The Saint Jude Goes Home

Last night I dreamt that my husband drowned.

In fact, about the time I had the dream, my husband was skippering the Saint Jude somewhere off of the Washington coast in the dead of night. Solo. Al and I had driven our van down to Astoria two days before. Stayed two nights in a nice hotel overlooking the Columbia River. Waiting. Waiting…

For better weather.

The first look we had at our boat was with a mixture of pride and some sadness. She has new battle scars on the starboard side. Scratches from a cleat that had broke off the dock in a storm a couple months before. The Port of Astoria harbor master had called with the news. After that incident, the boat had been moved to a berth right in from of the harbor office. Waiting…waiting…to go home.

The Saint Jude leaving Astoria, Oregon to cross the Columbia River Bar on her way to Port Angeles, Washington on January 12, 2015

Winter can be a tough time to get a small fishing boat up the coast. From Astoria, Oregon to Port Angeles, Washington

In Winter storms, weather buoys break their moorings and get washed ashore. Wind can come up unexpectedly. For the Saint Jude, it is about a 28 hour run, depending on wind, tides, and currents. Straight through without stopping.

My job is to take care of the kids at home. Try not to show the anxiety. It showed up in my sleep.

Our kids

Shaking off the dream of a drowned husband I got out of bed this morning and checked for text messages from my man, the skipper of the Saint Jude. There were none. Then a bit later, in real time, one appears.

Him: At Tatoosh (with a time stamp of 6:44 AM).

Me:  (immensely grateful my husband is alive!) Did you sleep?

Him:  Slowed down and ran 5 knots for 2 1/2 hours off of LaPush. Out deep without having to drift in trough. Cat napped. With radar watch alarm set. South current pushed the  boat along at 1200 rpm.

At this point, my husband has been at the wheel for 19 hours. He untied the Saint Jude from the dock at the Port of Astoria about noon the day before (January 12, 2015).  

Him: See the lights of Neah Bay

Me:  Are u planning to sleep more once in the strait? Anchored I mean?

Him: Have flood tide till 9 am.

Me:  What I mean is do u plan to sleep anchored  somewhere?

Him: Bucking E wind here a bit. I will let you know after listening to Canadian Wx for strait.

Me: Okay, are u inside the strait yet?

Him: Yes.

Me: Good!  Can u send some morning photos  – our fans will love those!

Him:  Wind in strait increasing 20 after noon. I will keep coming and take some pics.

Me:  I see. ETA to PA?

Him:  S.E. winds increasing today off S coast Vancouver Island. E 8 this morning at Race Rocks. Making 8 knots with current now, ETA around 2 PM.

Me:  Yes. Photos of Sunrise?

Him:  Probably closer to 3. Will take sunrise pics when it gets here.

Me:  Okay. I will come to PA when Cody gets out of school.

Him:  U.S. Wx calls for light E winds in straight. Canadian Wx has gale warnings on S coast this morning. Will see you and Cody after school.

Me:  Yeah – we know how to pick our weather windows don’t we?

Him:  Yes. We do.

Photos from the boat follow. Images of the radar and the depth sounder. Slightly blurry because it is still dark in the wheelhouse. Still, the image on the radar clearly shows the outline of the breakwater in front of the Makah Marina. A photo  is sent that was taken right around day break. It a a darker image and I ask my husband if it is Waadah Island.

Him:  Must be big lings on the sounder back there.

Me: Oh, Seal Rock!

The meaning is rich. Seal Rock is at the mouth of the Sail River, near Neah Bay, Washington. The site where my paternal grandparents, Willard and Hazel Peters, owned a fishing resort from the 1940’s to the mid-1970’s. One gorgeous summer day, I caught my first fish on my own – a ling cod – off of the end of a floating dock there. King Salmon were weighed at the base of that dock by sportsmen from all over the country. It is one of my earliest memories of life. King Salmon.

Several more photos follow. Sail Rock. Propeller wash from the stern.

No more words.

I take my son to school. Return home to start laundry, make the bed, and wash the dishes. To care for the six family pets. To write.

My daughter comes home from school  and I tell her that her dad will be home this evening. That we need to be very kind as he will be very tired. I tell her it is dangerous to bring a boat home from the Columbia River, the Graveyard of the Pacific, to Port Angeles in Winter. It is a calculated risk. One that was instigated by the skipper of the Saint Jude having a tooth break below the gum line while on the tuna grounds in September. I tell her it would have been even more dangerous for a skipper to drive a boat with an abscessed tooth. So the Saint Jude stayed put in Astoria while her skipper waited for his tooth to be pulled and the infection to clear. By then, Winter storms were back to back with only tiny weather windows. I tell my daughter that her father beat a gale.

It is close to noon. 24 hours since the Saint Jude left the Port of Astoria yesterday afternoon.

Her skipper will be very tired when he gets to the dock today. When I pick him up, I will help him check the tie-up lines. Make sure the power cord is secure. Make sure the electrical panel switches are off. That the radios are off. That the battery switch is in the proper position. That the auto pilot, radar and fathometer are off. Make sure that the heat lamp is on.

My son will be with me. A third generation salmon troller. I will explain to  him, as I did my daughter, why we brought the boat up from Astoria, in the middle of Winter for Spring boat work. I will tell him that it is so his father can spend more time with the family while he works on the boat. It is so his dad can be home to watch him crossing over from being a Cub Scout to being a Boy Scout. It is so he can be at home when our son works on his go-cart project that will help him earn a Supernova award in Cub Scouts.  It is so our son can see the boat work getting done, to help paint the bottom, to maybe be on hand when the zincs get welded. He has the fishing in his bones, our son does.  Some boat kids do. Like me. Having the boat home soothes my soul.

Commercial fishing is not the kind of profession that is taught in a classroom or from a textbook. Time at the boat yard and on the ocean is the best way to learn about boats…and fishing. Our son’s education, in the ways of the sea, has begun. As our daughter’s high school education is ending. She will graduate this Spring. Both of her parents will be nearby as she gets ready for the next major transition in her life. Truth is, I asked my husband to bring the boat home. For our family, for all of us. Our favorite welder has already been contacted about the scratches on the Starboard side of the Saint Jude. He has reassured us that it can all be fixed. We are already pre-scheduled to have work done on the stiff arms and to have the repaired generator put back in the engine room.

The Saint Jude will have the best of care. She is part of our family. It will be good to have her home.

At 1:25 PM another text appears.

Him: Am 2 hours out from Ediz Hook Bouy, 12 miles out.

Me:  Awesome!

Him:  Love u.

Me:  Love you too. More photos follow from the boat.

Him:  That is Tongue Point.

Me:  Thank-you for bringing our boat home.

Him:  Thank you and Kendra and Cody. And the Glass Family.

Note: While Al and I were in Astoria waiting for a good weather window so Al could get the boat home, our son stayed two nights with the Glass family. They took him to see a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter at the Coast Guard air station on Ediz Hook and texted photos to of us of our son in the pilot’s seat, grinning from ear to ear.  Zach Glass is a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter pilot and we are eternally grateful to he and his family for his service.

O, God, Thy Sea Is So Great And My Boat Is So Small – Breton Fisherman’s Prayer

The Saint Jude and the Port Angeles Boat Yard: A True Tale

Notes from the fish wife:

Capt. Al just left for the boat yard. Pissed. He’d been in touch with our welder, Brian. I heard bits and pieces of their phone conversation – “not happy”, “play in the shoulder arm”, “doesn’t seem to be their best work”, and “apprentice”.

My husband looked over at me as he got off the phone, before he left, before putting on his sun-faded Hoonah Cold Storage ball cap and completely metamorphosing into Capt. Al. He took one last wistful glance out our kid-and-dog-smudged slider window door toward his unfinished deck rebuilding project. Home stuff. Never a priority when the boat is hauled out.

We had a short chat. He said, “Brian’s not happy with it”.

Now, I must admit right here that a lot of the boat jargon is not something I have ever book studied or had a formal education in. I have not served as an apprentice in any of the boat building trades. Hell, I have not even fished a boat on my own. Here’s the thing: I barely remember a time in my life, when I was a baby and a toddler, when trolling salmon was not a part of who I am. My essence. But back when I was that little, I was already spending time out at Peters Neah Bay Resort. Where sport-fishermen liked to play. That’s my maiden name. Peters. My grandparents owned that resort.

King Salmon fishing is my heritage. I love it well.

What I bring to the table in our current fishing family business is a lifetime of experience. A troller entered my life when I was about 4-years-old in Westport. Her name was the Acadia. That is when my commercial fishing education began.

I can tell you at around 10-years-old, my son’s current age, that my favorite place to be on the planet earth was the Little Hoquiam Boat Shop. I was especially fond of the steam box which bent the curved pieces that would become part of the wood cap and guards on the stern of the Kay Angela. Our family fishing boat that would become my summer home for a number of years.

I have a newspaper clipping of my uncle’s boat when it was built. Not my Uncle Keith, who had the Jaeger built – another Little Hoquiam. No. This article is about my Uncle Wally who had a Hansen built. He had a short bunk installed for my cousin Raechel who was a baby at the time. She and her husband now seine their own boat in Chignik, AK. With their two beautiful young daughters sometimes on board.

The Saint Jude is my boat. Well, I actually share her with Capt. Al and, really, she belongs to our company – Dungeness Seaworks (to learn more about our fishing family business by clicking here – https://www.facebook.com/DungenessSeaworks?hc_location=timeline). She is aluminum. We are bonded. In the troll fleet, she is a one-of-a-kind. Reportedly, it cost over $300,000 to build her. In 1989. We bought her for around a quarter of a million dollars. She was paid for the first year we owned her after our first season with her.

I call it the season from hell.

To make that boat payment, in the Fall, after struggling learning how to freeze salmon all summer and catching a dismal number of cohos to compensate for our inexperience, we long-lined halibut.

In SE Alaska. Just Al and I.

By October, we were still short the money for that boat payment. So we caught a weather window and headed for Spencer Spit off-shore near Cross Sound.

I told this story to Brian in the Port Angeles boat yard yesterday. He was complimenting us, again, on how well-built the Saint Jude is. Irreplaceable, we agreed.

I told him, for the first time, about the gale force winds that came up while we had about 3,000 pounds of uncleaned halibut on the deck. How we dogged-down the door and the wheel-house hatches.

The green water on the front windows was nothing. Not that day. It was the green water on the side windows that scared us. I had never seen it there before. Never. Haven’t since.

Boats have gone down right there where we were that day. Vince Cameron’s last boat – renamed the Becca Dawn – that’s where she rests. Her crew on board, did not all make it.
I told Brian I thought of that as the Saint Jude struggled to make 2 Knots. Headed for Sitka.

Al hit the bunk. Sometimes even seasoned captains get scared. He let me drive. He thought we were going to die. On the Hoquiam we had owned before, I am convinced we would have rolled and sunk. The halibut would have blocked the scuppers and water would not have been able to have cleared off the deck.

I told Brian yesterday, “Every single fucking time a quartering wave hit, that boat righted herself”. He looked at Al who said nothing. Because it was so. I don’t swear a lot. It is how I feel about that boat.

Irreplaceable. Al and I left the yard knowing the Saint Jude was in good hands. Brian has worked on her since the first season we owned her. Back in 1995. He is old-school. It took awhile to earn his respect. I know we have it. Now. More recently, Brian’s son, Jeremy, has worked on our boat whenever we have needed it. He is a better welder, now, than Brian. Maybe the best in the business. Ask Tom Pope, the surveyor, he’ll tell you that.

So when Brian is on the phone and he’s not happy, I’m not happy. My life has depended on that boat. She got us out of a bad spot. More than once. She got us across Queen Charlotte Sound, during a storm warning. That is another story in and of itself. How a Canadian native in Namu, B.C., came on board and told us how and where to tie to a tree if a storm wind were to come up in Queen Charlotte Sound. I was pregnant with our first-born at the time but didn’t know it. It was late November and our daughter would be born that upcoming August. Guess where she was conceived. Somewhere between a gale and a storm. Al and I never slept on shore during that first long fishing season that we owned the Saint Jude.

When it comes to the lives of my kids, we take many less chances. My son was 100 miles off-shore albacore fishing last summer. The boat did her job. Caught fish and took care of her captain and crew.

It’s my turn. I do not need “play” in some boat part that is not made well. It is unacceptable.

So Capt. Al told Brian to take the rudder assembly back apart. He called the shop and he told them in exacting terms that he expected them to get the job done to meet our specifications. He was mumbling, “micrometer” as he went out the door.

This decision may mean more days in the yard. It may or may not mean more money spent on the boat this Spring. What I know to be truth, is that when the boat work is done right, it may mean it saves our lives.

Before we took the Saint Jude out on our first season with her, we had Brian reinforce her stiff arms. There had been “play” in the way they had been assembled before. That one day in October on Spencer Spit, in gale force winds, Brian’s recommendation and work undoubtedly saved our lives. The rigging held. The next season I fished aboard her in California. While pregnant. The season after that, we long-lined in the Gulf of Alaska, once again, that time with our 8-month-old daughter on board. The boat was happy and so were we.

When Brian is working on our boat and is not happy with something, the Saint Jude is not happy. I listen to that. Hard.

The Saint Jude has caught a lot of fish for us over the years. Capt. Al will probably never say numbers. He is old-school. However, as a fish wife I can say he had the best King Salmon season of his career last year.

We will do our best to keep the Saint Jude strong, to make her systems right, so that she is sea-worthy. So she can do her best, to get everyone home safe.

In the end, that is all that really matters.