Training for Bristol Bay
A week before taking off for Bristol Bay, we moved from our apartment in Bellingham, Washington into a cabin built by Mariah's great-great grandfather in the mountains of Colorado. Mariah's grandmother moved into a house in town after living in the cabin for forty years or so, but she left a few keepsakes for us. One that I get a kick out of is a little paper sign taped to one of the cupboards that reads “Boy! Do you need a vacation!” It was especially funny to me since we were gearing up for gillnetting in Bristol Bay. I was reminded of a piece from Semi-Rad.com entitled “Your best vacation is someone’s worst nightmare.” Although Bristol Bay can be crazy, and is indeed a nightmare for some, the familiar rhythm of boat life is usually a welcome break from life on land, especially the chaos of moving across the country.
To cope with the hassle of moving, I started looking at it as training. In moments of frustration, I found it soothing to chant loudly "Training for Bristol Bay! Training for Bristol Bay!" until I was told to shut up.
Many of the tasks of moving could be compared to boat chores, with a little creativity. Moving out of the apartment entailed tetrising our belongings into a U-Haul trailer before giving our apartment a full scrub down, reminiscent of loading the boat with gear for the season, followed immediately by a post trip scrub down.
There were the long wheel watches in our overloaded periwinkle Tacoma, Winky. With the trailer in tow, she handled like a small boat, her bow bucking wildly with every ripple in the pavement. We tried to overnight in safe harbors, which included my grandpa’s place and the house of Mariah’s best friend from high school. And a Super 8, because any port in a storm. Cruise control makes driving a truck more similar to a boat. Once you find that sweet combination of rotations per minute and speed over ground you can concentrate on keeping the course.
We even encountered a few “Crazy Ivans”, those people that make abrupt changes in course for no apparent reason other than to see if anyone else is paying attention. A skipper friend of ours heard the term in “The Hunt for Red October”, and decided it was as fitting for fishing boats as for nuclear submarines. Same goes for truckers. We encountered one mad trucker who rushed up alongside just as we changed lanes to pass another eighteen-wheeler. I was passing as fast as Winky would let me, but the mad trucker flipped their turn signal our way and started veering threateningly towards us. It seemed that we were expected to back down, but I held our course until we were safely past the first truck and we could return to the slow lane. The second truck then passed us about as close and as fast as possible. I can’t imagine driving like that all day every day, but there are plenty of truckers and skippers in Bristol Bay who know no other way.
In Colorado we continued our circuit of unloading, cleaning, and reorganizing. A flight of wobbly stairs leads up to the cabin, just like the boat in the boatyard, so we had ample opportunities to refine our form for carrying awkward objects up them. After a couple years without consistent human habitation, the cabin needed a full scrub down as well, but we scarcely had time to do the galley, head and bilge (gutters) before it was time to pack up and leave again for Alaska.
There was also psychological training. Mariah said something to me about how she can’t wait to be on the boat with me and see me smile at her like I’m falling in love with her all over again. But then I told her she was driving at the wrong RPMs as we wound our way through the mountains of Colorado. That made her say she didn't think she could work with me. Later she called me a stupid person for picking the wrong parking spot at Walgreens, and she casually mentioned “I feel like I’m making a huge mistake” a dozen or so times. The most precious moment occurred on the drive to the airport as she cooed dreamily “I can’t believe I’m going to Bristol Bay again. Where did I go wrong?”
The highs and lows of boat life are much the same. Pre-trip jitters are inevitable, but often on adventures with Ri or out on the boat there is no place I’d rather be and no one I’d rather be with. Spectacular scenery and perfect partners can be hard to appreciate with a head full of discordant RPMs, sleep deprivation, and hanger (anger amplified by hunger). At least we have improved our diagnostic skills of why we're cranky when we're cranky, which is handy on the boat when we can't easily escape one another.
Upon returning to Naknek it never takes long for me to get the eerily comforting feeling that I've never left Bristol Bay. I suppose that's how other people feel about their vacation homes. Something about annual migration gives perspective to all the other changes in our lives, and makes returning to deal with those changes a little easier. It'll never be all smooth sailing, but we're well-trained, and I expect we'll weather it.