When Joel’s injury made it appar­ent that nei­ther he nor the Nerka would be fish­ing this sea­son, some of my writer friends saw an unex­pected sil­ver lin­ing for me. “Now you can spend the sum­mer work­ing on your book!”

My shak­ing head dashed their enthu­si­asm. Beyond the fact that we’d need what­ever income I could make crew­ing on other boats, the deeper truth was that I’m a fish­er­man in my own right, inde­pen­dent of Joel and our life together. This annual infu­sion of South­east Alaska, of the ocean, is non-negotiable, nec­es­sary for my well-being.

The Kath­leen Jo’s most recent trip revealed another rea­son why I needed to be here. Gut­ting fish is my bar­baric med­i­ta­tion. My hands sliced and sev­ered, twisted and yanked, scraped and rinsed. They were machines always in motion, and the faster they ran, the more my mind slowed. Loos­ened from moor­ings kept so snug on land, my mind drifted to places it’s never gone while parked in front of a com­puter screen. Thumb­ing through mem­o­ries past, lin­ger­ing on fan­tasies future, it drew pre­vi­ously unimag­ined con­nec­tions that seemed sud­denly obvious.

How have I never seen this before? There’s the take­away mes­sage for Chap­ter Six!

Of course: the story ends back in the same place where it began!

Peer­ing into the belly cav­ity of one hal­ibut after another, it wasn’t bloody flesh I saw, but pieces of my book. After months of sac­ri­fic­ing writ­ing to the bot­tom of my to-do list, feel­ing that insis­tent nudge again was elec­tri­fy­ing. I mum­bled sen­tences under my breath, strug­gling to com­mit good phrases to memory.

“Take a break,” Jeff urged as he stepped inside to drive us to the sec­ond set, a 20 minute run away. He meant sit down, enjoy the steam­ing break­fast plate Lindy had passed out the door to me. Instead, I scram­bled for some­thing to scrib­ble on.

A soggy piece of card­board, torn from one of the 50 pound boxes of pol­lock we used for bait, would have to do. Using raingear-clad thighs as a desk, I clutched a black Sharpie. Like a long-absent lover slid­ing back between the sheets, hop­ing the inden­ta­tion in the mat­tress still wel­comed her body, that pen fit a dif­fer­ent groove of my gloved fin­gers than the knives I’d been wield­ing — but it did still fit.

The mes­sage was clear. With the bulk of my friends’ quota suc­cess­fully har­vested and sev­eral checks mailed home, it was time to focus on my other job. Grate­ful as I was for my time with Team Thomas, writ­ing needed my full attention.

The Kath­leen Jo returned to Sitka, where our friend Mikey greeted us. He’d sailed his 27-foot boat up from Wash­ing­ton, appear­ing in another blog along the way, scroung­ing enough nick­els and quar­ters from the set­tee cush­ions to cover his final fuel bill. In Sitka, he imme­di­ately printed up fly­ers adver­tis­ing his div­ing ser­vices, but still faced weeks of cab­bage din­ners, lunches, and break­fasts before Mar­lin, our salmon trolling cap­tain, pulled into town.

Time. Income. We both held what the other most needed. The biggest sac­ri­fice came from Jeff and Lindy, who gra­ciously agreed to exchange their expe­ri­enced crew for one they’d need to train. Not much of a sac­ri­fice at all, com­pared to what they’d get in Mike, who Hooked’s friends know as the win­ner of the Golden Scrub Brush Award. They’d be in good hands.

With his old deck­hand deposited on the dock and his new one onboard, Jeff didn’t waste any time head­ing back out. Their final long­line trip would begin with a Father’s Day camp­ing adven­ture, and he couldn’t wait to wig­gle his toes in the sandy beach that was their des­ti­na­tion. (My friend works hard to uphold his “Cap­tain Pic­nic” reputation.)

So I waved good­bye to Team Thomas – 3 trips, 24 days, and 40,000 pounds after join­ing them. Even in such an ideal sit­u­a­tion as this, when changes meet everyone’s needs, mov­ing off a boat is always a lit­tle bit­ter­sweet. There’s an unavoid­able inti­macy in going to sea that you can’t repli­cate through time on land, a forced close­ness that can either be very good or very bad.  These days, I’m lucky to crew only for peo­ple I love, and the time aboard the Kath­leen Jo was very good indeed.

 

Writ­ing this week, fol­lowed by a too-quick trip South to snug­gle my sweet­heart. (He’s walk­ing! He’s dri­ving!) It’s a pretty good moti­va­tor to get new words on paper, know­ing that a reunion with my best friend is the reward. I can’t wait to see you, buddy. 

 

 

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Lindy, one of my bosses on the Kath­leen Jo, aimed her iPhone down the fish hold hatch. She called, “You hate me now, but you’ll appre­ci­ate these later!”

“No way,” I replied. “I’d never hate you, and I already appre­ci­ate them.”

And it was true. For a writer/blogger, there’s no greater gift than crew­ing for fish­er­men who love to doc­u­ment their life at sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shar­ing pho­tos with­out their accom­pa­ny­ing sto­ries is hard for me, friends, but time is short. I’m mostly off-line, devot­ing the next few days to work­ing on my book, and just wanted to give you a quick glimpse into our recent trip. (Imag­ine: that hal­ibut you see in the store might have been iced by a five year old deck­hand!) Thanks for under­stand­ing, and know that even with­out the exchange of words, you’re in my thoughts. Best wishes to all.

 

 

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Since launch­ing Hooked two years ago, I’ve joked that the boats I work on may insti­tute a con­fi­den­tial­ity clause in my crew con­tracts. Some cap­tains, upon see­ing them­selves in print, dis­cover they’d pre­fer to keep their busi­ness pri­vate, while oth­ers embrace life with a writer on board. For­tu­nately, my cur­rent employ­ers are all about photo/video/story doc­u­men­ta­tion; they gave their bless­ing for their family’s Hooked appearance.

When Jeff called to ask if I could fill in for his abruptly departed long­line deck­hand, his only hes­i­ta­tion wasn’t about my abil­ity to han­dle the work, but the com­pany. “I’ve got to warn you: our kids are wild and crazy. Jeytlin’s full of energy, and Teyen’s in his ter­ri­ble two’s. Do you think you’ll be okay with that?”

Jeff knows my mater­nal aspi­ra­tions go no fur­ther than four-legged fam­ily. Chil­dren are a for­eign coun­try that I’ve never had any desire to visit. Accept­ing this job on the Kath­leen Jo would mean not only vis­it­ing, but becom­ing a resident.

Joel, lis­ten­ing from the other room, later observed that I’d put my best social worker voice on to assure our friend that I respected what he and his wife, Lindy, were shoul­der­ing in run­ning a true fam­ily busi­ness. “Don’t apol­o­gize for your fam­ily, Jefe. That boat is your kids’ home. No one has a right to make them feel like a nui­sance in their own space. I’m proud of you guys for what you’re doing, and it’d be a priv­i­lege to share that time with you all.”

All the right words fell out of my mouth. I really wanted this job.

Eigh­teen days later, we’ve made two safe, suc­cess­ful trips. We caught 30,000 pounds of black cod while blessed with good weather, charg­ing full bore through a one day turn­around to take advan­tage of the calm seas while they lasted. There’s been much laugh­ter. I’ve made some money, seen some glo­ri­ous sun­sets, had some fan­tas­tic meals.

(How do you know you’re crew­ing on the right boat? When you’re so slathered with black cod slime and blood that it’s too much effort to get cleaned up to go inside to eat, so you choose to spend the 12-hour day on deck, and one of your employ­ers passes steam­ing plates of deli­cious­ness out the door.)

 

 

Most impor­tantly, though, it turns out that the reas­sur­ances I’d given Jeff weren’t just fast talk. My small ship­mates are fas­ci­nat­ing. Hear­ing five year old Jeytlin ask to go down into the engine room to help her dad, watch­ing two year old Teyen’s face brighten as he points to the image inked on the inside of my left arm (“Boat!”), I won­der what makes me so unex­pect­edly fond of them. Is it the con­nec­tion to their par­ents? Desire for them to grow up know­ing me as a safe adult in their lives? Or do I delight in these boat kids because I see the best parts of my own child­hood reflected in them?

 

 

 

My step­mom asked if this time has awak­ened any dor­mant mater­nal urges. Nope. But it’s been a great expe­ri­ence, a priv­i­lege to be trusted not only with my friends’ liveli­hood, but also as a guest player on Team Thomas, shar­ing a very small fam­ily space in demand­ing cir­cum­stances. It’s given me a new appre­ci­a­tion for the fam­i­lies liv­ing and work­ing together — an expe­ri­ence that many of Hooked’s read­ers have had, and one that few non-fishermen can imag­ine. Those of you who have held these roles — boat kid, fisherman/boat par­ent, or both — I won­der how it was for you. Look­ing back, what stands out as par­tic­u­lar joys and strug­gles? (Psst — Karla, Heather, Tom?  For that mat­ter: Dad? Mom?) We’ve got a cou­ple new par­ents in the fleet who are about to embark upon their first sea­son with chil­dren aboard, who’d prob­a­bly wel­come the reflec­tions of those who’ve been down this road.

Weather gave us a few days’ reprieve, but the K-Jo’s head­ing back out this after­noon, switch­ing our efforts to tar­get hal­ibut. If you want to keep an eye on us, the NOAA weather site is here; we’ll be some­where in the olive, back in about a week. Until then, be well, bud­dies.

 

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