July 2: A tide off

Over the past few days of around-the-clock fishing, we are told about 12 hours in advance or so that our fishing period has been extended. It makes it easy to know what to do. But this time, we were scheduled to close at 3:30 (though because of how low the tide would be by then, we'd need to be out of the water before that) and the announcement was scheduled to come at 3. There was no extension but we would open for the next tide at 8:30 am for a 7.5 hour period.

Rohan has been dreaming of doing laundry so as soon as the tide was over, the Bathtub crew put their drowned power pack into the back of the truck to be dropped off to Roy (their own attempts to rehabilitate it were unsuccessful so they pulled through the nets, and picked up the nets, by hand), and Rohan and Luka rounded up all the laundry and garbage, and the empty water and gas containers and headed into town. They were a model of efficiency - they took care of all the errands and got the laundry done and were back in less than 5 hours. Plus, Roy fixed the power pack so they were able to bring that back with them as well. It gives me such a feeling of fat security to have enough water and gas to last us for a week or so.

Back at camp, I worked with Roger to try to get the wash down system running again, though really, I didn't have much help to give and he didn't really need it. But it was good to work together. Today in the skiff I noticed how comfortable I am working opposite him - he has really learned how I like to work and he syncs well with me. Plus, he seems to be to be a really good teacher. I don't think I'm a very good teacher myself. It is hard for me to know what knowledge people already have and what they don't. So I really appreciate it when I hear him explaining things to the new crew, often things I wouldn't think to explain.

We are back to fishing tomorrow morning - and I don't quite trust the tide book anymore, so it may be wrong. But if it's right... eek! It'll be a running set. There are positives: it should be a fairly slow tide (as our tides go), coming from a 4.3 to a 21.0. (OK, not slow, but at least not screaming fast.) And it'll be daylight. Plus we have the method David invented last year. We start at the outside buoy and the inside buoy is our target. It's hard to lay out the net between them when the current is pushing us and we're in constant danger of getting the anchor line or later, the web in the prop. Not the mention the myriad things that the net can catch on the way out of the boat. David's invention was to reduce the threat of the outside buoy's anchor line by attaching the net to the buoy and the buoy to the stern of the skiff and stretching the buoy's anchor line as far as it will go toward the inside buoy (the target). Then, to hold the skiff there, we stretch out the skiff's anchor toward the inside buoy. When it's time to set, we start running toward the inside buoy while the crew quickly pulls in the anchor line and anchor... and then if we just keep going forward, the web and the prop should be safely away from one another. I'll let you know how it goes.

And the final good news of the day: Jake is coming in on the evening of the third! That's tomorrow!! I miss him and it will be great to have him here.