July 2: I have a great crew

Yesterday, I hurt myself at the end of the tide. I believe the power roller is leaking hydraulic fluid onto the deck of the Ambi. The positive thing is that thanks to Roy, we are using food grade oil. The negative things are 1) there's something wrong with the roller and 2) it's slippery. My feet went out from under me and I went down hard, right on one of the ribs on the deck of the boat, traumatizing my tailbone. That hurt. But I don't think it hurt as much as Roger got hurt last year, when we were in rough weather and he was trying to settle the brailers in the bow as we were leaving the beach from a delivery through some rough surf. In his case, the Ambi caught the surf and was tossed up, just as Roger was coming down, right on the rail. His tailbone was cracked; I'm pretty sure mine was only bruised. He just kept working through the season, which I admired and appreciated at the time. Now, with my much milder injury, I don't know how he did it. I start to bend over to pick up a line... nope, no, no, no, nope. Someone else will need to do that. I lift one leg to transfer to the other boat and nope... let's try the other leg... nope... OK, belly roll... owww owww owww... don't want to do that again. Let's see, can I start the power pack for the roller using just my arms and shoulders? And nothing that is connected to my tailbone? How about pushing in the Bathtub at the end of the tide? Waahhh waahhh.

I keep thinking, "Suck it up, you big baby!" But my crew is so kind - Roger, Rohan, and AJ - all thinking of how to minimize me having to... well, having to do anything, really, since it turns out that just about every muscle in my body seems to be connected to my tailbone. That isn't to say that David, Sarah, Jake, and Jeff are unkind - they are just in another boat and don't have as much opportunity to help. But I'm sure they would given the chance.

We had another early morning set, with more fish on that morning tide than the previous morning tide. We're all waiting for the "bump" they say is coming, according to the test fishery at Port Moller. It's really important to be able to sleep whenever, wherever, no matter what because the opportunities for sleep come around fishing periods. They are no respecters of time of day or anticipated length of time. But my body doesn't always cooperate, and judging by comments from other crew members, I'm not always alone. So I just couldn't sleep before the 4 am set, nor after it while we were waiting for the tide to turn. But finally, I slept for a good four hours in the afternoon waking up to hear that we had an extension so we wouldn't have to pull our nets until 1 am on July 4 (yay!), and then we all headed out for the evening pick. Those few hours of sleep were particularly welcome once we realized that the weather was a bit rough and the tide brought us almost 5000 lbs.

One of the many reasons we love the Bathtub is because it slides so easily across the mud. We didn't realize this until about 5 years ago, but we've been making up for our earlier ignorance ever since. When it's fully loaded with salmon, we bring the ranger out to pull the fish in. When there are just a few salmon at the end of the tide, we can usually push it in by hand.

This photo shows Jake (at the bow) and Jeff (at the stern) pushing the Bathtub. Other crew members were also pushing, out of the camera's field. This photo was taken at about 10:30 pm, with the sun setting behind us.

While I was wrapping up the final delivery (moving very gingerly to hook up the final bag), David and the crew were re-positioning the stairs. (They had twisted slightly in the earlier big tides.) It wasn't until after I was back at the cabin that I realized I should have had photos of the process. David was using the boom truck to lift up the stairs at the bottom, while Roger either walked down them and shoveled away at the cliff so they could rest flat, or heaved them around at the top. Ungh! I was too distracted by the development of the beautiful sunset to think about pointing the camera elsewhere, like toward the action. Instead you can see the McClain's skiff in the sunset and the Hakinnens in the background bringing in their final fish for the tide.

Rohan went in early to make us some batter-fried Dolly Varden (the same as Arctic Char, I think) for dinner.

I couldn't resist one last shot of the sunset, this time, with Alex's chairs looking out at it.

July 1: Fog morning

Even though we started fishing very early this morning, today was more about the beauty of being here than the fish itself. It was dark when we set the nets at 3:30, and the water was much higher than we hoped it would be. The New Boat crew has the running set down. In my boat, I'd say we are fair at it. It was dead calm this morning, and even though we could walk the net out of the boat, because it was so calm and Roger, AJ, and Rohan were out there about up to their armpits, we decided to experiment with running the Ambi backwards, feeding the net out the bow (and keeping it away from the prop as the prop and the net have a known affinity for each other). It worked out pretty well, though the net got tangled up with the brailers in the last fathom or two, so they crew jumped out and finished the set on foot. The New Boat came over, standing by to help if we needed it. Jake and Sarah went on to the inside site to set that for us. All the nets were set by 4 am.

After setting, we anchored the Grayling in the "quad," the space between the outside buoys of the inside site and the inside buoys of the outside sites. As the sun began to rise, the fog thickened. Sometimes it is so thick it is hard to know which way is toward the shore. When I was younger before we started using skiffs, we experienced that a few times on foot... and it's scary.

We always go through the nets at least once after setting it. There are three reasons for doing this: 1) there might be fish in it and if they are hitting hard, we want to get started as soon as possible getting them out (and if there is a way to deliver, getting them on ice) and making room for more to come in; 2) there might be only a few fish in it, but when they hit in very shallow water when the net is very billowy, they are able to pinch the net closed by getting caught toward the leadline and then thrashing around and getting caught along the corkline too. They can also get caught twice 5' away, becoming the lynch pin in a strained net. When that happens, it is very hard on the fish as the tide rises, and the rest of the net doesn't fish so well; and 3) we might have messed up the net in setting it and this is a chance early on to correct a mistake. Here are Roger and AJ - they are on the roller side of the boat, Roger on hydraulics and AJ helping to pull. (Rohan and I are on the picking side of the boat. Roger and AJ have the frustrating job of keeping Rohan and me in fish, meaning that they sometimes have to give up the fish they are working on to keep the net moving.) Here they've stopped the roller to get some fish out of the net. That light behind them that looks like a search light, is the rising sun.

Here is Roger, making sure we're ready for him to pull in some more of the net. This crew is great to work with. More than one person has said that fishing out here is my religion and I think it's kind of true. But I don't think I'm the only member of this church.

I think we went through both nets twice this morning. Sometimes, they don't hit in the first 20 minutes and come around a little later. But there were only a few in each pass. So we decided to go in and wait until just before high water. Here are Rohan and Roger with the great big sun burning behind the fog, waiting for the New Boat crew to transfer to the Grayling and come to get us.

The fog didn't really let up this morning. We could see well enough to see the four New Boat crew members crowding into the Grayling. It is so great to have a working outboard on that skiff. Even if there had been no fish and no obvious beauty, it would have been worth coming out this morning just to go for a ride in the Grayling under its own power.

The fog was beginning to burn off to reveal a beautiful blue sky. In this photo, the sun is still low on the horizon over to the left, about a quarter turn from where it sets. After rising it follows a big looping arc across the sky, sort of tracing the shape of a C. In the winter, the pattern is the opposite. The place of the sunrise is still surprisingly close to the place of sunset, but in the winter, the sun takes the short path between them, staying low in the sky. This photo shows the crew dispersing to separate cabins - David, Sarah, and Roger over to the Space Hut; Jake to the bunkhouse, Jeff, AJ, and Rohan to the crew cabin. We came together briefly to agree on the time to return to the boats. Some people napped, some read, some ate.

Before we came up, AJ noticed a "rainbow without any color." This is the second time I've seen one of these. I don't really understand it. Maybe someone out there does? I think both times it was in the fog - if it doesn't already have a name, I want to call it a lightbow. It was still out when we got up to the cabins, so I was able to grab a different camera and get a broader view to try to capture the whole thing.

Here is the crew cabin and the walkway from my cabin, both under the lightbow, which ends on the left right on the Space Hut.

July 1: I keep forgetting

The same night I needed to go out to turn off the generator after the bear had been on my porch, I learned that he and his brother had also visited the crew cabin. AJ was up reading and heard a noise. He looked up at the window that faces the beach and saw a bear standing up, leaning on the glass, looking in at him. I think it was a closer encounter than he hoped for. I do know that under those circumstances, it is impossible to avoid wondering whether the window is going to break. He wasted no time climbing up into his loft areas.

June 30: Beautiful day for a sad anniversary

Fishing was better today. Here are the chairs I have come to think of as Alex's chairs, overlooking the bluff I sometimes think of as Alex's bluff about 2 hours before we headed out to fish. I thought the contrasting shades of gray were beautiful, so it was my first photo of Alex's day. You can also see the ranger tracks in the mud and if you squint, way over on the right side of the photo, you can see the Ambi out there on the mud flats. We were busy during the tide, so I didn't get additional photos until the very end. More about that in a minute. We got in at about 10:30 tonight and we go again at 3:30 tomorrow morning, so a short post. David made a quick trip to town to pick up the 25 hp outboard for the Grayling which we've just been towing around because the 45 hasn't been starting. Once he got there, we figured out that John was out of town. But he saw that we were trying to call and got back to us, telling David how to get in to get it. Whew. David got back just in time to set the nets, so I asked Roger to work on getting the 45 off the Grayling (it had been bolted on) and I told him that I would bring out the 25 with the ranger. I brought down our little aluminum dory that we call "Skook" to load the 25 into, and to receive the 45. At least, that was the plan.

But the ranger was low on gas... and this was an incoming tide. My nerves can stand taking a chance of running out of gas in the ranger out on the mud flats if it is an outgoing tide, but as it's coming in? No thanks, I'll get my stress other places if I have a choice. So I gassed it up and tried to start it... dead battery. Jumper cables in the white truck - really short ones, so the vehicles have to be really close together. Got it started, but we didn't have all the right tools to get the 45 off and decided to postpone that whole operation till the end of the tide.

As we finished setting the inside site, Sarah waded by - the new Honda wasn't working for the lack of a whole o-ring. She was about to run into town to get a piece. Meanwhile, the problem-solving New Boat crew robbed the needed piece from our beloved and loyal Yamaha 60 in the Bathtub to get them going for the tide in the New Boat... and they repaired the Bathtub by the end. Whew.

The fishing started strong, tapered down a bit, rallied at high water and then tailed off at the ebb. We ended with a total of about 13,000 lbs.

We used the ranger to bring in the last of the ebb fish and I was planning to run back out with it to help Roger finish with the outboard. But I noticed that the tread was sagging and David noticed the flat-ish tire that was allowing it to sag. We are all about work-arounds here, so I sent Jeff up for the tank of air I keep on my porch... it was empty. So I ran up to get one of those compressor things you might carry in your trunk and plug into your cigarette lighter, hoping that we actually have one and I found it quickly. The ranger doesn't have a cigarette lighter so Rohan got the generator and extension cord from David's cabin to run the little machine and re-inflate the tire, hoping it will hold. Jeff, Jake, and Roger went out to the Grayling to switch outboards, and noticed that the bulb in the Grayling is pretty stiff. That too may need to be replaced. We haven't been able to test it yet because the tide has been out. But we can do that tonight if we want (in the dark... hmmm) or on tomorrow's day tide.

Here is the end of the beautiful day for a sad anniversary. I do feel Alex close here - closer than anywhere else. But if it were mine to choose, I'd choose to have him here - or anywhere - in the flesh.

June 29: Fishing has slowed a little

And that explains why I had time for photos with my weather-beaten and valiant little camera. It was pretty wet and cold on Sunday, though the wind wasn't as strong as Saturday's. The smears on these photos are not me trying to protect anyone's identity; it's raindrops on the camera that I couldn't rub off with my filthy bandana.

This is my brother's crew... and half of his family, Everest and Hannah. Makenzie will be here soon after her whirlwind gig as The Touring Bridesmaid. Jane (my sister-in-law... ok, and Harry's wife, and the kids' mom) isn't able to come out this season, but we are scheming to get her here some time soon.

I think the New Boat crew is much more colorful and nautical than we are. Look at those sou'westers! When they came over to help us with our final pick of the day, we could hear Johnny B Good blasting from David's portable speaker (so that's what those dry boxes are for!) Jeff likes to hang on to the bowline like a cowboy, riding through the rough waves. He's the devil-may-care guy on their boat... snap up the raincoat? Who need it!? Rain hat? For sissies!

I don't know if I've included a photo of the delivery yet. We bring the skiff in to the beach to offload. It's a delicate thing because we need to protect the prop from the rocks and we can't let the skiff go dry (and when the tide is going out, it often goes out fast). At the same time Brad needs to keep his giant gehl forklift from getting stuck in the increasingly soft mud. So pretty much, we can only deliver until about half tide on the ebb. The crew must push us out deep enough for me to lower and start the outboard. When it's rough like it has been the last couple of days, the surf picks up the bow, driving the stern into the ground, so then they have to get us out deeper, where it's harder to control the boat - especially given the big bow facing the strong wind. Our solution has been to throw the anchor as we're coming in so that we'll run out of line just as the skiff gets to the water line. Then driving a giant gehl forklift with fine control, Brad comes to the skiff to pick up our bags of fish as the crew keeps the boat floating. In this photo, Brad is heading back to the truck, loaded with the insulated totes filled with slush ice to deposit our fish after weighing them. Today, Roger is following to grab the bag and bring it back to the skiff. Then we pull out to a safe depth on the anchor line and we're off to another pick through, with the crew cleaning the boat by throwing in water and bailing it out as we run.

I had a little time to take photos because the fish weren't hitting heavily. Here is AJ. At first, he found the tangled fish completely baffling. But he's been getting some practice, picking the inside in the Grayling with Rohan and helping the New Boat with their roundhauls so each time he gets in the boat, he seems to be faster and faster at picking.

And here is Rohan, who is a faster picker than I'd expect from someone in their second year.

Our opening for June 30 is from 3 to 10. June 30 is the second anniversary of Alex's death, my younger son. If you'd like to light a candle for him, I'd be glad to think there is more light in the world in his memory.

June 28: Roger stands about 10' tall today

It was pure luxury to be able to sleep for 8 hours in a row! It was only slightly interrupted by what I knew to be Roger's footsteps trying not to wake me as he climbed into my loft to get out the grinder. I know that's not a normal place to keep such a thing, but that's another story for the end of the season.

He gets points for three things here: 1) he was getting the grinder to work on the post that was torn off the power roller in yesterday's tide, preparing it to be welded back on; 2) he was giving up sleep to do it and we would all benefit from it; and 3) he worked hard not to wake me up. Considering how hard he was trying, I figured the least I could do was to not let on that I woke up by doing something like offering to get up and help. Really, I was trying to be thoughtful!

And he fixed it. It's a bit of a mystery to me all that happened. I understand that it's important to weld out of the wind because if the wind blows away the argon shield, the weld won't work right. So Roger described the process: he took the blue tarp that he had been using to cover the welder and covered himself and his work area. He welded a little bit and checked around to see if the tarp or he was on fire and if not, weld a little bit more. He and I put it into the back of the ranger, along with the brailers that were left on the beach and slid it back into place on the Ambi (yay!! it worked!!)... and then distributed the brailers around the boats for the tide, just in advance of going out for the 1 pm set.

I packed the food bag and refilled our drinking water and carried it over to the Grayling that was holding the net for the inside site - that was closer than carrying it all the way out to the first site. While I was there, I thought something looked funny about the anchor line. I'm kind of neurotic about checking all the connections, something we always used to make fun of my mom for doing. Ahem. Since the water hadn't quite reached it yet, I could see... eek! The carabiner that connects the anchorline to the anchor had torn open and was just barely still connected to the eye of the anchor by a hook. And the tide was 10' from it, and coming fast. It needed a shackle, but I didn't have one or the time to go get one. A line would do - but the Grayling didn't really have much in it at all. I thought I could steal a carabiner from the net, but it was too small. Finally, I pulled a tie-off line from the bow of the Grayling. It was a little light, but I hoped that if I tied it around a couple of times it would be strong enough to hold it for the tide. The water was almost there and I was working frantically. Rohan hurried over from setting the first site and could hear me asking for a shackle from the Ambi. He ran back through the water and returned with the small one we had. With water now covering the eye of the anchor (and rising quickly), he struggled to get the pin screwed in. Worried, I backed it up with the tie off line. If we hadn't fixed that, it would have been a huge fishing disaster. Because that site is out so far - at about 600', when the tide got it, it would have swung toward Pederson Point... 600'. But our fishing neighbor is just 300' away and his neighbor is 300' from him. The fishing was heavy again today and that would have meant fish caught in both nets, upset neighbors, and a great lost opportunity for us, plus we wouldn't have been able to tend to the outside site.

We had almost as much fish today as yesterday, but today the inside site carried the day. Each time we went through it, a wall of fish came over the roller. None of that would have happened. I am so so so glad for all the circumstances that led to noticing that torn carabiner.

Here we are at the end of the tide, this time fixing the anchorline attachment more permanently. Again, it's 10' tall Roger putting it together. The picture only hints at today's weather: cold and rough! Lots of spray.

The rest of the crew was still working hard, too. We sent Rohan up to make dinner (roasted potatoes, an orzo dish, a spicy bean, corn, and onion dish, cantaloupe, avocado, grilled king salmon, and brownies). After Roger finished fixing the anchorline, I sent him up too - he had been working all day while some of us were sleeping. We had all roundhauled all the nets, after clearing them first. Still, the fish continued to hit late in the ebb so that at the end of the tide, the boats were all where they should be for tomorrow's opener at 2 pm (we get to sleep again tonight!), but they had fish in them.

So while Sarah and AJ continued to clear the roundhauls, David, Jake, and Jeff started towing the Bathtub around from boat to boat pitching fish from the boats into brailers in the Bathtub and towing it all to the beach where David used the Boom Truck to pick them up out of the Tub and set them in the sand. Then they'd go out for another trip.

We go again at 2 PM on Sunday. I'm hoping that the fish continue to come in and that the weather calms down. And that no more disasters befall or nearly befall us. If they are looming, though, I hope we noticed them in time to avert them.

A post script: my clock says 1:37 am here. As I was proof-reading, I heard something in the porch (never a good thing at 1:37 am) and Sage came out, barking. I looked out the window and saw a bear leaving the porch and exploring around the front of the cabin - where I had grilled the salmon. I pounded on the window and he ran off. Now, though, I need to go turn off the generator... and I'm a little worried that he might have come back. I think I'll make a lot of noise as I go.

June 27: Catching up and just plain catching

We had several days of waiting to fish, and then the openings poured in. The first one was on June 24, a 7 hour, mid day opening.

David's crew has had a tough time of it (though you would never know it from their demeanor!) One of these early first openings, they discovered that they had lost a shackle that attached the outside buoy of one of their sites to the anchor line. What a surprise when you're getting ready to set! Thank goodness for redundancy: these buoys have attachment points at the bottom (for the anchor line) and the top (for the corkline) and we always attach on both ends at the end of the tide. That's why we still had a buoy. Whew. And things like that are why I think it's so important to get out to the fishing grounds about 20 minutes before it's time to set, and while the boats and buoys are still dry. It gives us a chance to check things, like shackles.

June 24: We began to get some fish on the 24th. About 2600 lbs for the day tide. That is so much more encouraging than the very few fish we were getting the week before - during this season that many thought would be very early. I was worrying that we were missing them because of the color or size of our web. That's fishing... anxiety. (Though if I had it to do over, I might choose 5" mesh size instead of the 5 1/16" we are using...) We started being willing to feel hopeful about the season with this opener - it seemed like it was the first time we might have seen fish piled into a brailer.

We had another opening just the next tide, from 11 PM till 8 AM.

The weather has been beautiful, giving us an inspiring work environment. Here is David's crew, still the Bathtub crew, waiting for the water so they can set out on this night tide.

Here is the Ambi crew on the same night. I don't know anywhere that has more beautiful sunsets than here. After we set "my" site - we headed in to the "inside" site. We have given them numbers: the site closest to town is #1 (also for historical family reasons, my site), #2 is fished by the Hakinnens, then #3 and #4. Inside the Hakinnen's site is the "inside" site. That one used to be my mom's.

At each opening, the Ambi crew sets #1 and then (depending on the depth of the water) either pushes or motors the boat over to the inside site to set it. Here they are pushing in the sunset (while I am the photographer). David's crew sets #3 and then rushes over to set #4, also an outside site.

If the fish are running, we stay out and go through the nets all night long. This wasn't a heavy tide (less than 1000 lbs), so we went in after clearing the nets on the flood, slept for a few hours during high water, and came back out to pick through the nets and pick them up at the end of the tide. When the Bathtub crew came out, they were in for another equipment surprise. The anchor on the outside end of #4 pulled up. They found that the end had drifted over to #3. So they spent the early part of the next tide figuring out where to place the anchor, and putting a new one down.

June 25: We had another opener the next tide, fairly slow - again, about 1000 lbs. But with late hitters. Because of how slowly the tide moved on the last opener, we thought we could take the risk of leaving the inside site set. Big mistake! We were about 80% sure it would be dry at opening time. But that 80% began to erode as I watched the very fast tide come screaming in, from a -1' run out to a 23' high tide, over 6 hours. I think it's rising at a rate of 4' per hour. So rather than risk the ticket and the loss of the gear, Roger and I got on the ranger and reset the inside site, so it was fishing much higher up the beach, where we were sure it would be dry at opening time. But that is a very difficult thing to do because while we're dragging the net, the net is picking up just as much mud as it can, so we end up dragging a good portion of the beach along with us. We were exhausted by the time the tide started.

The fish slowed down after the initial push, so we went in and got a couple hours of sleep before coming out to finish off the ebb. I don't see as many sunrises here as I do sunsets, but the sunrises are also spectacular. This is Pedersen Point, the cannery down the beach from us by about a mile, shrouded in morning fog. We ended up with about 3000 lbs for that tide... and at the end of it, because we were coming into a short tide, we decided to pull the inside site back out to where we usually fish it, in deeper water. Once again, I thought the outboard would be able to out-pull the mud, especially since the net was still in the water. Wrong. From now on, I know we will not take our chances with where the tide will be. If in doubt, pick it up. Period.

June 26: A very exciting day: Roy finished getting the new outboard on the New Boat and David brought it down. Just in time!! There are some small issues with it - it seems to cut out at high throttle. I talked with Roy about it and we suspect that the problem is the prop. The outboard people sent the wrong prop and Roy, being the problem-solving genius that he is, figured out a way to make the Yamaha 115 prop work while we're waiting for the replacement. But it's not perfect, so that might be causing the problem. Here is Sarah getting used to driving the New Boat.

It is also biology day. Here we are looking down the throat of a bullhead. A very ugly fish with spikes all over the place. The only way I know to hold a bullhead is by the lip. If you squint, you can see the face of a baby flounder inside the bullhead's gullet. Interesting and cool in a sort of gross way.

The now New Boat crew also had their day of biology. Here are Jake and Sarah attempting to make a very large flounder a part of the crew.

And this was the day that kings started to come in. We don't get many and I love having them at home, so we never sell them. I always attend the graduation at the school Alex graduated from in Massachusetts and this year, I want to bring salmon for graduation dinner. Here are Roger, Rohan, and AJ with one of the salmon we'll bring.

It has been pointed out that since I'm the one with the camera, the photos on the blog are mostly of my crew. So we're trying to remedy that with this post. The New Boat crew is getting ready to fish.

And here they are at the end of the tide. They've finished going through their nets and have anchored up until the next tide, waiting until the water drops just a bit more before wading in. We ended up with about 1200 lbs for that afternoon tide.

June 27: We got another two openers for the next two tides. Here is the Ambi crew walking out into the sunset... to set.

David and I were both inspired by the sunset that we were setting in. Here, David got a shot of Jeff's silhouette, in a pretty darned nice work environment. This makes 7 tides in a row, catching 2-5 hours a sleep over the low tides or the high tides, depending on how the fish are running. We were happily surprised by 7000 lbs of salmon in the morning tide. But the fishing tends to drop off over night and it did this night as well, so we went in for a couple hours of sleep before coming out for a relatively slow ebb.

We had planned to head back out at 2 this afternoon, sleeping for a few hours through the low tide when the nets would be dry. But my brother called to give us a heads up about the fish he was seeing out there. So I scrambled the crew as we got out there about 15 minutes earlier than planned... and ended up delivering more than 20,000 lbs for the tide.

Here is the New Boat crew, really needing to deliver some salmon. We were so extremely grateful and feeling so lucky about the circumstances of this tide: we got the working New Boat just in time for it (even though we also love the Bathtub), and the weather was beautiful and gentle today. Those two things make it so much easier. It was a strange tide. Usually, we get most of our fish on the first pick through, and then we just try to scratch up a few more for the rest of the opening. But this time, the run got heavier and heavier until the water started to leave us.

Here is a full brailer. In the Ambi, we brailer the fish as we go along, but it's not as easy to do that in the New Boat or the Bathtub. All those fish in the photo above will need to find their way into brailers like these to be delivered. We delivered about 30 bags like these today.

On the Ambi, Roger, Rohan, AJ and I made it through our first site and our inside site... and then we had to deliver, probably with about 3000 lbs on board. This photo shows AJ steadying the load as Brad is lifting it off to put it in slush ice. We immediately went back ... and found even more fish in the nets than the first time. So after going through just one of the nets, we went to deliver... probably another 3000 - 3500 lbs. By this point, the tide has turned and I could tell that the wall of fish was building. The water was slow coming in, from a hold up tide of about 7' to a low high tide of about 17'. Not much movement there. But it ran out from that 17' to a 1' low.

David's crew had already split into two boats: the New Boat and the Bathtub, so they could deliver while continuing to pick what they could see was a rapidly (re)filling net. They came in to deliver as we were finishing our delivery. I too was concerned about not being able to get through both nets, so I split AJ and Rohan off into the Grayling to start in the middle of the inside site, working toward the inside end, while we started in the middle and worked toward the outside end. Rohan and AJ made great time. We helped them finish up and went to deliver... another 3000 lbs or so, but the trucks had no more capacity and had to just leave our brailers on the beach until more trucks could come. While we were pitching the fish from the Grayling to the Ambi, we tore the post on the power roller for the Ambi, taking it out of commission. Horrors! Luckily, we have Roger and his welder!!! (I think he'll be able to get us back together before our next opener from 1 PM to 8:30 PM June 28.) The New Boat and the Bathtub were both trying to deliver, but the tide had gone out too far and Brad was no longer able to reach them with his Gehl. So the crew pushed in the Bathtub (it slides well!) but decided not to deliver from the New Boat yet (it doesn't slide) and took those fish back out on the mud flats where the boat was needed to continue to go through the nets and then pick them up.

Rohan stayed with the David's crew to help them with their delivery efforts and I took Roger and AJ to try to fly through the first site. More fish yet, but they were not as thick. The water was only about thigh deep. I had started to worry greatly about the inside site, so after finished the pick on the first site, I ran them as far in as I could toward the inside site with instructions to roundhaul it into the Grayling. That means to detach it at one end, and just pull the net, fish, and all into a big pile in the middle of the boat. I hoped it wouldn't be much fish, because picking them is a real challenge when they're all piled on top of each other, but it's better than having fish in the mud. Meanwhile, I headed back to the first site alone and without a power roller... and roundhauled that site all by myself!!! As I said to the crew, I expect the medal and the cake to arrive any day now.

We asked Rohan to go in ahead of the crew to start dinner (chicken curry - yum!!) while we picked through the roundhauls and David towed the Bathtub behind the ranger making many trip to bring the salmon off the flats and store them on the beach in brailers, waiting to deliver them. The very hard-working beach gang, somewhat beleaguered by too much work for too few people and unending mechanical problems (they too are lucky to have Roy), were very kind and helpful (they pulled out our stuck boom truck) when they got back to us to pick up the 10 brailers of fish that were waiting to be delivered.

We have a tide off in the morning (which is what is enabling me to catch up on the blog). Most of us are probably secretly relieved. For me, it means I can sleep too. The crew (who has been sleeping a little more than I have because I've had a few demands from my Seattle work) will take the morning in town to shower and do laundry. Those are low priorities for me. At the end, we had a bit more than 23,000 lbs for this tide. That's a big one.