Pre-season June 17, Day 18

Great day today. We're almost ready to move into The Season – no longer pre-season. Many successes – it started out as a good call with parking the truck off the beach. We couldn't really cross Monsen Creek at high water. Paul ferried us on the four-wheeler to the creek. I was the only one not in gear (it is my policy to wear waders only when we're about to go into the water. Otherwise, we run the risk of tearing them. Easy enough to do when we're actually fishing. Why add to the risk when we're not fishing?) We got to town in time for Mike to put our skiffs into the water almost at high tide. Jake hurried down with the Bathtub (which lost its fuel hose during the trip and then, after he'd arrived at the sites, it died for good - I think because of a faulty connection with the fuel hose. I'm hoping that new connectors will fix it.) I was surprised that we got in so early, thinking Mike would want to use the depth for the big boats. But as Josh pointed out, we're quick - and Mike was worried about the wind picking back up again.


I got to wear the new fishing outfit (photo will be supplied), we found the lost nets (that was a big worry), and we retrieved the propane truck. We still have a few problems to work out before we start fishing in earnest on Monday – we need to get The New Boat back, but Todd said he was working on the pin-striping, so he must be making progress and when we get it back, we have to run it through the tests and preparations before we can drop it into the water. And we need to fix the fuel line and ends on The Bathtub. And if we can, we need to get a new cable for the throttle on the Honda. But we’re in good shape.

Chris and Jake built me a new structure in which to place the new composting toilet that I traded my friend Tim for, in exchange for a life time supply of king salmon.

Josh and I went back into town - he was going to bring down the boom truck and I had an interview to do. Josh spent a lot of time organizing the net locker and we were able to put all our frozen food into the new freezer (that we now trust, although I think I'll be checking on it regularly for most of the season).

Last night Jake and Chris poked their heads into my cabin to let me know that when they were walking the beach, they saw a truck with the red buoy with Jake’s name on it in the back – the pulled it out and brought it home. We fixed the rope today. I’m sure it the corroded ring that just sawed away at the line holding the buoy.

We pulled in our nets tonight – the period closes Friday morning at 9 am – about at high water.

And best of all, we played CatchPhrase and I had the great pleasure of learning more about the guys I’m working with. We learned from Bob that if we can get eggs fresh from the chicken and coat them in Vaseline, they'll last for a long time (it's a seaman's trick), because it's the air that gets in and spoils them). This year's crew is delightful, funny, intuitive, and some are good mind-readers which is a real benefit in my boat because under stress I have the unfortunate characteristic of getting anomia – or really, misnomia: “Hook up the… fairlead” “Plug, plug, plug” “Pull the … gaff hook!! Quick!!” That problem is much corrected if they can read my mind, so it looks like it’s going to be a great season of crew.

It did take a while for people to loosen up – it kept feeling like they were afraid they’d get in trouble if they laughed.

Plus the sun came out today – after we brought the boats down in the bitter cold.

Liz