The F/V Saint Jude And Her Fishing Family (a symbiotic relationship)

The boat is nearly ready. For the new fishing season.

The Saint Jude is the basis of our livelihood.

She is a member of the family.

As is the case with fishing boats and their fishing families everywhere.

Today a brand new generator is being installed in the engine room of the Saint Jude. Rewinding the old generator did not work. For reasons yet undetermined.

Tomorrow the season starts where we want to be fishing our boat.
For now, though, the Saint Jude is in port close to home. It is blowing Westerly gale in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is small craft on the coast.

Fishing is like that. Getting off course happens. A generator, freshly rewound, fails to work properly.

Decisions need to be made.

Go fishing with the boat as it is. Using a hand pump for any accumulated ice melt in the hold?

Or get a new generator installed before the start of the season?

We need the generator to power the on-board blast freezer. Which allows us to process premium quality salmon and produce sashimi grade albacore on board. Many of which will be direct marketed to our customers.

(To learn more about our fishing family business, please feel free to check out our web-site: http://www.freshfrozenfish.net )

Fishermen tend to get impatient. Their fishing/business partner wives, not so much.

We want to have the family back together safely at the end of the season.

An experienced fisherman’s wife looks at the big picture. Not the day to day fishing. Not the trip to trip fishing. Not even the season to season fishing.

An experienced fisherman’s wife looks at the occupation of being a commercial fishing family in terms of survival.

Decade to decade.

It is a challenge. A monetary challenge. A lifestyle challenge. An exercise in patience.

A commercial fisherman is called to the sea.

It is important to understand this in relating to commercial fishermen.

When the boat is ready, the fisherman’s wife knows it often before the fisherman. For it is the boat that will care for her husband while she is on shore caring for children still attending school.

The boat is expensive. Demanding.

A fisherman’s wife accepts this. Jewels and exotic vacations are less important than new equipment for the boat.

It is not a sacrifice, being a fisherman’s wife, for the pay-off is great.

Fishermen’s wives and fishing families eat the finest seafood available!

There is satisfaction, also, in pursuing an occupation that one is born to.

When the boat is ready for the season, everyone in the family will feel it.

We will know when the wind backs off.

Until then, we are test driving four wheel drive pick-up trucks to replace the old fish truck we recently lost to an engine fire. We are enjoying Spring Break with the kids out of school, exploring museums, enjoying a little leisure time as a family.

Perhaps the Saint Jude knew we needed this.

F/V Saint Jude in Port Angeles Harbor.

In a small fishing family operation, a fisherman’s wife pays attention to the boat as much as the fisherman does. The livelihood of her family depends on this.

The Saint Jude is part of our family. I will do everything in my power to take care of her so she can help to take care of our family safely!

The Things That Really Matter

A decidedly scary thing happened last Friday. My husband was on his way to work on the Saint Jude, our family fishing boat, in Port Angeles.

Our home phone rang, and I skipped over to answer it expecting to hear that he had got the generator on the boat running.

Something had gone wrong. In somewhat halting words, my husband said that the truck had caught fire but that he was okay.

The Sequim Fire Department putting out the fire that started under the hood of our classic 1972 Ford F-250. No one was hurt and the fire was put out safely!

How grateful we are, that no one was hurt!

My husband had noticed the fire, after returning an item in a store. The truck was off the road and parked away from any crowd of people. A passing good Samaritan had called the Sequim Fire Department and two fire trucks showed up, sirens blaring. Tools were needed to cut and pry open the hood so the fire could be completely extinguished.

A neighbor had been shopping at the store and had given my husband  a ride home. AAA towed the injured truck to a nearby auto repair shop.

Within a couple of hours, it was time to pick up our pre-teen son from school. We considered how to break the news to him. We decided to let him know we would be getting a newer truck. As much as my husband and I had come to appreciate our classic Ford truck, that we used for our fishing business, it was our son that expressed the passion that many people have for collector vehicles. He loved that truck!

He and I had driven by the truck many times, when it sat in a row of  cars for sale. It had a presence about it. Most of one Spring we drove by it every day during school drop-off and pick-up.  It was, overlooking Highway 101, patiently waiting for new owners.

One day, later into summer, my son and I pulled into that parking lot. Kicked at the tires of all the vehicles lined up in that little row. Came back to the truck.

It was old. No airbags. No power mirrors, doors, or locks. Old.

Over 40 years old.

In 1972, when the truck was new, my husband had barely started his commercial fishing career, and I was in second grade. About the same age as my son when he and I  took a first, serious look at the truck.

The truck, as it turned out, was on consignment. The person consigning the Grabber Blue  Ford, gave me a spec sheet. Balanced 390 engine. Thorley headers. The list went on.

With the spec sheet tightly grasped in my boy’s fist, after our visit, my son and I drove home in the slightly battered 2001 Honda Odyssey mini-van. In my mind, the greige-colored mini-van is about the least cool vehicle on the street and, admittedly, ever so practical.

In the Fall, near the end of that fishing season, my husband came home.  He’d been commercially fishing King Salmon, mostly, off of the coast of Oregon. We were in financial recovery from the recession, unprecedented fishing closures in Washington, Oregon, and California and from a family member having dealt with a serious illness.

Spending money, even contemplating spending money, required very careful calculation.

We decided we needed a truck for our fishing business. Renting U-hauls was getting expensive. The yard work was getting  way behind. Junk was accumulating in the garage.

And that 1972 Grabber Blue Ford F-250 truck was pulling at our heart-strings. It fit our needs.  And our budget.

We drove it to my Uncle Dave’s house. He was a retired master mechanic. It was the second truck we had brought to him. With the 1972, he just said not to worry too much about gas mileage. He told us not to put a locking gas cap on it because it would just get broken into. He suggested a theft alarm instead.

(My Uncle Dave passed away a couple of months ago. We miss him very much).

Bolstered by my Uncle Dave’s suggestion, we wrote a check out for the 1972 Ford F-250 truck. Paying for it in full. The previous owner had sold it to us for $4,500.

I drove it out of the parking lot toward home. Gave it a little throttle as I prepared to merge into traffic on Highway 101. Gravel spun out from under the back tires. Back at home, my husband laughed good-naturedly. The 390 had serious vroom.

The truck was a  beast!

Not many weeks later, as the leaves were turning yellow and orange, my husband and I drove out along the Dungeness River toward Nash’s new Farm Store in Dungeness while in that truck. By happenstance, it was during the opening celebration. We spoke briefly with Huber Nash, then with his wife Patty McManus. They both  told us to call their marketing manager, Mary. We drove off with folks waving at us, and we at them, as we went  by the front doors. The re-built, balanced, 390 giving a throaty, low rumble.

That 1972 Ford F-250 is a classic in every way.

It fit right into Farmer’s Markets, where we sell our fish, and on the back roads meandering through the rural farm land of Sequim.  It packed kayaks to Sequim Bay. With the alarm armed, it patiently waited in marina parking lots while the skipper of the Saint Jude, my husband, was working off-shore catching albacore and salmon. The truck waiting to get him home to see his family again.

In photos, the truck looks straight and true parked next to our fishing boat, the Saint Jude, in the Port Angeles Boatyard during Spring boat work. With a freshly cut Christmas tree in the bed, it made a a great back-drop for our red-headed family during impromptu holiday photo sessions.

That truck would be our go to vehicle for delivering frozen albacore and picking it up, hand-packed, from artisanal canneries. It would pack frozen salmon back to the Olympic Peninsula for our local customers. It would also help us deliver fish to Nash’s and other local grocery stores.

It was a work horse.

Tenderly, too, that truck would wait patiently in the school parking lot for our son. With a chocolate lab on the bench seat and his daddy at the wheel, home from fishing on the coast, that truck represented the image of our family healing.

It was cool, it was real, it was authentic.

That truck was also inexpensive to insure. No renewal tabs are needed for a collector vehicle. Comprehensive insurance on an older work truck did not fit our budget well. So we just carried liability.

Our fish truck, like our boat, is a tool.

An object.

These days, our fish truck is also part of the face of our fishing family business.

The safety of our family is a priority. It is time for us to make a change.

Our young son cried when he learned about the truck fire. His grandmother, visiting us at our home at the time,  comforted him. We took he and his older sister out to dinner and bought him an old-fashioned milkshake  before he would meet up with his troop for his first Boy Scout camp-out since he had crossed over from being a Cub Scout earlier this year.

For the week-end, he would be  amongst friends. That was the important part.

My husband and I left Friday evening for a planned business trip to Seattle. To pick up our life raft for the Saint Jude. To walk the loop in the Arboretum while the cherry trees were still blossoming. To dine at Lark restaurant and congratulate Chef Sundstrom on all of his current success including being a James Beard award winner. To buy Chef Sundstrom’s  new cookbook, “Lark: Against The Grain”.

To get ready for the new fishing season.

While in Seattle, I received a message from a facebook friend. She mentioned that an instructor who works with the Sequim Fire Department, and had helped fight the truck fire, was interested in owning our truck.

We spoke with him last evening. It feels right. We will sign the title over to him. He knows how to talk Ford. It is easy to tell.  It is in the voice. In the low, throaty rumble.

His plan is to bring the truck back to life. 

Our plan, is to find a replacement truck. Another Ford F-250.

Word is out. Friends have been calling. A 1972 Ford F-250 is on Craigslist in our area, mentioned one friend. Another sent a  message about an upcoming auction.

Fishermen up and down the coast expressed sympathy.

The loss of a classic old truck is painful. Especially one wearing Grabber Blue paint.

When our old fish truck got wrecked in that fire,  new friends suddenly became old friends in the making.

“How much do you want for it?”, the firefighter instructor asked.

“Pay it forward,” the fishing couple let him know. ” We are just grateful to the Sequim Fire Department and that everyone is safe. The truck served us well and we loved having her. It is time for us to  move on. We are glad the two of you have found each other. It feels right”.

That is the way it is with classic, old trucks.

Our next fish truck may not be quite as old. In 1998, Ford F-250 trucks came with airbags. We’d like to have those.  A long bed for sure. 4 x 4 and an extended cab would be ideal.

We will miss our old blue fish truck. 

What matters most, though, is the story. The story of a family being well and gaining strength. The story of being strong enough to let go for the sake of growth. The story of friendship. The story of gratitude.

In the end, these are the things that really matter.

 

Side note.  If you would like, you can learn more about our fishing family on our business web-site for  Dungeness Seaworks: http://www.freshfrozenfish.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heron Medicine (Be Safe Out There)

The fisherman had been home. For a few days. It was blowing off-shore and he’d driven a rental truck full of blast-frozen albacore up the coast. With his deckhand and the aging chocolate lab that the kids missed fiercely.

He’d been up since 3 AM that morning. Waiting to get in across the Columbia River Bar. They didn’t call it the Graveyard of the Pacific for nothing.

The drive went well and he got home in time to see all of his family. Mostly. The boy was in bed. It had been his first day of school.

The fisherman’s wife wanted to talk. A lot. He had come to understand that this was because he was gone. A lot. Commercial fishing is isolating. Not only for the fishermen but also for the wives at home. Sometimes for the kids.

The fisherman finally told his wife how many hours he had been awake that day. She chastised him lightly, telling him he should have mentioned it earlier. Truth be told, he was enjoying the company too.

Neither the fisherman nor his wife needed an alarm to get up the next morning to see the kids off to school. They drove their son to his grade school, stopping by a coffee stand on the way back home. They both took to drinking instant coffee during the fishing season. It was cheap, fast, and easy to make. At home, there were a few granules at the bottom of the jar. Slightly stuck to the bottom. An emergency stash.

They savored the steaming joe. His paper cup had a lot more sweet stuff in it. She still liked to drink hers hard core black with extra shots. To celebrate the occassion, of her husband being home, she had asked for a bit of cream.

It took awhile for his wife to fully wake up. He already wanted to be off returning the rental truck. She kept talking about guitar lessons, and all sorts of meandering subjects. He had learned to sit tight. Mostly. At home, she was the skipper. That was their agreement. He had learned that when he tried to take over the controls, that all hell broke loose, eventually.

It still baffled him.

How he could be so proficient at catching fish and keeping a boat running for days on end, but mess up getting groceries in the house and feeding two kids, while trying to keep track of family appointments. Turned out, after years of trying, that he did not have to do all that. He just had to pay attention to his wife’s schedule.

It kept the ship running smoothly.

Sure enough, that afternoon he assessed the day, and was amazed at how smoothly it went and how much had been done. He had enjoyed a cold can of soda while his wife had another coffee during their son’s guitar lesson. He got a kick out of the music store owner sharing aviation art. After the lesson, they drove back to the house and it lit his son up to no end to go with him when he returned the rental truck. His wife had followed them driving the ’72 Grabber Blue Ford F-250 pick-up they owned. They planned a run to the local garbage dump.

The fisherman had the unenviable task of cleaning out the bucket of dog crap that had accumulated for the past few months. He had to take the two yellow kayaks out of the back of the Ford pick-up truck to lower the tailgate just to get that bucket into the bed of the truck. He could understand why his wife had asked for his help. That sucker was heavy, maybe 60 lbs he told her.

He understood, less, why she kept mentioning all the way to the dump that she was anxious that they would be late. He hardly ever looked at a clock or watch. Didn’t need to, much, on a fishing boat.

As it turned out, the gate to the dump was still open. His wife looked frazzled. It was exactly 5 PM, according to the attendant, when the fisherman upended the steel bucket of plastic bagged dog crap into the dumpster. Closing time.

That evening was one they would remember the rest of their lives. They had done a lot of chores throughout the day, everything on his wife’s list was crossed off by the time the work was done.

The Seahawks were playing their first  league game than night. The fisherman had been looking forward to it. So he, his wife, and son walked up to the neighborhood bar and grill. They waved to another family that his wife  knew as they walked to their booth then ordered a plate of appetizers. He and his wife split a burger.

The Seahawks won the game!

The walk back home was about a mile or so in length, gently downhill. They peeked into the auto shop window at the top of the hill and spied several classic vehicles. The street lamps, the professionally landscaped newer neighborhood with the manicured lawn next to the sidewalk and the big box store were all such a contrast to the coldness of the diamond-plated aluminum deck of their fishing boat.

They especially appreciated the bit of the walk on the Olympic Discovery trail which led nearly up to their home. That stretch of the trail went by the opposite side of the road from the old red barn and the Raptor Center.

Their son grabbed both of their hands and tried to swing his feet as he had once when he was a little boy. They all three laughed because he was too tall to do it well anymore.

The boy was late getting to be that evening. It didn’t matter. His #3 Russell Wilson Seahawks jersey had kept him warm on the walk home. The fisherman had given his wife a larger version of the same jersey for Christmas earlier that year. Before the team had won the Superbowl. She was wearing her jersey, too, much to the fisherman’s delight.

Their daughter was home when they all got back to the house. She had been away in the neighboring town working toward landing her first job. The fisherman was tired but he stayed up later than his body was absolutely willing to listen to her stories. It was very late by the time he and his wife got to bed.

The fisherman was planning on leaving for the boat the next day, anticipating driving the ’72 Ford pick-up. He wanted to hang out with his son and daughter more. His wife kept talking about yard work and garage cleaning and…. It became a hum in his head.

He liked taking albacore with his wife to the Raptor Center earlier that afternoon. Turns out the person that had bought the albacore and ran the place understood commercial fishing. Perfectly. She been out on fishing boats  herself. Her father had welded on the boat lift out at the old Peters Neah Bay Resort back when folks came from all over the country to catch King Salmon there.

She knew the three  fishermen that had gone down on a crab boat off of Cape Flattery years ago. She knew one of them very well. Knew the family. In the same way, closer actually, than the fisherman and his wife did. She told her story to the fisherman and his wife. About the day that boat went down. All three knew, they would be bonded for life over the events she conveyed. That is how it is in the commercial fishing fleet.

The Great Blue Heron recovering at the Raptor Center wanted to get out. He was ready to go. Agitated. He could hardly wait to get back fishing. The fisherman and his wife admired his long neck, his piercing yellow eyes and his long sharp beak. Most of all, they admired his spirit. The fisherman  remembered when a Great Blue Heron nearly brushed his wife’s  shoulder when he flew over  her the day they took both their kids to visit the old Peters Neah Bay Resort.

Shy-pokes, as locals sometimes call Great Blue Herons are not known for approaching humans in any way.

Peters was the maiden name of the fisherman’s wife. Peters Neah Bay Resort is where she first learned about how to catch fish.

The fisherman and his wife  had attended the memorial service for those three men that went down on the crab boat off of Cape Flattery near Neah Bay. It was held at Fishermen’s Terminal in Seattle. Three fishermen lost. The three women partners they had left behind gave the fisherman and his wife hugs at that service. All of them said the same thing:

“Be safe out there.”

That advice had saved their lives and their boat more than once. Sometimes, when they had felt like pushing in really bad weather, they had turned around for port.

Remembering the voices of those women, remembering their tears.

The fisherman left the next evening. He had hoped to have steak with his family on the warm cedar deck on the South side of their house. The kids had a different idea though. They were hoping for a take-out treat. He and his wife relented, heading for one of the local drive-thru hamburger joints. They had their meal at a local park, where the fisherman used to take the children a lot when they were younger. To swing, to see the ducks, to hook up with other kids.

By the time he left home, it was 8 PM. He did not know that , though, as he hardly ever looked at a clock. His family watched a TV show and went to bed. He drove until he got to the marina where the boat was moored. When he arrived, close to 1:30 AM, he texted his wife:

“I love you”.

She did not see it until much later that morning.

When she did see it, his words, she texted him an apology. For talking so much. They talked on the phone a bit. He needed to get groceries and fuel. She needed to shake off her sadness, get the house back in order.

The fisherman called his wife again after the boat had crossed the bar on the way back out to sea. He said the ocean was coming down nicely. He’d been fishing since early April of that season and it was now September. About two more months of the fishing season left if all went well. It was a gift, to have long seasons once again.

The fisherman’s wife had tears in her eyes when she hung up the phone. “Be safe out there”,  were her last words to him. As was the case with every phone call they ever had when he was on the ocean.

She and her husband were looking forward to her volunteering at the Raptor Center. They had made friends there.

The fisherman and his wife knew to embrace Heron medicine.

Last season home, letting go, and Les Miserables

Notes from a fishwife

This morning, when I flipped up the lid of my laptop computer, I noticed that someone had changed my screen-saver. The turqoise tropical waters of the previous view had been replaced by a photograph of our 46′ aluminum fishing vessel, the Saint Jude, back when she was brand-new in 1989.

Not hard to figure out who had changed the scene. I am living at home with my teen-age daughter while my son and husband are away fishing in Oregon on board the Saint Jude.

My girl admitted to changing the image. It is, I think, her way of letting me know that I am connected to the sea, and that she and I both expect the Saint Jude to take good care of our menfolk. My girl misses her little brother and her daddy. Our family fishing boat is essential to us making a living. When we are on board, our lives depend on her.

Just like the screen-saver, the lives within our small commercial fishing family are currently experiencing transition.

I became poignantly aware of this as I delivered fish last week-end to a couple of local establishments in the Sequim area. I had a nice chat with the owner of one of the establishments about how her business and customers like supporting local producers. She said they appreciated the opportunity to provide “clean food” to the community. I smiled as I handed a dozen cans of our Dungeness Seaworks albacore to her.

Then she asked me how it was for me to not be on the boat with my husband.

Ahh, that question. I looked quickly away from her, toward the horizon. Just as I do on the boat when seas start getting really rough. It is steadying. I felt my mind drift off to sea. Just for a moment. Then I made eye contact, once again, with this woman. Grounded once more. I have just met her, but I feel she has seen a glimpse into my soul.

I tell her truth.

It was and is hard. To be geographically separated from my husband for the most part of up to 6 or 7 months. Being married to a commercial fisherman is challenging. My pre-teen son has been on board for over two weeks and I miss him keenly.

My thoughts quickly move to why I am home this summer. I tell this person, who is no longer a stranger, that I am really looking forward to seeing my daughter in a local theatrical production of Les Miserables that upcoming evening. That it was a wonderful thing to spend summers at home with my children. That this will be my last season to do so, and that I am grateful.

We parted company.

That evening I dine with my mother and her housemate. We saw Les Miserables together. At one point, my 17-year-old daughter was seen in the show dancing on a table top with other “drunken” souls. The entire scene (in my mind, I call it the “Master of the House Scene”) made the audience laugh. Later, we cried.

It was just that powerful!

Every night of the show, there has been a long standing ovation. As I stepped into the night air, to hand my daughter flowers and to congratulate the entire cast waiting outside the theater, I thought to myself, ‘This is life!”

There is a monetary price for having stayed at home over the past number of fishing seasons. The crewman we hire these days, during the high season of summer salmon and albacore trolling, is only necessary to our business now because I am not there. I tell few people how much it is that our crewman makes in a season.

It is the financial amount I entice my daughter with to think about fishing with us in the future. A nearly sure-fire way to help her pay her way through college if she so chooses. As I did working as a deckhand on commercial salmon trollers in my youth.

In the here and now, however, breathing in the Sequim night air while surveying the smiles on the faces of every member of that Les Miserables cast (they absolutely nailed their performances), this was my only thought:

Being in this very moment, with my daughter, my mother, our friends, and other community members is absolutely priceless. Worth much more than the price of admission. Worth staying home this season and all the previous fishing seasons. It was worth Every. Single. Cent.

Rare air.

It is a glimpse into the future. Watching my daughter, acting in multiple roles of adult characters onstage, just as she is becoming an adult in real life.

It is a gift to be her mother.

This is a time I will savor for the rest of my life. One I am enjoying sharing with my relatives, my best friends, and most of all, with my beautiful girl.

Our small community is celebrating and savoring the amazing performances in Les Miserables provided by many, very talented local artists. My daughter, I am proud to say, is amongst them.

I invite you to share in the incredible experience that is our local Sequim production of Les Miserables.

The show runs through 2 Aug; Thursday-Saturday; 7pm Showtime.

Get your tickets at Joyful Noise Music Store (next to Hurricane Coffee), at the door, or online at http://www.Penfamtheater.org, reserve seating.