Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Five days earlier I was in the ER at one in the morning after a nervous breakdown and complete mindf-word meltdown after a long, slow decline which started about the same time this blog ended. Some time off the Rock was in order. I hadn't stepped off the island since November which is enough to send anyone to the mental ward.
That said, my mission on this venture to Bristol Bay was to restore my mojo. TM 2007 was sentimental, this was just mental. I might be the only person who goes to The Bay for less stress and to relax for a few weeks but that's tendering. get fat, cat nap, and sometimes do something that resembles work. Sometimes.
I couldn't sleep very well and woke up at 4:30am. I'm always worried I'll miss my flight when it is scheduled before 4pm. I end up getting out of bed before my 6:30am alarm and Turtle (GF) took me to the airport in the sweet lil red GTI she's been rolling this summer. Farfegsandin.
Colorado Crystal is there, most likely in her way to her wedding in the State of Coors. Its always sad when hot chicks get married but whateva, I'm off the market, not my problem.
Since I put all my work clothes on the boat before it left I was traveling light with just socks and panties in one carry-on and Gizmodo toys in the other along with the crack of trail mix, an expensive blend from Safeway Turtle found with chocolate dipped peanuts, carmel bugers, and dried pineapple chunks. I literally can't stop eating it once I start.
My plans to go without luggage changed the day before when Capt. AJ called and asked me to bring a prop for his vessel as he was now using the spare and needed another back-up. Damnit. So now I had a 71 pound baby to sit. Bye bye $50. Colorado Crystal sees me lugging this four bladed bastard across the terminal and I tell her its her wedding present from me. Well I thought it was funny.
About five minutes after checking the wheel a voice comes over the PA.
"Could the gentleman who checked in the propeller please come back to the counter."
Can't be good. Sure enough they decide the blades are too sharp. It cut to bags or some lame excuse so the Alaska rep says I need to put it in a box. Lucky for me my homie Kenworth is working for TSA and snaps his fingers. His underling brings out tape and four small cardboatd boxes and we quickly cover the wings. Back in business, mudderphutters! You can't stop me!
After the dull 42 minute flight to Begich Beat Me International and a sub-hour layover I'm on the 49 minute flight to King Sa.....no. Dillingham. That's right. Curveball, baby. 16 seasons in the Bay, all in Naknek were coming to an end and El Sandinista was headed to Palin Country for tendering in the Nushagak district. Pimpin' ain't easy.
I get off the plane and when I get in the terminal I see this guy who looks familiar so i make some space to observe him from a distance. I go back for a closer look and he makes eye contact with me. JC and a side of rice, it's my nephew's dad/baby's daddy who i haven't seen since he fished with my dad and I back in the 90's. He gives me a half hug. We are both kinda freaked out. He's going to work at a cannery to do some filleting, his specialty. I give him two of my cards (Job-I-Can't-Talk-About and JOTR one with hot chicks on it) before going outside to find my ride.
I don't find a ride. Minutes become many minutes. At least there isn't the death swarm of skeeters like King Salmon. After 40 minutes I get the number for the plant and call and they tell me someone is on the way. A white van is there soon after.
The driver says we have to go to the hospital to check three pre-employment drug tests and it is located the complete opposite direction from HQ, Peter Pan Seafoods. Fine with me, I get to see the sights or lack there of. Dillingham might be the biggest village in Alaska. The comparisons to NAK/KVI start.
I take a land dump at the medical center. It could be a long time before doing so again.
The expeditor lets me out at the office and there in the front is a sweet sailboat from the OLD days when men were men and line fighting wasn't even a word. Or two words. Fred gives me a lift in a biguglyyellow truck to the dock. I like the layout and look of the place, like my old Wards Cove stomping grounds but painted blue and on flat land.
Captain AJ's vessel is tied up so I'm freed from the prop that played the role of anchor this morning. Matt and Young and chillin' on board and about 200 yards offshore sitting pretty is the F/V Fayette. They have a drifter getting fresh water tied outside of them and after a quick BS session I hop on it for a ride to the seiner.
Capt. Ron and Shwanee greet me and ask how things are back home as I set up my bunk and whip out my cool new pillow. Ahhhhhh yeeeeeeah, fools. NASA in the house. I decide not to put a glass of wine on one side and beat the schmitt out of the other side of the head cushion with a bat.
Skipper informs me Port Moller has had the highest numbers in 23 years meaning there is a buttload of salmonid a week away. Bring it.
We are visited by Trooper Jeremy and his inflatable cop boat. We ask him if Golden Glove is on the ship and he says yes. I instruct Trooper Jeremy to call Golden Glove Golden Glove when he gets back to the ship.
We set out for the ground with fish already on board and eventually end up behind the F/V Ballyhoo (you say bally-who, I say bally-HO), the net boat. Time to go to work as we are there to unload and since we aren't at the plant that means Shwanee and I are going in the hold to push fish. Huh? Wait a minute.....
Before I know it I'm swished in the back hold which is about four feet high with duct tape around the bottom of my rainpants in boats a size or two too big for me throwing fish into the main hold and sweating like the fist five seconds of a deodorant commercial. F-work me I'm out of shape, panting like a bulldog in Birmingham. I don't know what that means. Once I've cleared all the fish out i climb out on deck where someone tells me to grab the 3" hose which is blasting at KFD speed. In my exhausted state I loose control of the tube and it commences to spraying everyone and everything in sight. The Ballyhoo guys smile and give me the greenhorn look. DAMNIT!!! I hope this isn't how its going to be every day. Shwanee agrees. Pushing fish sucks.
Beat down, we go anchor up. There is a dream-like quality to reality at this moment as the people are the same but the setting has been altered. I'm lost. It looks like Naknek in some ways but it is definitely not.
Before we crash we pop in 24, the terrorist fighting Keifer Sutherland's hit on FOX. It is Season Two, 10am to 11am. I'm hooked. Big time. Jack Bauer rules.
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
I woke up to a beautiful morning and not because there is a mirror above my bunk. There should be. Sunshine of a San Diego nature and a third day of massive Port Moller numbers on the radio, it feels good to be alive. I forgot that feeling months ago.
Our tendering trademark is giving out hot cocoa to the cold neoprene mud rats but our supply had already ran out but the F/V Rebel had a box from the cannery of more chocolate. Usually when we transfer goods we do it side-to-side but today we are going bow-to-stern with Shwanee on the front deck reaching over next to the anchor to grab the precious powdered cargo. I was on the back deck peeking around the side to see what was going on when Shwanee shouts MAN OVERBOARD and raps his hand on the glass to get Capt. Ron to take the boat out of gear. Crewman Connie on the Rebel slipped off the back of the boat while handing over the package and disappeared into the silty water under us. I went to the starboard side to see if she'd pop up on my side assuming Shwanee was coming around the other side. Connie popped up on the port side and he grabbed the life ring from the top of the house. When he threw it it got caught in the rigging. While I was watching him throw Capt. Ron had managed to free some bumper bouys and toss them off the side towards her. She managed to get to them against the massive force of the tide. The bouys were tied together and she was able to put her arms over the line between them, probably much better than if they'd been separated.
Now we are finally coming around to race after her and I take a position on the bow while Shwanee made preparations to get her on board I think, I couldn't see him. As soon as we were pointed in the right direction I spotted a setnet skiff coming our direction and started waving and pointing at her in thew water. From their view it is quite possible they only saw a pair of bouys at first before noticing an arm or head between them. They change course and get to her minutes before we would have and pull her from the clutches of the Nush and get her back to the Rebel where the rest of the crew is asleep. We turn around again to see if she's OK.
Hours later I realize how bad that could have been. In the moment I was pretty calm about the whole thing and knew we'd get her out fairly fast before any real cold or shock started. But the more we discussed it the more things we realize could have gone wrong and ended in a tragedy. Our life ring was now hung on the fuel tank on the stern and knives were strategically placed around the deck to cut bouys quickly should such a situation repeat.
Needless to say the rest of the day was uneventful. I read a recent issue of Newsweek and started doing some fantasy football research. I have two magazines to work with but tend to lean towards the ESPN copy. To McNabb or not to McNabb, that is the question. We get to keep two players from last year and I have Larry Fitzgerald and if you don't know who that is he's the guy on the cover of every single fantasy football magazine out there right now.
Capt. Ron needed an extra hand changing the alternator so I made a rare visit to the engine room with is about 5'10" high, just enough for me to stand up in with a quarter inch of clearance for me bloody 'ead.
We meet Skin. He's the only real character of all our rather generic fishermen. A wolf hunter with a sick sense of humor. We are instant friends.
Dinner consists of a BBQed salmon done in Paul Newman's ginger salad dressing.
I take my first boat schmitt.
Some setnetters with a minor show up and I'm instructed to give the kid one of the five chocolate bars I smuggled up from Safeway ADQ. And then there were four. He better not come back.
Trooper Golden Glove shows up in person this time with a real quiet partner and we exchange info and a story or two. It is always surreal seeing familiar faces in the dream state of Da Bay but at the same time it's expected.
That night we knock out three more episodes of 24. The brother from the Allstate ads is president and I can see why some think that show paved the way for Obama, normalizing the idea of a black president in 2003 on Fox. On Fox.
