josh's first activity upon arriving at the cabin: sleep. We then did a little fishing before pulling the nets.

It was a beautiful sunset (and a swift current so I didn't get to stop for many photos, but here's what I got). We had just all piled into the Ambi. There's Evan up on the gunwale, Chris to the right of him, then Roger and Trevor.

We dropped off Jake and Jeff to clear the inside site in the Grayling, then Josh, Hugh, and Chris into the Bathtub to work on #3 and #4 (picking them and picking them up) which left Evan, Trevor, and Roger with me. Here they are pulling through the net. Roger is on hydraulics, Evan is on the fast pick and Trevor is holding the boat steady with the corks.

In this last photo, Evan and Trevor are focused on the net. The idea is to get through the net and get it back in the water as quickly as possible. The fish (and everything else in the net) come in over the roller and we try to get the fish out without having to call a stop to the net and without pulling ourselves out of the boat. Here Evan and Trevor and ready to wrestle whatever comes in over the roller out of the net.

June 21: The solstice

2011-06-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

Today started out overcast with a little blue poking through. Here, that invariably means it will clear up, and clear up it did. It turned into a beautiful morning that we got to go fishing in. There weren’t any fish to catch, but still, it was beautiful.

Despite considerable messing with the pull cord, it remained un-subdued. We decided that Roger should take pictures of the relevant pieces of the puzzle so we could show the picture to Roy or maybe the guy at Charlie's Sport Shop so he could say, "See that thingie? Take it off and there'll be a little thingie under it..." and so on. And we had to pick up Josh from the airport... but actually, we were a day early for that. My mistake.

So after not picking up Josh, and not being able to find anyone at Charlie's, we headed back down to AGS via SeaMar to get the parts for the fuel filter and LFS where we talked to a woman about Pebble Mine and then to AGS to clean and seal the fish, check the post office twice for the gas tank (no, both times)... and head back to the beach 5 hours later. The crew delivered 88 lbs from the morning tide, tried to use the weed-whacker to cut the path to the outhouse and threw rocks at birds. I can't say why Jeff was in this tierce, but Yin got a photo of it. Now you know a little more about Jeff. Ahem.

By the time we were heading home, the weather had turned and a pretty strong wind had come up. Worry about swamping the Bathtub, which was anchored where Roger could work on it without gearing up - but that means in the path of swamping under the influence of a wind. So they dragged that boat out with the ranger and prior to the tide, Jake brought the Ambi in so we wouldn't have to row out to it. But it was then anchored in the path of swamping, so we had to rush out there early and get that bow pointing out into the weather, walking it over to the running line and hang on until the rest of the crew arrived and we could get out of the surf break. Yin got video footage of that adventure.

Harry told me that there were 6-8' breakers (not just peaks and troughs) out in the middle - those are some rough seas. I had just been saying to the crew how tough us setnetters are to be bouncing around in that, working against the wind and the current in these open little tin cans, when Harry told me that his boat broke in the storm. They had electrical problems and their bilge pump went out - water all over the place. He fixed it, though.

Roger still couldn't get the retractor thing to work, but it did figure out how to get the part off, so he and Hugh went back into town and Roy helped them rewind it. (The dreaded "sproing" effect when replacing a cord occurred, but it was hidden from view so Roger didn't know what problem he was trying to solve.)

The wind became quite strong and it brought a lot of fish on the flood - more than 2300 lbs. The crew did really well. Evan is a natural picker - I think it's his logical mind; he thinks it's his stubbornness. In any case, he can see how they're caught and just gets them out.

I really like this crew.

Now, must sleep - up at 7 for the next tide. I think I'll be able to add photos tomorrow.

June 20: My birthday

2011-06-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

It was a delightful birthday, though not trouble free. We had an opening at 9 am that we finally decided to fish. Out there at 8:30, getting ready, we found the Grayling swamped and a flagging line in the water. Ours. Our running line. It turns out that someone ran a boat over our running line (it does stick out there a bit) and cut it. Then the running line wrapped the anchor line of the Grayling, preventing it from riding properly in the fast current whereupon it took on water and swamped.

However, this is another one of those "If it was going to happen, this is about what I would pick." The Grayling didn't have an outboard on it, the net didn't spill out, it wasn't stormy, and we were working in the daylight... it just needed some bailing and it was fine.

We mended the running line - it took a couple of tries because we didn't realize at first that it was broken in the middle. Then we managed our first deep water set pretty uneventfully - and as deep water sets go, that's a smashing success. We decided just to set the other net from the Bathtub on one of the outside sites (the one with the buoys a little extra close together) and that also went fine.

Jeff was leading the Grayling restoration crew and was ready to set that net as we'd talked about on the neighbor's site, since they weren't using it. That turned out to be a good call because as soon as they got it in the water, we started getting hits. That's always exciting.

I had noticed some irregularity on the pull cord on the Yamaha that powers the Bathtub and discovered later in the tide that the irregularity must have been a nick because about half way through the tide, it turned into a full blown fray and that cord pulled its last pull.

Luckily, we have Roger.

We ended the tide with about 500 lbs and a pretty good selection of kings. Here are Jeff and Trevor with two of them, in a photo taken by Yin through a lens of a binocular.

When we went in from that morning tide, I was shocked to see that it was 2:45 - the first half of my birthday had disappeared! We cleaned the kings and prepared to vacuum seal them in our new vacuum sealer. But the 1000 W generator doesn't have quite enough to do it. Sigh. So get that thing (it's heavy!) into the truck, get it into town and use their electricity. But first, to King Salmon to get a cord (before Charlie's Sport Shop closes - he told Roger how to do the Ninja cord swap), and then success with the vacuum sealer before heading back down the beach to the Bathtub for Roger to take a shot at the repair and to the cabin for me to start the teriyaki salmon, couscous salad, and chocolate chip orange cake. It takes a while, but it's worth it. I think the best present I got for my birthday was not only that my brother came back from Anchorage, but he came back bearing vegetables and watermelon. Now, how do you get a watermelon on the plane? Only one way: carry it on. He carried a watermelon on the plane to give me for my birthday. That's a really good brother.

At dinner, Hugh did something to his hair and he looked just like Wolverine (a personal favorite of mine). So he did a little costume enhancement and here was Hugh's look for my birthday.

Down to one working outboard, we use the Ambi to tow the Grayling to the net it'll work on.

Roger was able to get the pull cord installed the ninja way but is having trouble getting the retractor mechanism to function. I didn't fish the evening tide, but the crew brought in 770 lbs and 10 kings, including two pretty big ones. They'll go into the freezer today. Yippee!

When David and Sarah arrive, the big kings will start heading to the east coast to a market David has developed there. Lucky them.

June 19: Bob's birthday begins "free week"

2011-06-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

Even if Bob isn't here this year, he has been in our thoughts several times - like when the Ambi had the sticky choke problem. We think he diagnosed that last year and we just didn't remember until Roy diagnosed it again. And today we finally brought down the freight that had the box that Bob sent in the middle of the winter with perfect, wonderful little tie off lines and v-lines to hold the leadline down. We're using two of them tomorrow. Chris recently said, "Bob's still the MVP and he's not even here this year."

Today was another day of getting ready - every day up until the fish start running hard will be a day of getting ready as long as we can keep thinking of things to do. So far, it's easy. Roger, Jeff, Trevor, and Yin went into town to do many errands and to change the fuel filter on the New Boat so that as soon as the new gas tank arrives, we can pop it on, get in the water, and go. Alas, in taking the fuel filter off, it was broken and SeaMar didn't have another. Dang. Boo. But... I bought a back up filter for the Ambi - it's smaller, but Roy says it'll push enough fuel so Roger will install that one and we'll be almost back in business.

I've become a little superstitious of trying to bake bread - for a few years there, every time I got it started, something urgent would happen and then the bread would just go its own way, which doesn't turn out as well as when it gets some guidance. But I tried today anyway and it came out fine. Even made cinnamon rolls...

Meanwhile, Jake, Chris, Hugh, and Evan stayed around camp and repaired my walkway (yippee!!) and worked on the two water-related projects. The most important is getting the pump running to pull water from the lake behind the cabin (actually, it's a giant mud puddle, but it has been home to a pair of swans and one time I was out at the lake not paying much attention to my surroundings when I looked up and found myself in the middle of a few caribou. So it may be a glorified mud puddle, but at least it's glorified) That water project is almost ready. Roger contributed the photo to the left of Jake and Hugh putting together the line draining the water from the reservoir tank at the top of the cliff to where it's needed for washdown at the bottom of the cliff. They're also making progress in getting the cabin waste water (from doing dishes and washing hands is about all we have) to run all the way over the cliff instead of just in front of the cabins.

We have a fishing opening (aka "an opener") in the morning at 9 am. We'll be allowed to fish straight through until 9 am Thursday when "free week" ends and the emergency period begins. At that time, we will become devout radio listeners at 9 am, noon, 3 pm, 6 pm, and 8 pm, when Fish and Game announcement are read letting us know whether we'll be allowed to fish and if so, when. (Actually, since I now have Internet access at my cabin, I just get the info via email. I don't exactly miss the old days of listening for announcements, except that I miss the hominess of the local public radio station - with polka hour, rock hour, country hour, space music, jazz, birthday announcements, the trading post, job opportunities, the Bristol Bay messenger (relays messages over the radio for people who can't be reached any other way.))

Since free week begins just after high water, I had decided that this early in the season, we won't fight with a high water set and instead just wait till the afternoon tide to set our nets out. The crew isn't experienced enough to add much to the discussion of decisions like that (though they do get lots of credit for gamely trying), so in the process of thinking it through, I often end up making a decision and then thinking more about it and making a different decision. It's a way of being indecisive that wouldn't appear indecisive if it were part of a dialogue. Decisions really are better when they're informed by multiple perspectives, and I think there are some people who immediately see and weigh all the factors and considerations and come up with the right course of action the first time because it started out clear for them. Not me. For me, it's a process.

On one side - the crew is pretty new - even the experienced guys are pretty new and doing a high water set is difficult and puts the gear at risk of getting caught in a prop, which of course risks not only the gear but it turns the stern of the skiff to the weather and pins it down, which is never a good thing and as things sometimes unfold, you can imagine where that cascade of events could lead. So, there probably won't be many fish to make the risk worth it... we should just sit it out and wait. Sound reasoning.

But then more thoughts trickled in...

Everyone is saying it'll be an early season,
We've had a southwest wind,
In one other year of the 40 seasons I've been paying close attention we've had a good showing on June 20,
And in one other year since we've had skiffs (since 1982) we participated in a high water set and the inside sites did great (and the outside sites did almost nothing),
If we wait till the afternoon, the drift fleet that may be fishing will have been fishing so we'll have missed the advantage of a long window of fish distributing throughout the district, free from nets.

So finally, I decided that we should set our inside site and since the neighbors are showing no sign of fishing their inside site tomorrow morning, we'll throw a net on their site too. What the heck. We'll fish the ebb and at least I hope we'll get a fish for my birthday dinner. Then, as the tide falls, we'll pick the net up on the borrowed site and put it where it belongs - about 900' seaward. And the crew will get practice at doing at least one type of deep water set. I hope we'll be close enough to high water that the current won't be running much yet. But it won't be that fast - going out to a 4' hold up.

So after Evan and I anchored the skiff at the outside of the outside site and then rowed in against the current and the wind, Jake and Chris went out and brought the Bathtub in so we can use it to set out of in the morning. Even though the skiff is anchored in, we'll still need to row out to it. Here is our port-a-bote, and beyond it are the four-wheelers and the stairs and beyond that our fleet of trucks, too far away to see the chewing gum and bailing wire that holds them together.

Trevor gave me his photos - he shares my taste for sunsets. This darker one is about as dark as it gets this time of year. And though it may seem pretty light, it's hard to pick a fish using mood lighting.

In today's final news: Trevor got a job on a neighboring setnet site - about two sites down, I think. So he'll stay with us and commute about 900' to work. I think that will help David in his quest for large kings, and of course, it will help Trevor. He's not 100% certain whose site it is, but I think she's a member of the Aspelund family, and that says a lot for them.

June 18: The Blessing of the Fleet

2011-06-18T21:59:00.000-07:00

Laid back day today, lots of good news, stress free.

Freddie Anderson, a local artist and fisherman started the Blessing of the Fleet several years ago. He persuaded the local processors and vendors to donate food and various safety items that he uses for door prizes. He makes the rounds of the different religious traditions represented in the area and asks a different person each year to say a few words (and depending on the preacher, it's sometimes more than a few), they give away a few door prizes based on tickets we get when we sign in, and then eat a little (or in some cases, a lot), a few more door prizes and then... the grand prize!

I think we all had fun - here are Hannah (left) and Hugh, thumb wrestling, and Makenzie, refereeing.

Our crew was very lucky - Jeff was first, winning a life jacket.

Jake won Peter Pan sweat pants;

Evan won a Peter Pan T shirt;

Yin won a little carrying pouch;

Hugh won a documentary called Red Gold;

I won a life ring (and gave it to my neighbor who just said he needed one and I thought we had enough - but wasn't positive);

and Yin won the grand prize - a life ring (now I'm sure), a Peter Pan vest, and a bear carved with a chainsaw by our wonderful neighbor, Mark, of Bearcarver.com. The same one with the chainsaw injury a few days ago. I did check the bear for blood spots. None.

We decided not to try to work on the New Boat since the gas tank didn't come in today and we couldn't finish it. Chris and Hugh finished setting up the water system so now we can wash ourselves and our equipment off when we come in from a tide (and in a pinch, we can wash down fish, though we try to keep them out of the mud).

Here is the much maligned mud. The processors don't like it on our fish because it is hard on their equipment (in my opinion, they would be wise to bring back the wash down tank that used to stand where cars are now parked), some setnetters don't like it because it's darned hard to walk through over and over and over again - it gets on and in everything. Don't worry - Roger still has feet, they're just a little buried.

On the other hand, walking through it is a cardiovascular workout like none other I've found, and the calf muscles this develops can't be beat. Roger is looking forward to the impact of negotiating this mud on his bicycling when he gets back home.

You can't drive through it - trucks, no matter how big the tires and how many wheels are driving, just get buried. But a ranger can do it. The wide tracks provide enough displacement not to sink and the treads give them traction. They are a welcome piece of equipment, especially with outside sites that are about 1300' of mud away from where the buyer can take delivery of our fish. But we couldn't bring the rangers to the sites without having to drive them over about a one foot cliff created by the tide eating away at the beach access road. The rangers aren't flexible enough to take the cliff without significant risk of tipping over. So we waited.

Now the City has repaired the beach access road so Chris and Trevor took one ranger (the Friendly Ranger - Chris is jumping off it in this photo) and Roger and I took the other one (the Killer Ranger) down to the sites. Roger took the helm before we'd gone far and learned how that ranger communicates its intentions. It's good to sit if you can for stability's sake, but not all that comfortable if you do.

We got the rangers parked up high, out of the way of the tide and without incident, the wind has turned southwest.

We pulled the kites out of storage for the first time in a long time (the tails are just catching up with the nosedive here on the left), the crew threw rocks into the water (here are Evan, Hugh, and Trevor).

Trevor just came to offer some brownies (thank you, Meredith!) and told me that Roger got really good pictures of the crew jumping off the cliff (eek!!). "No one broke a leg," he assured me, "Makenzie was there."

... all is well.

June 17: What more could we hope for?

2011-06-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

A Seattle work-related call started the day. Then near time to go see if the skiffs survived the incredibly fast tide last night. It was a 30' tide change in 6 hours... with a wind blowing. That current moves.

We got to the Bathtub as it was edging its way up the beach. It rode out the storm well. We had gas with us and oil. Thinking our problem was water in the gas, I asked Jake and Trevor to go to the Ambi to see if it will start - maybe it got over its problem enough for us to help it the rest of the way over (by use of the throttle). I ran to the processor's to get advice on how to care for the Ambi's outboard (after stopping by the Ambi to see that it too rode the storm well, even though it did it stern to the current). The advice: 1) dump out the old gas (this processor is really good. We put it in buckets and give it to them and they dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way) and 2) put in new. (I learned today that gas loses its oomph after about 8 months. So don't try to save it over the year.) Then 3) clear out the float bulbs. Huh? There are 3 carburetors and each one has a little screw under it to purge the float bulbs. But I didn't know that then.

Returned to the Bathtub with the needed supplies, fueled it up, added a bailing bucket and another life preserver. When the boat has plenty of fuel and it's running well, it gives me the same feeling as a full freezer. All went well and the equipment and people all converged on the Ambi to find that Jake had gotten it started. Yippee!! They ran it and ran it, trying to blow the water out of the system. I thought it still sounded funny - sort of muffled. But it seemed to be OK enough so we sent Roger back to camp in the truck and we were to follow, with Trevor traveling along the beach with us on the four wheeler.

It was time for skiff piloting lessons so Jake was to teach Hugh in the Ambi and I was to teach Evan in the Bathtub. As soon as Hugh dropped it into reverse, it died. Surrender. Rafted it up to the Bathtub and hauled it to knowledgeable help. They pulled it out of the water and Guy, the beach boss and nice person, showed us how to empty out the float bowls. But it continued to misbehave. We couldn't find Roy, but Chris the welder was willing to pitch in and when he felt over his head, he recruited KC for us, and he was just warming up to help us when Roy arrived. Roy used the force and diagnosed a sticky choke reparable by WD40. Jake then remembered Bob spraying WD40 on something at the beginning of each tide last year. Maybe it was that.

The outboard then worked fine and the beach gang was able to launch us again before dinner while we still had plenty of water. Kindness and competence from people; generosity from the universe. Skiff piloting lessons ensued and five miles later, we were at the site. The tide was still up to the gravel and the offshore wind rendered that water at the beach quite calm and easy to work in, so we took that opportunity to bring in the skiffs and load the nets into them that we had removed the night before and run the skiffs to the outside sites. Evan and I were the last ones out so we were the ones to row back in, in our little port-a-bote.

The port-a-bote has wonderful qualities - it is light, it will ride rough weather without capsizing because it is flexible and absorbs the pounding wave that would capsize a rigid dingy, and even if it does swamp, it floats just below the water. Those good qualities outweigh the disadvantage that that same flexibility makes it lumber through the water like a plow instead of slicing through it like a knife.

So when it was time for us to paddle our way the 1/4 mile back to shore, that offshore wind that I appreciated so much when we were loading the nets was less of a friend, and the outgoing tide added to the challenge. It is at least as hard as it sounds, the but really difficult thing is that we can't stop to rest or we get blown back to where we started, just more tired. We also took some time to sync our strokes so that for the first 600' toward shore, we paddled at least that far to the left and/ or right, sort of fighting each other with our paddling.

When we finally made it to shore, Evan commented that his arms had never felt that way before. All to the good, I think.

In a final positive note - while the rest of us performed the skiff rescue mission, Chris and Jeff stayed at the cabin and set up the pump!! It looks like some bears may have had their way with the pipe in a few places so we have some mending to do, but that's a great achievement. And another piece of progress: Marc Watson of Peninsula Automotive got the rangers ready for the season and dropped them off at the beach access road. We just need to bring them the rest of the way down the beach. The only problem there is that much of the dirt ramp leading to the beach was eaten away by those high tides we've been having so it's a bit of a cliff instead of hill. And the Killer Ranger isn't called that for nothin'. So we'll need to figure that one out this weekend, but it's a problem that can be solved with a shovel and a couple of hours.

Good day. We're ready to fish on Monday (my birthday!). Tired, though.

June 16: Lucky (considering)

2011-06-16T05:53:00.000-07:00

5 am: Back from the first flood pick. It was a training run. Up at 2:30, out at 3. Hugh, Trevor, and I worked the Bathtub (I have a special affinity for that outboard) and Jake, Roger, and Evan worked the Grayling (that 25 hp Johnson is persnickity and I think it favors the men). The Grayling is hard to work in because it has such low sides, so I took the tallest crew members with me - a little mercy on their backs. 1 fish.

But actually, the real reason I'm posting so early is to assure parents that we all survived sampling the year old cookies. No one seems any the worse for wear. I want that recipe! More later after we've slept a little more and fished a little more.

We went back out at 7 for a water haul on the rest of the tide, back in at 8. I had started some steel cut oats between the two picks - 3 cups of oats; 9 cups of water. Enough for 7 guys, right? Ha! So Yin and I also made ... I'm not sure what it was, but it involved onions, tomatoes, potatoes, kidney beans, black beans, eggs, and smoked salmon. Those disappeared too. I like to put beans into everything I reasonably can because they last so long in a person. Here we are at a meal. It's so much fun just to be in the same room listening to them as they wait to eat. And for all the parents out there: yes, they do offer to help; sometimes they wash their hands; and they've done all the dishes so far.

The Johnson outboard gave up during the morning tide so we towed the Grayling around to its various responsibilities and eventually loaded the outboard into the truck to take to Charlie's Sport Shop for repair (he laughed and said one week.) The main purpose of the trip into town was to get the Ambi - the Big Boat - ready to launch. Oh, the emotional aerobics of that process. Roger successfully replaced the fuel filter and installed a new antenna mount (yay!!) - which was promptly destroyed before the skiff even left the river (boo!!). He said changing the filter was easy - none of it looked easy to me. But the engine part of it was alarming and had me thinking about how much it would cost to replace the outboard by next week (boo!!).
The old battery is bubbling - replace it.
The new battery isn't fully charged and everyone is going to lunch - quick! Borrow one and see if the outboard will start and go.
Eek! Something is wrong. We can see a spark, but now the light isn't even turning on. -- Eek! Did you say "spark?" Negative on the positive? Disaster? Nope, just dirty terminals and icky clamps. Roy advises us, "clean and tight."
Yippee! We're ready to launch!! Jeff will take the helm, with Roger and Trevor as crew. We waited about a half hour before I was ready to abandon the launch crew because the rest of us need to get back to the nets and pick them up until Monday. I had wanted to stay for the launch because some powerful part of me thinks it's my fierce concentration that gets the boat launched unremarkably. I spotted the Crane Master and, not wanting to bug him I just asked if I should wait for the launch or leave for the beach. There's a skiff waiting to be launched? Oh... yeah... communication breaks down everywhere. It did give the kids a chance to go to mug-up. That's everybody's favorite time of the day - coffee break at 10 am, 3 pm, 8 (or is it 9?)pm. Free goodies, like cookies, cakes, grilled cheese sandwiches - oh, and coffee. On a nice day people stand out on the "balcony" and survey the domain.

A few minutes after the launch, we got a call:
We're dead in the water and drifting toward the mouth of the river." - Drop the anchor. Is the fuel line pinched? Is it firmly attached to the outboard? Is the tank getting some air? (All the while, I have a terrible feeling I know what happened - I think it's my fault for being so cheap - I hate to throw away leftover gas, even though I know condensation probably happened over the summer. Lesson 1 that I already knew but apparently needed a refresher course.)

Most of the crew is new and they haven't spent much time in the river on the water so it was hard to figure out where they were. But we finally sort of worked it out and, as with the stuck flatbed of a few days ago, if it had to happen, it couldn't have happened at a better place. I told them to wait till they could get out of the boat without swamping their waders and pull the boat to a nearby protected area and we'd come and get them in the truck as soon as we finished picking up the nets (with our one functioning boat). Hugh and Chris were with me and they were efficient so I began to think that we would have time to run to them in the skiff, tow the Ambi back to the processor for its recovery. And then I decided that there really is no rush, no need to add to the stress by trying to beat the tide when we're not really in a race. But then I couldn't figure out where to anchor the boat full of nets - we would need them at the outside sites on Monday. But first, we would need to take it into the river to recover the Ambi - and the sooner the better. Well... now, then. So I gave our total catch (3 fish) to Jake and zoomed out to the river. I imagined if my kids saw me, they wouldn't believe it since I usually drive like an old lady. And the wind had come up, pretty strong. The weather report says 24 MPH with gusts to 45. I think there were a lot of gusts.

I kept thinking that I should call the Ambi crew so they wouldn't beach it, but I didn't want to stop because I was racing the very quickly outgoing tide. I got to where I thought they were and couldn't see them. So I called. They had tied up the boat to a barge and caught a ride to the beach where Chris picked them up in the truck that he was using to follow me. I was slow and it took a few tries to get me to understand that. Lesson 2 that I already knew: try patience. Just for a minute. I'm not sure it was wise to head out for them. Maybe.

They had done just what I asked them to do, but more thoroughly and more quickly than I expected. But there was still time and they weren't far, so they came back to help me get to the Ambi with the Bathtub, with the extreme river current pushing us around. And they mentioned that Roy would come look at it. Oh. Then there's no reason to take it to him. Oh.

So I tried to race the tide home, but lost that race and started to hit bottom, something that would happen sooner than usual with that boat because of the weight of the nets it was carrying. Uh oh. I could anchor there, walk in and walk back out on the next tide. That's a long walk. I could walk the boat in, but I didn't know how well skiffs on this part of the beach ride a storm. OK, back to the protected cove place that I hoped Jeff and crew would take the Ambi. But I was low on gas. Made it even though the gas tank was floating by the time I beached it.

The uneasy thing is that the southeast wind blows straight down the river so the usually protected little space gets kind of wild. And my skiff with a heavy load. Sigh.

But I think the Bathtub is actually in a good place (assuming it doesn't swamp there and dump its nets and submerge our one working outboard) because it turns out that Roy wasn't actually planning to come rescue the Ambi's outboard... just that he for sure wouldn't walk through the sticky mud I was suggesting to do it, but he would come down a ladder and across a barge. Though I'm not sure about getting from the barge to the skiff... details!

So I think we may need to tow it to the processor after all and the Bathtub is in a decent place to begin that task. Too bad about all the nets. And the wind.

Chris and I will get up at 2 to check the wind and if it continues, we'll head in to babysit the boat and maybe to unload the nets into the back of the truck so the boat won't need such babysitting, it'll maneuver more easily in that outrageous current, and it'll be better able to do its expected towing job /// It's a good thing I'm writing this because as I wrote the previous sentence I realized what we needed to do: unload the nets into the truck while the tide is well out and before it can be a threat to the boat. And take the four wheeler and trailer that Hugh just got functional for us today, in case it's too boggy by the boat for the truck.

Jeff, Trevor, and I did that and loaded two nets into the truck and Jeff rode back with one in the four-wheeler trailer. We also had a chance to check on the Ambi which went dry very nicely. Except for the problems that need solving, all is well and we can sleep.

June 15: All the nets in the water

2011-06-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

Big day today - we were able to launch two skiffs, the smallest two and the simplest: the Bathtub and the Grayling. The Beach Gang guys pick the skiff up with their big forklifts and carry it down the hill to the dock.
Then they put it into slings - one under the bow and the other under the stern - and the crane operator (Mike the Crane Master) lifts it, swivels the crane and its load and lowers it into the water. Here is a photo of our boat being lowered:

Oh, no -- wait! That's not our boat. This one is. This is our Grayling.

The crew then climbs down, hangs on to the pilings,
tries hard to get the outboard started, slides off the sling straps, tries to appear to maintain control of the vessel and gets away from the scary dock and current as soon as possible, heading to our sites.

Roger drove the Bathtub down,
with Evan, Yin and me as crew.

I just couldn't resist adding this picture of Evan.

Back to business. Jeff, in his first hours here, had to jump into the truck and head down the beach to tend the net before it went dry. We had planned to have Trevor pace us on the four-wheeler as we ran the two skiffs the 4 or 5 miles to the site. I don't completely trust them at the beginning of the season. But we had some delays in getting the boats in and I don't like anyone to tend the nets alone, so Trevor went down after him on the four-wheeler. The Bathtub finally arrived at the sites and found the Grayling crew waiting for us. We gathered up tag lines and v-lines and together put out the rest of the nets.

We decided not to go back into town to try to finish getting the Ambi ready - we'll start fishing the flood and the ebb now so we'll be getting up early. Instead I asked the crew to make more progress on the inside of the cabin and I finally remembered to pull out a box that I picked up at the post office for Jake when I first arrived. I figured he sent himself something. It turned out that it was something his mom had sent him last year! And that something was cookies. He said that he checked twice a day at the end of the season last year, but even though it was postmarked July 13, 2010, it didn't arrive before they left around July 25. I didn't get that gene that protects people from food poisoning. So I didn't object when they opened the year old cookies and tried them. (OK, I tried them too.) They were well wrapped. Jake said they shouldn't have had that minty flavor. And I thought they had a little
bit of a stale taste, but pretty good. Maybe they froze all winter long?

Must go - up at 3 for the am flood pick.

June 14: Getting the skiffs ready

2011-06-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

Trevor got some long video of an eagle in flight that I hope to figure out how to post, and Yin (our photo journalist) got a photo of Trevor apparently about to consume a fairly hardened lemming. Really - we aren't that hungry.

The more I work with this crew, the more I like them (and I already started out liking them plenty). Getting the skiffs ready is a confusing and frustrating task, but they all stayed with it, alert, and willing to step in and help. -

And they face the future with courage and hope!

Hugh and Roger have taken the lead with handling the wrenches and Evan knows a thing or two about boats and knots. Jake, the most senior crew member (until Josh arrives, followed by David and Sarah) is stepping into a leadership role. After we had been working with the skiffs for several hours, Chris took a team of him and Trevor to go tend the nets, getting another 21 fish, heading and gutting 10 of them for Harry's trip home for the week.

And just for the heck of it, I wanted to include this picture of Trevor, Hugh, and Chris - ready for a boat ride!

Part of what's difficult about getting the skiffs ready is everything has to be done first, and every time we turn around, we're told that the fish are going to be early. Eek! It's a figure-it-out-as-you-go kind of place. One of the things we need to do is test the outboards before putting the skiffs into the water, and the outboards need to have water running through them to cool them. The outboard shops have water tanks set up to lower the outboards into. Not us. The other pretty convenient solution is to use the little ear muff devices that attach to the end of a garden hose and clamp over the water intake spots on the lower unit of the outboard. We have the hose and the ear muffs; just need the hose bib. Appropriately, there are fire hoses all over the place... but few garden hose attachments. We found one and our hose, a pretty long one, reached to within 10 feet of it, starting at the outboard. Dang. What to do: remove the outboard and bring it closer? Ask the beach gang to move the skiff closer? Find an extension for the hose? Maybe that. But it was too late - we were out of gas and the stock room was about to close.

There are so many skiffs, and so many components of getting each skiff ready. My mental checklist for minimum preparations is: a way to go; a way to stop; and a way to get the water out. But there's more to it than just that. The way to stop, for example, requires an anchor with the right length of chain and the right length of anchor line and the right knots, and double-checking the shackles that hold it all together. The way to go entails knowing which outboard use mixed glass, which straight gas and which are precision blend machines. And of course, ensuring that they will come up and go down (one doesn't right now - Harry suspects the solenoid (I didn't even know how to spell it, let alone what it is though I think it's an important electrical thing)). And the issue of being able to get the water out of the boat also encompasses keeping the water out in the first place. All the skiffs have drain holes so they can be stored outside all winter without filling up with water. But that means we have to a) remember to close the drain holes and b) find the plugs to do it with. It's a surprise when the boat is lowered into the water and the crew (and the beach gang, and seemingly everyone in the whole fish camp) suddenly notices water gushing in through the drain hole. Oops. That's embarrassing.

In addition to the minimum, we also need to get the power rollers on (changing the oil in the power packs first and making sure they run), the tie-off lines in place, the brailers loaded in, the nets stacked in and the various assorted handy things that I slowly remember over the course of the season.

It's a long day.

When we got back to the cabin, we learned about one of Hugh's claims to fame: the last time he let a long drool escape his mouth to be retrieved by sucking it back was in elementary school when he brought back not only the drool, but also a blade of grass.

For now, back to the skiffs and to pick up Jeff.

June 12: I love this crew

2011-06-14T00:43:00.000-07:00

What a great crew! Jake and Chris are back from last year (Jeff will also be returning, in on Wednesday), and they recruited their bright and helpful friend, Hugh. Of course, Trevor has been here for a couple of days and he has been great to work with. He worked all day with me the day he got in - we put out the buoys for the inside site, and the running line that runs between the buoy and the anchor on the shore. And we walked all around where the outside sites are to figure out what's there and what's missing or otherwise lost. Then this morning, he worked with me to put out the net for the 9 am opener. He just started hauling on the little dingy holding the net and pulled it out.

He was planning to work with Harry and Hannah today to help them get the drift boat ready. He learned how to run the four-wheeler today so he could drive it into town so they would have it to run errands around the fish camp as they're working to get the boat ready to launch.

Yin went out with us to set the net too, but her feet are so small, she was swimming in the smallest wader boots we have and just got stuck in the mud and couldn't get out without help. So for a while anyway, she'll spend time out of the mud. That's OK too - it's great to have her here to help in the cabin and help with the cooking. When I was anticipating the crew's arrival, I was worried about not being able to keep up with them in cooking (though I don't expect to be doing all the cooking). So having her here to help is a real benefit for me. It's so nice to have a daughter! Oh! And Makenzie, Harry's other daughter is coming in tomorrow and she'll stay with us for the week - until Harry returns. That'll be pure delight for us.

Just about as soon as we got the nets out, we headed into town to drop Trevor off, him on the four-wheeler (ok, so maybe he got just a little bit lost - but the important part is that he found his way back), and to pick up five crew members who came in today. I've never met Roger, Evan, or Hugh. I think they had some rugged travel to get here but, like Jake and Chris whom I was thrilled to see again, they were cheerful and hardworking from the time we got into the truck. Here they are all geared up.

First stop, the fish processing plant to get their licenses (the net was fishing and waiting for us to get back to pick it). Roger and I got the propane truck loaded up with most of the supplies and followed Jake and the rest of them down the beach. We got the truck stuck in front of our neighbor's site. (The best possible circumstances for getting stuck: outgoing tide, near home, a truck handy that can pull us out.) Roger towed us and we made it.

Jake, Chris, Hugh, and Evan tackled the net (after Evan's side trip down the beach). Jake was worried - he couldn't find Evan! Then we saw someone walking up from the cannery. The first thing we heard once he was in earshot was, "I can explain." Of course, when people are new, they have no idea what's going on. The best crew just dive in and try. Evan got into his gear and looked around and couldn't see anyone. He figured they got started without him so he went out to look for them. He saw three people walking down the beach and thought that must be them, so he hurried to catch up. Then he realized it wasn't them, so he started heading back. Then he thought he saw them wave, so he headed that way again for a bit and finally decided that he had it wrong and came back. That's when we saw him. I think he might have felt like he'd done the wrong thing, but I thought it was a great sign. It showed problem-solving, initiative, courage, determination, energy - he was just missing some details that he really didn't have any way of knowing and he'll get those soon enough.

We had about 120 lbs of salmon, plus three small kings (that we ate! grilled! yum!) and three others that the seals got most of.

After finishing with the net, the guys changed out of their gear and went to work hauling the supplies up the cliff using the tram and the capstan winch. That's Roger and Chris in the picture. They all figured it out and brought it all back to the crew cabin.
Once that was done, some started helping clean the cabin and get the supplies stowed; some finished getting the boards off the cabin; some started opening the bunkhouse. They were tireless. They would have kept going, but I called it a night. We need to pick the net at about 5 in the morning.

Now, the next thing is all Harry's fault: He said that they can do it. I can sleep and they can do it. It feels wrong, and sleep sounds good. I'll sleep.

We had a lot of photos from today, but I won't get them inserted till tomorrow.

June 12: Happy for the mud

2011-06-13T01:36:00.000-07:00

Both generators are up and running, and both with new oil (yay me!). Trevor arrived after a bit of a travel trial - his flight from San Francisco into Anchorage was late so he missed his connection into King Salmon and so had to stay overnight in Anchorage. He went to an International Hostel and said it was a really good experience. He couldn't get on the first plane this morning but they squeezed him onto the second. He did lose his sleeping bag in the transaction, forgetting it on the trip to or from the airport...

We came down the beach and he did a little more work opening the crew cabin and we scrounged up some gear for him to wear fishing until his gear arrives. Finally, the tide moved out far enough to get the inside site ready and go on an explore for the anchors for all the sites - inside and outside.

In the first trip through our sticky I thought it was pretty good this year. Not sinking in too far... but on the fourth trip through, I changed my mind. I'm still happy to be in the mud, but boy, is it ever deep! And sticky. Only about the first 800' or so out from the beach. Then it turns into hard sand with a thin veneer of mud.

It feels like a miracle that we found the anchor for the inside site - only part of the eye was sticking up above the mud. We found it by pacing out to where we thought it would be... and then pacing out to the Hakkinen's site (for some reason, their anchors are always poking up out of the mud) and then, while we were out there, pacing over to the third and fourth sites to see if we can find those inside anchors (yes), then to the outside of those sites. The anchor was buried on the fourth site, but we could see the loops of the anchor line, so that's good. Then we found the loops for the anchor line for the outside of the third site and... those loops were no longer attached to the eye of the cable. Huh? The eye was still attached to the anchor, and the broken off cables were lying close by. But not attached. I'll be darned. We dug for the eye of the anchor and couldn't get deep enough. We'll decide tomorrow whether to put a new one down or take a shovel out to find the old one.

Then we paced past Hakinnen's over to the first site (mine) and found no trace of the outside anchor, though we did find the inside anchor.

During all this walking and pacing, Trevor did great. We took out one of the little sleds that Mom and I got in Wasilla this winter - they're called Jet Sleds and they're for towing behind snow machines. They seem to work well in the mud. We used it to haul out the anchor line, tools, spare anchor, turning bar, and buoys to affix the anchor line to the screw anchor and the buoys to the anchorline. I asked Trevor to take the tools in while I finished with the knots and then I went to catch up. I took a side of the line to help pull and when I thought my lungs were probably going to burst, I stopped to rest... and Trevor kept on. I caught up again and this time pushed on the boat which I think also helped. When we finally got through the mud to the hard sand, while I was busy wondering if it's possible for one's heart rate to exceed 100% (and what happens if it does), he just picked up the turning bar and the anchor and took them over to the truck. Maybe I should take up LaCrosse.

Then we hurried to change (we were both drenched with sweat) and went back to King Salmon to pick up Yin. Harry and Hannah are now over in the Space cabin and Yin is in my loft. In a couple of days I think Makenzie will be sharing that space with her.

Harry had a good day on the Janice E - they started out being unable to find the carburetor, worried that Roy hadn't been able to get to the twister drive on the reel after all (I don't know what a twister drive is, but I think I know how to spell it), and with evidence of water in the engine oil. They ended with the carburetor installed, a better understanding of twister drive repair and some confidence that the water in the oil was just rainwater. I'd say that's a good time to call it a night.

Me too.

Tomorrow, we'll put out a net and see about some dinner. After that, five crew members will come in at about noon - and I'll meet three of them for the first time...

June 10: A huntress lives under my bunk

2011-06-10T18:00:00.001-07:00

It's 5 PM on Friday, getting to the evening of a day of using the pressure cooker to make chickpeas, making salsa using a knife and everything, and finding just the right mix of chocolate and dry milk for a creditable hot chocolate. And it took till now to have today's adventure. And I feel sick to my stomach.

I mentioned the supply of lemmings earlier. I don't remember if I've mentioned that I can hear them skittering about between the wood and the insulation. A little unnerving, but - well, it's wet outside and where else are they going to go? Sitting at my computer (I *must* get some Seattle work accomplished so it isn't pulling at my brain when the fishing gets heavy), I noticed one of the little rodents running across the vinyl flooring under the table toward my feet. It spotted those feet and immediately went the other direction. Though Sage usually passes her time under my bunk, she was out here occupying the middle of the cabin floor. She too detected the movement, and unlike me, she jumped toward the intruder and attacked it, getting it in her mouth and giving it a good shake. Then she dropped it and that's when my stomach noticed its opinion of the whole operation. She was nosing it and trying to figure out how to pick its carcass up without getting it on her lips, I think (do dogs have lips?).

With visions of her hauling her catch back under the bunk, something I wouldn't want to smell in a few days, I hurried out to the porch for a couple of dustpans to pick it up and take it outside. When I got back, I realized that it was alive - leaking, with a hind leg not working well, but alive. Ugh. More stomach objections. I still picked it up with the dustpan and took it outside. I don't know how badly hurt it was, but it seemed to be managing gamely, so I set it down in the grass, wishing it luck. Was it The Mouse and the Motorcycle? Was his name Ralph? This one was pretty cute, too (except for the leaking and the dragging hind leg).

That activity must have awakened Sage's appetite as she has now settled down to her dog food, which she had been ignoring for most of the day.

I kind of want to tie strings around my pantlegs, making sure they are securely closed.

June 9: Injury next door

2011-06-10T15:08:00.000-07:00

Our beloved neighbor, Mark, the one who gave me half of his second salmon of the season, has had an injury that will make him one-handed for most of the season (but probably not longer than that). (Years ago, Harry had a chainsaw kick back accident that put a pretty dramatic scar across his forehead. Aieee - we don't have a chainsaw in our camp.) Mark has been a talented chainsaw carver (making bears from disused pilings) for years and years and on June 9, he cut his fingers with his chainsaw. For a guy with a chainsaw-to-the-hand injury, he was lucky. The photo his son, Marcus, showed me displayed a mangled index and middle finger of his right hand, but all fingers were still firmly attached (something Marcus doubted at first from the way Mark was holding the injury) and there was no damage to any tendons or other finger-bits that are needed for their use in the future. Our local little Camai clinic stitched him up and probably gave him plenty of antibiotics and handed much of the heavy work over to his crew for the season. I think he'll be fine but I hate for anyone to have an injury like that at any time. But Mark? At the beginning of the fishing season? Argh...

Harry and Hannah made it in, intact. Harry said that after barely making their plane (the gate attendant had closed the doors, but one of the things I love about Alaska is that even though it's huge, it's small enough for people to use their own good judgment, so they opened the doors for them and let them slip on in), they went to take off, got partway down the runway and then... slowed down and stopped. Something wrong with the door mechanism. They returned to the gate (and took on a couple of lucky passengers who were a bit later than Harry and Hannah were) and successfully took off an hour later. Here is Harry, standing in my cabin, in full Naknek mode.

Big Brad from the beach gang brought down the new ranger and while they were here, used their giant forklift to help rearrange the stairs against the cliff so that our safety would not rely on the valor of the old overhanging wooden sidewalk that, protruding over the cliff that had eroded away under it, had stopped the stairs from falling down when I pulled them over the cliff without tying them off first). When Harry went to start the ranger (I love having a mechanically-inclined brother), we noticed that some of the connections have the unfortunate dual features of being poorly located (hard to get to except by the mud), and easily dislodged. I can just see us now out on the mudflats with the incoming tide and a ranger that won't start. Silicone and black tape are in my future. This ranger is also difficult in that the exhaust, which gets pretty hot, is directly in line between the operator and the throttle. The man I bought it from installed a remote throttle, but that connection jiggled loose. (I think he may not have been thinking about the hard duty of equipment in a setnet operation.) We'll have to figure out how to reattach that remote throttle so that it won't jiggle loose. Because jiggling is the least of the challenge it'll be facing.

June 8: Did I miss yesterday?

2011-06-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

Oh well, it doesn't take long before I completely lose track of the time. It's been alternating cold/wet/windy and cold/dry/beautiful/windy. Today was one of the beautiful days. I've been working mostly on Seattle-related work, with the occasional anxious jab when I remember that we have to get the pump sent up (and I don't know how to do it - Bob didn't come back this year so I'll have to count on him to guide me by email).

So I went for a walk - it is cold out there. I was wishing for gloves. And it was glorious. This first photo is someone's setnet cabins perched up on the cliff - dangerously close to the edge. If you look down the beach, you can see Pedersen Point, the fish buyer about 3/4 of a mile from our cabin and maybe a mile from this one. Most of the people who setnet have a place to stay in town; few live the whole summer in the setnet cabins on the beach. I'm glad to live on the beach - whenever I go into town, it takes much longer than I want to accomplish whatever I've gone in for and it's exhausting. I don't really understand why.

I found a couple of small agates on my walk. They're smaller than a marble, but clear. Evening is the best time to look for agates because the low light skims across the water into the agates and they shine up from the sand.

Then finally, returning to the cabin, even though it needs a paint job, I liked how the raingear I washed a few days ago was hanging cheerily - and patiently - on the line in front of it, with the blue sky spread boldly behind.

I think the main difference between fishing and the rest of life - aside from taking place in a boat, and being stinkier, wetter, and more physical - is that we come into the season with a fairly sharp awareness that we don't have a clue what's about to happen. It depends on what the fish decide to do, what the other fishermen decide to do, what the wind does, what the tide does, what talents and challenges the crew has, what they left hanging at home, and whether Murphy is busy somewhere else. In the rest of life, I usually step into each day with maybe an 85% idea of how it will go (which may be unrealistically high, but that life permits that illusion) and here, it's maybe a 45% idea. Especially from the beginning of the season to the end. Johnny Meggitt used to say that he would let me know what kind of season it was in August.

My wonderful neighbor, Mark, gave me half of his second fish of the season. Intrepid fisherman that he is, he's been marching through the mud two tides a day since June 1 (except for Fri, Sat, and Sunday when we're closed) and finally got two fish. It was beautiful (and delicious). If I weren't so eager to eat it, I'd have remembered to take a picture of it before I cooked it and ate a good third of it.

Harry and Hannah come in tomorrow.

June 6: Seattle work has descended

2011-06-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

I had an interview to do this morning at 8 am, but the reliable phone connection is 5 miles south of the cabin and a creek-crossing away. The tide would be high at 7:39 am - a 24 footer. Uh oh. The beach becomes a very narrow strip of sand and clay when the tide is that high and the creek that must be crossed swells dramatically. So that meant going in ahead of the tide. Still, it was very high at 6:20. I'm wishing now that I remembered to pull out my camera (once I got across) to show the challenge. Somehow, though, I figure I'll have more opportunities as the summer continues.

I've heard that Pedersen Point paid to have another overland road put in between the cannery (3/4 of a mile north of our cabins) and Ralph's Road, a couple of miles out of town toward King Salmon. I'm told it's a one lane road, but it doesn't matter how high the tide is, their trucks can make the trip. I'm sure it's open to others as well, but I wasn't ready to explore it at that time (though it was in my mind as a plan C, after plan B which was to huddle in front of the creek with my computer and spotty cell phone on its last day of service, hoping for the best).

After completing the interviews I went to King Salmon (about 15 miles from Naknek - at the other end of the only road in the area, the Alaska Peninsula Highway) to arrange for cell service for the season - and here, that means for the year. I ended up getting three cell phones for the camp - one to stay with me, one to stay in the crew cabin, and one to go into town when someone makes a trip in. That'll also give us one for each boat while keeping one in the cabin. The phones aren't exactly cheap, but transportation is so difficult and expensive (I spent $179.13 filling up the truck yesterday - $5.61 per gallon), if we can overcome some of that with communication technology, it seems like a sound investment.

The beach is in excellent shape this year - I forgot to shift into 4 wd on the way back to the cabin and made it all the way, only having to shift into 4 wd to drive it through the sand and into the grass at the base of the cliff.

My brother, Harry, picked out a new used four-wheeler for us and took it to Northern Air Cargo tonight to have it flown into King Salmon. The other one is on its last tires, but we will nurse it along to keep it going as long as we can. I bought the original one in 1990 - it took a few years off when someone stole the bottom half of it. Eventually (1997?), I gave it to a friend who put a new bottom half on it for his grandson, but then decided it was too much bike for him and so sold it back to me for the cost of the parts. I think I got lucky on that one. Thanks, Glen (and rest in peace; you were a good friend).

June 5: Last day of getting the cabin ready

2011-06-05T23:51:00.000-07:00

8 loads of laundry (David, I think I found some of your missing clothing) and 4 bags of garbage. And I charged everything I could carry.

I never did get the generator to start, so I took that in too. And the dutch oven that had rusted hopelessly over the winter to be sand blasted back to the iron and then seasoned.

The other 1000 watt generator lived in town over the winter and when Roy went to start it this season, it leaked its gas all over the place. Diagnosis: something wrong with the diaphragm. When he opened it up, it all sort of sprang all apart. (He likened it to luggage after TSA has had its way with it.) Luckily, he's kind of a genius about stuff like that so I think we'll be back up to two generators before the season is over.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table, at 11 pm finishing this up, with the sun that's about 30 minutes from setting shining through the window. I feel like I should be washing the dishes so I have an excuse to stand there and look out at it. Here it is - tonight's very sunset.

We still have multiple truckloads of supplies to bring down from town, signs to get out so anyone who needs to know whose net that is out there can tell, anchors and anchor lines to find and failing that, more anchors to put down. Buoys (marked properly) to get out, skiffs to ready (my rule is that each skiff needs at least three things: a way to go, a way to stop, and a way to get the water out), nets to find and set.

Tomorrow, though, will contain a lot of Seattle-related work.

June 4: Getting tired of mice

2011-06-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

The second night I was here, an alarm clock went off during the dark hours. I felt around for it and it seemed to be coming from under the bunk. I thought I would find it the next day, but I forgot. So it woke me again on the third night and I couldn't get back to sleep. I did find the clock, though.

I decided that if I couldn't sleep, I'd do something useful so I got up for a while. I guess the little critters didn't move out just because I moved in. I'm not sure I see them, but I sure do hear them. People around town have been talking about using the sticky-traps. Sigh.

I found a couple in the bottom of the garbage can. They were not old and dried. Euww.

I made it all the way through the cabin today - loft, my room, and even cleaned the mudroom. Even though I'm tired of the critters, I really like starting the season with a clean cabin, knowing where the caribiners are, knowing that I *can't* find the shackles that are usually in the mud room (uh oh) and throwing out bags and bags of things that even I think are garbage, but with less time, I'd just shove to the back (for another season) and work without that space.

June 3: Four doors to the wind

2011-06-04T05:29:00.000-07:00

I woke up thinking that the 60 mph wind may have occurred yesterday. It was calm this morning. I took the truck to higher ground last night, something we haven’t done for a couple of years now, just in case the wind blew the tide up the beach too far. Looking over the cliff this morning, I think it was a good call. But here we are at mid-morning and the wind has picked up. I feel it snaking its way through the many openings around the door. So like last night, I’ve buttoned up the cabin as tightly as I can pulling shut the piece of hinged plywood that serves as the outer mudroom door (securing it with a bungee), pushing shut the inner mudroom door (securing it with a full water jug), pulling shut the metal security door (the home improvement that I thank every year for saving me the crawl through the “tundra-ator” and under the cabin after having secured its predecessor, a heavy piece of plywood secured from the inside with carriage bolts), and the cabin door.
The water out in front of us is many shades of green and covered with white caps. It is beautiful to look at, but I’m glad not to be fishing in it. I think maybe yesterday was not the only day of the strong wind. I believe it is building as I type.

Today is the day to try to get the generator started. My brother tells me that the trick to getting it going is to pull for a while and then walk away from it for a while and come back and try again later. That idea would not naturally occur to an impatient and determined person – I’m glad he told me.

At the end of the day I can report that the generator has not started. I noticed that the gas was not turned off, nor run out last year before putting it away so there may be a thin veneer of shellac where fuel should be running. We left the other one with Roy last year – I’ll swap them tomorrow. Also, the pantry is cleaned – that was a job. Now, just the loft, my shelves and under my bunk to go.

June 2: The benefits of mice

2011-06-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

Some years, when I return to the cabin, I’ll find cups of dead flies. I always hate to think about what I forgot that they had lived on for long enough to create so many. This year, the evidence was of a remarkable number of mice … or probably, lemmings.

If I hadn’t noticed the wee black droppings everywhere, including on my bunk, in all the pots and pans, over all the counters, nestled in the bowl of the spoons, in and around the sink… everywhere, I’d have noticed the two dead critters in the tub that floats – in a considerable depth of water this year – above the permafrost under the cabin, making our “tundra-ator.”

I’ve spent the day cleaning, and therein lies the benefits of mice – or lemmings. Usually, things are just a bit muddy, dusty, and maybe musty. But this year, with the infestation of rodents, not only was everything covered with droppings, said rodents also contributed moisture which in turn molded. So the cabin is getting a cleaning that it rarely gets. My friend in town volunteered that he doesn’t think we have the hantavirus here in Alaska (I looked it up; we don’t), but just in case, he thought he’d wait until the incubation period is over before coming for a visit. I’ve heard from year round residents that it was a particularly bad year for mice for everyone.

I’m told to expect a 60 mph wind tomorrow.

June 1: Arrived!

2011-06-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

Sage and I arrived intact. Roy picked us up from the airport, with two coolers of frozen food and a large duffel bag (each within 4 ounces of 50 pounds). As always, I didn’t get out of town for hours, having gotten propane, 9 cans of gas, the food supplies stowed in the freezer, mail and groceries to bring down the beach, and arrangement for the ranger to be picked up from Northern Air Cargo.

Although it was rainy when we arrived, it cleared steadily into a gorgeous sunny day with a strong southwest wind. My favorite wind.

I’m always afraid that I’ll overshoot the cabin when I first get here, without all the stuff and the stairs to mark it. But the top of the outhouse peeked over the cliff to help me. An eagle, mature with a white head and black body, flew overhead as Sage and I climbed out of the truck. It has been a wet and late spring. Standing water everywhere and the tundra is still brown, though the grass is coming up where the cabins burned down two years ago. But it does make me cautious about stepping off the pallets we use for boardwalks. The cliffs are muddy. Scrambling up the cliff made me question the wisdom of wearing the gardening clogs, however convenient they are for the airport security part of the trip.

I didn’t do the closing up myself last year, having been called home early for a family emergency. But the crew that was left behind did a fine job. It wasn’t exactly as I would have done it, but everything was intact. One of the boards had fallen off the window of my cabin, but no harm there.
This photo shows my cabin (in need of a paint job) after I opened it. If you look closely, you can see the antenna for the Internet on the corner of the mudroom and the red generator under the clothesline.

When I first arrive, there’s so much to do it’s hard to figure out which to do first. Luckily, the days are long and even though I didn’t get to the cabin till after 2, I got the place opened up, the boards off the windows (carrying the plywood to the pile for use at the end of the season, I was reminded of earlier lessons about carrying plywood in a strong breeze), and the blankets out on the line. I would change the sheets before I could sleep (I always leave the old sheets on because I fully expect at least some furry visitors during the winter and I can clean up after them by sweeping the sheets off the bunk, shaking it out and washing them. This year, I took the foam pad outside for a few hours as well). This year, mouse droppings were everywhere. The counters were covered, so I had to use paper towel to assemble my grilled turkey and provolone sandwich. As much as I wanted to start brushing them out, I decided that the inside work could wait – I had to get the stairs down the 30’ cliff before I could reasonably get the truckload of supplies up it.

I got the stairs down, tying the line to the bottom steps and the truck (eventually remembering to give enough slack so that the pull isn’t straight down through the cliff; rather at a gentler angle, easing it over the cliff). It was about 80% successful. Although the steps themselves are level in the two important dimensions –parallel to the beach and top of the cliff – and stable, the entire ladder is not exactly parallel to face of the cliff, having gone a little cockeyed due to not having been guided by a person at the top with a line or (thanks to my impatience) even tied off at the top as they were pulled over. So they stand not flat against the cliff, but at something closer to a 30 degree angle to it. And they seem to lean rather noticeably toward town, as though reclining. But they’re stable and will do until the crew arrives to help straighten them.

They were tested immediately with many trips up and down, bringing the propane, gas, groceries, and assorted other items left in the truck at the end of last year up the cliff and back to the cabin.

Then I was able to turn to the inside of the cabin. I took the solar panels out and hooked them up to the battery, reinstalled the antenna for the Internet, got the propane, gas, barbeque (and its propane), generator, expensive and destructive tools back outside (they come into the cabin for the winter, hoping to put more barriers between them and mischief – and not wanting to contribute to the vandalism of neighbors’ cabins by the easy availability of our saws and crowbars), reconnected the stove and the heater, thinking again how much easier it is now that I know that propane runs slowly. The reason it takes so long for the heater to start isn’t because there’s something wrong with the heater, it’s because propane is slow.

The night before I left Seattle offered time only for a short nap (packing always takes longer than I expect and almost every minute I have before it’s time to leave for the plane) and I was tired. Even though it was still light with plenty yet to do, and the sunset was probably going to be glorious, I called it a night and went to bed.

March 2011 Time for the barge

2011-06-04T05:13:00.000-07:00

The second big event in getting ready for the season occurs in March. The first barge sails early April and if we catch this barge, we can just toss our season's supplies in with our fish buyer's for a much lower price for transportation. So my friend Ian pitched in and helped me shop for 6 to 8 week's worth of non perishable food and other items for a group of I-didn't-know-how-many, but I knew it would be between 8 and 17, for at least part of the season. And I wasn't sure who yet. In addition to food, we fill up the propane containers, get life jackets, and try to imagine what else we would need for the coming season.
We stood in front of the 7 KW Honda generator at Costco for about 5 minutes trying to decide whether I really needed it or whether it just met my over-developed security motivation. We already have two 1000 Watt Honda generators with a pair of twinning cables, so I thought I was just trying to buy extra security and it seemed a little too expensive for that.

For about a week, my living room at home is jammed with Alaska supplies which are then packed into fish boxes and coolers which, at the end of the season, will bear our homepack back to Seattle.

January 2011 - The season begins

2011-06-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

We have a phrase in fishing that has many applications. "That's fishing." It applies to when the running line breaks because someone ran over it when the tide was running fast and high, causing us to lose not only that set, but the opportunity to work the other sites while we're fixing this one. That's fishing. It's actually part of the fun of it. I think of it as being in a giant train switching yard, standing on the tracks. We don't know where that train will be coming from, but we know it'll come and probably run us over. It'll be up to us to get back up, repair the damage, and get back to it. That's fishing.

I don't think it's safe to think that we got it out of the way early, but we did get a start on it.

The nets we fish with are 12' (2 fathom) deep and 50 fathom long. A 1/2" line threaded with corks is tied to what becomes the top of the net and another line filled with leads is tied to what becomes the bottom of the net. When we are allowed to fish, we attach the corkline to a buoy that is anchored to a "deadman" (we use a special anchor with a 10" blade on a 1" metal bar that is turned about 5' into the mud) and head toward the other buoy about 300' away where we attach the other end. Sometimes we run a line between the two buoy (hence a "running line") and tie the second end of the net to the that line. When the tide covers it, it lifts the corks out of the water, while the leads pull the other side of the net down creating a curtain that intercepts the salmon swimming by. Our job after setting the nets is to work them - carefully and quickly removing the salmon and delivering them to the buyer right up until the last minute when we are required by Fish and Game to pull our nets in so that another spurt of salmon can get up the river to spawn. In recent years, the fish have been so thick that despite round the clock fishing, too many salmon still made it up the river to spawn, creating some waste of the resource (though the bears and other fauna, not to mention the flora, probably didn't consider it a waste), but creating a promise of a good return 3-6 years hence.

The process of assembling the net is called "hanging" the net and it is an exacting and crucial process (at which I have failed each time I have tried). Because of the way we fish, we use very heavy leads (at least 200 lbs per 50 fathom) and the nets are hung "even." That means that the web is neither bunched up to permit more web per 50 fathom length, nor stretched out. Bunched up, the net is "fishier" and harder/slower to pick; stretched out, it's faster to pick. Often fishermen hang the corkline even and the leadline "out" like a skirt so that the leadline is heavier yet and if there is cause to tow it, it won't wrap and twist.

We tie our leadlines down, so we want the leadline and corkline to be the same length, both even. I've decided that the best thing for our fishing is to have it hung by a professional. We ship the corkline and leadline to Seattle, buy the web there and take it to the net hanger to have it assembled, and then ship it back north.

I went to the warehouse (finally) to pick up the lines and... they weren't there. No matter how many times we looked, they weren't there. Uh oh. The first freight train. The shipper concluded that it must have not made it onto the barge and they assured me that as long as I shipped the web north so it was there by late April when the buyer would start waking up their camp, they would use their influence in town to have it hung. OK, not much else to do but agree to that one.

But thinking about it for a while, I just couldn't bring myself to head into the season without nets to fish. Like entering a horse race without a horse. So I invested in another set of lines, corks, and web to have it hung in Seattle and shipped with the idea that it's not a bad idea to have a second set. We can always count on tearing up our gear during the season and it's never a bad idea to be able to switch out the gear. And so the season began...

Ebbing

2010-07-21T01:49:00.000-07:00

Hello all, this is Jake with the final blog of the season.

I woke up this morning to Chris saying, “Jake! There is a bear outside if you want to see it.” There aren’t very many places in the world where one can wake up to those words. The bear was out in the tundra by Debby’s cabin. It was, we’re guessing, close to 900 pounds. At first glance it looked smaller, until it stood up and was around 8 or 9 feet tall. Not something to mess with.

We are almost finished with the winterizing of the cabins and finalizing everything with AGS. We did it under the careful hand of Josh’s guidance. By splitting into pairs of twos and threes we went about net stripping (clearing the mesh off the nets) and bagging them up to go south. All the boats are in. The power rollers came off and are on pallets, also going southbound. We also spent some quality time in the walk-in freezer boxing fish. It’s made the rain and wind outside feel quite nice. We are now in our final night at the cabin, and tomorrow Josh flies out and we leave the cabins until next year’s adventure.

Last night the crew received good news: the price of fish for this year is 95 cents per pound. This is the highest price in fifteen years. We were sad not to have our fearless captain with us to celebrate. Our total fish count is 215625 pounds: second best season of all time.

These past two months have been quite the whirlwind of ups and downs. We pulled through though (literally!) and have come out with something pretty incredible. As Chris put it “We are a fishing machine!” But it goes a little beyond that. Last year Sarah said that we became a family. This is, perhaps, a better way to describe what happened here this summer. The crew came together and overcame substantial difficulties: Josh’s hand, tough conditions, and every type of set known to set-netting. Every member of this crew will walk away proud to be part of this familial machine. Each of us worked together as the pistons and pumps move in a finely tuned engine. Sometimes our motors coughed and sputtered, but we kept moving forward over all of the bumps in the road. And now we fly away until next year’s summer sun and Southwest winds bring the promise of fish. Until then, in the words of Liz, “Good luck and good fishing.”

Life changes

2010-07-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

It turns out that I'll be returning to Seattle quite a bit earlier than planned. We've had a very sad loss in our family so I'll be returning home to help with that and be helped by the closeness of family and friends. I'm sorry to leave this season on such a sad note, and it reminds me that life just marches on forward anyway. I'm so grateful to have such an outstanding crew; they'll get everything buttoned up for me under Josh's leadership. I know I'll have to let them know how to figure out what goes to the warm room, what needs to be protected from lemmings, what needs to be protected from condensation - and how to do all that stuff. What needs to be shipped south, what needs to be stored in Debby's cabin and what can be left out. Oh boy, it's a lot of information. And I think they'll still go to Katmai.

And I just wanted to say one other thing - the woman at Alaska Airlines was heroic in her efforts to change our reservations - mine, Trina's, Harry's and his daughter's (who I think of as my niece), and our mom's. That's a whole lotta changing during an impossible time to book a flight out of King Salmon. So thank you, Alaska Airlines!

Jake said he would take over with updates. He might start today - maybe after I leave. Thanks for keeping us company this summer. Liz

You've had a spare thumb all this time and you haven't told me?

2010-07-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

That was Jake, in response to a fake rubber thumb that was on top of my rice container. It's another story. And it's the time of the season. We've decided to pull the nets as soon as we get our homepack and meanwhile, only fish the ebb. Everyone is sort of giddy with the idea of having all that free time. And the fog has lifted, the clouds cleared, and the sun has come out. It happened in stages. The whole crew went into town.

Erik calculated that pulling out 20 fish a tide (so as not to overwhelm the walk-in freezer at the processing plant) would take us far too many tides to accumulate our homepack goal. So we took everything we caught, not just the perfect ones. And we all headed into town with the idea of joining the Fishtival and seeing about camping gear for the Katmai trip - we ended up with two 6-person tents, two new sleeping bags (one for me!), and some small bottles of propane. Jake and Chris, our camping experts, are going to make sure we have everything we need. We'll take the New Boat because it's the fastest and the trip is kind of long - a couple of hours. We are sure to see bears on the way, on the shores of Naknek Lake. Hmmm, I'd better charge up the battery on the handheld radio. I'm not much of a navigator, but I think that as long as we stick to the right hand shore, eventually we'll see the commotion that is Brook's Lodge - it's the place where those photographs are taken that you might see in National Geographic of the bears on top of the falls catching the leaping salmon. Our plan is to see the bears, Jake and Chris might want to fish a little bit (people come from all over the world to do that) and the next morning, we'll take the trip to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes - I've never done that and I think it'll be great.

While we were in town, treats abounded. There was mug up and the diabetic smorgasbord offered there (Chris had a long list of what he consumed), then a box of ice cream drumsticks from the store (it had become hot!), and then we went to the D&D for our one and only pizza night. Though they had very little room left for pizza. One of my secret goals for the summer is to see if we can put a belly on Jeff. I am beginning to lose hope on that one.

Freezing 55 salmon at once is a little tricky. One year, we tried freezing them in a heap - that's a good way to guarantee a very slow freeze (opposite of blast freezing) - so slow that the ones in the middle smelled bad by the time we found our mistake. But spreading them out all over everyone's boxes inconveniences everyone - they can't get into their own boxes because they're covered with our fish. So we spread them out for a few hours, until they freeze a bit and then stack them up on top of our box, like Lincoln Logs, so they still get air circulation but don't take up so much room. We put them in the freezer first thing when we arrived in town. The headed off for treats (which included showers and laundry!) and then stacked them up last thing.

It was a beautiful evening for fishing - and the whole beach was alive with people wanting to fish for about the first time all season - except my crew who are just too tired. We went out on the ebb - I was seduced by the sunshine and didn't dress warmly enough. So I think I was colder than I had been all season, wearing just thin polypropylene long johns under my dry suit. Brrrr. So I bailed out and left the crew to finish the tide and burrowed under my covers, sleeping for 10 hours! So I guess I was cold and tired.

How could it possibly be getting colder?

2010-07-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

The crew doesn't complain, but Josh said that there were happy to hear that we are now fishing for homepack and when we fulfill everyone's homepack desires, we'll pull the nets. I'm looking forward to uninterrupted sleep and I really want to play CatchPhrase and Cranium with them.

Unless we get another push in the next few days, this will probably be our second best season ever - and we're all thrilled with that; we've certainly worked hard for it. We were out on the flood pick at 5:30 this morning - foggy and cold, but little wind and very few fish - less than 200 lbs. We might do better on the ebb. And we pulled out about 15 fish for our homepack. Josh and I are combining our homepack orders for 160 salmon, plus the kings (except what I can make myself give up to crew members who want them).

I don't think we've ever had a season before with so much fishing - we've been open every tide since the emergency period started on June 23, and we've fished all but two of them. That's a heck of a lot of fishing. This will probably be one of those seasons where we sit and stare for a while after we get home.

My thoughts are beginning to turn to re-entry into Seattle life, where tide and wind don't really matter, but time of day and traffic congestion does - those barely compute right now. Even though I long mightily to see my Seattle friends again, re-entry is always the hardest time of the year for me. I think, though, I'll try to delay thinking about it for a while - after all, I'm still here and we have quite a bit ahead of us - including a skiff trip to the Katmai bear preserve. We might even stay overnight (deliberately).

Good neighbors

2010-07-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

This morning's tide was busy. We were out on the nets for the flood pick at 4:30 - and it was darker than I expected because the clouds are still thick. And it was cold, cold, cold. Picking fish is hard when we have frozen stumps where fingers used to be. But we ended the tide with almost 4000 lbs. Here we are with about 1/3 of that in the Grayling. 15,300 lbs to go.

(I also just added some photos to yesterday's post and the Binge Sleeping post - of the night delivery. I'm late adding them because I kept forgetting to bring my camera back in from the boat.)

As the Ambi was going through the inside site, we noticed someone's buoy had gotten loose and stopped on our net. My policy is to return lost buoys if we know who they belong to; otherwise, keep them in a sort of cosmic accounting system where we lose some and we find some and maybe it comes out sort of even. The New Boat came over to say they needed help - the neighbor's net had migrated over to ours. Not a good thing.

Oh boy. The outside end of their net had come loose - the screw anchor had pulled up, so anchor, buoys, buoy light, assorted lines, and about 1/4 of their net had gone under and become entangled with ours. I think we were the only setnetters on the beach out there on the flood this morning. The crew on the Jill Anne I said we were the diehards - the grinders. So the neighbors weren't around to resolve it for themselves and they are delightful neighbors, so we didn't mind helping.

We first detached their net from the buoy and asked the New Boat to disentangle the buoys (and anchor, as it turned out) from our net and go put it in the neighbor's boat. Then we started to pick up their net. The idea was to pick it up as a roundhaul using our power roller and then raft up to their boat and using the power roller in reverse re-haul it into their boat. The net along with the buoy and anchor would tell the story. The only snag we hit (beside the fact that they have tremendously heavy lead lines) was that their net was under ours. That meant our boat had to go under our net - and dump it off over the stern. The only problem with that is that we have a big post in the stern with a picking light on it and an antenna for the radio (that only receives these days; doesn't transmit). We were able to go under the net at the tagline, so at least we didn't have to deal with getting web over all the stuff in the stern of our boat, but the current was running so hard - the tide rose more than 26 feet in 6 hours - that the lines were very very very taut. But Jake is strong and he muscled it up over his head and over the post. We laid the antenna down, but the pressure of the line snapped off the mount anyhow. Bob says it's not an expensive fix.

We went on to pick up the rest of the net - which had many more fish in it than our net did. I figure it was either their behemoth leadlines or the fact that their net had been fishing sideways, making a wall for the fish coming in to the beach, and pretty effectively corking off our nets. ("Corking" is a term used in fishing to indicate that someone else is fishing too close and diminishing the catch of the one who is corked.) Hard to say which it was - I might try out some behemoth leads.

The rest of the operation went smoothly enough. We got the whole net, fish and all into their boat, along with the buoys and anchor that had been deposited earlier. Then we set about the cold business of waiting for the New Boat crew to finish their net so they could deliver and we could go in for a while before coming out to fish the ebb. We made it in by about 7 AM and were back out by 8:30.

The ebb was busier and we barely got all the fish out before the nets went dry. We had some on the flood that were caught late in the ebb of the previous tide - one in particular was a beautiful fish and the seagulls had taken an eye, the gills on one side, the guts, and part of the neck. We couldn't sell that one, but I figured that we don't eat those parts, so we could use the rest to make dinner. I cleaned it and it was beautiful. On the ebb, we also saved a partial salmon - a seal had taken the head and much of the skin (bears do that too - do they know something I don't know?). But again, there was plenty left for us to use. Here is a photo of it - wouldn't you eat this? (Maybe I'm just getting tired, but isn't the color of the salmon the same as the color of the rain gear that the crew wears?) Anyhow, I figure we share the salmon with other creatures. Why not? I suggested using one of these fish to make a delicious salad brought to us by Erik with cumin coated salmon, black beans, orange chunks, feta cheese, and pine nuts. But even though that salad is delicious, it isn't warm, so chowder and more chowder is the demand.

I'm hoping for a good tide this afternoon. We'll be out for the flood pick at 4:30, 1 and 1/2 hours before high water. If the morning was this good and the afternoon is usually our better tide...

Now, a nap.

The afternoon flood pick was slow. We saw that our friends on the Goat Roper were nearby and Jake has been jonesing for a cup of good coffee. Every year we are told of the wonders of the Goat Roper's coffee - this year they said that they have an inverter that is dedicated to their coffee grinder. So under the guise of being sociable, we went to visit and just wouldn't leave until Phil offered Jake some coffee. He had to promise to make some after he finished his set for us to be willing to go bother my brother Harry who was fishing a small distance away. Harry has been reading the blog from time to time and suggested that given the conditions we're working under my comments about the marvels of my crew might be disingenuous. I'm glad he said that because it made me think about it a lot and it gave me the opportunity to be really clear here.

While it's true that there have been minor frustrations and training opportunities that I haven't written about, and not every crew member has every strength, and I'm sure, there have been times when each of us wanted to quit (and still, we've kept going), my comments about this crew have been completely honest. Jake remarked earlier that one of the really cool things about our crew is that we're a rag-tag group that works. Many of the crews on the beach pretty much consist of college guys. Ours has two sisters past 50, an old guy, a one-armed guy who is also a dancer, some football players, some intellectuals (and some who are both), modeling material (look at the photos - you can see who I mean) - all of us silly on lack of sleep. One of the things that's great about the football players (besides being strong and not afraid of physical work) is that they understand about protecting their team mates. And we have some lone wolves that need solitude. Some of the crew are great teachers (sadly, I'm not really in that group), some are nurturers - we have people with diverse interests and competencies. To me, that's a big part of our strength - we are very different from each other, and we respect one another's strengths (and weaknesses). Each crew member has shown up every time, front and center with heart, mind, body, and soul. What more could I ask for? As a whole, this group is hard-working, courageous, fun, funny, helpful, smart, determined, strong, interesting, willing, good learners, good-humored, supportive, thoughtful, and skilled in various ways. Together, we are a force. I'm proud of us; I'm thrilled with them; and I'm certainly proud of what we've accomplished and the good cheer with which we face the blistering cold tides that are slow as often as they are busy. So yeah, I mean it when I say how great they've been. This crew will live in my personal crew hall of fame with some of you who may be reading this now.

Phil made a cup of coffee (in his words, "...and Phil Lansing poured...") that made Jake the Jake he knows himself to be - he said it gave him some liquid sunshine and made his season. And then Phil played a tune on his concertina for us. It was a lovely interlude. Then, back to fishing.

Our total now stands at 215,069.

It's Fishtival weekend! I hope we'll have time to go in for a little while. It's a local celebration of the fishing season. David has been trying to get me to enter the fish splitting contest for a long time, but I'm sort of shy that way.

We get to sleep for a while now. It's 10:30 PM and I think we need to be out on the nets again at 5:30. At least it should be light!

Another dark and stormy one

2010-07-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

10:30 AM - We just got in from finishing the night tide. We didn't fish straight through - we went out at 3:30 (in the dark, cold, fog, and wind) to clear the flood fish before the turn of the tide, came back in at about 5:30 and went back out at 8:30. We had a 26' tide here in Naknek. It swamped the neighbor's boat and would have swamped the Grayling, but we were too wily for it. The tide was very close to the cliff - it moistened the tires of the four-wheeler, and sprayed the back tires of the red truck. The white truck went into town to provide transportation for the drift crew for a day or two. When we came in after the flood pick (1176 lbs), we beached the Grayling and turned it bow to the waves. Then, to keep the stern from inching into the surf, allowing the skiff to drift to the steep part of the beach and then swamp, we were prepared to stand there with it till the tide dropped a little. Josh had a smarter idea - it involved using a rope to the stern of the boat and the red truck as an anchor.

The seiner that tenders for us came down and anchored between our sites to take our flood fish. We were happy to see them. Being tied up to anything in weather like this is harsh - the waves lift us and then drop us and the jerk when we reach the end of the tie off line throws us all around the (unpadded) inside of the boat. Four foot seas doesn't really sound like much, until I think about the height of the skiff, which isn't quite three feet. That means that when we're in the trough of the wave, we are surrounded by crests that are higher than the boat. When we ride down one, all we can see is water around the bow, and when we ride up one, all we can see is clouds. It's also hard to take a photo that shows the roughness of the water. Here is an attempt.

Our total now is 206,250. The crew is getting tired. I need to let them know that we might get a spurt of fish at the end here. In about half of the last several years, we've had a surprise tide of 12,000 to 16,000 at the end when we thought we were done. Such a tide will get a person's attention and wake them up, but if we're late to the nets on the ebb - and the ebb is when we've been getting the fish this year - we'll end up with either fish in the mud - a disaster - or fish in a bunch of roundhauls. Instead, we need to keep being early to the nets. Making our own mercy.

We had a good tide this afternoon/evening. 3434 lbs, bringing our total to 209,684. Every year, we make plans like "if we could just get this for 5 more tides, we could reach..." And every year, when it's time the fish just stop running like someone turned off the faucet. We can do anything we want and nope - they're not there. So we'll just keep going out there and see what has come to our nets.

In a side note, I don't see any berries yet this year. It has been a remarkably cold summer. A warm day here and there, but overall, cold. And the caterpillars are out. Trina remembers that meaning something like the mother of all winters is coming. Brrrrr.

In a regular winter, we have icebergs out here in the bay and an ice shelf builds up on the beach.

These photos are from 2001 when we visited in the winter. That was fun - and cold. These show the ice shelf. In the summer, the top of the cliff at our cabins is about 30' from the beach. In the winter, it's about 15' from the ice shelf, which is 15' thick (complete with dangerous air holes). The first photo looks down the beach toward Pedersen Point from the top of the ice shelf, and the second one looks out to the mud flats where our nets are now, from the top of the cliff. Looks cold, huh?

The Naknek River freezes over, which becomes a great convenience for the residents of South Naknek across the river - they can just drive across it. Otherwise, they have to fly or take a skiff. Freeze-up in the fall and break-up on the spring are the dangerous times - I'm not sure how they conclude that it is or is not thick enough to drive on. I'm sure it's not trial and error. I've heard that in the winter when the Kuskokwim River northwest of here freezes over, it becomes an official state highway.

As I came in from this evening's tide, I thought about innovation. I know a nail doesn't seem like much of an innovation, but that's how I get into and out of the dry suit. It has a very stiff zipper across the shoulders in the back, with a 5" strap. It's hard for me to reach. For the first half of the season, I padded over to the crew cabin to ask someone to zip and unzip me. Eventually, I put a nail into a stud in my mud room at the right height so I could back up to it, put the strap over it, draw the zipper taut and sort of wiggle it open or closed. I do worry a little about it getting stuck in the middle - I'm not sure how I would unhook the strap. I've had visions of hanging there by the strap until someone came over to check on me.

In general, how we end up doing things is not how we start out doing them, but we start out thinking that we know how to do them. Repeatedly and I think that's remarkable. And probably any other approach would paralyze us so this little delusion is probably another mercy that permits us to feel our way along.

Now that we're open until July 23 (did I remember to mention that?) we won't have to go out so many times in the tide. That's a good thing; we'll begin to catch up on sleep. I've asked Josh to sit out the morning tide. I think he's been on every one since he started coming out regularly, diverting energy from hand healing, though it is getting better.

Now the 2007 season is only the third highest

2010-07-13T02:58:00.000-07:00

It’s 1:45 AM and we just got in from a 1 AM set. We were sort of drowsy about getting out there because it looked like the buoys would still be dry at time to set. The tide book said there would be 6’ of water out at the mean low water mark. That probably means no water for us. When it’s 7’, we might be in knee deep water or waist deep, depending on the wind. But the tide book also said that the water would be rising from 6’ to 12’ at the mean low water mark in one hour; that means it’s coming in fast.

I was the first one out a few minutes after 1 and the water was not quite knee deep at the outside buoy and half way (150’) to the inside buoy. I could tell the current was fast because when I let go of the boat to find the various rings and carabiners and lines to hook up the net, the boat tried to leave and it was difficult to haul back. Chris arrived just as I finished the set up and we set that net. There’s a heavy cloud cover tonight so it was dark, making it hard for my imperfect eyes to find the inside buoy target. Chris could see it and we were successful.

By the time we were done, there was enough water to take the skiff over to the other nets to be sure they were doing OK. They were. Erik and Josh set the net out of the Grayling by hand and Erik ran the net out of the New Boat meeting Josh who was in increasingly deep water, holding the buoy. (Josh admonished me that if I’m going to set everyone at ease by saying that there’ll only be 6’ of water, I also must give the crucial information that it’ll be 12’ in an hour.) From the time I got out to the boat to the time we pushed the Grayling in and anchored it – about 30 minutes, the water had advanced about 900’ horizontally. That’s fast. I saw a couple of hits after we set the net, so we’ll go out 1 ½ hours before high water – at about 3 AM to clear the nets. The wind is picking up; that usually means fish if any are out there, which I think there are.

We went out again at about 3 AM and picked up 700 lbs, then back in till 6:30 when we got 400 lbs and beat the second highest record. For this season, we're now at 202,312. I still don't think it's over. The seiner that didn't come for our fish on that very windy tide two days ago came this morning, so I asked what happened. I was glad I did because they explained that even at the height of the tide, the four foot seas were greater than the water they draw, meaning that if they came out, their hull would slam against the bottom with every wave, endangering their boat, themselves, and anyone trying to deliver to them. The issue wasn't that it was too rough for them; the issue was that it was too rough and the water was too shallow. We get hammered if we go into shore in that weather because it slams us on the bottom - into rocks, body parts, or whatever happens to be there; similarly the seiners get hammered in deeper water because their boat sits deeper in the water to start with. I was so relieved to hear that - it felt bad to believe that the decision had been made to risk the lives and welfare of the setnetters to avoid all risk to the tenders. They said that although the weather report said we were in 25 MPH winds, they felt a lot stronger to them. To me too.

My brother harry had his knee surgery about a week ago and is coming back on Wednesday to finish up the drift boat's season after his friend Tony (who has been skippering the boat) has to leave. Harry also believes there are more fish to be caught -- and he really likes fishing the Kvichak which has had a much stronger return than expected.

The hard thing about sleeping in 45 minute to 2 hour increments is that you're still tired when you get up (wind in the face helps to remedy that once you're up and out there) so you have to drag yourself out of bed several times a day. I think it's hard enough to do that just once.

It's probably time to start thinking about home pack. I think I'll bring back about 700 lbs of reds plus the kings (though I will send some kings home with crew members who want them. Believe me - I won't be pushing them to take king home). In the past, I've brought back 1000 to 2000 lbs. I often use it in my Seattle work - cooking for focus groups and I smoke a lot of it. But this year having brought back 1000 lbs, I had about 300 lbs extra in May, leading to power-smoking so as not to waste any. So this year, I'll bring back a little less.

We just got the announcement that says we're open from 1:30 AM on the 14th until the end of the emergency order period. That means that the rivers have achieved their escapement, the resource is safe, and this year, the management has been successful. I'm imagining the Fish and Game biologists dusting off their hands, sitting back, putting up their feet and heaving a sigh of relief. Another one in the bag. That sequence will come for us in a week or so. Right now, we have to keep our grip and fish out the rest of the season. This change will mean that we won't have to get up as many times, not having to go out to set the nets. Instead, we'll fish the flood an hour or so before the tide turns, and then clean up on the ebb. It'll give us more continuous time to rest, do laundry, sweep, etc.

Trina qualified for hazardous duty pay today. Josh suggested that Trina, Bob, and I stay in this tide because he remembered that I have an (overdue) report to deliver and that Trina had some business to complete for her diving lodge in Micronesia, and Bob always has things to improve around here. Running a restaurant as part of her lodge, Trina thought that the first order of business was protection of our health and so set about doing dishes and cleaning out my tundra-ator. That's my Naknek-style refrigerator. It's a hole in the floor with a handle and hinges. I've upgraded it by adding a plastic tub to put the things in that deteriorate sitting in tundra water, no matter how cold. That would be butter, milk, eggs, vegetables. Things in jars or waterproof containers can stand in the water outside the plastic tub. But earlier in the season when I made the pavlova for my birthday, I saved the yolks, thinking about chocolate chip orange cake later on, but we started fishing so much, those yolks just festered in the tub. Festered and spilled. Today was the day to address that. Hence the hazardous duty pay. I think the folks at home can testify that this is pretty much my effect on refrigerators in general. Sorry!

PM tide fetched 1776 lbs for a new total of 204,088. I've made a new cell in the spreadsheet that's the difference between the highest year (2008) of 228,881 and our current catch. (Me? Competitive?) We have 24,793 to go. Is it feasible? I looked back at previous catch records and found that after the 13th of July we caught:
34,933 lbs in 2007;
20,774 lbs in 2008;
12,561 lbs in 2009.

Going back a little further, in 2005, we got 25,227 after the 13th and even in 2006, our disaster year when we skipped three tides after the 13th to recover from our disaster, we caught more than 9,088 but could sell only that many. I'd say we have a decent chance. And it is reputed to be a late season this year.

Happy Birthday, Chris!!

2010-07-12T12:46:00.001-07:00

The lemon cheesecake and the roast will need to wait a day or two, but it'll come. We set the nets this morning with the Friendly Ranger. It seemed to me yesterday that one of the brakes was failing - you know how when your brakes get wet and then you apply the brakes, you sort of skid ahead? That's what the ranger was doing yesterday. So Bob is going to look at it. First though, he needed to drive it. Hey - he could test it and we could get the nets set all at the same time.

The sleep felt good - I slept from about 9 pm to 8:30 when the alarm clock woke me up. The problem with sleeping is that my body begins to think things are normal so it starts to report in about parts that are suffering: hand - nope, we don't close and we still feel asleep; feet - toes are complaining about the cramped quarters; back - and so on. I'm not quite ready to hear the reports.

Now we're in for an hour - I asked Trina to stay in to get food ready. And then we'll see if we can go find 2001 lbs of salmon to take us to 200,000 for the season. I'll report in when we get back from the tide.

Yep - we made it over 200,000 - our total now is 201,111 lbs of salmon. Yum! That's probably about 400,000 meals we've provided. The next target is 202,243 - the second highest season we've ever had - 2007.

The tide was pretty slow - no wind at all and no current. So Trina and I scampered into town to get cheesecake makings for Chris' birthday cake while the rest of the crew wrapped up the tide. We go again at 1 AM for 20 hours. Though we don't usually get much in the dark, the whole ebb will be in daylight, so we may have a good tide.

Now, a nap.

Binge sleeping

2010-07-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

We just delivered a little over 10,000 lbs in this insane wind and freezing cold weather. Now we're going to take a tide off - for some people, that means a long, hot shower. For me it means sleep. As much as I can stuff into a 12 hour period. This was a hard, exhausting, intense tide.

We had anchored the Bathtub in close enough to reach without having to try to row out to it in this weather. We were close to the running line so we decided to push it (against the tide and wind) to the running line (one end is anchored on the shore and the other 600' out) so we could pull ourselves out to a good depth before lowering the outboard. One-armed Josh used every part of his body (except the injured hand, I hope) to pull the skiff along while the rest of the crew pushed it from behind and I stood in the bow like that decorative piece in the old ships, but I was reaching out as far as I could to grab the running line - the tide was running so hard it was holding it up conveniently. My job, as soon as I could grab it was to start hauling the skiff into deeper water while the crew scrambled in. And whatever I did, I could not let go. Normally Chris or Erik (or Josh in the old days when he had two functioning hands) pushes us to deeper water and then jumps in (it seems that they can jump in even when the boat is over their heads). But when it's so windy and the surf is so wild we have to go out very deep because when a wave hits, the boat pretty much stands up on its stern, driving the outboard way down into the water (and sometimes knocking over or landing on a person standing in the wrong place - I once got knocked over in shallow water in a wind like this and had to roll out of the way to avoid the skiff landing on me. Josh avoided being knocked over this tide by hanging on to the gunwale of boat with his good hand and lifting his feet to take the ride when a big wave hit). The way to save the outboard is to go deeper, both to get out of the surf break and so that if we do get a wave like that, the outboard will have to plunge even farther down to hit the bottom. The running line strategy worked; we got out without incident.

By high water, we had about 3000 lbs on board our 21' skiff and needed to deliver it. The processor usually sends a seiner down to serve as a tender for our fish at about high tide, but today, when we really needed them, they were nowhere to be seen. So I called and was told that they weren't going to come down but we could come to them because in the rough weather, it was too risky for them (in their 57' seiner that packs 50,000 lbs, compared with our little skiffs, loaded??) so delivering to the beach was the only option. We couldn't keep the fish on board till the tide went out like we did this morning because we had too much fish and we still had to address the ebb fish - when we've been getting the lion's share of our catch each tide - we could easily swamp, especially in this weather. And we couldn't just call it a day; we had nets in the water catching fish. Nope, we had to deliver. Ulp.

I called Brad, the Gehl driver (and school teacher by winter) to let him know that we were going to try to deliver on the running line, asking him to meet us there. The idea is that we would back ourselves down the running line, keeping the bow out, going near shore - not quite letting the stern go dry but making sure it is within reach of the Gehl and hold there for all we were worth as the wind and the waves try to make us let go while Brad picks up the brailers. As long as we don't let go, we may take a lot of water (and we certainly did - there was some frantic bailing with a five gallon bucket), but we wouldn't be out of control in that wild surf and smash our outboard - or ourselves - on rocks or swamp the skiff during the delivery process, and we could pull ourselves out to deeper water after delivering. It was harrowing, but it worked. The crew did their part exactly right.

Then we decided to roundhaul the inside site (it made a big pile of fish-in-the-net in the middle of the boat) and the first outside site - almost as big a pile.

This photo is of a drawing of how the inside site fishes. You can see the two buoys at the outside end of the net (one red and one white with a black stripe). Then the running line comes from the buoy and runs 600' to the shore. We tie the net to the running line about 30 feet from the buoy. Most people tie just the cork line and that's what I did until about 15 years ago when I learned the benefits of tying down the leads as well. The main benefit is that it keeps the leads down - they are not able to flag in the current so more of the net fishes; the second benefit is that it creates a bag of mesh, billowing in the direction of the current. Both of these are mixed benefits - tying down the leadline makes it much harder to pick up and work with, and the bag catches everything that comes by - fish that have fallen out of our net or out of others' nets and rolled into ours, and flounders, floaters, garbage... everything. But we think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. We call the line that holds the leads down the v-line (because it makes a V). It's best to tie them to the anchor, but it's not feasible when the net starts so far from the anchor. So we go about 30' back on the running line and tie it there. When the tide swings, the corks go first and they try to go over the running line. If the corks get far enough ahead of the running line, they'll pull the leads over too. Do a thought experiment to see what happens to the V-line if the leadline crosses the running line. Yep, the running line holds the V-line up. Sort of opposite the effect we were hoping for. To prevent that, we've started tying the corkline to the running line about every 30 feet or so. This way, the corkline and running line have to swing together. It makes it a little more of a hassle to set the nets and to take it up. In particular, we have to cut the ties. In a situation like this rough tide with all these fish, this is more than a small inconvenience.

We carry a knife on the boat. Chris and Bob were pulling in the net, Jake was managing the running line and I was running the hydraulics, scouting for floaters, and cutting ties. I kept the knife under my boot except when I needed it. On about the third tie, the blade broke off. What!!?? Now, the reason I told this whole story is to say the surprising part. As I was preparing for the tide in that short time we had after coming in from the previous one, I scrounged around my cabin for a replacement knife. That was the first time I'd done that all season. Just in case. I think that qualifies as making one's own mercy, but I had no idea that I'd actually need it and it felt more like inspiration than planning. We'd have been in trouble without that replacement.

With the ebbing tide, the wind calmed down a little bit, so we could beach the Ambi where Brad could come get the fish after we finished clearing the roundhauls. The other crew used the New Boat and the Bathtub at different times in the tide.

After we delivered our roundhauled fish, I headed up to get the Friendly Ranger. But I guess I was tired and my legs weren't working properly. I lifted my foot but didn't quite clear the rock and down I went. Luckily it was mostly sand so no harm was done, except to any pride I may have had in my sense of grace. Brad saw me and said that that about summed up the tide - nothing left. I used the ranger to go out and pick up the other crew's fish ("pick up" means drag in the Bathtub and then drag it back out to the New boat and help pitch the salmon from the New Boat into brailer bags held in the Bathtub and drag it back in for Brad it pick out of the boat). Long, long exhausting day(s).

We started this tide at midnight with the new anchor method for deep water set. The weather was windy and rough. The Jill Anne I crew knocked themselves out in the night to come get our flood fish. Here are some photos that may show how dark and rough it was.
This is the new boat receiving the scale and hook for delivery to the Jill Anne I. The orange blurs are the crew, moving around, getting the brailer prepared to receive the hook. The wind was tossing us around so much and it was so dark I couldn't get a clear shot.

The next one they are in the delivery process. The camera's flash went off on this one, though of course, the subject was too far away to receive that light. So I lightened it up in Picasa and it shows the Jill Anne I crew sending over the pelican that the New Boat crew will use to attach to the brailer and then to the crane with the scale on it.

This final one shows the Jill Anne I going on its rough way, down to collect the fish of any other insane fishermen who were out on this night. A long exposure gave enough light to have a photo, but it was hard to hold the camera still.

We came in a few times through the night as we were tending the net. We finally finished at about 9:30 am. The crew was dismayed to learn that we needed to be out for the next one at about noon. We fished that one straight through, and finished at about 8 PM. We were all cold, wet, and tired. So I decided that we wouldn't fish the night tide. I don't know if it will be stormy again, but I do know that everyone is on their frayed edges. I have to say that even frayed, I think I have the best crew on the beach. They pretty much haven't slept since the end of June and they remain cheerful, eager to help, and ready for the next tide. What more could I want?

Today brought us to 197,999. I'm at the part of the season where I need to wrap electrical tape around my fingers to protect them from (more) abrasion from the mesh - fish picking injuries. About a day too late.

Now, to sleep.

This time the wind is onshore

2010-07-11T11:56:00.001-07:00

This will be a brief update. The night tides that we usually get between 1000 and 2500 lbs produced more than 6000 lbs last night. We started last night at midnight and just got in at about 10:30. We go again at about noon.

This time, it isn't the sleep deprivation that's getting us; it's the wind. It is a strong onshore wind, so strong that I feel it's unsafe to people and equipment to deliver fish to the beach. When we come into the shallows with a wind like this, we just get hammered. The neighbor got a broken motor out of his efforts to deliver to the beach and another got his skiff high centered on a big rock. So we waited until the tide was out and used the Friendly Ranger to deliver. That takes a lot longer.

This was the tide we tried the small anchor for the deep water set. Here is Bob, heading out to the net just about as the sun was setting.

Chris had a burst of energy - this photo shows him running through the mud to catch up with Jake. Using the anchor to hold the tag line worked well. And Jake found a great technique for getting started in the right direction despite a howling wind - it is backing up, pivoting around the anchor line until pointed in the right direction. We had a snag with the nets - there's a way to stack them so that they (probably) will play out without grabbing corks from lower in the stack and coming out in a lump. Some kind of error was made in the stack because the web caught the bottom end of the lead line and out went half the net together. I had put a long tag line on it just in case, so we quickly reeled the errant part of it back in, thinking we'd have to start over. But I noticed that we were very close to the target buoy, so we just played it back out and there we were. I call that a success.

We set at midnight. We were out there preparing for the set at 11:30, when the sun was setting. I was glad I happened to have my camera with me.

We came in on the Grayling a little before high water - there hadn't been enough on the flood to justify beating ourselves up in the wind more than necessary. We anchored the Grayling high on the beach so we wouldn't have to try to row to it... and it swamped while we waited (in vain) for the wind to die down. The Grayling swamps fairly gracefully - the air pocket keeps the outboard up and as long as the gas tank is in the transom, it probably stays out of the water too. So it's just a matter of emptying the boat (several energetically deployed five gallon buckets take care of that, though at some cost to the crew) and retrieving the stuff that may have washed out of the boat. And we were off. The outboard sputtered disconcertingly as we were heading to the other skiffs. My thought at that time was that we didn't have any back up means of propulsion in that skiff - no other outboard, oars, sail - nothing. And no radio. And the whole crew in the boat. Of course, we could throw the anchor and wait for the tide to go out, using the opportunity for crew bonding... but overall, a second means of propulsion might be good. Having had that thought, all of my mental energy was suddenly concentrated on keeping the outboard alive long enough to get us to the Ambi - I felt like it was the force of my will that inched us those last several fathoms. In truth, the Grayling did it on its own with Josh's coaxing. I think the problem with the outboard might be that the fuel was mixed too rich with two-cycle oil. It's um, not exactly a precise measurement. We'll try adding some gas to the mix to see if it improves its performance.

As we were going through the nets, the wind was so strong, we started having to call out big waves to each other so that we would hang on, and hang on to the net. It goofed a lot of people up. And even though more than 6000 lbs is a lot of fish, we're tired like 20,000 lbs. Strong winds suck out energy.

Our current total is 187,941 lbs. I have a hunch (actually, it's more of a deduction) that we'll have a lot fish on this tide. ADFG has opened the Kvichak river to the drifters, so very few will be out here in the Naknek district in front of us. Plus this big onshore wind. I feel like I'm stuck to the railroad tracks watching the freight train bearing down on me. We have the makings of a very bad tide before us. Everyone is tired, the wind hasn't laid down any, and I think we'll be hit with a lot of fish. If the wind keeps up, we may decide to skip the night tide.

Now, to nap.

Make your own mercy

2010-07-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

First - we got in from the afternoon tide at about 5 pm, I think, having delivered 9,784 surprise pounds of salmon bringing our season total so far to 181,455 - third place record, just beating out last year.

My crew decided to stay in the boat at high water because we were getting a lot of hits on the inside site and we wanted to be ready for them. Some crew members lobby hard to be able to wait in the cabin. My conservative notion is to default to hanging off the nets so we can keep an eye on them and not be surprised by a lot of salmon on the ebb - it has happened before, more than once. Some of the crew from the other boat went in, confident that there weren't any fish out there.

Josh stayed out with my crew. We hung off the inside site watching it because it was really boiling. It was getting a lot of hits and we wanted it to have a chance to fish, in case it was just a school passing through. When it looked as if it had stopped, we got under the net and started working our way along. The fish were heavy. It was a happy surprise. When the hits started again right behind us, we decided to pull off the net and get it back in the water so it could continue to fish while the fish were there. We decided to go through one of the outside sites, figuring this bonanza was a local phenomenon. It wasn't; the first outside site was very busy too. Josh went to get his crew, and we all raced the retreating tide in an effort to get as many of the fish as possible delivered directly from the skiffs, and to have none of the fish or nets go dry on the mud while allowing the nets to fish for as long as possible. It's brinksmanship.

We ended up roundhauling the inside site - with a few hundred lbs of salmon in it, just before it went dry. The water was too shallow to drive along the net (and we had quite a load of salmon from clearing the nets earlier, bringing the prop even closer to the mud) so Jake pulled it into the boat while Chris pushed the boat and I scouted ahead for floaters, flounders, and possible drop outs, and to cut the ties that held the corkline close to the running line.

We then rushed to the first outside site, picking the fish out of it as we pulled it in. I pulled the Bathtub over and lashed it up to us to serve as tender for the fish we were carrying. As we cleared the roundhaul and transferred salmon from the Ambi to the Bathtub, I tried to explain to my crew about fishing. It's not just getting the fish out of the net; it's also not getting the fish. That's part of the deal. Fishing is the thrill of having a full net, and the disappointment of an empty one. It's the manic activity of racing the tide and the tedium of waiting for the tide to come in or go out, with nothing to do. It is pulling your gloves on anyway when your fingers are all swollen and shiny. And replacing rest and ice with ibuprofen, and healing opportunities with bandages. It is shivering in the aluminum boat wondering what insanity possessed you to think this was a good idea, and it's being warm on a hot day. It's taking on adversity and working with it and through it, undaunted. Or maybe daunted, but not surrendering. Fishing is not quitting. Fishing is persevering and finding a way to do it anyway. It's supporting your crew mate and your neighbor. Myrtle Drew assured my worried mother that, "We all helps each others." And at the end of every season, you get to know yourself a little better and what you know is that there is more to you than you thought there was. You have achieved something that before you would have thought was impossible.

It's being out there, ready. And only occasionally will it be necessary to be ready. It's like insurance - it's irritating to have to pay for it, but if there's an accident or a fire or an injury, you'll be glad you have it. The fish will come when they come, on their schedule. And when they arrive, they will be merciless. Mother nature is like that - mercy is not in her vocabulary. So we have to make our own mercy by being prepared. And being prepared means many times we're dangling off the buoy, watching the net, wondering if this will be the 15,000 lb tide amidst the 1500 lb tides we've been having. It was today - it was almost a 10,000 lb tide, and nearly all of it on the ebb. It was an excellent good thing that I pressed to have that ranger repaired, even though some people are already letting go of the season as if it were over - I think we're only about 2/3 through it. My crew and Josh stayed out, we had the ranger repaired, and we made ourselves a little mercy. Nothing in the mud, all the fish from the flats delivered in one pull.

David is going home tomorrow (waahhh). He had some business in town today and came back like the cavalry. He spotted us from the truck in need of a ranger, hurried the rest of the way to the sites just in time to jump on a ranger and come out to help. I am so very comforted that he understands what needs to be done just by looking at the situation, and knows how to do it. I'm very proud of him.

We go again tonight at midnight. We will have a lot of water - too deep for a push set - and it will probably be dark, though if the clouds clear, we'll have residual light from the sunset. We have a fresh breeze, and not a storm. I ran a line between the inside and outside buoy of one of the outside sites. Jeff and Erik will take a line out to do the same with another of the sites.

I want to try a new approach for a deep water set. Each anchor is marked by a buoy at the end of a 50' anchor line. The inside buoy often has another 50-75' of tag line to close the gap when the buoys are more than 300' apart. When the tide comes in - especially if it comes in fast and with a wind behind it, everything gets blown toward the northeast. So if we're running in the boat dropping the net out behind us, not only will the buoy and its 50 or 75' tag line not be where we need it to be, it'll be stretched in the opposite direction of where we need it to be by the 50' length of the anchor line plus the 50'-75' of the tag line. When the water is shallow enough, someone stands there holding the end so when the boat runs out of net, the end of the tag line is right there. On a deep water set, the water is too deep for someone to stand there. On two of the sites, we'll bring the buoys together using a line between them. On my site, I plan to drop a small anchor where the end of the tag line will meet the net. I'll attach a buoy to the anchor, and the tag lines to the buoy. That way, we'll have a bright red buoy to target, held in place by a small anchor. And the buoy will lead us to the tag line. I'll report in tomorrow about how it worked. Meanwhile, it's time for a nap.

Liz

Happy Birthday Debby and Bruce!

2010-07-10T01:44:00.000-07:00

Today is our sister Debby's birthday and Bruce's, Trina's husband. Bruce has been given honorary sister status so I guess that makes him Debby's twin.

The weather completely calmed down. The biggest threat was from the mosquitoes, so we set all the nets. Did OK on the first pick through, but no one to deliver to. I had a chance to take some photos of the non-storm sky. I did keep scanning for a sneak-gale - something ominous looking, but so far, so good. We set our nets at 11 PM. As always, after setting, we go by the other boats to make sure all is well. I was relieved by the weather and as usual, moved by the beauty of this place I get to spend my summer. This first photo is of the other two boats: the Grayling on the left with Erik (stern), Josh (yellow sou'wester), and Jeff (bow) and the New Boat with Trina (orange raincoat) and David (stern). They are hanging out as hard-working fishermen, letting the nets fish before going through them. I still wasn't completely secure that a storm wasn't sneaking up on us, but it remained as calm as this looks.

When I looked around, though, I could see the scowling sky and retreating storm. This photo shows a drifter in the shadow of the storm with a setnet buoy in the foreground and the sun preparing to set shining above the cloud and on the water.

Finally, a near-sunset photo that I just couldn't resist. The water really was these two colors that matched the colors of the sky. Those are our neighbors in the skiff to the far right of the photo. We weren't the only ones that decided that the weather warnings were probably unwarranted.

We went through the nets and came in by about 12:15 am, to return to check the nets an hour before high water at 1 AM. Happily, at that time, I noticed that the Friendly Ranger had returned. I had noticed the day before that it was no longer sitting on the beach, meaning it was probably one step closer to being fixed. It is now fixed.

We delivered about 600 or 700 lbs from those picks and are now back in the cabins, waiting for the ebb pick at 4:30 AM. We have time for a little nap.

We usually do better on the ebb. We're all hopeful about catching our fourth place record on this tide.

We did it. We got in about 6:30 am having delivered 1,967 lbs of the best food in the world. We're now in fourth place against our own record. I think we'll be able to make it into the top three.

We have had a run on Dolly Vardens! They are a type of trout and since they're not salmon, we don't put them in the bag. My mother despised Dolly's and threw them away as trash fish. The sportsmen on the crew thought we should eat them. There were six! So they cleaned and I filleted them. I pan fried the first three but it was becoming too tedious for me so when the crew wakes up for the next tide, it'll be Dolly Varden curry over Israeli couscous. In addition to the curry paste, ginger, garlic, coconut milk, tumeric, cumin, and cinnamon, because it tasted a little salty, I put in some potatoes, garbanzo beans and green beans.

Red sky in the morning...

2010-07-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

When Josh came looking for me today at 4 AM, he found me trying to get a photo of the glorious sunrise. Oh my. We had just a sliver of a silver moon in an orange sky. As we fished (it was freezing! Did I mention that it snowed last week? It's July, even if it is Alaska) the orange gave way to blue and the gray clouds became pink and red.

We got back in by about 5, so we get to sleep a pretty long time - back in the boats by 10:45.

This morning's tide was slow - 1295 lbs. I've heard that more are coming. I've also heard that a storm is coming - they do tend to come together.

We did try the gigantic Bathtub pull on yesterday afternoon's tide. It went smoothly. We used the Killer Ranger to pull the Bathtub (filled with 4500 lbs of salmon) to within reach of the line (the Killer Ranger can do that because the mud out beyond about 800' is not as slick as the mud closer in to the beach, so the ranger has something to bite into to get traction). We had a line in the tote on the back of the ranger, so Trina minded that as it played out running from the Bathtub to the pulley. We fed it through the pulley and I crawled under the truck to find something sturdy to tie to. Shifted it into low range, four wheel drive, first gear and took off slowly. It didn't even seem to strain - just pulled that Bathtub in. The same mud that gives the rangers problems pulling things makes things easy to pull. The mud is so wet and sloppy, it's almost like traveling across water - a slippery surface to travel on (for a boat, anyway). So the Bathtub delivery method should work. Yay. I spoke with Mark about the Friendly Ranger's broken tire and he thinks he has one that will work, so that repair should happen more quickly than I feared. It's odd to think about happening to notice that a ranger is missing from the beach, but when I glanced over earlier today, I saw that the Friendly Ranger was gone. That's (probably) a sign of progress.

And speaking of repairs - Bob fixed the power roller on the Bathtub this tide. I had saved my old powerpack from the Ambi for parts, and they were what he needed to get the powerpack in the Bathtub working again. Yay!!!

Back in from the ebb of the morning's tide at about 3 PM with 3836 more lbs of salmon heading from our nets to a hungry world. It is blowing hard from the east (offshore) - they say 25 MPH. The white caps are curling in the wrong direction. We pulled two of the outside sites a little early - the tide was expected to run out quickly and with the strong offshore wind, I expected it to just about evaporate from under us. But it went out really slowly. Now our big question is whether to fish the outside sites tonight - we go again at 11 PM to 5 PM tomorrow, two tides, and we've been hearing about gale force winds. On the other hand, I looked up the weather and it's saying east winds 10 to 25 MPH with gusts to 40 MPH. I don't see gale warnings posted or small craft advisories. If we can, reasonably, we'll fish the outside sites. In any case, we already have the inside site out and will be fishing that. With an east wind, we don't even feel it in the shallows because the cliff blocks it, so delivery to the beach and fishing the inside is easy. If the wind shifts so it's coming onshore, then that's a different story.

The problem is that unlike the drifters, when we make a commitment to fish, we can't really change our minds. It's like getting your arm caught in a wringer washer (does anyone else remember those? I grew up on them). You can't just yank it back - it takes a procedure to get it back. On the drift boats, if they don't like the weather, they just pick up the set and don't put the net back out. For us, if we don't like the weather and we've already put out the net, it's really hard to retrieve it and the best thing we can do for ourselves is try to keep up with whatever the weather brings. On the other hand, if we decide not to fish at first, and then change our minds, it's too late because those deep water sets are so hard to manage. Especially in the dark when it's windy.

So we'll wait to see what the conditions are like tonight and decide then. And hope like heck that we decide right.

1.1 million sockeye have gone up the Naknek River to spawn, and 1.5 have gone up the Kvichak. Our total catch so far is 169,704 lbs, 1068 from tying our 4th best season. This may be the tide that gets us past that milestone. But for now, a nap.