Picture Me Trollin’ (Fish On, Yo)

Trying to convey to others what it is to be a commercial fisherman, or even more difficult, to be a commercial fishing family – is near impossible.

Unless they are in the business themselves.

It requires patience and a certain amount of forgiveness.

Only other commercial fishermen really want to talk about fishing. A lot.

Comparisons can be made. It is somewhat like being a military family (without the fear that mom or dad is going to war). Yet, distinctly different.

Fishermen like to pride themselves on being independent.

For those raised within the fishing fleet, it is either a source of great conflict or great surrender.

Conflict. Being on land is a conflict. For those born to the sea.

(Vice versa for members of a fishing family that are extroverts and have trouble chillin’ at sea).

My best buddies in the fleet worried about me, when they knew I’d be spending time on land raising kids. The image needed to be gentled up. Considerably.

Everyone reinvents themselves throughout life.

Becoming a responsible parent, putting my commercial fishing identity on the back burner for years, was necessary.

I found it much harder, being at home raising the kids while my husband was at sea, than living and fishing on a boat for months at a time.

At a kid’s birthday party, just the other day, a mother asked me if I’d be bothered if she and some of the other parents cussed, not in front of the kids. Like mild-mannered Clark Kent, I just smiled, and reassured her I’d be okay with it.

I said I was a commercial fisherman (as if that would explain everything). Told her we try not to cuss in front of the kids at home or on the boat. Told her I had to shape up my language, a lot, when I became a mother.

As a commercial fisherman, cussing just seems to be a part of the way of life. Depending on the company. (Note: My mother fished for years and did not appreciate cussing. Much). It takes a conscientious effort to repress the impulse to talk in a blue streak. Especially when the conversation turns to fishing. Good days on the ocean. A great fishing trip!

It is the independence that draws people to commercial fishing. The ocean is the last wild frontier here on earth.

The very strain that allows me to be a fishing partner with my husband, without coding partners or crewmen, is not very mild-mannered. The same holds true for my husband. Imagine two fiercely independent souls being married!

We both have to work hard, very hard, at being flexible.

To not just give in to the ease of a commercial fisherman identity. Or lifestyle.

I like knowing I can do other things too. I don’t  like the notion of being dependent on any one identity, lifestyle, or occupational choice. I like the freedom of being able to reinvent myself.

Truth be told, though, I was born to fish. Raised within the fleet, I learned to compete with the fleet.

Fishing is in the blood.

So, when the youngest child is out of earshot, at home, this is the tune that gets cranked up. Don’t listen to it if cussing bothers you.

https://soundcloud.com/aknatural/picture-me-trollin

It’s where I plan to be this summer. On the back end of a boat (if not exactly a wood double-ender).

Trolling!

And yeah, if you listened to the words of the song, I’ve caught one. A “65 pounder, shiny as chrome”. We trollers live to catch those big Kings.

Commercial fishermen.

We live to fish. And fish to live.

 

 

 

 

 

The Ritual Of Sending A Man To Sea (a fishing family celebrates Easter)

My husband left this morning. For the new fishing season.

The kids opted to stay home from the send-off this year.

Easter is tomorrow.

Our fishing family celebrated with a pork roast dinner and key lime pie last evening. For commercial fishing families, the actual dates for holidays have no meaning depending on the fishery and the dates of the fishing seasons.

It is never easy.

Saying good-bye at the beginning of a fishing season. So we don’t.

We say, “I’ll miss you”.

Still, tears come. Every year. Every Spring. At the start of the King Salmon season.

Not for me. My dad fished too. I took pride in not showing tears growing up.

Childhood folly. A mistake. Tears are healing.

The kids were comforted before bed. Small gifts left in Easter baskets for the morning. Colorful, plastic eggs hidden in the grass outside.

Foil wrapped egg shaped chocolates here and there.

The toughest fishermen can make the tenderest of Easter bunnies.

Even grown children need the rituals sometimes. The comforts. Parents need them too.

The boat rounds Ediz Hook heading West. My black lab, on a leash, waited patiently by my side.

Closer now. There’s the Saint Jude. She looks tiny next to a large cargo ship.

The Saint Jude in the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the outside of Ediz Hook heading for the fishing grounds. Fishing Season 2015.

There he is. My husband. On the back deck. Waving. I wave back.

The tears do come after all.

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

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.

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.

Sending a son to sea

Today I saw my son and husband heading off to sea. Again. My son is only 10-years-old and it is clear he likes fishing. He went on his first commercial trolling King Salmon trip when he was 7-years-old. Just he and his dad off the coast of Washington that time. They fished on the “Prairie” that Fall, one of the most famous fishing spots for West Coast fishermen. My husband took photos of that trip showing gorgeous, rainbow hued Kings in the fish checkers and our son in the troll pit. In the photos, the color of our son’s eyes match the dark green blue of the sea waves behind him. The kid has salt water in his veins. Seems to run in the family.

Our boy is fast approaching the age when I went on my first King Salmon trip with my dad at 12-years-old. Those Kings from yesteryear were delivered in Bellingham after about a 10 day trip which was standard back in those days, back in the mid 1970’s. I remember drifting at night off-shore. The strobe light flashing and making a piercing noise in the focsle as it cycled on and off.

I was able to land fish from a jig line. Cohos. One day I caught 7. I think I went on two back-to-back trips that year. Later, at home, my dad wrote me a check. I remember looking at it in awe. $ 75.00. It was the greatest sum of money I had earned at one time, far surpassing the .50 an hour babysitting money I had been saving. It seemed like a fortune. I put it in my savings account.

Our son is earning wages this season for the first time. He has been practicing scrubbing floors at home. He does not get paid for that. I told him he was being trained for scrubbing the deck on the boat. Eventually it will be the fish checkers and the fish hold. One of his current jobs will be to help keep the wheelhouse clean. Just as it was mine. For every ten days he is aboard this season he will be paid $75.00 to put in his savings account (currently earmarked for college) and $10 for pocket money to spend in port. We adjusted the wage I earned in the 1970’s for inflation. Someday, just as was the case for me, our son will earn a percentage of the boat catch.

It was with a certain solemnity that my husband called from Englund Marine later today where he was purchasing our boy a new, larger size of orange Grunden’s raingear and brown Xtra-tuff boots. Professional gear. He needed our boy’s social security number which I had here at home. It is required information to buy his 2014 $43.00 junior crew license. He is officially a commercial fisherman. A third generation salmon/albacore troller. I couldn’t be prouder.

Where Is Home?

 

Notes from a fish wife asking the cosmic question: Where is home?

Fishing Season 2014 – Week 2

My husband, Al, is out on his second fishing trip. As he said he planned to be. Still, I got up early this morning, made a quick cup of instant coffee, and dialed the boat cell phone. Just in case.

I love talking with Al, about fishing, in the morning. When the kids are still in bed. On week-ends, when there is not the rush of getting breakfast and everything ready for a day of school. If I’m really lucky, he is actually fishing and I’ll talk a King Salmon into biting for him. That’s just boat talk and fishing lingo. Radio chatter. It can’t really happen quite that way. It’s just how fishing partners speak to one another. Even long-distance from hundreds of miles away, I feel as if I am in that wheelhouse, watching a spring pump back up near the trolling pole. Listening to the cowbell ring. Hoping for a clatter, where more fish bite all at once.

This morning though, I quietly sipped the coffee made too strong, and thought about where the boat was. Robotic automatic voice mail messages do not make for good conversation.  The view out to the backyard, of a newly leafed-out Katsura tree, a freshly scrubbed deck, and snow-topped Olympic Mountains gives way to the sun-kissed sparkle of a blue sea. In my mind.

For years, I intentionally kept my mind off of the boat.

Instead, I took college classes, finished an associate degree and picked up a Bachelor’s degree. I volunteered here and there and I worked part-time. Some of the time. I contemplated careers that would work with Al’s fishing.

The one career that seemed to make the most sense would have been nursing. I had the associate degree. I just needed to refresh to reactivate my license.

That would not happen. The book studying went fine. The clinical evaluation in Spokane was okay. The actual working with clinical evaluation in a hospital was a dismal failure. 20 years of not working in that field was too much. There was no way I would be able to be competent without going through an entire nursing program again.

I continued to focus on raising the kids at home. Devoted more time to marketing fish. (You can check out our fishing family facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/DungenessSeaworks  )  That is where things have been for awhile.

Til last year. When I was on the boat. For a couple weeks. It all came back!

There was no feeling of incompetency. No lag in decision-making. It was almost as if I had never left.

Trying to remember dozens of medications and nursing procedures compared to remembering how to land a King Salmon. How to put the auto-pilot on u-turn. How to clean a fish well enough for the white tablecloth market.

It was easy to tell where I have spent most of my life. Those that have known me better in recent years would perhaps think that I have been taking a back seat to the fishing and  embrace being a stay-at-home mom, a “seasonal single-parent”, for the best part of my life. They are partially right.

The other best part of my life has been on the deck of a boat. As a commercial fisherman’s wife, it is true, I’ve been “seasonally single parenting” for the most part of the past 15 years.

Before that, though, I fished. A lot.

Starting off as a boat kid/deckhand at 12-years-old, I fished at least part of every salmon trolling season (except two, as a kid, when I needed to have and to recover from bone surgeries) until I was pregnant with my first-born. At 31-years-old. Even then I fished up until 4 weeks before the due date! After my  daughter came along, she and I spent two full seasons on board the boat.

I came to appreciate the nuances of fishing and boat life better than I have ever come to understand full years on land in the past 16 years or so. 

Part of that is my fault. It is easy to get addicted to the sea. To the thrum of sea life that is everywhere. Birds, whales, dolphins, otters. To get used to the relative isolation from everyday worries. To enjoy the comforts of having another adult around, most of the time, to pitch in with the work. To waking and working beside my husband, every day.

To me, that is home. “Home (Where I Wanted To Go)” – Coldplay

 

 

Home, here on land, is something that has always made me feel a little uneasy. Especially when Al is at sea, without me.  I feel a little like a fish out of water. I have to make it a point to focus on everyday tasks. How to interact with others. How to keep track of time.

This is seldom the case on the boat. Time has little meaning throughout the average fishing day. It starts at sunrise and ends at sunset. Mostly. Everything seems to fall into a rhythm. The primary focus is to catch fish!

Folks that hang out on the docks, also, seem to understand that people that have been at sea are not often particularly articulate.

In my experience, we are all a little quirky.

Quirkiness is hard to adjust for on land. Even the standard for personal hygiene has a different protocol for my home on land compared to the boat life. If I don’t shower for a few days, here, people will notice. On a boat, it simply means a freezer trip has recently begun. No one cares! It is more important to conserve water to make it through what could be a two week trip or longer.

Still, I am grateful for being able to spend so much time with the kids on terra firma. To step out on a warm cedar deck with bare feet. To feel warm sand, at a beach, between my toes. To admire the colorful flowers planted around the house and to watch one of my children water them.  To walk with a friend who is only a phone call and a few minutes car drive away.  To smell the freshly cut grass. To hear the breeze rustling the new Spring leaves in the trees. To help my son with his homework in a quiet room with every conceivable comfort close at hand.  To watch old McGyver episodes with the kids on a Saturday night. To shower with plenty of hot water and freshly laundered towels that don’t smell even a little bit of boat.

These are privileges in my life as a land-lubber.

I’ve made a bet with Al, for the past two Springs, on where the best fishing spots would be for the King Salmon openers. I can no longer keep my mind off the boat. All those years of fishing experience seem to be roaring to the surface from some latent part of my being. When Al tells me where he thinks the fleet is catching the most fish, I am rarely surprised when it turns out to be true. Often, it is where I told him where I thought the fish would be.

Maybe I was not meant to spend a lot of time working in the halls of a hospital or nursing home. Maybe things have unfolded exactly the way they should be unfolding. Maybe I am meant to fish. With my husband.

My husband, wherever he is.

“Home is wherever I’m with you” – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

 

 

Singing, ” Home is when I’m alone with you”.

 

Where is home for you? Is it where you want to be?  Do you have more than one home? Do you imagine living somewhere else?

 

 

 

Fishermen’s Buzz

Al’s been gone from home a week. He had a smooth trip getting the Saint Jude to the fishing grounds in Oregon from Port Angeles, WA. He and crewman, Devin, were even  able to catch some King Salmon. King Salmon. In early April. Boom! For anyone who has ever been a King Salmon troller or is a King Salmon troller, this is nirvana!

Even though we missed the Oregon April 1st King Salmon opener, due to yard work, it is still the earliest either Al or I can remember a King Salmon troll season opening in the history of our fishing careers. That’s saying a lot as Al is on his 43rd consecutive year of King Salmon trolling. My mom cannot remember the season ever opening that early either and her memory in trolling goes back further than mine since our family had purchased a wood troller when I was a kid, in 1968!

This early opener, oh my, what a tremendous contrast from the unprecedented King Salmon troll closures that affected fishermen in WA, ORE, & CA from 2005-2010.

Those years, Al worked as a bus washer/mail delivery person for the Sequim School District. I pitched in, selling items on Ebay.

During those short fishing seasons, we had halibut long-line quota and Al fished in SE AK for King Salmon and coho for two months. Those were tough years for us financially, as they were for many folks. Many trollers sold their boats and got out of fishing. Lots of people struggled during the recession that hit our country during that time also. A tough situation all the way around.

It was also an amazing time for our family. We had Springs and Falls together at home. Many of our children’s milestones, during that time, were witnessed by Al. We planted flower gardens and went to the park. We played outside in the green grass and had warm weather picnics on the deck. Often. As a family.

Still, it wasn’t easy. The boat was kept in Alaska. To save money on fuel costs it would have taken to get her down to Washington. It is tough on boats, to be away from their owners for long. We’ve been making it up to the Saint Jude over the last couple of off-seasons while she has been moored in Port Angeles. Home. With her family. This year she is sporting a newly painted wheelhouse floor and a newly modified rudder for fuel efficiency. She is thriving with the attention. Al is happier, too, these days.

It was tough on Al to be away from the boat during the off-season. Those shortened seasons were damned tough on him all the way around.  He was making the same amount during an entire Winter, 8 hours a day, that he had been used to making in one fishing trip. In the 1980’s. However, we had full benefits and that was a huge plus. Dental, medical, vision, retirement. Those things can really add up. Especially if a family member needs extensive medical care. In some ways, our family had never had a better safety net. Self-employment, in commercial fishing, is challenging when contemplating the “what if’s.”

These days, I don’t worry so much about the
“what if’s”. I think, mostly, that Al and I are just so grateful to have the opportunity to continue trolling for King Salmon. I think this is infectious and that our kids pick up on it.

There is a buzz in the air for the West Coast Salmon Troller Fleet!

Celebrating the Saint Jude landing her first King Salmon, in early April of this year, has been really special. Like relief, gratitude, excitement, joy, and a feeling of awe all rolled into one emotion! A feeling of “Wow! We’ve made it through the dark years. There is light on the other side.

Our fishing family and the crew of F/V Saint Jude are looking forward to a great Fishing Season in 2014!

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!