June 20: It's my birthday; welcome to summer

It was a beautiful day. I'm leading with this photo because as I sit here stuffed with the birthday dinner I'm about to describe and looking at the photos, this one makes me the happiest and most willing to consider eating again some time in the future. On a fashion note, I've happily adopted Chris' look: long johns with shorts over. It's perfect for days like this and protects everyone from the shock of seeing my white legs.

We started early fishing the morning ebb and got... one fish! I had already made the cake part of my birthday cake last night (here is the finished product), and put together the teriyaki marinade for the salmon. That left a lot to do today.
While the crew tackled the roof of the bunkhouse (they finished it by the afternoon!), I started finishing the desserts. I hadn't originally planned to make the milk chocolate orange mousse, but the chocolate chip orange cake required four egg yolks, and I didn't want to waste the four egg whites. So I weighed: egg white omelet vs. milk chocolate orange mousse. It was not a good day for prudence. At first I didn't think we'd be able to make a picture of chocolate mousse look good, but Makenzie, my beautiful, talented, intelligent, and determined niece managed. She was our food photographer tonight.

Rounding out the dessert portion of the evening were these warm chocolate pudding cakes - they are so rich, they require cream to cut the intensity of the chocolate. They are as yet unbaked in this photo. They are the very best right out of the oven. Mmmm.

The thing about desserts is a) if I run out of time to do all the planned cooking, I want to be sure dessert is not sacrificed; b) they often need to sit around for a while - the mousse needs to chill (in the tundra-ator), the orange curd that fills between the cake layers needs to cool; and c) they're a little more complicated so I want to be fresh. Plus, I get to spend the rest of the day working in a cabin that smells of orange and chocolate. So for many reasons, desserts are first.

After assembling the cake and cleaning the very small cabin so I could start on the rest of the projects, I went to town to pick up David (yippee!!) and the remaining ingredients for the other dinner components. It turned out that Harry, Makenzie, and Daniel could come, along with our friend Phil, his son Tom, and their deckhand, Patrick, and Roy also came by after work. It felt so good to have everyone here. Makenzie and I decided that we want to go dancing on Saturday if we're not fishing - after Harry conducts the annual Blessing of the Fleet - and we hope the rest of the gang will come along.

I had hoped to be able to set David's net as his plane was touching down, but his permit has been delayed. For the past few years, he hasn't held a permit because work or school obligations have meant a short season for him. This year, he is able to come for most of the season and his brother isn't, so Alex transferred his permit to David. However, unbeknownst to us, the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission mailed Alex's permit to him at our home address in Seattle, but I am in Alaska and Alex is with his aunt in Micronesia, so we didn't know it had been mailed, let alone receive it. The CFEC can't issue the transferred permit unless they get the first one back, or have proof that it has been destroyed. So David found the permit, cut it up and took a photo it to send it in so David's permit should arrive in the next day or two. As it turned out, it probably wouldn't have affected our catch today.

On the way back from the airport, David and I looked for, but couldn't find Amanda's fish processing plant - where some of our salmon will be custom processed for David's customers... but we will try again tomorrow. We did manage to get oil for the heater in the Space Hut, and the remaining joiners for the wash down system, and some mangoes.


We decided that the crew would work the nets without me so I could cook. Here they are - maybe before, maybe between, maybe after the two fish they caught - which we ate tonight, along with the one from this morning, and two kings from yesterday. Here is the medium king from yesterday before we grilled it. The grilled photo is at the top of this page.


The rest of the menu: I want us to have beans at every meal because they have so many good qualities - very low glycemic index, high protein, high fiber, so as fuel, they keep us going for a long time. Maeve has been doing a great job of making that happen in our day to day cooking and I didn't want this day to be an exception. So here is the bean dish: It's roasted corn with black beans and mangoes (except one of the mangoes was brown inside, and the back up peaches were mealy, so we used one mango and one can of peaches). Another side dish that is really refreshing is this couscous with fresh vegetables and a vinaigrette dressing. David discovered this recipe when he was looking for something to serve with teriyaki salmon at the Strawberry Festival.



I wanted to wait for Harry's party to arrive before I started cooking the salmon and decided I had time to add this rice dish to the menu. It's a family favorite - rice with pistachios, dried currants, and scallions. Dang! I just realized that as usual, I forgot the parsley.






Finally, it was time for our guests to leave. The sun was getting ready to set. We all have to work tomorrow. It had been a great day - I love to cook for people and it's especially good when the people I cook for like to eat it. It wasn't a great day for fishing, but David got here and that was enough to make the day all by itself. And it was the solstice and it was beautiful and warm for the first time in days. When I went out to say goodbye as they were all leaving, I turned back to the cabins and got this view and then looking back toward the west, here is how my birthday ended.

June 19: We got it about right

Even when we aren’t fishing hard, the days when we fish both tides are dominated by fishing. It’s hard to do anything else – other than eat, that is. We didn’t fish the flood on the morning tide – we get very few fish at night, especially this time of year. So we decided to sleep through the flood, have breakfast at 6 and fish the ebb at 7. We were on top of the ebb this morning, so we finished a little early – with 5 fish.

We were back into the cabins by about 9 AM, I think. I believe we ate again. We weren’t due to go out again until 2:30, to catch the flood of the afternoon tide. We made up a shopping list for Maeve for her trip to town (shopping for my birthday dinner) and I tried to sleep, but no luck. The rest of the crew did better in that regard.

We went out at 2:30 after eating a huge pot of macaroni and cheese. Then we went through the nets – quickly. Among the many requirements of fishermen is the requirement to mark our corks every 10 fathoms with our permit number. This makes more sense for a drift boat – to prevent the practice of cutting a net loose if they get into trouble, without taking responsibility for the havoc a loosed net causes in an environment like this. This is not such a concern for setnetters. If we cut a net loose, it’ll find its way to the beach, probably in the neighbor’s net and no one will have to wonder whose net it was – they’ll have seen it coming.

We forgot to mark the corks until the nets were already in the water – that makes it lots harder. So today when we got a break from the rain, we took out a kitchen towel and buffed dry about 8 corks on each net and used a failing Sharpie to do our best with the numbers.


We didn't have so many fish, so it was a training and equipment vetting tide (Roger got the power pack on the Ambi working!! Yay!!) And I got to take some pictures. Roger got this one of Jake - just waited for him to turn around in his Lawrence of Arabia head wrap.

We put Patrick on hydraulics. Here he is, pulling the net across the boat. Meanwhile, Roger and Evan tackled the fish on the leadline. Here are some photos of both of them picking fish - pros!



We had a problem with one of the nets. There was a break in the leadline that I was surprised our net hanger didn’t fix. So I tried to “mouse” it by overlapping the broken ends and wrapping twine tightly around the overlapped ends. However, the overlap was too small for the pressure on the leadline and it ripped. So in the middle of the tide, my crew, with limited experience, performed the very difficult task of swapping out a net and they did it without any stress. It entailed separating the two 25 fathom pieces of net and tying the remaining piece of net to the running line so it wouldn't trail off down current. (When we returned, we wanted to be able to attach it to the new 25 fathom piece, and lay it out.) After tying off the remaining piece, we pulled the damaged net into the boat. Then we ran the Ambi toward the beach, dropping the anchor on the way in and running out the anchor line with the hope that it would take us just to the water’s edge. We ended up in about hip-deep water – which was good for getting back out (simply pull ourselves away from the beach on the anchor line), but not so easy for swapping the net, which is very heavy. We piled it onto a pallet and onto the back of the four-wheeler to carry it to the water’s edge. Then we piled it into our little aluminum dory (named “Skook”) and floated it out to the Ambi and stacked it into the Ambi’s stern. Then we stacked the damaged net back into Skook, pulled it ashore and stacked it onto the pallet, already on the back of the four-wheeler and up to the cliff. I think I’ll be able to mend it.

Then we returned to the Ambi and restacked the new net so it would come out of the boat smoothly, not tangled and in a big clump. We returned to the site attached the top end of the new half of the net to the end of the old half of the net and rolled our way down the running line, laying out the rest. It went well.



We came in for about 45 minutes - I'm pretty sure we ate again - and then returned to the nets to pick the ebb-caught fish and deliver – 381 lbs, including the 25 from this morning. Plus these beautiful kings, one of which will become part of my birthday dinner.

Jake did a great job of filleting the medium-sized one. Here they are washing to fish off... in the mud puddle that the new berm catches - this is a land of taking advantage of everything, even things that you wish you didn't have. We would be pretty happy not to have that berm or that mud puddle, but we're making lemonade.

And here is my birthday dinner. Or at least the grilled king part of it. I figure a little olive oil, a little salt and some lemon pepper, then flesh down on a grill until it releases easily and turn it over. I am salivating thinking about it.
The rest of the menu calls for teriyaki red salmon, a couscous salad, a roasted corn, black bean, and mango salad (for which we'll use peaches, unable to find mangoes this time), my favorite chocolate chip orange cake and, to make sure we have enough dessert, a warm chocolate pudding cake. It is so rich, we need to cut it with cream. We'll practice our food photography tomorrow.

June 18: But wait, we weren't done yet

I thought we were done for the day, until we decided to try to get the wash down finished and ready for tomorrow. Chris is the lead on that and I wanted to learn how. It is a really good system, developed by Bob in 2010. Chris calls it "Bob-simple."

A shallow lake a few hundred feet behind my cabin hosts a couple of swans and provides a wash down for muddy fishermen. Bob devised a wooden plank to hold PVC pipe to the end of which he attached a bilge pump. We dump that end into the lake and attach the PVC pipe to the pipe that runs to the edge of the cliff. The pump end is to the left and the line running across the tundra toward the bluff end is to the right.

When we're setting up, we need to:
1. Pull out the ends that have been stored in the cabin. One end is the barrel at the bluff, and the other is the pump at the lake.
2. Find and mend the breaks in the line using sleeves and purple primer / blue glue to attach them
3. Reconnect the electricity at both ends - don't forget the wire nuts and the liquid tape
4. Toss the pump end into the lake.
5. Put the barrel at the edge of the cliff.
6. Connect the long line of pipe that runs across the tundra between the barrel and the pump to those ends. Take the cap off the end and remove the gasket. Put the cap on the long pipe and the gasket over the end of the pipe so that it will butt up against the end that goes into the barrel or into the lake, depending on which end you're at. Screw the cap on.
7. Position the upright piece that is attached to the blue hose that goes into the barrel. Don't forget to open the red valve.
8. Attach the outgoing PVC that goes down the cliff and rests on whatever we can find (an upturned garbage can this time) with an elbow that ends in a faucet. Attach the garden hose there.
9. Bring out the generator and turn it on.
10. The float switch should turn it off when the barrel fills. However, remember that there is a slight decline from the lake to the edge of the cliff so it will keep running. We need to remember to open and close the red valve.

It should begin to fill pretty soon. If not, check for breaks in the line that we didn't spot before.

We were almost done tonight. We had the generator going, the big leaks mended or at least wrapped with tape. I'd been helping, learning, and taking pictures - including beautiful pictures of the swans in the lake and Chris in action. Then everything went sideways - and that was before I discovered that I didn't have a memory card in my camera. Argh.

Chris is as long in patience as I am short in it. When the PVC that runs down the cliff became disconnected so water was gushing out of the barrel making the mud at the bottom worse, I felt like it was a disaster instead of just a mess. When that part of the pipe broke because I let it go, I wanted to just throw the whole thing away instead of just mend another break in the pipe. And when the incoming part of the hose came disconnected, I thought we would drain the lake, when we really just needed to reattach the gasket end. Unlike me, Chris recognized that we are five minutes from being done - everything works; we just need a few more connectors, a few repairs, and we will have a working system. I'm not this way with everything. We're always running into different problems when we're fishing - that's sort of how we know we're fishing. And those are just challenges to figure out. But when it's something mechanical and I don't know something else we can try, I somehow think that it's never going to work.

So we packed it up for tonight, knowing that we'll finish it tomorrow and I came in to check out the photos - especially of those beautiful swans. And discovered no card. So I went back out and got a few photos. The swans have flown, so I'll have to get their picture tomorrow. And luckily, we have some more work to do to finish it tomorrow, and so I'll be able to get shots of Chris in action.

Really, all is well. Plus I had my camera out and handy (and with a card in it) when the sun started to set.

June 18: First real fishing tide

I always have to remind myself that we can count on the first 1000 lbs of salmon to be lots harder to get out of the nets and to market than any other particular 1000 lbs of salmon during the season. (There may be harder 1000 lbs, but that's only if something goes quite wrong.)

We have four days of fishing this week - "free week." 9 AM Monday till 9 AM Friday. We were very confused this morning with the tides. My main concern looking at the tide book yesterday was that it would be too deep to set the net, even at 10:30 which was low water. But at 9, the tide book said 9' of water at the 0' low tide mark which should be well over our waders, but it was not even to our waists. So we set on the outgoing tide -- forgetting to mark the corks. Oops. We are required to mark the corks with our permit number every 10 fathoms - 5 times in a shackle.

This photo is of my net, set, with the tide out and the Ambi clipped on to the inside buoy. You can see the buoys on either end and the net strung between them. It's odd that it's swinging to the right, since the tide goes out the other direction, but that just tells you how much stronger the wind was than the current today. The wind is down from yesterday, but it's still brisk.


This second photo is the same thing, but zoomed out to give an idea of how far away it is from the foot of the ladder... or at least, from the gravel-y part of the beach.

We had a couple of hours before we needed to go out and pick the flood, so we ate and then I went into town on the four-wheeler to get hydraulic fluid, hoses, wire nuts... and assorted other supplies for the various projects in process (including fishing). It was so cold that even though I was bundled up with rain pants and a down parka, I got a brain freeze. Usually that just means it's time to slow down on the ice cream consumption, but I didn't even get ice cream out of it.

I didn't get into town early enough to beat the noon lunch bell when everything stops, so it took a little longer than I hoped. Coming back, that little four-wheeler was loaded up with hydraulic fluid and four packages from the post office, as well as the assorted products of the shopping efforts and me with my gigantic backpack.

The crew went through the nets on the flood while I was gone -- 25 fish. It takes a while to get combobulated. They anchored the boats out by the nets and ran into shore using the Bathtub which was waiting for parts for repairs. That much makes sense. But it would have been prudent to bring those 25 fish in with the Bathtub -- it's 25 fewer fish that we'll have to bring in later.

During the lull, I may have fixed our Internet access. It has been spotty - and that's being generous. My friend and ex-husband, Scott, gave great support over the phone when I called for help that the local ISP couldn't give. And he was able to find a replacement WISP (Wireless ISP) device. That was in one of the packages at the post office. So between picks, I slathered silicon on anything that wasn't solid and asked the ISP to change the MAC address to the new device. Too late, I realized that I should have first just changed out the cables, the old one having a considerable amount of green where I think electricity and information should flow through. The WISP itself didn't get a signal, but when I asked the ISP to switch back to the original MAC address and replaced the original WISP with the new cable... I think it works!! I hope it works!! Thank you, Scott.

We waited a bit too long to get out to pick the ebb fish. At first, I thought we'd have to go through the nets only on foot. We have some snow machine sleds that we can put the picked fish into then drag through the mud to the delivery point. But once we got out there, we were about waist deep, which is deep enough to run the skiffs - if we're quick, because the tide is falling quickly too. And even then, it takes time to communicate the change of plans, and round up the walking crew and deposit them into their respective skiffs before getting back to our net to go through it.

We ended up with 564 lbs in 3 nets. (When David gets here, we will fish 4 nets, but he must be present when we're fishing his net for us to be legal.) It was hard to drag them in. But this was the experience that will keep everyone thinking about preferred delivery options as the season goes on, so it's probably worth it. (It was the non-aching parts of my body that typed that -- if my back or legs were in charge of writing, I think they would have written a different sentiment.)

Finally, because it seems a shame to keep this just on my camera, I'll post last night's sunset. Last night it was still quite light at 1 am, despite the 11:41 pm sunset. We are edging toward the solstice. This year, the solstice falls on my birthday at 6:09 PM, Alaska time - I love when that happens.

June 17: Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads of my crew. Thank you for raising them to be the men I am so happy to have here with me in the mud and wind today. This is a great group to fish with and I hope you're as proud of them as I am happy to have them here. I hope this isn't ruining them for future jobs, but they are doing great in bringing their whole selves into this enterprise and that's what makes it such a joy.

Here is this year's crew, except for me, David, and Sarah. Honest, we didn't hire them for their looks or even for their dazzling smiles. Starting from the left is Jake, nomad. He just spent the last four months in Indonesia and is emerging as a strong crew leader; then Evan, from Connecticut who, with Patrick, volunteered to move the Ambi last night after everyone else was just too exhausted - his self image is vastly incongruous with what we see. Next is Roger, from Baltimore, who fixes stuff even if he doesn't know how. Next is Patrick, part of the Helena contingent - he is a remarkably fast learner and I have noticed that whenever I need a spare pair of hands, his are right there. I have had reason to think several times already that we brought on the right guy. Next is Chris from Old Alhambra, the ghost town of Clancy also in Montana. He has a way of making everything look easy and seeming not to be breaking a sweat, but he's the one who came home with the tin and he's the one who will know how to roof the bunkhouse and he's the one who knows how to put together the water system. Yeah, he doesn't do anything. Finally is Mighty Jeff, the Santa Barbarian who carries his weight in water up the stairs, or the battery in across the thick mud. As I described each crew member, I wanted to say that this one takes the lead in keeping us laughing, but they all do that. This is the best crew!


As we were rounding up people for the Father's Day photo, we couldn't find Chris. Evan confirmed that he saw him gearing down after coming in off the flats, so he wasn't still stuck out there. We went looking, and Jake finally found him on the phone in a very private location. Can anyone guess?

We had a beluga sighting today, with their white backs breaking the water and then diving back down. The weather was beautiful, but windy! The anemometer said we had 25 MPH winds and I was worried about how the boats were riding. That is the downside to getting the boats in the water - then they're in the water and can do things like swamp in strong winds. But they road the waves well. We know that because I said, "I think we'd better go out to bail," and they all got geared up and headed out. No complaints, no fussing about it.

And Jake remembered to get a piece of wire for the last shackle that went in yesterday. We run it through the eye of the pin and around the pin and the arms of the shackle to prevent the pin from working its way out. He is really moving into a leadership position and I'm so glad to have him there. Overall, it is such a relief to have other people thinking with me. And several times, crew members have suggested different approaches to solving problems than what I originally thought and it's great. The more of us thinking about solving a problem, the better.

We fish tomorrow morning. If the wind continues to be this strong, tomorrow morning's 8' hold-up tide (meaning that the tide does not go very far out) may be too high to do a walking set. I don't think there will be enough fish to make it reasonable to do a running set (meaning running the skiff from one buoy toward the others where we try to catch it before the current takes us up river). Maybe we will, just for the practice... or maybe we will just wait and set the outside nets on the afternoon tide.

We'll fish two tides a day until Friday morning. We'll decide then whether to pick up the nets Thursday night or at high water on Friday. It will depend on how many fish we've been getting and how the night tides have been. Then, starting 9 AM on Friday, we'll be listening to the radio or watching for emails or calling the Fish and Game info line to find out if we're allowed to fish. We often get at least 12-24 hours notice, but sometimes, if the fish are running fast, we get only 4 hours. Announcement times are 9 AM, noon, 3 PM, 6 PM and 8 PM.

The crew and Maeve decided that she would be happier in the bunkhouse. It is a nice little space, and she would have it all to herself. The crew enjoys sitting around the table after a meal talking and laughing - a lot. Last night when I got a call after dinner, I left the crew cabin so I could talk and came back to my cabin, realizing what a luxury that is; one that Maeve doesn't have because she has been bunking in the crew cabin. I don't know if they're keeping her awake, but they are very nice young men and kept trying to quiet themselves so they wouldn't. So they all decided on a bunk-shuffle.

We now have many projects around camp that are partway done: fixing the roof of the bunkhouse (it is not easy ... or even very sensible ... to bring sheets of tin roofing up a 30' ladder in a 25 MPH wind. But once it was bought, we were committed - and we did it. There was a bit of a learning curve, but no stitches were required); setting up the wash down system that Bob created for us in 2010. Chris is the master of this one and he taught Jake, Patrick, and me; and creating a running water system with the rainwater on the side of the crew cabin using a bilge pump, a battery, and some hoses. These projects will be completed between tides.

July 16: Lucky Extremes

It is late and the Internet is spotty so this will be brief. Such a good day! Such a stressful day!

It started off hot again today, with beautiful blue skies and ended with pelting rain and thunder and lightning storm. Lucky for us, most of our work was in the beautiful blue sky part of the day. Here is the Grayling, moved down to the dock by forklift, just about ready to launch - in the bright sun.

When we went into town today, we brought with our gear in case we were able to bring the skiffs down to the sites. We still had the antenna to install in the Ambi, some grinding to do in the Bathtub, and its powerpack probably to replace. And drive to King Salmon to pick up my lovely niece who was scheduled to arrive today at 12:17. A pretty short list.

The roller and its powerpack hadn’t made it down to Roy by the time we arrived, so the first thing we did was ask one of the fork lift drivers to take it to him. Then we spread out to different assignments. Here is Evan grinding away the sharp edges from KC's welds yesterday - the edges that will catch the net.



Here are Jeff and Roger battling with the antenna and the radio. Roger was running after the Ambi with a soldering gun in hand to get the last bits connected on the antenna before it was launched. We decided that he might as well wait until we got it back to the cabin. We're not sure what Jeff is doing in this photo - I thought it looked like a yoga pose, but Chris thought it looked like he was about to put his foot in Roger's back and shove him overboard, "Goodbye, Roger!"


Chris and Jake are supervising as Patrick gasses up the New Boat - after all, he is the New Guy and pouring in gas can be tricky.







Then I headed down to the lower level where the Port Engineer's shop is (among many other interesting aspects of the plant, like the fish processing place, the boat launching place, the racks where they hold the nets, and the stock room). I was surprised to see Roy already working on the powerpack and astounded when he pulled the cord and it ran - purred, really. I continue to think Roy's capacity for making things works deserves to be called genius and I really mean it. I thought that this powerpack was beyond even him. But he didn't have it for more than 30 minutes and it was purring for him. It takes a village - with a gifted Port Engineer - to get us to the place where we can harvest these salmon.


With that, we could be ready to launch very shortly. With that confidence, I asked Guy (here in the crane) if we could get in line to launch, thinking he would put us in at the end of the tide in a few hours, launching the big drift boats first - they need a lot more water than we do. But he asked if we are ready now? My view is that unless the answer is a definite "no," when there's a chance to get into those slings, the answer is "yes" and we'll figure out the details later if we need to.

Knowing that the New Boat was all ready (forgetting that we had planned to put in a new picking light), I asked them to take that one first, buying a little time to get the roller and powerpack installed in the Bathtub, the antenna completed on the Ambi, and the nets into the boats as needed. Here is the New Boat in the water with Evan climbing down to crew it. Jeff is already at the helm. Turn the key and... nothing. What?? Nothing. I climbed down to see if maybe something was switched off... but nothing. One of the beach gang guys came down and diagnosed a dead battery. How enormously embarrassing. They were intending to slip our skiffs into a small slot and... a dead battery. Louie, one of the beach gang guys - the one I'm talking to in the photo above - ran to the stock room to get a replacement battery. It didn't have the attachments with the post and the wing nut for wires to attach to, which were integrated into the dead battery. So he had to run back to the stock room for those. Argh.

With a fresh battery, they started it up and headed out to the river to wait for the next boat. The next three launched and got out of the way without a hitch - Jake running the Grayling, Chris and Roger in the Bathtub, and Patrick and me in the Ambi. Maeve and Trevor went to King Salmon to get Makenzie. I'm so glad Maeve came to town with us, otherwise, I'm not sure how we would have managed. We all love having her here - not only is she keeping us fed well and rolling, she is funny and smart. Doesn't like to go fast, though. And Trevor got on his boat this afternoon, after coming back to town with me to help me get the nets that didn't make it to the boat. He will be on The Yukon fishing for Peter Pan out of Nornak. It is a huge boat - they could have dances on it!

The antenna wasn't quite finished in the Ambi, so its battery box wasn't closed and its powerpack wasn't bolted down. The wind had kicked up so even though we still had blue sky, it was a very rough ride. Patrick skippered it well. The other three boats were anchored to their buoys, and the Ambi was anchored closer in because it needed to receive nets (one of the steps that was abandoned in pursuit of an immediate launch). After the tide went out, Roger went out to finish up the radio, and we were able to drive the truck to the boat to load in the nets we'll be needing. The only thing is that by then we had been having intermittent thunder and lightning storms. Those are very rare here.

This has been a strange year so far - monster agate, ready with a little time to spare, weather that is hotter than usual and lightning storms - on the same day, and Patrick found a dead whole crab on the beach... we don't get crabs here.

Finishing up a few last minute things on the buoys, we discovered that the powerpack on the Bathtub lost one of its hoses and spilled hydraulic fluid all over the hull of the Bathtub (thank you Roy for providing us with food grade hydraulic fluid!!). And the Ambi's outboard will go down using the control on the throttle... but not up. That could be awkward. And we're not yet sure that the radio works. So we still have a little work to do, but if we had to fish tomorrow, we could. That is a great feeling. And on Monday, some time after 9 AM, we will. This is a terrific crew.

June 15: No one is replaceable

Roger and I had an interesting conversation - surprising considering how tired we all were. We were talking about missing Josh this year and his job as an intern as an able bodied seaman on a NOAA ship. Josh was astonished at how easy that work is, compared with what we do. It got me to thinking about how hard jobs are that make the person in the job conform to the shape of the job, rather than the job adjusting to accommodate the shape of the person. I think only the latter type of job requires and allows the person to be completely engaged. I began thinking then that when we need to advertise for crew, we should advertise as one of the rare jobs around where it is very important how each person actually contributes. We can't replace Josh. We can't replace Hugh. Who they are as individuals was important to how our "fishing machine" worked. With them on to other pursuits, we now have Patrick and Maeve, which makes it a different "fishing machine" because what each person contributes is important. We all swap around and do different jobs, but we are not interchangeable and we are not replaceable. I think that's a very good thing about this work. It's part of what I love.

I thought about starting with: What kind of day is it when having your boat fall off the fork lift is not the most notable thing that happened. It was even more important to me that our beloved fork lift driver (who had just given me a pair of rabbit slippers for my birthday) said that he was glad that if he was going to drop someone's boat, it was mine. I know that doesn't sound good, but it is. He meant it in the best way and right after he said it, he realized the other way it sounded. And no harm was done - it's a good boat, and a good outboard. This is a photo of Big Brad and his Giant Forklift. It's a Gehl and one of those is on my shopping lift. They are really handy and Brad is always helping us anything he can and he is a maestro on the forklift.

Today was another very long and hot day in town. (Roger agreed to go fold clothes to get out of the sun for a while.) I find town days stressful - just being around all that bustle and buzz is hard, contributing to it makes it even harder. I started pointing toward home after about 7 or 8 hours, but we persevered for another 4, with the last hour spent waiting for the clothes to finish drying. That was a long hour. Each year we have to re-learn which dryer doesn't have heat. We must remember to use that dryer only for our delicates...

Much progress today; the boats are almost ready to launch. We talked about making a checklist - I'm going to ask the crew to help me put one together. Especially for new crew, it's hard to figure out how to help. This crew wants to help and they aren't afraid of working. They just don't always know what to do or how to do it. And honestly, I'm always afraid that I'm going to forget to put the plug in the boats. Checklist. Here are Roger and Jeff, just putting the Grayling together - and without a roller, lights, or radio, that one is pretty simple.

One of the first and somehow particularly encouraging accomplishments was to repaint the numbers. Patrick and Jake picked out the colors (they were going for orange and blue, but settled for yellow and black) and I love the yellow. They did the beautiful paint job you can see here. The Grayling is the only boat that didn't get one. Maybe we need to do something for it so we can easily recognize the boats in our "fleet." I think this is a beautiful photo - Patrick took it and many of the others here, when I asked him to chronicle our efforts.

The checklist will be long - it involves the many steps of getting the outboard on and going, getting the powerpack for the hydraulic roller running with confidence and both the powerpack and the rollers placed. We found one anchor not yet tied off, which would be quite a surprise to the person who throws the anchor out of the boat only to see it drop irretrievably into the depths followed by... now what? It's crucial to have a way to stop in a boat. (And speaking of having a way to stop... the Red Truck now has brakes. Yay! Just front brakes, but they will do. It doesn't stop fast, but that's OK because I usually drive slowly, and now everyone else will too.) Roger did a lot of work with the intricacies of lights, radio, antenna on the Ambi.

Jeff spent a lot of time with the powerpack for the Bathtub, but it may be beyond hope - perhaps no compression. Roy thought we might have to consign it parts, which he said with a straight face, looking right at it. I'm not sure which parts he was thinking were salvageable... but he is known for his miracles.

And this one is Trevor and Jake (in the tube top he wears on his head, as a beanie, a scarf, a ninja hat, a headband, and a Lawrence of Arabia type thing) trying to keep the steering arm on the Yamaha that powers the Bathtub.

The final big event today goes to Trevor... who got a job on a boat fishing for Peter Pan out of Nornak just a few miles away. They'll fish in the Naknek district on a very big boat - Trevor, a very big person, says he gets a queen-sized bed, a nice change after the tiny bunk he squeezed into on Mario's boat last year. He doesn't know much about his crew this year, but there are four people on the crew and two are a father and his 19 year old son.

Tomorrow: back to town to finish off the last things on the boats (and pay more attention to what Evan and Chris are doing, and get pictures of them)... and bring them down the beach, ready to fish two tides a day, starting Monday!

PS - I woke up this morning remembering Evan grinding faithfully on the welds that needed to be repaired on the new boat. I so wish I'd gotten a photo of that. What we get pictures of is so much a function of when we have the camera handy. But we have more grinding to do today and I think the experienced man should tackle it... When I asked Chris what he did yesterday, he said, "Nothing." Uh huh. Trevor remembered that he did laundry. Uh huh.