July 7: In for a pelting

The fish tend not to run in the dark. Debby and I used to speculate about the fish hotels where they tuck in at night and stay until the day has been under way for a while. Others suggest that it's the size of the tide, speculating that the fish are harder to find in the big tides. These theories are hard to disentangle since the day tides are almost always smaller than the night tides. To further confuse the issue, most years, we do better on the flood than on the ebb, so until we do some analysis - which we are way too tired to do during the season and too busy with other stuff to do outside the season - these factors will remain entangled, allowing me to maintain my superstitions about when the fish do and don't run.

The fishing on last night's tide dropped off quite a bit after the flood, so half of us stayed in to wash dishes (a HUGE task by then) and prepare dinner for when the intrepid fishing crew got back in. It was a special meal of grilled hamburgers with carmelized onions, bacon, avocados, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese - the works! Rohan also created a vegi burger alternative for Sarah that we all thought was pretty darned good. We also had a couscous salad (I forgot to get cucumbers so we substituted a can of corn) and sweet potato fries and brownies. We ate at about about 3 and all slept well until getting up in time to fish at 8:30.

Fishing on the morning tide was slow, so we took a break over high water. I used that time to make some calls about the ranger's tire - what can be done? And the White Truck's oil problem - what is the problem and how can we get it fixed? Our friend Eddie said to crawl under the truck with a flashlight and a cell phone and give him a call. It would be a sort of low-tech version of tele-medicine, applied to a truck. David and Rohan used the boom truck to go into town, taking the ranger to Naknek Engine for tire repair (it sounds hopeful - it has a tube. They might be able to repair it. If not, they can put in a new tube or find another tire), and then went to be Eddie's eyes under the truck. From what Eddie "saw," it didn't sound like the feared rear main seal (whew), so David and Rohan took it to Pen Auto for what we hope will be a less extensive repair.

Meanwhile, the six of us that went out fishing looked into the face of a pelting. Everywhere we turned, it looked like this - at least like this. I learned one year that although Nature is a favorite of mine, I am not a favorite of Nature's. It's not personal; I'm just part of nature, as important as the salmon we are catching, the flounders we are trying not to catch, and the tender tundra on the bluff. Nothing more; nothing less.

Knowing that the tide was going out and this was the last pick before it went dry, meant we couldn't run in to escape it and made us glad for our raingear. It didn't really feel like the wind would start to howl, but we could feel the pressure of the pent up rain.

And here it goes, finally. I don't know if this photo shows the disturbance in the water - that's the pelting rain. There are parts of the world where it rains harder than this, but this was a pretty good one. It lasted for about 30 minutes, through the final pick, the transfer of the fish to the Bathtub, and the push through the mud, slowing down just as we reached the hard sand.

After gearing down, I got a call telling me that food was ready (thank you, Rohan!) When I went out, I saw that the skies had cleared - at least temporarily, and at least over the water in front of me. But when I looked over toward my sister's tin cabin, and back at mine, the sky was gun-metal gray and the silver of her tin positively shimmered in comparison.