June 19: A break in the weather

I got up a bit ahead of high water to get a photo and found a very gentle wind and, as gentle as it's possible for a 26.2' tide to be, a gentle tide. It wasn't quite high yet.

We were so relieved that we didn't have untangle tumbled nets or retrieve the rowboat or unswamp a skiff... we just took it easy in the morning. It's so nice to work with a crew that likes each other. We all just want to hang around the breakfast table, enjoying each other's company. And now that Sarah is here, it feels like the family is complete... except for missing Josh and Luka. And Alex. Alex is never far from David and me... he may be near other crew members too. I think we'll get his chairs out on Friday.

Just a quick note about Alex, my younger son, David's younger brother. This is my favorite fishing photo of them, together pulling the net into the New Boat, both with complete determination and confidence. This was 2008, Alex's last season fishing with us, and so far, our biggest season ever with 230,000 lbs. June 30 will mark the second anniversary of Alex's death. He was 20 at the time. He died in an accident that was no one's fault. He was doing what he loved - finding joy in small things: in this case, jumping in the waves of a tropical island with a spectacular coral reef. He jumped too high and the wave got control, catching him up and then throwing him to the unyielding and shallow coral reef. I strive not to bring him into every post, but when it gets this close to the anniversary of his death, it begins to feel dishonest to hold him out. A friend told me that living with the death of a child is like being given a burden to carry that gets heavier every year. I can feel that - and I hope those of us carrying such a burden get stronger every year to match the growing weight. Down here on the beach, surrounded by all the beauty and violence of this corner of nature, above the crumbling bluff on the tundra and overlooking the beluga, mud, salmon, and nets, this was Alex's place. It was where he became who he would be, strengths, independence, struggles... and stubbornness! We will burn a candle for him in the sink of each of the cabins from morning till night on June 30. If anyone reading this wants to also light a candle for him, I would love the idea of a little more light coming into the world in memory of my beloved and sorely missed son.

And still, here we are in this world, with a bit better idea of what matters and what doesn't. Today mattered. We had some kings to fillet, seal, and freeze, as well as a half a salmon - having involuntarily shared the other half with a seal. We have been storing Roger's welder on the boom truck and because it has such a powerful generator as part of it, we've been running the vacuum sealer from that power source (having thrown the breakers in a few different locations at AGS by trying to use it). This means that we stop to seal fish wherever the truck is. Today, that was at the high ground on the Beach Access Road. This photo shows Jeff, Rohan, and Roger hurriedly sealing the fish so we could still make it to the post office while the window was open.

We managed to have a record fast trip to town. When we got back, we checked out the fishing conditions - pretty mild. So we spent some time making a birthday dinner for Rohan (even though he cooked it) and dessert (that's my area - warm chocolate pudding cakes with a cream cheese center). On those very full stomachs, we headed out to pick the flood. AJ had brought in the Bathtub with the tide so we wouldn't have to row to it, but we were just a little slow getting out to it and it was just an inch or so above our waders. That is an important inch. Roger gets the badge for valor here - he was tiptoeing like the rest of us and just got fed up with all that timidity with the Bathtub so temptingly close, so he made a bold dive for the gunwale... and missed! He recovered and fished somewhat damp in that mild evening. That probably took care of the calories from one of the desserts.

The fishing was very slow - I think we had a total of 8 fish for the whole tide. But the beauty was abundant. Several of us have remarked that the clouds here are what we think painters want to paint. To me, it always looks like a Maxfield Parrish painting, all rich yellows and blues. It's hard to complain about anything when we're actually in this.

As the lighting often does here, it got dramatic. I was running the boat so I asked Roger to take some photos. Here we are, right under the weather.

We went through the nets, delivered to the Jacqueline W, switched to the Bathtub to go in - if that goes dry, we can get it floating again. Not so sure about the Ambi which is bigger, heavier, and doesn't have a flat bottom. When we come in mid tide like this, we throw the anchor so that if we go straight in, by the time we're at the end of the anchor line and the boat turns so the bow is pointed out, if we jump out at the stern, we'll be about waist deep, buying us some time in the cabins while the skiff still floats. We did that part pretty well, but waiting a little too long so it was starting to go dry in the falling tide.

I find it hard to just absorb the beauty of this place. So when it strikes me like this, I run for the camera - this time, the camera whose panorama function I know how to use. This is about a 200 degree panorama as the sun is setting (and it's very close to time to go out again). Those two boardwalks are actually the same boardwalk - the one from my cabin to the cliff. This was the last thing before running out to push out the skiff.

Together, with the help of the truck, we got it floating again and went through the process of picking out the last fish, the vast quantities of tundra and other debris from the high tides (if that remains in the net, it will make it very difficult to lay it out in our next opening). Since we weren't getting any fish, we decided to pull the nets on the Thursday night ebb instead of on the rising tide at 9 in the morning. Both crews came out so that the nets would end up in the right boats, ready to set in our next opener. Here is David's crew picking up the two outside nets in the Bathtub, in the sunset. Now we wait for an announcement from ADFG. After all the excitement and alarm about an early season, so far, this one is about average. Time will tell.

Finally, and I think best of all in this gift of a day (actually, it might have been the first gift of the next day - my birthday - as I'm pretty sure it was after midnight): we found ourselves waiting for the tide to fall... in the middle of a pod of whales!!! After we picked up our two nets, the water was still a little too deep to get in without getting wet, so my crew was content just to wait in the skiff and enjoy the evening. First, Roger and Rohan wondered if that thing they saw was a seal, though it seemed bigger. Then we heard the blowing. And more blowing. All around us. It wasn't a huge pod, but it was a few. We assumed they were all beluga, but Roger saw one that was definitely gray. I'll take it as a good sign.