Packing list for Bristol Bay

Flying to Naknek this afternoon, so probably my last post until late July. Bristol Baycation!

My duffel of mostly socks and underwear and three totes of groceries instacarted from Costco to my hotel in Anchorage

Mariah’s list for our greenhorn:

• Duffel!

• Raingear - grundens or guycotten 

  • Rubber oilskins 

    • The ones with fabric insides get stinky, but they’re okay. I like to go for the ones with plastic lining

  • Bibs 

  • Buttons last longer than zippers, but don’t keep wind out as well. 

• Boots (roomier are nicer on the piggies, especially with Bama socks)

  • Bama socks are optional, but I adore them

• Socks for dayyyyys (lots of socks)

• Base layers

  • This will be the majority of what you wear, so bring lots

  • Short sleeve, long sleeve, leggings, fleece pants

• Hats

  • You will destroy these and cover them with blood stains

  • Warm hat and baseball cap

• Sheet (twin) + pillowcase

  • To line the bunk mattress

• Pillow (we have them, but yours is probably nicer)

• Stuff sack for dirty clothes

• Only 1-2 pairs of jeans for yard work

  • Coveralls can be nice if you have them. If not, its no biggie though

• Going home outfit (keep it in a plastic bag and then you have some fresh clean clothes to get on the plane with if we don’t have time to do laundry before we leave

• Toiletries

  • Toothbrush and whatever

  • Deodorant

  • Shower shoes (those boatyard showers are pretty clean, but I wouldn’t risk it!)

  • Towel

  • Medications! (This is probably obvious, but I forget this if I don’t write it down)

  • Sea sickness things

    • Ginger chews

    • Green tea 

    • Medications (if you want.)

• Evening shoes (I prefer my crocs, but tennis shoes are fine too. Just something comfy that you can walk around an anchored boat in, so you can let your boots dry out every once in a while)

• Phone - GCI has service up there, but nobody else does.

  • There’s a cafe that has internet near the boat yard if needed. They charge by the minute and it’s slow. :) 

• optional - Books or games

  •  there’s downtime sometimes. Reading is awesome for that. We also have dice and cards, but if there’s something fun you’d like to bring to do that doesn’t take up much space, feel free!

• optional - Special snacks (I like to have a stash of special snacks to break out on a particularly good day or a particularly bad day)

• Food - any food you bring up to share with the whole crew we will reimburse you for! If you have extra room in a bag, replace the poundage with a brick of cheese or something!

Jake’s list for the greenhorn:

Socks x15 (mostly wool or synthetic)

Undies x15 (mostly synthetic, with a few cotton for sleeping)

Bama Socks x2 (blue elf booties to go inside rubber boots, they wick moisture from your feet)

Antifungal foot powder (even with Bama socks, which are magical, your feet are going to be wet a lot and athlete’s foot can get bad)

Lightweight synthetic or silk shirts x3

Medium weight synthetic or wool shirts x3

Heavy weight synthetic or wool shirts x3

Warm hat

polarized sunglasses (cheap ones, but polarized)

sunscreen

bug dope

bug net (A female deckhand started wearing one in the boatyard last season, and I kind of smiled to myself about it. But within three days there were another half dozen guys wearing them in the boatyard, working on nets, painting. There are lots of stationary jobs on land where you’re just a sitting duck for the Alaska state bird. In certain anchorages on the water too).

wrist braces x2 sets (one low profile set to pick in, one comfy set to sleep in. For the carpal tunnel)

good usb phone charger and cigarette adapter (make sure it has the right amperage for your phone, and test it out in your car. On the water we don’t often turn on the inverter, so we’re all on 12V DC, usb and cigarette lighters).

battery charging block for devices (if we have battery trouble on the boat, I might unplug everything until it’s figured out)

A big playlist. We have a stereo with speakers in the cabin and on deck, but you can’t be picking out every song on its own, and you have to have all the music downloaded before you go. In my iPod days, I had a playlist of around 5,000 songs that would last most of the season. In the last week or so, I would go full random, shuffling all 16,000 songs I had, many cd’s downloaded from my parents, many illegally copied from friends in college, some that came on a used iPod. The eclectic music mixed with the delirium of sleep deprivation and cabin fever made for some good times.