Bristol Bay Log

Sometimes the preparation for sea seems to drag on interminably. There are a thousand details to attend to…sometimes the work slows to a crawl for lack of a part or a nut and bolt. Everything conspires to hold you back…it is as if the very earth exerts some mysterious gravitational attraction that seems to sense and resist the boat’s impulse to escape to sea. Once free of this gravitational pull the boat is like a tiny, self contained satellite in a vast, liquid limbo of constant change. Finally there comes the moment when everything is ready…Then the hardest task comes…to break the sweet bonds of love and friendship that bind you to the land. Today is Father’s Day….it marks for me the 25th anniversary of my Dad’s death. I am wearing the belt with the big brass buckle he gave me when I was a little boy…my good luck charm. Farewell for now gentle reader ….there is no email in my little corner of the Bering Sea….

Dillingham boat harbor…winds S.W. 15-20k…sunny, barometer rising..afloat at last..we are in the final stages of preparation for the season…all systems checked out…This is my first time back afloat in 12 years…It feels like only 12 months have past…

Dillingham…the boat yard…winds light out of the S.W….overcast, light drizzle..after a week of gales and drIving rain this is a nice break..The pace of the boat yard gets more intense each day now..we have been doing a major overhaul of the Questar …installing a new RSW system, raising the deck, installing new hatch covers, rebuilding the exhaust system and generally waking the boat from it’s winter hibernation. It has been a cold, wet, grey Bering Sea spring…one gale after another and temperatures in the low 40’s.

Reading back over my log, I remembered what a mischievous creature the Sea Wolf could be. Sort of like a horse who will throw you if he senses you aren’t paying attention…the Sea Wolf could bite you on the ass. She was a big, brand new Rozema bow picker …marine aluminum , twin engines…a real packer…we put 24 tons of herring on her in one go..of course that was when we came within a cat’s whisker of sinking her…or rather she nearly took us down with her. Big Ron and I leased her in 1988 and 1989 while my Sierra was being built. I didn’t take it personally when she tried to drown us with her booby trapped bow compartment on the Togiak herring grounds…However, several weeks later while we were running to Egegik for a June 20th opening..that psycho boat set my mattress on fire while I was sleeping on it…Ron was running the boat…I was catching a nap in my bunk…We were 30 miles out from Clark’s Point headed for Egegik when I simultaneously smelled smoke and my right butt cheek made contact with my smoldering mattress…we caught it in time …pulled the smoking mattress on deck…and noticed the engine bulkhead was glowing red from the exhaust overheating….No harm done…the bulkhead didn’t melt…the boat didn’t catch fire and we made the Egegik opening…had 5,406 lb. for the period on June 20, 1988….It had one more trick to play on us….a couple of days later the steering arm on the transom plate broke…we were dead in the water..floating off Coffee Point with no steering to speak of..Ron got on the radio and put a call out to the group….Stubby showed up and gave us a tow into the Egegik River….after a 48 hour goat show..we had the steering repaired and made the 12 hour opening on June 27….delivered 3,980 lbs…After that the Sea Wolf settled down and we made good money with her…and we always paid attention to her whim’s and eccentricities.

The Bay is the kind of place where you really need friends. Your productivity, your peace of mind and your safety often depends on them. It is also the kind of place where you learn who your real friends are. I ran with the same radio group from 1982 to 1999. This was a group of around 10 or 15 boats who shared fishing information on a common and hopefully secure radio channel..It also served as a sort of floating dinner club. These were the guys you called if you had web in your wheel, if you were drifting dead in the water with a blown engine….or if you needed a cup of flour. My log for May 17, 1988 is an example of the kind of situation that often came up on the fishing grounds. Big Ron and I were fishing herring in the Togiak District on the Sea Wolf..the water temp. was 38 degrees f…….”May 17 4 hour opening / calm / fished E. Side of Nunavachak Bay. Put on 24 ton…almost lost the boat. Forward (bow) compartment flooded w/ 1000 gal. water draining from the flooded fish holds thru small pipe carrying fuel lines to stern. Boat lost buoyancy and started to go under at the bow. I was up to my asshole in ice water and herring….Ron put out a call to the group and gave our position…..TwoTonTommy on the Katie Blu came along side, tied off our bow cleat to his side cleat and ran us in towards the beach. The bow lodged on a rock pinnacle and we were able to shovel/bucket +3 ton out of the bow-this gave us enough buoyancy to keep water from coming over the bow…then we shoveled several more tons towards the stern. Pumped out forward lazarette of about 1000 gal…..unloaded 21 tons w/ low roe count…5.8 to 6.5 per cent….the entire incident took 24 hours to stabilize the boat. The Sea Wolf was like some large animal mysteriously dying before our eyes. The boat had a built in booby trap..(the pipe into the bow compartment)…when it was heavily loaded the fish displaced water in the holds which ran into the “watertight” bow compartment. Had the weather been anything less than absolutely calm and without the assistance of the Katie Blu, we would have sunk within 5 to 10 minutes.”……..”May 18-21…worked to clear the boat of ruined nets, water in fuel, tracing and fixing problems brought about by the near sinking. Much like bringing back a patient who has suffered a severe trauma.”…..”May 22… At anchor off Right Hand Pt. Calm / Bright / Sunny/ waiting for more fish.”

I reckon that from the very beginning…since human beings first went down to the sea in ships to earn their livelihood on great waters …. They engaged in ritual and carried talismans to ensure safe passage and a bountiful harvest. The wretched Agamemnon offered up his own daughter Iphigenia as a blood sacrifice to conjure up fair winds for his plundering voyage to Troy. I confess I have own ways to propitiate the unknowable and fickle forces of nature. Before my solo kayak trip down the coast of Baja a dear friend presented me with a prayer feather specially blessed by a Hopi shaman for my safe voyage. I carried it on that trip thru the winter of 1970-71…I have had it with me ever since..it is with me now on board the Questar. As for ritual…I was inspired by the folkways and observances of Inuit hunters I had the privilege of travelling with during the spring and summer of 1974 on Baffin Island above the Arctic Circle… On my boat I would always kiss the first salmon that came over the roller at the beginning of the season…then we would eat it…. We would fillet it out, leaving the head, backbone and tail intact…these we would return to the sea accompanied by an impromptu prayer of thanks. Once I began this ritual my crew would insist upon it, year after year. Then at the end of the season..after the very last set..I would release the last fish in the net back into the sea. And, of course, I would never allow bananas on my boat….

My log for May 31, 1979 reads…”Woke at 5am with the wind coming brisk out of the N.N.E down by Nichols Hills. Pulled the gear (8 kings) and fought the wind back to Clark’s Point to avoid being blown out on the ebb. Headed into Clark’s Slough @ 10:30 and went aground. Wind very strong out of the north. To 60 knots….7:35 pm still aground…”. What the log does not convey is the wretched anguish and chagrin I suffered at going aground yet again…victim of my feckless fathometer and lack of nautical savvy. What made the whole affair particularly painful was the public nature of my humiliation. The slough is a favorite hidey hole for the fleet in a blow….dozens of boats ran by me in the channel while I languished high and dry on the mud flats. The log informs me that …..”June 1 Set a bow anchor and came off on the morning flood..”. The hours I spent on the flats were awful. While Long Bill slept in the dog house with his feet nestled in the engine…I was full of sleepless remorse and self laceration. Remember, this was my first boat…My first command if you will. As “captain” my all consuming obsession was for the well being of my vessel and her sleeping crew of one. I felt a deep affection for that boat…call it love..as absurd as that may sound. I had poured all my meager capital into her. She was my livelihood and on her rested my hopes for economic freedom and a bright future…and I was aground…again. I stood in the bow for hours…the wind shrieked and made the boat tremble even though it was high and dry. Sometime after midnight, Bill unwound himself from the engine and poked his head out of the cabin. I poured out my anguish to him and he consoled me with the good humored compassion of an old friend. He fired up the fuel oil stove and we had a brew up. We talked and laughed about the old times in Crested Butte… skiing the headwall on Red Lady. Finally I crawled into my bunk and fell into a profound, deep, dreamless sleep. My first real sleep in weeks or so it seemed. No wonder the ancient Greeks worshiped a God of Sleep…he was Hypnos, son of Nyx, the night…his brother was Thanatos…Death. I woke in the morning. It was sunny and bright and calm. The Trio was floating again, tugging gently at her anchor. I was neither a very skillful nor a very experienced fisherman…But I was a damn lucky one…lucky in my friends, lucky in my boat, lucky in my vision of what my life could be ….

First off you should understand that Bristol Bay is not a bay…It is a +10,000 square mile, right arm of the Bering Sea. It was so named by the great seaman and navigator Captain Cook, who hailed from Bristol, England. He of course did not “discover” it. The Aleuts, Y’upik and Inupiat made it their home thousands of years before Cook arrived on July 9, 1778. He was looking for a northeast passage back to England..what he found instead was the most prolific salmon fishery in the world. His log reads…”It must abound in salmon, as we saw many leaping in the sea before the entrance; and some were found in the maws of cod which we had caught. The entrance of this river, distinguished by the name Bristol River, lies in the latitude of 58degrees27 minutes, and in the longitude of 201degrees55minutes”….Cook happened to arrive at the peak of the summer salmon season, off the entrance to Nushagak Bay.

I have been working on the gear in the net locker. It is a welcome relief from the grinding, welding and general stinking cacaphony of the machine shop. Working on the nets is more like a quiet meditation. With a net needle I have been sewing together different colored panels of web which I will then hang onto the lead line and the cork line. The finished net will consist of a cork line with floats attached, the web and a weighted lead line. A shackle of gear is traditionally 50 fathoms in length and 29 meshes of web deep. The mesh size varies depending on the species you are targeting. For sockeye salmon that makes it about 12 feet deep..Three shackles clipped together make a Bristol Bay net. The total length of the net is 150 fathoms, or 300 yards, or the length of three football fields. The web hangs down from the cork line like a curtain of death..the lead line is weighted to pull the mesh down and give it it’s shape. The work is repetitive but not boring..it has to be done right and there are many ways to do it wrong. The knots I use have been used for 10,000 years. The materials used are now plastic for the floats and nylon for the web and lines..instead of wood and hemp. The design of the gill net has not changed over 10,000 years. It is an elegant, functional design..the work of genius. I haven’t handled a net needle in 12 years. I watch my hands do the work with a sort of detached wonder. They haven’t forgotten the craft. It makes me very happy to know this…I have much worried if I can still do the work….

By now, gentle reader, you may have concluded that only men fish the Bay. Untrue! In point of fact a handful of exceptional women work as both skippers and deckhands. As I was walking back to the boat harbor I ran across Patricia at the Peter Pan Cannery. She was loading firewood into her pickup. I stopped , shook hands and caught up on old times. I first laid eyes on Patricia in 1982 when I was fishing kings in the Nushagak. She was skipper of an ancient , wooden gill netter named the Lovac and always towed around a tiny skiff named the Blue Toad. She was an attractive, young blonde who always wore a dress with a sheath knife belted to her waist. On deck she wore a sort of wrap-around oilskin apron over her dress. No matter the weather or the water temperature ……she went barefoot on deck…and she often fished alone. From the first time I saw her pulling gear alone in a 30 knot blow…I was filled with admiration and respect. In my book she was Sailboat Tough. The years have been kind to her. She is still an attractive blonde. She and her husband fish the Lady Patricia. Her 25 year old daughter is skipper of her own boat and fishes the Bay like her mother taught her. I asked Patricia if she still fished barefoot. No…she had finally put on sea boots…..I noticed that she still had a knife belted to her waist….