Gut Feelings, Salt Water and The Port Angeles Fishing Fleet (past and present)

Pink petals from the ornamental plum tree floated by on a Southwest breeze outside the window, catching the eye of the fisherman’s wife inside. The grass was still damp, water droplets on the ends of the waving emerald grass blades glistening in the sun.

The fisherman had already left for the marina, dropping the boy off at school on the way. He was busy tracking down the reason for why the generator, freshly rewound, was producing too much voltage. The cell phone was a constant companion.

The generator issue would get sorted. The fisherman’s wife knew that. She knew to focus on mowing the lawn. Focus on keeping home life stable for the family.

It was transition time.

The fisherman expected to be starting the season in about two weeks. He’d be gone from home then. For possibly weeks at a time. He’d be away from the family, mostly, til the boy was out of school for the summer and able to go fishing. The fisherman’s wife expected to be back on the boat then also. The daughter was now an adult. Old enough to take care of herself either on the boat or at home on land. It was her responsibility to choose where to spend her time.

The boat haul-out had gone well.

All the troubles from a SE Alaska grounding in Icy Bay, a number of fishing seasons before, had finally been completely resolved over the past few Springs in the boat yard.

It was a relief, to the fisherman and his wife, that things were back to the way they should be.

A quick haul-out.

A new stern bearing zinc and fresh blue bottom paint. The red boot stripe giving a nod to the past.

The master welder in the Port of Port Angeles Boatyard had been enlisted to repair a hole in the hull. The one which had happened in a head-on collision, in fog, in California two summers before. The new aluminum pole work brightly reflected the sun. Holes in the generator exhaust pipe had been found in the engine room.

Serious business. Life-threatening.

Holes in exhaust pipe, especially in an engine room, are very bad. Potentially deadly. A local fisherman that the fishing couple had known years before, had died due to carbon monoxide poisoning in an enclosed wheelhouse of a boat. It was why a carbon monoxide detector had been installed on their boat.

The fisherman’s wife had known, earlier that year, that the boat needed to be home for Spring boat work. A gut feeling. She did not know why until she saw the holes in the old exhaust pipe.

Those gut feelings. Any fisherman, any parent, any master craftsman responsible for repairing a working boat – pays attention to them.

In the commercial fishing industry, gut feelings are often the difference between life and death.

After the exhaust pipe had been replaced, there had been a very short impromptu meeting in the boatyard the day that the fisherman and his wife watched their boat being re-launched. For the fisherman, it would be the 45th consecutive Spring that he had been involved in putting a commercial fishing boat in the water. As for his wife, she did not know any different. She had been raised in the fleet.

The master welder was at the small gathering. Also, a newer commercial fisherman that made most of his money in a white collar trade. The new guy had just hauled his boat and was getting ready to pressure hose the bottom. His coding partner was there too.

It was the coding partner that the fisherman’s wife had the most respect for when it came to trolling. He was one of the last. One of the last commercial salmon trollers left in the Port Angeles fleet. He said so himself. He was also one of the last to get into fishing having started as a partner with a brother, and also learning the trade as a deckhand.

It was a near impossible task anymore.

Good boats and permits had become too expensive for most young folks to break into the trade. He had done it the hard way, the old way, the traditional way. That is why the fisherman’s wife respected him so much.

He had crewed for one of the greatest salmon trolling highliners that the West Coast would ever produce. His former captain was one of the “Royal Family”. At 91-years-old, this skipper had passed away just a few weeks before.

The “Royal Family” of the West Coast troll fleet.

The last one of the foursome still living, out of the four highliners in the West Coast troll fleet that comprised “The Royal Family”, was the main subject during that mucky muck meeting in the Port Angeles Boatyard that day. He was an icon, this now 93-year-old master fisherman, all agreed.

The best of the best.

There was no one in the Port Angeles fishing fleet, past or present, that did not look up to him. No one.

A week before the fisherman’s wife made it a point to go with her man and her young son, to meet him, where he was currently residing in a nursing home.

To thank him.

She did not have much of a chance, to extend gratitude. The wise mentor was still teaching. Without missing a beat from their last visit,  the retired master fisherman  asked her husband what he did when he wasn’t working on the boat.  He talked about how he himself had cleared property for a Girl Scout camp out at Lake Sutherland because his two daughters were Girl Scouts.

The mentor said, “You can’t work on the boat every day”.

In that moment, the fisherman’s wife had a strong gut feeling that she and her husband would grow old together.

Moving forward a week, back into the boat yard. A plan was made, in the Port Angeles Boatyard that day, to visit the retired fleet elder. How to support his wife. As often as possible. All agreed, there was a need to give back.

A copy of the historical West Coast trolling documentary, “Coming Home Was Easy”, was handed to the new guy in the fleet, now getting ready for his third fishing season. A Jimmi Hendrix hoochie along with it.

Another copy of the commercial fishing  documentary would be put on the hatch cover of a 47′ wood troller tied up in the Port Angeles boat basin within the next few days. For the fellow that fished the boat. One of the best salmon trollers that the West Coast fishing fleet would likely ever produce. His former skipper was interviewed in that documentary.

The title of that West Coast fishing documentary, “Coming Home Was Easy”, were words that belonged to the father of the fisherman’s wife.

She typed on the laptop keyboard the Oregon State University web-address of where the video could be purchased:

http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/coming-home-was-easy-video

In the video, she knew, was video footage of a cherry tree. It represented the cherry tree in the backyard of the Port Angeles home where she grew up.

The fisherman’s wife looked out the window. The breeze had backed off and the blossoms from the plum tree in the backyard had quit falling. The grass was drying and she needed to mow the lawn.

She hoped her daughter would fish with her husband that upcoming season. At least for a trip. Everyone in the boatyard agreed, that would be good. Living on the boat would come back to her first-born. The fisherman’s wife felt that in her gut. She knew. The fishing couple had taken their  daughter up the Inside Passage, from Port Angeles, when she was an 8-month-old baby.  Their girl would fish the entire season with them that year, in SE Alaska for 5 1/2 months, away from their house in Sequim, WA.

The fisherman’s wife hoped her son would have a chance to fish a boat on his own before the Port Angeles fishing fleet disappeared entirely. She hoped it never would. Disappear entirely. That future, however, was not for her to know.

My husband and son with an ocean-caught King Salmon aboard the Saint Jude. Fishing Season 2013.

She had kids to think about. Boat kids.

Fishing is in the blood. Once a boat kid, always a boat kid.

The fisherman’s wife had that very conversation with the master welder that had fixed the boat. He had been a fisherman in Canada, near the Yukultas, decades before. A salmon troller. His boys had spent time fishing on his boat when they were very young. Once again, the trust the fisherman and his wife had placed in him to make the boat right, would quite possibly mean the difference between a good fishing season and a poor fishing season. His work, the difference between life and death.

The master welder, too, had been given a copy of “Coming Home Was Easy”.

Salt Water

As she observed the last remaining shimmering water drops on the green blades of grass outside, tears sprang into the eyes of the fisherman’s wife. The hue of her tears held exactly the same rainbow colors, reflecting in the light, as that on the scales of a fresh ocean-caught King Salmon.

The Importance of Boatyards, Friends, and Pi Day (3/14/15)

Pi Day of the century happens at 3:14:15 9:26:53, today, exactly as I am writing this sentence. It will happen again, this evening in the PM, and then not happen for another 100 years.

Numbers: Rational. Irrational.

Kind of like the states of mind.

Getting a fishing boat up to Port Angeles, Washington from Astoria, Oregon in January, as we did this year, produced mixed reactions for my husband and I. Irrational thinking peppered in with the, mostly, rational thought that prevailed. In retrospect, it needed to be done. We had pole work to do, a repaired generator and a new muffler to install. It is eminently easier to do boat work in a yard where the boat and owners are well-known by the trades people who work on boats. It is also nice to go home at night.

The Port Angeles boatyard has been a home to me since my parents moved our family from Westport, WA, during the Spring that I was in 1st Grade in 1971, to Port Angeles, WA. Along with the move, came our wood fishing boat, the Kipling. She would be moored in the Port Angeles boat basin until the mid-1970’s.

As I became older, I loved to ride my bike downhill toward the working waterfront from our house on 10th Street on Pine Hill to the marina, after school, so I could help out on the boat. The Kipling eventually gave way to the Kay Angela. The boat named after my mother, the Kay Angela, was a 46′ fiberglass Little Hoquiam that my parents had built in 1975. One of my jobs was to sand and varnish the ironwood caps and guards.

These days I am a mother. My kids have fished and it appears they may both continue to fish (off and on) aboard our family fishing boat, the Saint Jude. Both my kids (a daughter and a son) have helped paint the red boot stripe and blue bottom, helped with fishing gear, have sea time.

It has not been easy. Many families got out of salmon trolling. Back when my parents owned a fishing boat, Port Angeles had a fleet of over 100 trollers. That has dwindled down to little more than a handful.

Still, hanging on has been worth it! Oh my, the stories. Those glorious sea stories. That alone, the adventures of roaming the West Coast from California to Southeast Alaska, is a reflection of a life well-lived.

Plus, catching King Salmon for a living has got to be one of the greatest gifts bestowed to a born fisherman!

The Saint Jude is nearly ready for an April 1st King Salmon opener that we expect to participate in this Spring. Her skipper, my husband, will be ready. Our fishing family will be ready.

 

The Saint Jude hauled out in the Port of Port Angeles Boatyard on March, 12, 2015. My husband is in Grundens rain gear working on painting the bottom while our son, a third generation commercial fisherman, heads up the ladder.

The Port of Port Angeles Boatyard and the hard-working craftsmen that work there have been good to our family over the years. We are grateful.

We are also advocates of the Port of Astoria keeping their boatyard open for boat owners of all types. A good working boatyard, anywhere on the coast, is a life-line in our business.

A petition to keep the Astoria Boatyard open can be found at Change.org Keep the Port of Astoria Boatyard Open. Here is a link where you can sign the petition and share it with others:

https://www.change.org/p/port-of-astoria-oregon-state-legislature-keep-the-port-of-astoria-boatyard-open

On this Pi Day (the one that will not happen again for another century), my husband and son are at the Port Angeles Farmer’s Market today selling some of our fish.

Direct marketing is how our fishing family has stayed afloat during some tough times throughout our commercial fishing career.

Relating with the public has become an even greater gift than catching King Salmon, and other species of fish, for a living. Connecting with people and forming warm, caring relationships within our local and broader fishing communities is reward beyond any other. Gold dust.

To celebrate Pi Day, my husband and son are planning to bring a pie home from the Port Angeles Farmer’s Market.

I expect that when they stop by the Saint Jude today, where she is still hauled out in the Port Angeles Boatyard, that they will also have a gift (perhaps pie or perhaps a piece of Alderwood smoked King Salmon) for the master welder scheduled to install our new muffler for the generator today.

The numbers a master welder works with are precise. Commercial fishing, often, is not. Along with a good boatyard, a fishing boat and her family depends on both the rational and irrational. Unmeasurable gut feelings and measurable components that keep the boat and fishing business afloat. A good fisherman is instinctive.

Finding the balance is the trick. Best done with friends and a good piece of pie!

Pi = 3.14

Pi is an irrational number.

Here is a link that further explains Pi

Did you know that the hostess of The Pi Episode is Danica McKellan that played Winnie in “The Wonder Years” television series? Did you know she has a degree in mathematics from UCLA and has written several books on mathematics?

Did you know that both men and women can be good at math and, if they choose to do so, they can also both be good at commercial fishing?

Can you describe what is so cool about 3:14:15 9:26:53?

Uncle Dave ( June 5, 1946 – January 30, 2015)

Uncle Dave (June 5, 1946 – January 30, 2015)

I miss my Uncle Dave.

He gave me so much. I believe the most powerful lesson he taught me is that people, including men, can change. He changed himself. Giving up drinking and choosing a journey towards healing that goes along with that.

He came to the  baby presentation of my firstborn. Eighteen years ago now. To see his great-grand niece. He drove clean over to the Olympic Peninsula from Seattle and bounded into the house full of life and energy. He was the first guest, out of dozens, to arrive that day. Uncle Dave took one look at the punch bowl set up on the table and said, “I won’t have any of that if there is booze in there. I quit drinking”. My husband and I laughed as we had too. There was no booze in that bowl and all three of us had some of that punch and celebrated life together.

Toward the end of his life, my Uncle Dave dealt with much pain. Cancer can be cruel like that. Even so, Uncle Dave was adamant about maintaining his sobriety.

It is a comfort to know that at the very end, he was pain-free. My mother told me that. She was there.

I remember Uncle Dave, the last time I saw him, standing in front of the doorway to his Sequim home, barefoot and wearing a Carhartt T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. He looked tanned, fit, and had been obviously working in his yard. He invited me in for a visit and I declined because, I told him, I had Cub Scouts in the van and I needed to get them to a meeting. He mentioned maybe we could get together for a BBQ. We agreed that would be good. Then, I told him what I was there to say.

I told my Uncle Dave that I was grateful that he was part of my life. I thanked him for being a role model for my son. He laughed that off saying he didn’t know about that. He told me he did not think he was much of a role model. I respectfully, in that moment, disagreed with him.

The old Lionel train set he gave our family for Christmas, the last Winter his mother was alive, has been  brought upstairs. I will never forget the Christmas card he wrote us and how he read it out-loud to us that day, about how that train was a big part of his childhood. He wrote about how every Christmas and birthday a new train car or railway piece was added. He wrote how proud he and his father were to work on that train together. That train was a big part of the Brueckner family tradition.

Uncle Dave celebrating Christmas at Grandma Brueckner’s house in 2012

 

It became a tradition in our family, to have Uncle Dave check out a car or truck before it was purchased. He was a master mechanic. The other day, when I heard my husband start up our 1972 Ford F-250 truck, I felt Uncle Dave was near, in spirit. He listened closely to that balanced 390 engine before we bought the truck. Took it for a drive with us. He did not really tell us whether to buy it or not. Just mentioned if he were us he wouldn’t worry too much about the gas prices and maybe to put a theft alarm on it. So, of course, we bought it.

Uncle Dave was a Ford man, a Chevy man, a Buick man, a Pontiac man…a man’s man. He loved mechanical things, all kinds of cars and trucks.

Uncle Dave enjoyed showing our boy some of his rigs. A Corvette amongst others. Immaculately maintained.

He showed our family his nurturing side. It was there all along and showed in the kind things he did for his family when his girls were growing up. I remember him  keeping the property maintained at the “Lake House” out at Lake Sutherland.

I remember when he put power brakes and power steering in my grandfather’s cherished red Ford Ranchero.

It must have taken a great deal of courage for Uncle Dave to give up drinking. Just as he was able to rebuild cars, to make them better, he rebuilt himself. He more fully embraced his nurturing side.

I watched Uncle Dave buckle two very large teddy bears into the back seat of his Cadillac on the last evening that the Brueckner clan gathered at the home his parents had built in Port Angeles. He had given the two teddy bears to his twin grand-daughters. When  I made a comment about him putting safety belts on the bears, Uncle Dave said it was because he wanted to show the girls that it was important to be safe. It was easy to see how delighted he was to be a grandfather.

I think it touched Uncle Dave, also, to have a grandson who will also carry on the Brueckner name. One of his favorite phrases in recent years was, “Isn’t that wonderful?”

“A work in progress”, Uncle Dave described himself often followed by the words of, “Giving back”.

The legacy my Uncle Dave has left our family is the importance of “Giving Back”.

In order to give back, fully, requires forgiveness. So Uncle Dave left us with that legacy also.

It is hard. Forgiving him for leaving us. For leaving us too soon.

Uncle Dave became a role model for my son. He will be remembered for his strong work ethic and caring for others. In giving up drinking, he had discovered a path toward being more present and whole.

Whole. That is how I remember him. He was a true gentleman.

RIP Unce Dave

 

On 9/11 (Remembering)

On 9/11/2001 I had been home a day from visiting Al on the Saint Jude for several days in Coos Bay, Oregon with our daughter who was 5 at the time. We spent a great deal of the time debating on whether or not the boat should be fishing albacore or King Salmon. It had been a long drive for me back up to Sequim, Washington.

Inexplicably I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I could not shake.

I first learned about the attacks while listening to the radio and driving the blue Toyota pick-up  to an hour long appointment. At the time, the incident did not seem real, perhaps a hoax.

Back at home, after the appointment, I kept a radio on that was placed on the blue kitchen countertop. We did not have cable television. Sadly, it became a devastating reality that our country had been under attack.

I called my husband, Al, and learned he was still in port. The weather was to be coming down that day on the ocean but most of the fishing fleet opted to stay in. As with everyone else, the fishermen were in shock.

Al and I agreed it was best he stay with the Saint Jude. Our livelihood depends on the safety of our boat. Road travel did not seem like a good idea.

I kept the news from our daughter. The music station I tuned into on the radio played Jewel’s song “Hands” often. U2 was a constant virtual companion also:

Stuck In The Moment

I played that song at night.To keep myself together.  It provided comfort.

I was not close to many relatives at the time. The one relative I was closest to was living in New York as a college student. She had fished on board the Saint Jude with us when our daughter was a baby. I was relieved to get a reply email message from her.  She described what New York was like in the aftermath. The devastation, what the sky looked like. As I recall, I included, with her permission, some of her remarks to my online classmates. It helped us to process though we could not comprehend.

Other checked in. A local friend that had a kid in college on the East Coast. She said her daughter was keeping her head down. That young person had also fished with us aboard the Saint Jude. Parents were terrified for their children.

America was hurting. Badly.

My daughter was attending preschool and on 9/12 the principal wrote a letter to the parents about how best to support the children. To say calm. To not overwhelm them with too much exposure to the media. It was excellent advice.

It turned out, there was little I could do about the situation. Except to stay calm and take good care of my daughter. To continue to take the college classes I needed to complete my Bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University in Human Services.

Looking back, I have always thought it somewhat significant that I graduated in 2001. In December. Less than a half a year after 9/11 and the loss of the Twin Towers and nearly 3,000 lives.

Lives were affected everywhere.

Ours was affected financially in a glancing kind of blow. We had sold the majority of our catch to Bruce Gore with Triad Fisheries that year. Airline companies ended up pulling market orders for smoked salmon that was normally carried in airport gift shops, a significant loss to Triad Fisheries and, subsequently, for us. We believed it cost us around $30,000 that year and put in for a disaster loan. Unfortunately, we did not qualify because it was determined that commercial fishing is, in general, an unpredictable industry.

We enrolled our daughter in public school the following year though she had been signed up for another year with the private preschool/elementary program. There were other changes in our lifestyle as well to cut costs of living.

That was a glancing blow.

Our family would be all together again when the fishing season ended in 2001. We lost no loved ones that year on 9/11. Our boat  would fish many more days and our daughter would go on to attend many more days of school as she still is.

Our son, today on 9/11/2014, came home from school talking about a video he saw with his  class about 9/11. He spoke of it with great reverence in his voice. He spoke of the highest honor that our country gives to civilians. He spoke of first responders digging for survivors. He spoke of other images that struck him that bring tears to my eyes, about a church cross that ended up stuck in the rubble upright. “Isn’t that amazing?”, my son asked me as I drove him home in our dented brown 2001 Honda mini-van. “Yes, that is amazing”, I quietly replied. Remembering.

Our son was born two years after the 9/11 attacks on our country.

Human Services is about healing relationships. I have watched our country heal. Our family has worked on healing financially. I have prayed for the families to heal that have loved ones that died on 9/11. With the rest of  my fellow Americans I have shed tears. As we I did once again today, when I saw the American flags flying at half-mast.

I remember.