July 18 2016: It swamped

I wish I had a photo for you, but when the going gets really tough, a camera is far from what I'm thinking about. While standing with our neighbor and his swamped skiff, we looked out and it looked like the Bathtub anchor had dragged, putting it in the swamp zone. But I really didn't want to take the rowboat out to move it even though Patrick - the source of all energy - was willing to do it. Shoulda listened to Patrick's work ethic conscience.

I came out to check on all the skiffs - but especially the Bathtub - several times as we were waiting for the sky to lighten a little - maybe 4 or 4:30. We knew it would be a slow ebb, so I wasn't too worried about being stuck with fish in the mud. Whenever I came out to check the skiffs, I shined my heavy duty flashlights at the 'Tub and the Cockroach... and they both seemed to be riding out the storm OK. I decided to lie down for 39 minutes to get a little sleep. I was twitching all over. I decided to get up and go look one more time. This time, it didn't look right. I saw a headlamp in the Bathtub, and not as much Bathtub as I expected to see.

I ran back to the crew cabin to sound the alarm - they got suited up really fast. We all rushed down to the Bathtub to try to rescue it. Mark (the neighbor) saw it happening. It took a big wave over the bow (something I just hate to see in any skiff I'm in) so he jumped in and started bailing (didn't I already say he is the world's best neighbor?), but it was already too late. So he rescued all the stuff that washed out of the skiff - binboards, brailers, gas tank and so much other stuff. Sadly, we did see the water splashing over the Yamaha, but it wasn't submerged. So it might be OK after all.

Bray and Jack had been there to take delivery of flood fish. When they saw us in trouble, they came over to help and pulled the full 'Tub out of the water. That makes bailing much more effective. After un-swamping it, we got a ride with Mark to the Ambi. Then we came in and picked up the rest of the crew. Yep, it was windy and the breakers were big and scary.

It was so shocking to go through the nets and see the fish hitting behind us. We haven't seen that all season. Even so, by the end of the tide - and it was a really long one in which about 90% of the fish were caught on the ebb - we had about 8000 lbs of salmon to haul off the mud flats. That was my nightmare at the beginning of the season. And yes, it was a reasonable nightmare.

The tide turned as we were bringing in the fish. I do not like running the ranger, low on gas of course, out toward an incoming tide through mud that I am not confident the ranger can navigate. Eek! We pulled in one load of fish with the ranger and the Bathtub. We pulled in one load with the Cockroach and the pulley system using the ranger to pull it. And another using the Bathtub and the pulley/ranger combination. The final Bathtub load was just floated in on the incoming tide. Don't like that one little bit.

Trina saved us by making sandwiches. Everyone needed a little more fuel.

The crew (including me) talked it over and decided to skip the big fat winds of this afternoon's tide by pulling the nets at high water and sleeping out the night tide. That's hard because the fish that don't get caught tonight will be gone, period. But everyone was running on fume. They were still running, though. Some had gone just a little bit brain dead, but no one quit or complained. Everyone stuck with it. They were great.

The pick up went as smoothly as could be expected when we're trying to fish in little skiff in 25 MPH winds. I think my weather program calls that a "Fresh breeze." Ha! It feels like a hurricane and just try to pull against it. Waiting for the tide to turn so we could begin picking up a net, one of the crew members shouted a warning and I turned to see a huge wall of water curling into and engulfing our very-difficult-to-swamp skiff. There was nothing we could do to stop it or evade it. It had us fair and square. So we all took a dunking. But it didn't fill the skiff and there were no follow up monster waves. One was plenty enough for me.

We delivered twice to the beach, also a great challenge in this weather. We threw the anchor to help us stabilize the boat during delivery - and to pull out on so no one has to be outside the boat up to their waists so that our outboard has enough clearance even when the wave stands us on the stern. All our boat anchors suffered from the storm yarfing on them. Slightly bent means it can't move in both directions; therefore it can't be trusted to land and grab. But Patrick threw it twice and twice it grabbed. We delivered four bags of fish to the beach in 25 MPH winds without swamping! Yay us! Then we wrapped up the roundhaul, delivered that and came - staggered, really - in. I think that having decided that we will have the tide off, my body is showing me just how tired it is.

So falling asleep at the keyboard, I'm about to go to bed at 6:30 and will sleep through the night!!. Yahoo! Boats are safely anchored (I hope - these are strong winds), the nets are in the boats, the crew will get the truck and other equipment up and out of the way of the tide. And we'll set our nets tomorrow at 10 AM.