The Importance of Competency (on and off a boat)

My husband left on Easter Day this Spring. For the fishing grounds.

Life at home is messy. It always gets messy. One parent, two kids (albeit that one of the kids is now an adult), four cats and a dog.

The cats are spending much more time outdoors now. No one here is crazy about cleaning the cat litter boxes. My husband cleaned them during the off-season, for which the rest of the family is very, very grateful.

For the record, my husband is not crazy about cleaning cat litter boxes out, either.

Our elderly cat, often misses the box these days, hitting the floor. It is a full-time job making sure the cat potty things are sanitary enough for her increasingly sensitive nose.

Cats sunning on the south-facing cedar deck. Getting fresh air. Also, simultaneously saving their humans time and energy spent on cleaning cat litter boxes. Makes me smile.

The flies have shown up.

That happens when the garbage does not get removed from the utility room soon enough, and it starts to get warm as the calendar approaches Summer.

My husband mostly takes care of the garbage, too, during the off-season. For which the entire family is very, very grateful.

Then there is the stack of mail in the passenger seat of the mini-van.

Yep. You guessed it. My husband takes care of the mail, well, he helps take care of the mail. When he is home during the off-season.

Seasonal single-parenting.

It is kind of a rush.

Sights, sounds and smells occur that don’t usually exist in our fairly conventional home life. The one we lead during the off-season, when my husband is home.

The family is very grateful that a mouse which one of the cats brought inside the other day, did not hide behind a piece of heavy furniture.

That happened one year when my husband was away fishing. An abandoned mouse.

The putrid, dead mouse smell became stronger by the day. It was the middle of summer. The house temperature reached above the 80’s. Virtually stewing the mouse in its own juices.

Our family, eventually, had to eat on the other side of the house. We had NO IDEA where the mouse had run to. Eventually, the smell was so bad that we were able to track it behind a filing cabinet. The mouse was found flat, decomposing.

That was then, this is now.

The laundry. Yay, Is clean! Just not exactly put away. Each person is responsible for doing that themselves.

On paper anyway.

The truth is, we are all in a new routine. We do this twice a year. Transitioning. Husband/Dad gone, Husband/Dad home.

It will take a while to smooth into the new routine.

Just as it will take a while for our fishing boat, the Saint Jude, to get into a rhythm with our new crewman. There will be a learning curve.

As the last few flies buzz behind my head (the rest have been mercilessly smashed by a fly swatter), I contemplate this life.

Now I am off to pick up school kids, my son and his buddy.

Yep. You guessed it. My husband does that too, most of the time. During the off-season! Picks up the kid, the one not yet old enough to drive.

Break

I just got back from the grocery store. Got in the store, almost. Noticed I had left a grocery list in the mini-van. Walked back to the mini-van and noticed my clothes were much too warm for heat of the day.

Also, noticed an oil spot running out from under the mini-van. I quickly scanned my mental mini-van diagnostic skills. I decided to move the mini-van to a different parking spot. One without oil puddles.

Somewhat anxiously, I did the grocery shopping. Coincidentally, the man behind me in the check-out line said to no one in particular, “Men actually do some things”. I think he meant grocery shopping.

I had an audience, then, and took the opportunity

“My husband is away commercial fishing”, I said.

“I have been noticing for the past couple of  weeks just how much he did around the house when he was home”.

I talked about the cat litter box issue until I noticed that random strangers in line started to look uncomfortable.

Groceries bagged and paid for, I pushed the grocery cart back to the mini-van. A quick glance under the vehicle reassured me, somewhat, that the mini-van was not the cause of the oil leak earlier.

Traditionally, my husband is in charge of the oil changes in our vehicles. Lately though, I have been.

It is important to be able to know how to do many things. Cooking, grocery shopping, oil changes, laundry, banking, … life skills.

Men and women can both be competent in these areas. On dry land.

Just as men and women can both be competent in many areas on a boat. If they choose to be.

In my earlier years, I spent a lot of time commercial fishing. It is very physically demanding at times, that particular career choice. No more, though, and no less than “seasonally single-parenting” children and running a household at home.

It is just a different kind of work.

Circa 1990. Back during the 24-hour long-line halibut openers in SE Alaska. My husband and I became adept at participating in long-line openers – without a crew. Just he and I landed this 300 + lb halibut, along with the rest of the fish on that opener. I am 24-years-old in this photo. Yakutat, Alaska. Photo credit – Allan Richardson

Did the fish photo grab your attention?

Yeah, it is a big fish. Care to guess how large gonads are in a halibut that size? Think coconut. Each one. You’ll be in the ball park.

That big halibut is definitely cool, way cooler than talking about running households and cleaning cat boxes.

So it is when I contemplate my life.

The coolest thing I have ever done is to raise kids. It is also cool to be a commercial fisherman. Both jobs are tough!

This year, one or both of our kids may be aboard the Saint Jude. Commercially fishing.

I expect other fishermen to cut my husband some slack when he has the kids on the boat. They may or may not. It is a competitive industry.

He will neither be the greatest dad, when the kids are on the boat, nor will he be the greatest commercial fisherman. Both jobs require an intense amount of work and focus.

The best a fishing boat captain/dad can do is to try and  find a good balance.

It is the very same for me as a mother.

Finding a balance. Instilling a work ethic in our kids. Staying focused on commercial fishing. Just like any other set of parents in  any other career field.

Sometimes my  life is routine, rather boring.

Sometimes big fish bite!

Finding the balance is where it is at.

Being a commercial fishing family – it’s cool!

 

You can learn more about our fishing family business at http://www.freshfrozenfish.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving

Feasting and celebrating

Thanksgiving Day 2013 at home in Sequim with my husband Allan and our kids Kendra and Cody. Spent over an hour wondering what to write on our facebook page, “Dungeness Seaworks” (you can link to this FB page and learn more about our fishing family by clicking https://www.facebook.com/DungenessSeaworks ) . Photos? Inspirational quote about the sea? A picure of our fishing boat, the Saint Jude? Nothing seemed right. Taking ego out of it, we went to the default setting of, “Have a Happy Thanksgiving from the crew of F/V Saint Jude”.

It seemed enough.

Then the inside wave of emotions. Memories. Some painful. Many lonely.

The first year Al and I owned the Saint Jude was in 1995. We fished the season in Alaska. Had a substantial boat payment to make the following fall. Our first year freezing salmon on board. We sucked at it. Inefficient, slow, and miserable most of the time. It would not be easy, as the season progressed, to remember the highlights.

A visit by a father and daughter who presented us with two brass Superiors. The really old, heavy ones. A present for the new boat, they said. Those spoons caught fish for us that year. It was a great gift and we had no idea then how much it would come to mean to us later, their generosity of spirit.

The folks at the co-op who showed us how to cut a head off of our fish. Told us to practice. These folks encouraged us as did many others. We remember their kindness.

Bruce Gore who came down to our boat and offered to let us take out his deckhand so he could show us how to freeze fish on board. Oh my heavens, how egotistical was it of us to say, “No”, to this suggestion from a man who helped pioneer freezing salmon at sea.  We struggled for months, if not years, after that in learning to perfect the technique. Not seeing the gift for what it was. Bruce kept an eye on us and eventually offered to buy our fish. We became one of an elite group of trollers that produce some of the finest seafood on the planet.

Before that, though, we almost lost our lives. That, is what this story is mostly about.

Making a boat payment can be tough. Damned coho in SE AK start to get scarce in September. And the weather.  We’d heard our entire career about how the weather can turn ferociously wicked in the Fall in SE Alaska. Al had, in fact, spent a Winter trolling out of Sitka earlier in his career. He knew. Sort of.  How bad it could get. But we were reckless, felt desperate, and had a boat payment. So we fished the coho extension that went until Sept. 30^th in 1995. Anchored a good portion of those days behind St. Lazaria Island and in Gilmer Bay. The sea turning darker and more ominous looking by the day. Malicious. Winter water is a deadly force to be reckoned with.

Our plan was to fish until the end of the coho extension and then mop up our halibut quota in 3A. Great plan! Only on paper.

We pointed the Saint Jude North heading out of Olga and Neva Strait. Protected waters, relatively speaking. Guys had told us there were still halibut out on Spencer Spit. A fishing spot about 20 miles off-shore out from Cross Sound. Our plan was to anchor in Graves, catch a weather window, and get the halibut. In one set.

We made it to Graves. Steadily baiting the 1,500 circle hooks attached to the gangions coiled on the back deck. The bait did not smell much. Nothing on the back deck smelled much. It was too cold. We did not even need to put the tubs of baited hooks back into the ice hold. We sat in Graves for 3 days. Blowing. Blowing. Steadily blowing. Gale force winds. Dark and cold and boring sitting on the pick.

Then a break. A 24 hour weather window with winds coming down to 10-20 SE. We left the protected anchorage and headed straight out off-shore. First flagged pole went overboard and Al and I alternated snapping on gangions from the cockpit. We set about 3 miles of ground line. By the end, the weather was changing. Quickly.

Usually, it is good practice to let a long-line set soak awhile for fish to bite. Waves started slapping against the hull. The ocean felt jumpy and the sky was darkening rapidly. We headed straight back to the start of our set and started pulling. The boat started pitching around. Al was hanging on by one hand to the boat while unsnapping the gangions from the ground line coming aboard. A few halibut came and we tied them off to rails on the Port side of the boat. Water started washing across the deck through the rails on the far side. Al put on a safety vest and tied a line around his waist to the boat. When a halibut came over the side, I would haul it over and tie it to the other side. It was getting too rough to clean a fish.

At one point, we may have contemplated buoeying off the line to retrieve it later. Not much chance we would have recovered it that time of year. And we wanted to get home. To Sequim. About 800 nautical miles away. As the crow flies.

So the gear kept coming aboard, and the boat was constantly awash with sea water. Two hours later we grabbed the flagpole and bag and hauled it aboard. Ducked into the wheelhouse and dogged down the door. Only then realizing we were in serious trouble.

The throttle was put forward into our normal running speed position. Boom! A wave crashed over the bow, over the top of the bridge. Forcing us to back off the throttle. Late October. It occurred to us, belatedly, that Spencer Spit was not a good place for us to be that time of year. Our boat was too small and too slow.

We could not stand. Could not hold on long enough to any of the numerous handholds in the wheelhouse to get anything to eat. Our black lab, Tug, and gray tabby, Gremlin were both literally quivering. Have you ever heard of the expression, “Hanging on for dear life?” Yep. That was us. When we were not slowing down for oncoming waves, our fastest speed on the Echotec plotter was 3 Knots.

Night came fast. It does that in SE Alaska in the Fall. In the gulf of Alaska. By then, waves were completely obliterating the side windows. Al thought, out loud, that we were not going to make it. My thought, out loud, was “We are not going to die. Not on this night.” Al hit the bunk while I took over the helm. 3 Knots. Slow down while a wave crashes over the bow. Repeat. All night long. Somewhere along the line we made it past Cape Cross. Something changed. Ever so slowly. We picked up speed. 4 Knots. Then 5.  A CD found its way into the player. Elton John came along for the ride.

“And I think it’s going to be a long, long time…Rocket Man…”. A cup of tea was made. The black lab started snoring softly in his accustomed spot under the galley table.  He had spent most of the night cowering against my brown Xtra-tuff boot clad feet braced against the pipe under the stainless steel wheel at the helm.

Mast lights on the horizon! Black-codders fishing outside of Yakobi. An immensely welcoming sight. Like a small city afloat carrying the message of hope. We were going to live! Al got up and took wheel watch. He was so tired that we nearly missed the opening into Squid Bay which is where we planned to clean the halibut. We double-checked the paper chart against what the green radar screen was showing us through blurry vision and readjusted our course. So tired. The C-Map plotter helping us to stay on course as our minds buzzed with the need for sleep. Fear has a way of doing that. Sapping strength and mental acuity.

Squid Bay had never looked so amazing. Flat water, still, quiet. The pesky mosquitos that had tortured us all summer were not a problem that gray October day. We cleaned halibut. And cleaned and cleaned. Backs aching. Close to 3,000 lbs.  No one remembers who iced the fish. It got done. We washed the knives, deck, and hatch cover. Pulled the anchor and went back out on the ocean toward Sitka.

The halibut on board would help to be enough for us to make our boat payment that year.  With enough to spare for a trip to Hawaii. Those thoughts kept us upbeat for what would be the beginning of the next part of a perilous adventure.

Not many Washington State trollers talk about the Inside Passage in November. A few. We should have listened better, in hindsight.

Ketchikan. Oddly, while tied up there, I could no longer stand the smell of coffee. We were there for 4 days. Bought a small carved paddle. Tglingit made. An eagle painted on the surface. The clan of the artist who made it. It fit , beautifully, on the wheelhouse wall between the two book racks. I wanted to fly home.

Snow Passage was behind us by then. It had been blowing up to 100 Knots of wind. We relied on tug boat captain reports on the VHF to know when to move. It was pretty much how it would go the rest of our way home. We got across Dixon Entrance and it started to snow. We anchored that night at Lewis Isand, below Prince Rupert, and it snowed more. The radar screen was snowed out the next morning and we could not rely on it for navigation. We needed to stay anchored to avoid ship traffic.  Eventually, the seemingly innocuous falling snow, stopped drifting down on our boat. So beautiful and cleanly white. We were able to make way.

Namu ahead.

F/V Saint Jude in Namu, BC. November 15, 1995.

Canadian soil and were not supposed to get off of the boat as we had not cleared customs. Being around people seemed a difficult job. Still, they came to visit. Most noteably the gill-netters. They told us about a native. Told us to listen to him. He came on board too. Showed us on the paper chart where to tie to a tree on Egg Island if the wind came up when we went across Queen  Charlotte Sound. He said it would hold in a hurricane.

When we left Namu in the morning, 3 days later, several gill-netters were standing on the dock getting their boats ready for a day of fishing. They gave us a hand salute. That time of year, mariners become as one. No matter the country of origin.

Finn Bay. The wind howling overhead. Storm warning on the coast. In the morning, we started across Queen Charlotte Sound. The weatherman calling for a storm warning there too. He missed, seemingly. It was variable winds. Not for long though. About mid-way across a Canadian Coast Guard cutter dropped a rubber raft full of coast guardsmen that started heading our way. The waves were stacking and they turned back for the safety of the cutter. The water started hissing. Ominously. By the time we made it to Port Hardy, green water was going over the bow. Again. We were starting to get used to it.

The next part of the journey was marked by a lot of logs and other debris in the water. We started to relax.  A little. The wind was not much of a problem by then and that was a relief. By Alert Bay, we knew we’d be home by Thankgiving.

Getting across the Strait of Juan de Fuca can be scary. That was not the case for us that particular  year. The boat knew she was close to home and we got across at 9 knots heading straight for John Wayne Marina. We’d been married there 9 years before. We tied the Saint Jude to the boards, thanked her and put Tug on a  leash. We all three walked the 4 miles home. Then drove back to the marina to get our boat cat, Gremlin.

It was 4 days before Thanksgiving.

We did not know it that day, but suspected it when turkey on Thanksgiving did not hold the same appeal as usual.  Not once had I been seasick all that long fishing season so at first thought I was landsick. It was apparent a doctor visit was in order to confirm what was going on.

It was with great celebration that we visited Hawaii after Thanksgiving that year. We knew that we were going to have a baby! She would be born of love, a splash of the sea, and moments of greatness.

1995 was a  year of much difficulty. It was also one of the best of our lives. For within those difficult times confidence was forged and the beginning of us having our own family!

It is on this Thanksgiving Day, 2013 that we share this story with our children. Thanking the universe for our lives…and for theirs.

Namaste and Happy Thanksgiving!