July 21 2016: Is someone trying to tell us something?

I got up at 5:30 for a 6 AM ebb pick. The wind was howling. The anemometer said 25 MPH ... and we had decided that the 14-16 MPH winds we were expecting were enough of a reason to forego the flood pick in the dark. 25 with higher gusts is quite a challenge.

I did what I always do: step into my hard-soled slippers, throw a coat over my fleece jammies, and go look over the cliff. There's the New Kid (check), the Ambi (check). Uh oh - where's the Cockroach - oh, the anchor dragged and it's full of water, but it's there. Sigh. Where is the Bathtub?!?

Jeff and I walked along the tideline for a while to recover the stuff from the Bathtub and Cockroach, joined shortly by Patrick. We figured that since so much of the stuff we saw was Bathtub stuff, it must be around here somewhere – probably just underwater. The poor Yamaha! We knew we'd see it as the tide went out further. Jeff and Patrick decided to go back for the Carry because we were finding lots of things - like the 25 fathom net we had replaced on #3, the sleds, brailers, bailers, slush bags, bin boards, assorted lines, totes, and more. We also saw that we weren't the only ones whose skiff had swamped - all we could see was the picking light on the post of the skiff of one of our neighbors. Aieee.

Jeff and Patrick returned in the Carry to continue the search with me and told me that they found the Bathtub, in front of the stairs, under water, upside down. The poor Yamaha!

We comforted ourselves by assuring each other that we may have lost the Yamaha, but our two main fishing skiffs were out there and seemed to be doing well. The immediate problem we were facing was that we couldn't get to them without our shore-runner. If we had a lot of fish, we were going to be in trouble. It is a crisis if we end up with fish in the mud. The buyer doesn't really want to take them. And we really don't have the water to wash them. And even if we did, we're tired! Wash them?? But no matter what, in that 25 MPH wind, I wasn't about to let anyone from my crew try to row out to the Ambi anchored about 600' away from shore. We would just have to wait till we could walk to it. And not one minute longer.

I had alerted Bray by text of our situation, asking him if he'd use the Gehl to right the Bathtub. They came over immediately when they got to the beach and were masterful in how they turned it.

This photo shows them with the Gehl holding up the Tub while Jack and Bray tied a strap to it and the Gehl so that once they got it to the tipping point, it wouldn't just slam down the rest of the way. Instead, they would be able to gently lower it.

When they did, we saw that the Yamaha was in every bit as bad shape as we feared. And the stern post had been torn off.

As this process was unfolding, I kept watching for the first moment I thought we could make it out to the Ambi on foot. Austin and I started out to it. If the water had been calm, we would have barely made it without getting wet. As it was, the water was anything but calm and Austin and I both took a lot of water into our waders. I was watching both the Ambi (which was anchored just a little bit closer than the New Kid) and the New Kid as we made our way out. I wasn't sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. It looked like the New Kid was turning over. Yep, judging by all the stuff that came floating past us as we continued to the Ambi, the New Kid, with its two year old Honda 90, capsized. That's three. Groan.

I don't know about Austin, but I was giving those little gasps that you give when you think you're about to go under some deep cold water. Once he reached it, Austin hauled himself into the skiff - don't ask me how they can do that. And then he had to haul me in. We immediately removed our waders to empty the water so we could move - and then put our wet waders back over our wet clothes. We made a short-lived attempt to retrieve a mostly submerged slush bag as it floated by - in the direction of the wind, not the tidal current. That's a strong wind.

The rest of the fishing crew was geared up, on the beach, and heading toward us. The rest of the crew still back at the cabin could see what was happening and they were mobilizing on their own, going to the Beach Access Road to bring back trucks and make sure lines are available.

We waited for the crew to get to us - I was afraid that as soon as we pulled anchor, the wind would throw us on the beach, and if we headed in there, it would only be worse. I was worried that against these winds, the crew wouldn't be able to keep us from being beached... and swamped in the Ambi. Matt and Jeff made it out to us first and the four of us went to see what the inside site held. It is a rare thing when I despair over lots of fish in the net, but I was despairing now. All we could do was roundhaul - pull the net into the skiff with whatever was in it. We started at the outside end - it would have been impossible to start at the inside and pull against the wind. But starting at the outside had the risk of being pushed into water that would be too shallow to leave, especially weighted down with a net full of fish.

So with Jeff already at the helm (he is a better skiff pilot than I am) I jumped out of the Ambi and detached the outside end of the net from the buoy and the v-line. When I saw that they were sliding down the running line toward shallower water, I used the bow line to tie them to the running line so that they would have to pull that net to them. I knew it would be heavy and I couldn't begin to imagine how they would be able to pull the whole 50 fathom net with all the fish to them. So I detached the net in the middle, leaving them 25 fathoms to pull in and leaving me 25 fathoms to try to figure out how to keep out of the mud.

Patrick was with me and we decided that he should go ashore and bring down a tote that we would get at least part of this 25 into before it went dry and left the fish in the mud. Meanwhile, Jeff, Austin, and Matt had finished pulling in the outside 25. They indicated that they were going to see if they could do anything to help the New Kid and if not, proceed out to the other three nets to roundhaul them. They were firmly instructed not to put the Ambi at risk in any way in an effort to rescue the New Kid. It turned out that there was nothing they could do from the Ambi for the New Kid and I saw them heading out to #4. I turned my focus to the net in front of me.

As I looked to shore, I saw Patrick wrestling the tote off the cliff with someone else picking up the other side and walking fast out toward me. They kept up the pace even as they hit the mud. I eventually realized that Patrick's partner in this particular heroic was Oksanna. They told me that as they were walking, Patrick checked in to see how Oksanna was doing. "Well, my arms are about to fall off. Can we take a break?" "No, there are no breaks right now." And they kept coming. I asked them to put it in the middle of the net and we just pulled the net through the increasingly shallow water and into the tote... until the last cork and the last fish was in that tote. Whew.

That was when I looked up and saw that the Ambi was working its way to #1. Jeff later told me that he hadn't expected to be able to roundhaul all three outside nets. He thought they would be lucky to get two of them. And there were so many fish that they had only inches of freeboard. But through some miracle, they were able to get all three in. The boat went dry toward the end of #1. I imagine that someone jumped out and detached the inside end of the net from the inside buoy and pulled it to them, as they had with the inside site. Those guys were amazing and they must have extra long arms by now.

I'd been thinking about how to right the New Kid. It was way out on the mud flats and there was no way the Gehl could make it out there. There was also no way to drag it in, upside down. I tried to think of how we might flip it over on the mud flats. My first idea was that we might be able to jack it up on one side with borrowed car jacks - little by little, propping it up higher and jacking it up a little more until the ranger could pull it the rest of the way. David N had another idea that involved pulling it with a long line and spinning it. I'm not doing his idea justice here because really, I didn't understand it. But he is a much better spatial reasoner than I am and a downright creative thinker, so I was fine with trying his idea first and using my idea as a back up. Patrick suggested asking Trina and Bruce to go into town to try to borrow the jacks so that the fishing crew could stay there to tackle the roundhauls.

So I went up to the cabin to recruit Trina and Bruce while David tried his approach. After taking a few minutes to get dry clothes and a new pair of waders, I returned to work on the tote of fish from the inside site. I'm not sure whether David tried his idea, but before long, the wonderful Williams joined my crew to make 14 people and one ranger trying to flip the New Kid. It didn't budge and after a valiant effort, the Williams took their leave. My crew remained gathered around the New Kid, trying to figure out how to right it. I was worried about the roundhaul in the Ambi, so I called David (so grateful that these phones work out here!) and told him that the skiff would float upside down and we could just float it in on the incoming tide. He didn't realize that it would float - he was afraid that it would just get increasingly buried in the sand and disappear within a few tides.

The crew headed out to the Ambi for the roundhaul picking party while I continued to work my way through the net in the tote before joining them. Sarah Y had everyone well organized in tackling the roundhaul. It looked like about 5000 lbs to me. I let Bray know what we were dealing with. He was very supportive, patient, and sympathetic. We powered through it more quickly than I expected and the fish were in surprisingly good shape. David N had used the ranger to bring the engine-less Bathtub out to serve as the delivery vehicle with the pulley system. Part of the crew pitched fish into the Tub and the rest of us finished the picking. I glanced up and saw the water advancing. The tide had turned and was almost upon us. The wind was still very strong and now it was pushing the tide.

As we picked each net, we piled the cleared net outside the skiff onto the mud. That seemed like the best approach so that we would have room to keep the picked fish and the cleared net separate. Now that the tide was returning, it was time to get those nets back inside the skiff! We knew that we wouldn't be fishing the upcoming tide - we were too beat up by this one. But we hadn't completely worked out yet that really, with only one functional skiff, our season was over. How can the season be over when we have 5000 lbs of salmon in the skiff??

We decided that the ranger shouldn't try to pull the Tub with 5000# of salmon in it. Instead, we'd just bring out more line for the longer pull from the outside site through the pulley, using the powerful crane truck to do the pulling - in first gear, low range.

Both the Bathtub and the line were already where we needed them on the mud flats, and the tide was coming in. So I asked David to get the ranger to safety. He went in by way of the tote of net and fish to be sure to get those picked up before the tide made a total mess of them. And with that load, the ranger got severely and deeply stuck. We could see that from the Bathtub/Ambi. Matt and Pat started running (yes, running in that mud) to push the ranger to get it un-stuck. Sarah N who was driving the crane truck also noticed and left her post to see if the truck could help the ranger get un-stuck. She drove the path she's driven many times already this summer... and got stuck. Luckily, the AGS truck was there and pulled her out.

The tide continued rising, relentlessly. We needed to get the fish in, of course, to deliver it. We much prefer doing that before we can float in on the next tide. But we don't always get what we want. We also needed to get the Ambi in. As our only working skiff, we needed it to be within rowing distance. And, of course, we needed to try the grand experiment of floating the New Kid in, upside down. (Trina and Bruce were unable to borrow the jacks, so we were down to Plan C.)

The Ambi floated first. I just asked Inku to get it to where we would need it next and out of the way of the Bathtub (once the pull started). Sarah, Oksanna, and I had put lines on the New Kid that we could use to guide it into the beach after it floated. With the strong wind and unsure how the upside down skiff would respond to our efforts to guide it, I wanted to be sure we were clear of it if it decided to do something violent. We felt it start to move. The water was about to our hips before it really began to float. And even then, it felt like it was stuck - maybe on the outboard? Or the hatch covers of the dry/wet bins?

Finally, the Bathtub pull began. After that was completed, the delivery crew joined the New Kid recovery crew. David called for the pull line to come back out for the New Kid. I strongly did not want it towed in upside down, but this was good insurance that it wouldn't end up in Dillingham. I thought of it as an anchor line, more than a tow line. Still, even though it seemed to be 80% floating, one corner seemed stuck.

Many of the crew climbed up on the high side of the boat to try to pop loose the low side. (So much for my concern about keeping clear of this potentially dangerous combination of forces.) They looked marooned.

David tried to tow us by pulling on one of the lines, but it just didn't seem to be moving. (He did comment that we looked really lazy sitting on the skiff while he towed.) Finally, he called for the Ambi, hoping to transfer its buoyancy to the New Kid's stern to help it float. I was concerned that they would have to somehow anchor the Ambi while they were waiting for it to float the New Kid, or it would be blown away from it.

Like many problem-solving processes, the first idea didn't work, but another presented itself and eventually, they worked out that they could attach the Ambi to the New Kid and use it as an anchor, while the New Kid used the Ambi as a sail. Sort of a symbiotic relationship.

Using this configuration, they floated the New Kid in to the hard sand while the beach crew took up the slack in the pulley line. Once it was close enough for the Gehl to reach, we anchored it so it would still be there when the tide went out.

Bray told us he wouldn't be back on the beach, but the other beach pick up crew would come help us.

While we waited, some of us were able to nap (we didn't expect the beach gang till after 8 PM), and some of us were too anxious so we walked the beach, looking for more lost items. I should say here that throughout the day, other setnetters came by bringing us things they knew we had lost. They were not required to do that and I am very grateful to them for their generosity.

Trina got some good shots of what we were left with. Mike and Jordan came after they picked up their last fish of the evening and Jordan was an artist in how he flipped the New Kid. We got to see what was left. There was a lot of sand. The roller was in there, torn off its hinges but held on by the hydraulic lines. The steering wheel was broken off. The outboard had sand packed inside the cowling. Surprisingly, the filtering funnel and the food bag survived and stayed with the skiff. The floor straighteners had floated out, as had the brailers, many of the fairleads, and the slush bags.

As a crew, we decided that our season was over, except for fishing for homepack. We would put out the inside site, high up on the beach, using the ranger. We would plan to fish it on foot, the old fashioned way, instead of using a skiff. (The winds were expected to continue for the foreseeable future.) We would use the ranger to pull the Bathtub out to pick up the outside buoys and anchor lines.

So we straightened out the nets that had been either heaved into the ranger box or piled into the Ambi and laid them out of the ranger. While I put on the ties, Jeff took the ranger to the righted New Kid to pull out recovered items and then drove the ranger up to the washdown.

I thought the day had finally ended. But it hadn't. Jeff came to my cabin to tell me that the ranger was out of commission. Somehow, the wheel rim had torn off the thing it attaches to. When I looked at it, I could see that it looked like the holes that the bolts go through had been ripped and the wheel had fallen off. Three skiffs and a ranger all in one day. That might be a record. Well, now how are we going to get the buoys in?

This was one of my most difficult days in fishing. And it revealed character, reinforcing my already high opinion of this new crew. They were unflagging, focused, uncomplaining, hard-working, determined, and cheerful through the entire process. Never a cross word, always looking for ways they could help. They gave everything they had and pulled off achievements I didn't think were possible, including those unbelievable roundhauls, the power walk through the mud carrying a tote, running through the mud to un-stick the ranger. I'm very proud to be part of this crew.