Hi friends. We’re in the midst of South­east Alaska’s sec­ond (and last) king salmon open­ing, trudg­ing through Day 14. It’s been a rough one – beau­ti­ful weath­er negat­ed by coast-wide poor catch rates, far from the season’s sal­va­tion that so many fish­er­men had hoped for. I’ve been look­ing back to July’s first king open­ing with nostalgia. 

*****

Late June. I am lin­ger­ing over a cup of cof­fee at the Back­door Café, exchang­ing good­byes and good wish­es to local friends. Yep, leav­ing in the morn­ing for the king open­ing, see you in a few weeks. A near­by woman over­hears. She asks me to watch her sci­ence fic­tion paper­back for a moment, then heads out the door.

When she returns a few min­utes lat­er, she plucks a small gold­en icon from her dress pock­et, extends her hand to mine. “This is for you. Saint Nicholas keeps women and men at sea safe. Be care­ful out there, and come back to us.”

*****

Cap’n J and I always imag­ine we’ll leave town a few days before the July 1 open­ing. We fan­ta­size a leisure­ly idle out to the fish­ing grounds, break­ing the 18-hour run into sev­er­al days, even spar­ing time to do some­thing fun along the way. Between last-minute mechan­i­cal grem­lins and the greedy dis­trac­tions of town, it nev­er hap­pens that way.

Until this year. The Ner­ka eas­es into mist-shroud­ed Bertha Bay on the evening of the 28^th, join­ing one of our favorite boats, the Kath­leen Jo. Jeff is anoth­er young cap­tain, a fel­low boat kid who grew up to take the reins of his child­hood sum­mer home. Arriv­ing a few hours ahead of us, “Cap­tain Pic­nic” and his deck­hand have already start­ed bliss­ful­ly prun­ing in White Sul­phur Hot Springs, but skiff-mas­ter Der­ak jumps out to fer­ry us in. We sink into the scald­ing bath carved out of stone and gaze through the lay­ers of rain, won­der­ing aloud whether the com­ing days will bring glo­ry or despair.

*****

On the 30^th, we run all day to reach our des­ti­na­tion, charg­ing 40 miles off-shore straight into the Gulf of Alas­ka. The sea is qui­et. Scan­ning with the binoc­u­lars, we see flocks of sea birds pad­dling serene­ly along the glassy sur­face. “Damn, there’s a lot of birds here!” Joel says. Ful­mers, storm petrels, shear­wa­ters, alba­tross… It’s as if they’re antic­i­pat­ing tomorrow’s open­ing day as anx­ious­ly as we are, eager for salmon entrails flung to wait­ing beaks. We trade hope­ful grins; this vis­i­ble link of the food chain bodes well for us.

Joel throt­tles back in a spot of ocean that, on the sur­face, appears no dif­fer­ent from any of the sur­round­ing blue. The dif­fer­ences lie beneath, and he is acute­ly aware of them all. He shuts the main engine off, but the aux­il­iary, run­ning our fish hold freez­er, growls with­out pause. Except for brief reprieves in town after the fish are safe­ly deliv­ered, this diesel drone is a relent­less sound­track to every freez­er troller’s season.

*****

Day One. The alarm sounds at 2:30. We roll straight out of the bunk and into the fish clothes laid out the night before – scrub­by sweat­pants and thrift store hood­ies, sleeves rigid with mul­ti­ple sea­sons of salt and slime. As if no time has passed since we last did this, our bod­ies imme­di­ate­ly slip into the repet­i­tive steps of a bloody ballet.

The day doesn’t live up to my sweetheart’s fan­ta­sy, but it’s good all the same. We take turns run­ning into the cab­in to shov­el spoon­fuls of pas­ta sal­ad into our mouths, then find a school of night biters – kings that climb onto our gear until sunset’s lin­ger­ing echo is long silent. Flip­ping on the deck lights, I fum­ble through the final scrub-down, eras­ing every gory crime scene splash to begin fresh the next day.

It’s 11:30 when we peel off our boots and fall back into the bunk. Reach­ing for the clock, Joel mum­bles, “Gonna sleep in tomorrow.”

“Three o’clock?”

“Three fif­teen.”

*****

Day Two. With less than a four hour nap, we wake to find the Ner­ka lolling in almost the same spot of ocean we’d shut down in. No need to run to a fish­ing spot, our hooks are in the water by 3:30. The first king salmon hits the deck before 4:00, and the day offi­cial­ly begins.

Despite the extra 15 min­utes of sleep, we’re zom­bies today. By mid-morn­ing, Joel retrieves pints of Ben & Jerry’s from the fish hold. “We’re gonna crash so hard from this,” he says around a spoon­ful of Bon­na­roo Buzz.

I swal­low a ‑38 degree shard of New York Super Fudge Chunk. “Sleep depri­va­tion, adren­a­line, and mas­sive sug­ar over­load… We are fuu­u­ucked up, buddy.”

Loose stuff on a boat is a bad idea, and ordi­nar­i­ly I’m a stick­ler for keep­ing things in their right home. But by the end of the day, I stop putting the Ibupro­fen away between dos­es. The Cost­co-sized bot­tle squats on the table, as famil­iar a cen­ter­piece as the fists in my back. Petu­lant at being for­got­ten over these past eight months, old aches and pains demand atten­tion. Oh yes, I remem­ber you…

*****

Day Three. Joel spends most of the day in the cab­in, fin­gers of his right hand taped togeth­er, a bag of frozen peas and car­rots slow­ly melt­ing on swollen knuckles.

This is a sud­den, star­tling turn of events. Mid­way through the pre­vi­ous day, as we’d stood side-by-side in the cock­pit, gut­ting kings in uni­son, Cap’n J began inhal­ing sharply with each slice and scrape. “It feels like there’s ground-up glass in my knuckles.”

Today he can’t wield a knife with­out light­ning bolts of pain shoot­ing through his right hand. Thanks to a few lucky deci­sions, this is one of the best king salmon days Cap’n J and I have had togeth­er. Of course it is. I han­dle the deck, dash­ing between run­ning the lines, land­ing fish, clean­ing fish, prepar­ing them for the fish hold, while frus­tra­tion and fear stain my sweetheart’s face. What kind of rebel­lion is his body stag­ing? And what kind of future does a fish­er­man have, with­out his hands?

*****

Day Four. Team Ner­ka is a mess.

The 3:15 alarm drags me out of dreams – night­mares – that I haven’t yet fall­en asleep. Joel’s hands con­tin­ue to shriek in protest. Mine do, too, after hours of haul­ing giant ling cod to the sur­face. Aquat­ic drag­ons with fanged five-gal­lon buck­ets for mouths, they gri­mace and snarl as I strug­gle to release their hooks, then dive back to the depths with a thank­less smack of the tail.

When I duck into the cab­in for a cup of tea, Joel shakes his head at me from the pilot seat. “This sucks, dude. I’ve nev­er wished for a gale dur­ing the king open­ing before, but I sure could use a har­bor day.”

Only Bear seems unfazed. She spends all day in the fo’c’sle, curled in a tight ball beneath our sleep­ing bags. This is out of char­ac­ter, and by mid-after­noon we’re anx­ious – is our cat okay? When she final­ly bounds up the stairs and stretch­es leisure­ly in the cab­in, Joel and I have been up and work­ing for 12 hours, with anoth­er sev­en yet to go. I swear that’s a smug smile under her whiskers.

*****

Stand by, friends – to be con­tin­ued when­ev­er we’re next in town. Until then, best wish­es to you all.