Captain's Blog 2024 - Part II
A slow start to another strange season
6/22/24
RSW sea trial
Besides the boat not sinking, knowing the Refrigerated Seawater system is running right is one of the bigger unknowns of launching the boat. Warm fish don’t sell well.
[Boat names either seen or made up. To be added to the next installment of ‘Boat Names.’]
F/V Propaganda
F/V Finfluencer
6/23/24
First full night on the water went well enough. Dan and Ian are heading to Ugashik. We might just head out to the Y and stand by to unload nets and get services. Next possible announcement for Naknek and Egegik is noon. Might wait ‘til after that before we unload our nets. And see how things run on the trip out. Jesse and I and the boys from the Tommie O jumped off the tophouse yesterday, and it was hot enough to swim a few laps around the raft and air dry on deck. This morning started foggy, and is lifting to overcast. I’m itching to go fishing, to get Anya as much poundage as possible for the two weeks while she’s here, and as much training for the Greenhorn and to a lesser extent Jesse about how we do things on deck. And the to-do list is getting lamer and lamer. Especially for the crew. They washed windows yesterday. Got muckin’ the bilge on the list today. Did some maneuvers yesterday trying to find groceries and getting Anya’s phone, but could use more for the Greenhorn. I have to poop. Then run.
Mariah said her grandma might be going into hospice . . . but Mariah’s mom didn’t give a real answer about if she wanted Mariah to stay and help . . . I’ll feel better when Mariah and the kids are back in Petersburg, and when Mariah’s headed out here.
As tempting as it is to sink into the illusion that life stops for the rest of the world while I’m in Bristol Bay, that is not and has never been the case. If anything, it feels like some of the most trying times for the rest of my family happen while I’m not there. Not as a result of my not being there. I don’t believe the rest of the world falls apart because I’m out of reach of it, that would be conceited. But it often feels like a test, like when Luke found out his friends were in trouble while he was with Yoda on Degoba (Not conceited to compare myself to Luke Skywalker, either.) I have not had a season where I was worried enough about my loved ones to leave the Bay in the middle of a season. But maybe there have been seasons where I should have pulled a Luke and gone back to the real world when I was needed. Like when Mariah had to close on the house without me with a four-month-old and while starting meds for post-partum depression, or when she was pregnant with a toddler during the first summer of covid, or the next summer when she and both kids got covid at the same time, or when she studied for and took the MCAT, or when she took a job in Alaska and started to pack up the house for our move. She says she’s a different person without me, but I wonder if it’s just the fact that I’m not around when so much of this life-changing stuff happens.
Gotta test out the hammock and see if I should tweak it before she gets here. I feel guilty sometimes about thinking more about Mariah getting here and being in the hammock with her, instead of catching fish. I think the fish will follow us just being together and working well together, and Jesse being handy if we have a breakdown. A mechanical breakdown. Standby for a potential Naknek/Kvichak announcement either noon today or 9 am tomorrow. Time to clean out some more clinkers and tick off the do-do list.
Spoiler alert: The fish did not “follow.” But we didn’t have any real breakdowns either. Should have gone to Ugashik.
Dropped off our nets at the Confidence out at the Y. Got groceries and freshwater, and decided to anchor up and hang out here for the afternoon since it’s just a lovely day for boating. Everyone is seasick except me. It really is a nice day though, Slight chop, but not too much wind. And mostly sunny. the Greenhorn asked if this was as rough as it was going to get. Jesse said, “Yeah I don’t think it’s supposed to get any worse today.”
The Greenhorn asked, “What about for the rest of the season?”
“Oh fuck no,” Jesse said. “It gets way worse.”
I’m going to hell for enjoying this so much. But I’ve felt as bad as the Greenhorn. Here. On this boat. I don’t know if my stomach is really better now. Probably some. Part of it is my head too though. I don’t dwell on my own hints of seasickness. I have other things to worry about. And just more interesting things to think about. It’s kind of a twist on the AA saying, where you should have the courage to change what you can control, the serenity to accept what you can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference. Here I know that my own susceptibility to seasickness is not something I chose for myself. Therefore it’s not something I’m allowed to be proud of. But is it wrong to get a little chuckle out of the stumbling Greenhorn with the dismayed look of being betrayed by his own body? When he talks like he knows everything about every subject? I think I’ll allow myself some amusement.
I fell asleep for maybe fifteen minutes and we spooled out all our anchor line. I guess we were just hanging on by the bolt on the end. It may have been because Anya didn’t put the dog on with enough tension, or it may have been because the Greenhorn jerked the anchor line around a bunch to put the chafing hose back on. Since this is something I don’t ever remember having happened, I blame the Greenhorn. Never seen someone jerk it like that [the anchor line].
We had our first anchor drill. The wind blew us weird at the change of tide so instead of just swinging 180 degrees, we swung 720 with some zigzags. A couple times we got awkwardly close to the tender Cape Calm, then they were so far downstream that it seemed like they’d moved, but I don’t think they did because they have a mooring buoy. And we weren’t dragging then because we were farther upstream than we’d started. Then the Bristol Patriot set out right next to us real fast with lots of scope. Then Sam Volk set real close, behind us. Then we were behind him and the Bristol Patriot and approaching the Cape Calm. Jesse noticed we were dragging, and when he hauled up the anchor it was upside down because the chain had wrapped around it funny. He asked for help to sort it out, so Anya went to help him. Then we reset, and Anya realized she’d overcooked the garlic bread a little, but the brats were done and we sat down to eat and the Greenhorn took off his headphones and said something about how some class of English submarines were like the lawn darts of the sea. I was confused, and I asked if that had anything to do with the current context. He said no not really, and laughed. I said, it would be nice if you could help with the anchor, especially since both Anya and Jesse were in the middle of making dinner when we started dragging anchor.
6/24/24
What am I grateful for? Being on the boat. Belugas. A beautiful wife who can’t wait to be here. My kids who can’t wait to be here. Biscuits and gravy I made this morning. Kids on open line, and June from Ekuk who called in twice, “Just because she felt like talking today.” The fox on the beach that found a fish and drug it out from behind the wrecked rusty machinery, then might have gone and buried it in the cut bank.
I’m grateful that I have a tophouse to sit in while the Greenhorn deals with his shit [literally. He plugged the head the first time he used it]. Jesse says there was a poop knife in Always Sunny. It’s not the worst idea. Maybe better than the freshman on the girls’ basketball trip that got caught using her toes to mush up her poop then washing her foot off in the bathtub. I’m just worried about puncturing the bilge hose plumbing. I can’t listen to the pumping, just picturing a hose popping. Primus covers it, helps my anxiety. Don’t want to have to buy a new head today. Now he’s back on deck. Hop it all came out ok. Greenhorn with a brown thumb.
Coffee pots of Kirkland on a standown day in Naknek with Primus. “These damn blue-collar tweakers have always run this town.”
I had a dream I decided to have a beer and blacked out after that and wrecked the truck and got a dooey I think. And I had a bald spot worse than Jesse’s.
6/25/24
It’s a Belugaful day in Bristol Bay. They swam all around the boat while I was sexting Mariah. It’s calm and sunny, but so foggy still that I can’t see North Naknek. We’re standing by til 9, and Nels got some info that we’ll get an opener today. I hope so. All I did to blow off steam yesterday was listen to loud Primus and take apart the head after the Greenhorn clogged it. The first time. The second time I made him do it. Now there’s a bunch of seafoam drifting by. At first I thought it was dead Belugas, then trash bags. Happy it’s only Nakeccinos. The fog is just rinsing off the bluff by the barge dock. Time to go make breakfast and do crew contracts.
Fished til 1900, maybe 5 sets for 119 lbs and a jack king and a fat sockeye cook fish. Jason had 200-300 fish on the line. Others unloaded that much, maybe as much as 3k. Gotta get in ‘em. Gotta get the rest of the group out here. On the radio. Jason’s radio isn’t working. Should see if these guys have 2 meters (radios). The fishing went pretty smooth, the crew is going through the motions well. We’ll see if we fish in one minute. Egegik went off. Dan got lucky got 6k in Ug. Ian got 1k.
6/26/24
Good song on the radio: “Hope my name hurts”
Standby to standby. Maybe I’ll do some newspaper writing today. I felt lucky to get over 100 lbs yesterday until we were at the tender line and saw most everyone else with over 1k, or 2 or 3. F/V Fomo. I want to fish like a local. They fished til the end of the opener last night I bet, just not too hard. How do they pay the insurance on those little old boats? I think there’s still some wooden ones. Who do they sell to? AGS? Copper? Tora pulled anchor and is probably going to tie up and spend the day with family, or at the bar, or both.
6/27/24
Mariah gets here in a week. I hope we get some solid fishing in before then, before Anya has to go. She’s made a good difference in how ship-shape things are here though. And in breaking in the Greenhorn. I thought he would be learning more skills, but instead it seems to be more social-emotional learning. Gotta start somewhere. He already has some mechanical know-how, and he gets excited on a ten fish set, he just needs to learn to mesh with the crew, with people in general. His picking has yet to be seen, but he handled the weather on deck ok. After sleeping in til 11 yesterday he had a bit of a stare going and I asked him how it was going and he said tired. Good but tired. So we’ll see about that too.
I can’t wait to not have time to worry let alone think about this little stuff, but it looms large while we sit on anchor for whole days at a time. It’s funny when all of us but him know what’s coming, at least the likely level of sleep deprivation, weather, work in general. And he asks if the weather will get worse than a two-foot chop and after a ten-fish set says, “That was some good fishin’.” Ain’t life grand. But to him it was good. He giggled when four fish came over the roller at once. That’s a good sign. Maybe he’s in the right place. We just have to help him grow a bit without tearing him apart. I do think about the military motto of breaking a person down before building them into what they need to be. My hope is that the place and the pace will do that work for us, so none of us has to be the complete bad cop. Much of this little quirkiness could be washed away by the work, but some of it could be made much worse [spoiler alert], when the rest of us don’t have the time or energy for patience. When fatigue fades the color from life, there will be no amusement at the Greenhorn asking Jesse to get his gloves or sunglasses for him. There will be tearing a new one. But that’s how muscles grow. Many small tears before it heals stronger. As long as it’s not straining the muscle as a whole or tearing ligaments from bone.
I’m being dramatic, but not overly so. I’ve seen tears [crying tears'] and puking from weather, blacking out and puking and stumbling in the calm, panic attacks, tears at the suck of the peak, tears of relief of the end, tears of fear for the unborn baby and human blood on the deck. And delirious laughter and deep love, for the place and the work and the forced awareness of what we’re capable of and what we care about.
6/29/24
We caught less fish yesterday, and now we’re sitting for the day since Travis [The biologist for the Naknek-Kvichak district] switched us to the morning tide tomorrow. Naknek traditionally starts slow, Spencer says. I’m having a fine time. Got grumpy yesterday when I tried to fix the engine alarm in the tophouse and tripped the breaker on the engine electrical box. Couldn’t shut the engine off, and lost oil, gear oil, rpm, and 24v gauges. Then the Greenhorn started getting into the back of the panel, and Jesse started messing with the 100 amp breaker. I told the Greenhorn not to mess with it yet, and I should have told Jesse, because he broke off the reset switch [Reminder to get new 100 amp breaker for next season]. Then we lost house power. In between getting him tools to try to fix that, I studied the engine wiring schematic and found where to reset the breaker I tripped and got the panel power back on. And Jesse wound up jumping the breaker he broke. So then we could go fishing. Everyone messing with different shit made it take longer for me to fix the shit I fucked up and really cut into my nap time though, and by the time I laid down the weather had come up and the group was talking about jumpers and it was time to start the reefer. Had a nice evening of scratch fishing though.
We caught a few little kings and ate one with quinoa while on a drift. Would have been $100 a plate in Seattle. So we’re basically making money. Just need Mariah here so I can get laid with a belly full of King salmon and I won’t have anything to complain about. We are not suffering, because we made the conscious decision not to by staying here instead of the Nush. And we didn’t go to Ugashik so we wouldn’t sit like this, but it’s keeping the boat numbers low here. It’ll be fine, but I’m not holding my breath for it to really pay off huge. I could make some money doing newspaper stories. Also could write up the last KFSK minutes. Or I could fuck off and read Hemingway.
I empathize with the Greenhorn about staying up too late when we aren’t fishing, to take a little bit of control over your life when the rest of your day is getting told what to do or at least supervised very closely. I would stay up with a book and a chew or a beer or a few. He puts in 10+ hours a day on his phone, smiling and giggling in the most cringy way. But I’m sure Jim cringed at my long hair and hangovers. And swimming to other boats to have a beer and a cigarette, and barely making it back against the tide. Or going ashore with a survival suit and taking the 14-year-old greenhorn to the bar. Or being buzzed when Dave Owens came to tie up and dropping my phone in the drink. Or drinking Irish coffee watching Galaxy Quest while fishing all morning then dropping the permit card overboard. After Jim forgot it at the tender and we had to go back for it. I’m not saying I’m perfect. But am I an asshole for ignoring the annoying stuff the Greenhorn does, like interrupting conversations to show someone an unrelated meme on his phone? Or spouting some engineering hoopla? Or calling him out about not doing all the dishes or leaving stuff on the galley table when the weather comes up? Or wasting flour on beginner bread? I am a crotchety captain.
6/30/24
Might have got a ticket today. Got distracted and looked up and was a couple hundred feet from the line on my inside end. Went to outside couple hundred over, chopper flew over.
I did not get a ticket. But I did get anxious every time the trooper skiff went by. And extra anxious the time they pulled up to us on anchor. That’s a story for next time.