June 27 - a storm!

Day 4 of Josh's recovery and day 1 of Jake's smashed (but not permanently injured) thumb. I think he did lose some skin on that one.

It's darned cold. Really biting bitter darned cold. David just told me that it's 40 degrees outside, not counting wind, which is blowing hard.

It's only 7:30 in the morning and we've already had a full day that beat us without mercy. Well, there was some mercy: no one was severely hurt (though I think Jake's thumb would disagree), and the equipment loss was relatively low. The wind was so strong and the tide so fast, we barely made it to the skiffs while it was shallow enough to walk to them.

It's stormy - mostly wind (they say 25+ MPH - that's a lot for a small skiff) and a ripping tide (from a -1.5 to a 24.5 in 6 hours). Oh, and it was dark. We ended up having to do a deep water set. We tried the tamest way - where one boat holds the buoy for the other boat and the other boat runs from the outside buoy, dropping the net out behind us toward the boat holding the buoy. The reason to have the boat hold the buoy is because 1) on its own, the buoy always goes the way of the tide, away from where it needs to be, and 2) a boat is a much bigger target.

So we decided that my boat would set out #4 and David's boat would hold the buoy. It went OK except that the net got caught going out of the boat, interfering with the graceful arc we had planned to bring us right to the Bathtub from which we'd be able to pull back the excess line and ta daaaa, be set. So we ended up with a giant belly in #4, but it was set.

Then Erik was going to set #3 from the Grayling and again, David was going to hold the buoy. But that 25 hp outboard was no match for the wind and so the wind just laughed at him and blew him down toward Pedersen Point, flagging the net parallel to the beach. We decided not to try to fix that then; instead we wanted to get the remaining site set. (We had left the inside site out, figuring it would be safe and not in the water early. None of us counted on the effect of all that wind.) So David was setting up to set #1 and my crew got the buoy (and I donned a life jacket to unwrap the tag line from around the prop. Sigh) and planned how to hand it off to them when they got here. Remember - wailing wind and pitch black (the midnight sun doesn't help if it's all overcast). We got the signal - they were ready! We got into position and tried to hold it, against the wind and the current. And hold it. And hold it. And recover it and hold it some more. Hmmm, this is taking a long time - wonder what's wrong? So we reluctantly let go of the buoy and went to check on them. Somehow, the buoys and buoy light had just disconnected themselves from the anchorline - no one knows how, but I'm beginning to suspect the hardware.

So we decided to pass on setting the last net - I figured the nets we had out might be doing pretty well, if there were any fish. The plan became to use the Grayling as the buoy at the first site - otherwise, we might not be able to find the anchor cables without a big red buoy at the end. So we went in the Ambi to get it and found they were dead in the water - the cord on the 25 didn't retract. (David later fixed it - the 25 must be in neutral to retract the cord and once it's hanging out, you can sort of pump the shift lever and crank it back in.) So we rafted them up to the Ambi and pushed forward so Jeff could pull the anchor and then pushed them along with us over to the first site. In the pitch black, knowing there were flagging nets in the water just waiting to foul the prop on the Ambi (one of the last mishaps a person would want on a night like last night because it turns the stern to the wind - and the stern is not designed to take the stormy seas well).

After dropping off the Grayling, we went to pick up the flagging net - it was too miserable to try to continue. If there were a lot of fish, we might consider trying to fix the set at high water - at least then we wouldn't have the ripping current (just the wind). But that net didn't have many, so we just roundhauled. That was our second roundhauled net in two tides - the first one was at the end of the previous tide - the tide that the power roller on the Bathtub gave up. Sigh.

The pick up of the third net went pretty well. We conferenced and decided that it was just too miserable to stay out fishing - so unless we had a pretty good number of fish in the inside site and the fourth site, we'd just pull everything in and call it a night. David went to the fourth site (the one with the biiiggg belly) and we went to the inside site.

Imagine my dismay when Chris shouted out "there's a corkline flagging in the water!" One thought was "oh good, it's not just us!" And then reality broke through the denial as I was realizing that really, it couldn't be anyone else's. Dang it! Indeed, the running line, nets and all were flagging cheerfully (and stealthily - waiting to become intimately entwined with someone's prop). We didn't want that so Jake was a careful pilot. We finally got the line - all 600' of it. That's a lot of line to pull into the boat. But it was really a little more complicated than that - it was attached to the net, so it all had to come in together. But it was a little more complicated than that, because there were quite a few fish in the net. Oh my! And it was a little more complicated than that, because our power roller went down too - not sure why. So we had to pull 50 fathom of net with probably 1500 lbs of salmon against the wind and current into the boat with Jake driving us into it. Truly, I think Chris supplied most of the power for that operation. At the end of the running line, we heard a clunk. I found a metal ring that had given up - it had been part of the running line, holding two parts of the line together. It was just stretched open. What a night.

And we did get the net in. The fish were double-wrapped and rolled in the mesh and the line. Oy.

Finally, we got them all picked and then delivered 2135 hard-won pounds, for a total of 10,998 lbs for the season so far.

We go again at one in the afternoon, so I need to sleep for a little bit. We need to replace the missing buoys, and reinstall the running line. In addition, it looks like it's time to examine shackles, rings, and other potential disaster-makers. So we'll be out there at 11:30. Again in the bitter cold and wind, but, I'm happy to say, not in the dark. (The advantage of the dark is that if anyone is watching, they might not see the comedy of errors taking place before them. But then it's harder to prevent the comedy of errors too.)

Good night - Liz

Hey, it's still morning. Up at 11 am to get ready for the next tide - we needed to give some extra time to replace buoys and running lines, and look for other rings, knots, shackles and other hardware that might be ready to go. David returned from SeaMar Naknek with a fist full of the things we'll need. The wind is still blowing, but at least the grass is not lying flat anymore.