Another dark and stormy one

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.