October 22, 2003 - a little better
Ok, fixed some stuff but time is still against me. The parking meter has a one hour time limit and I have used half of that just trying to get to use this internet. Whatever. I don't have that much to talk about anyway.
It's been awhile hasn't it. Basically, to catch up on what I did for the last few weeks I was in Alaska, I did some more drinking. Martinis here, Adam turned 21 here, out to the bar in the early afternoon, out for a couple drinks the next night. I was getting bored, annoyed and antsy. I have a lot of angst in my journal. All this talk about me and myself and my life. What is it all about? What am I doing here? I got real clingy to home. I was calling just about evey night. Joe knew my deadline. I told him how long I would wait before I went and bought my own tickets. Then the day came and I bought them. Found some for $375. NICE! Still, that's oneway. I picked them up on the afternoon that everyone went to the bar. By the time I got done getting lost, picking up my tickets and finding my way back to the Peanut Factory I had become the designated driver and got to drive everyone else home. That was fun. I have not driven for over a year! See, fall clean-ups were starting and then it rained so everyone was bored. Bad combination. I did get to go out a couple of times and make some money. That was nice but that was like, twice.
Sonja, Cee Cee and a few other people went to CA. It was pretty easy to keep the house clean. Oh blah, blah, blah. Do I have to go back and tell about everything that happened in the last couple weeks in Ak? I really am not all that interested myself. I mean. Movies, drinking. I got to catch up with Emily who I met in Fairbanks last year, who then moved down to Anchorage this year. She is so fun. I have a couple stories about drunks and having to "babysit" till 5:30 in the morning. In the end it was sad and fun to say good-bye. There were more people and everyone gets to saying such nice things when they know they won't be seeing you again. Sonja even tried to get me to delay my flight for one more week. Yeah right. They also gave me a check that covered my airfare. It was from all the yard work I had done. Awesome. I got a free flight home after all, and then some.
I got home on a Tuesday, Dad picked me up. It's so surreal to be back. But I had already found tickets to Thailand. I had even booked them. I just needed to write the check. They should be arriving at the door today. I have been home for two weeks and pretty much hibernated till this week. I caught up with old friends and family. And just sort of relaxed. Home has changed though. I almost feel like a guest. Since I fly out tomorrow I never really got to feel settled in either. Now it's just hectic. I have to pack. Can you feel it? I don't feel focused or anything. Real choppy. I am trying to remember what I need to do and pack still. It was strange, I crammed in all these errands that I haven't thought of since I've been gone. I filed taxes, got my eyes checked, got new glasses- those cool bendy kinds. I even got my knee looked at. The one I've injured and reinjured. It turns out that it has "internal derangement". That's my kind of doctor terms. That means no sports that involve a lot of knee twisting or jarring, ie skateboarding, snowboarding (sigh), and running (WOO-HOO!, I mean, bummer). But biking and hiking are just fine and are great activities. That's a relief. I was worried about that for a bit. I didn't want to say anything though, Carrie. I have mentioned that I will be doing a 2,168 mile, 6 month long hike from Georgia to Maine, right?
I talked to my Aunti Linda today, Hi Aunti. And she helped me work out my Thailand plans. I leave tomorrow afternoon, you know. I'll be landing in Bangkok 11:30 pm Friday night. Isn't that perfect? Her suggestion is to sleep at the airport. Free night! That's the way to do it. Start saving right off the bat. It's been funny because for the weeks that I have been home I have been planning my hiking trip that's coming up in March. I haven't really thought about Asia. For one thing I don't know anything about it, ok, you know what. I'm going to start scaring people in a second. I've been really good at avoiding that so far. So don't worry about me! It's allllll under control! I'm just going to go and have a goooood time. I'll be writing soon.
Love,
Rachael
October 22, 2003 - stupid
I am so ticked right now!! And the whole thing is that I don't have time to say why. So, I have 5 min. to prioritize when I thought my time was unlimited!!! Itinerary:
Oct 23 Thailand. Travel, buy tickets, see Vietnam and other countries along the way. Nepal, India, Israel, North Carolina. I'll be there in March.
And From march till Sept I will hike 2000+ miles to Maine. (from Georgia) I'll be back in MN in Oct.
I'll write soon
Rachael
September 25, 2003 - blah, blah, blah
Wow, I've really slacked on writing. You know why? Because nothing has come up that's worth writing about. No crazy adventures, well, nothing foreign, "slightly out there" is about as close as it gets. I got to help clean out a boat. The exciting part about that was I got to keep a rabbit fur hat that I found and I found a temporary replacement for my sandals, sandals. Woo-hoo. Do you remember that thing I was talking about? Driving some car from MN to Anchorage? A free flight home, a free road trip, a chance to bring and Isreali home and show him the sights? Well, I'm still in Anchorage. That's how far I've gotten. This is how it went. I asked Joe. When will I be able to leave Anchorage? When will you have a ticket for me? Because I don't want to be stuck in Anchorage forever. What did he say? "Oh, we'll get you tickets and you'll be gone by this weekend." Whatever. Then it was by Tuesday and then Friday. In the meantime I filled in a little for his lawn mowing service. So did Noam. Noam wants to make money. Oh, you know how I got to Anchorage? I was able to hitch a ride with my skipper Alex. He had to go to Anchorage to drop someone off at the airport. He charged me $10! Cheapskate. Well, he called me a cheapskate first. I was trying to persuade him about the wholeness and serenity one feels when they donate to the Help Rachael Travel Fund.
Monday, when I found myself still in Anchorage I went to work. Any chance to make money, right. I tell you that is the weirdest first day of work I have ever had. I got paired up with some stranger, well duh. See, there's all these old trucks, each team has a claim to a truck. I don't know how they worked it out. Whatever. Each truck is outfitted with a "Just Lawns" trailor. You know, simple flatbed with mesh sides. Ours was a bigger one. It fit 2 mowers and a deck mower. The tailgate was a ramp. So, I went to learn about mowing yards. I don't know how well I have to retrace every moment of the day. It started out normal, learning about the routine, how to start the mower and weed wacker. It was more of a refresher course. When is the last time I've mowed a yard? Anyways, it was a real drag. We were making a stop after every yard, he spent about 10 min on the phone with his mom. It was just slow. I wanted to GO. The cool thing about this is that you get 15% for every yard that you do. The more yards, the more money. Then I was given this lecture about working hard, try to keep up with the pace, even if I don't feel like I can make it, keep going, blah,blah, blah. I was like, why don't you try me first? We hadn't even begun. 4 yrds? In what? 2 hrs? He started slowing down, skipping stuff. Then I came back to the truck after mowing a yard and found him sleeping on the lawn. All I had been hearing was stuff about family problems and the lack of sleep he'd been getting. Whatever. I weed wacked the lawn as well, put everything away and then I had to shake him awake. I was trying to figure out what he had taken. After that he nearly hit a mail box and then drove up on a divider in the parking lot. What is going on? I told him we should quit, he should call in but he asked for my help on 2 more lawns. After that he didn't even stay with it long enough to direct me to the next lawns. Just got me lost. I took over driving, by the way. So I spent the day driving with a trailor in a town I''ve never been in, finding yards and addresses without a map and mowing lawns when I still wasn't sure what the standards were. In the meantime my partner was out. Never moved, never woke. I would stop at stores to ask directions or ask about buying maps. It was so hard trying to figure out where to park because I just could not get stuck having to back up. I did end up having to back up once. I did it too. So cool. I finally realised that I wasn't going to be able to finish the route at a decent time and that maybe the boss would like to know that and maybe this guy should actually be checked out. I didn't care too much. Empathy was not part of my vocabulary that day, I jst kept thinking of the word babysitter. He hadn't been drunk acting, it happened so fast that I figured it must be drugs. Well, I was stuck for another hour or so because I couldn't find his cell phone and he was no help in locating it. I figured he was sitting on it but I didn't feel like searching THAT hard. Actually the hardest part about the day, besides being terrified of driving in the traffic with that trailor. It was the trailor. That tailgate that's a ramp for the mowers. SO heavy! The first time I tried to put it up by myself it took me 2 tries. It was like power lifting, you know, where you lift, curl, then chest it and then push the bar above your head? Whatever, you don't have to understand the technique, it's the effort it took. I'm out on some street eyeing this ramp like a weightlift competition. I would be all haggard from running behind the mower and week wacker as fast as I could and then I'd have to stretch and shake, trying to get the energy up for one lift. I had it all, the red face, the repositioning of my body wieght. And this guy in the front seat of our truck, nearly drooling. I tried to think how to remain looing professional. I had to be able to lift up this gate. Stuck because of a cell phone. I didn't have the boss's number or his last name, that phone was it. Stuck. Actually, in hind sight I realize that the phone number is plastered on both sides of the trailor. Then I heard the phone ringing one time. He was sittling on it. But the ringing woke him up enough so I could push him off it.My day ended with Joe's girlfriend coming out and finding us, taking my partner in her car and leading me back to the house. I couldn't even find my way home. For my effort I got the entire 30% that the crew is supposed to split. I made $100. It turns out that he had drunk 4 bottles of vanilla extract. I had found those but I thought they were from other times.
When I was told on Monday that my flight home would be on Friday I decided to rush up for 2 days to Fairbanks. Visit relatives. Poor Lofthuses, I can never visit them like a normal guest. Last year when I dropped in for a couple days I asked if I could stay for a month and a half . This time I told them of my intentions to visit them 2 hrs before I arrived. I hitch hiked. That's exciting. My first ride was in a camaro. He took me to the end of Anchorage, the next guy took me to the highway or some suburb of Anchorage, not sure and the third guy was going all the way to Fairbanks. Awesome. I started at 10:00 and arrived at about 6:30? Can't remember. I even offered to split gas and the guy refused. Wasn't that sweet of him, Alex? That reminds me. Alex dropped Noam and I off at the road that Joe and Sonja live on. I had the address but wasn't sure how hard it would be to find. Anyways, Noam was so set against walking. He wanted to hitch hike and I figured we might as well walk. We compromised and did both and finally caught a ride that needed to drive us less than a block before we were dropped at Joe's house. Oh, and I need to make a clarification about "hitch hiking." See, I love my relatives and I know how much they worry and I hate that because it is so unneccesary so I told them about the ride I was able to catch and how he was a neighbor of Joe and Sonja's because he was, he only lives 2 streets away from them. I just left out the part that Jim and Joe had never met, it was just a coincedance about how close they live and I left out that bit that had me standing beside the road holding my thumb out when I first met Jim. Sorry. It turns out that my Aunt Gladyce hitch hiked when she was younger! HA.
So, I told my relatives about the maybes and flight dates and Friday and all that. It was so nice to hang out with family, catch up, be in a familiar place again. It was like a deep breath. Errands, coffee, family history. I got to talk again to Gladyce's friends that moved up to AK from MN. So wierd, and they were all in the same area as my grandparents. Cranberry picking in the rain is about as weird as it got. As I had suspected the Friday tickets were lost because once again they were never purchased and the 24 hrs that tickets can be heald/reserved terminated. I got to spend the weekend in Fairbanks fuming instead of with Joe and fuming. Some of it wasn't quite his fault. No, never mind, it was. There was all this stuff going on with the truck, first an all over check and then someone at the shop backed it into a concrete post and then there were estimates of $15,000 worth of rust and then another opinion said there was no rust. On and on, back and forth while I could have been at home and they could have been working out all the details. Whatever. I called all the time, trying to get a confirmation. Sunday Joe told me I had tickets, E-tickets, bought and paid for Wed. So on Monday I flew down. Yep, $138. I was trying to figure out a way to hitch hike from Fairbanks so that my relatives wouldn't know I had hitched till it had already passed. Oh well, I really appreciated the hour plane ride. It took me 2 hrs to get to the center of Anchorage from the airport on the bus system or lack of it. It was going to take nearly another 2hrs to get within 2 1/2 miles of Joe's place. No one answered when I called Joe. I didn't want to go back anyways I was just hoping to leave soon. That's when I called Emily! Here I am in the central bus station surrounded by the craziest kooks. This is why I don't travel after dark! All these people talking to themselves or cohersing about something to be mad about. Outrunning the security guard on borrowed bikes. Doing crosswords as they talk about the benefits of the 4 to 1 guy to woman ratio of some snow camp somewhere near the North Pole, a lot farther north than Fairbanks. Fairbanks has the most northern Denny's in the world. Did you know that? It's on their sign. I called Emily, ready to beg for a ride, telling myself to be assertive for once and ask for what I want. Then I hmmd and hawed till she offered to come and pick me up. Emily is such a patient teacher. I don't want to be so wierd, popping up in the middle of someone's house uninvited, unannounced and hoping for help. It sounds rude to me but Emily pointed out that I do this to strangers all the time, what's differant about doing it to friends and family. Hey, good point. So, here's a warning to all of you. Be ready, I have phone numbers and who knows when I might use them, or I might not.
Emily and I went and dropped in on one of her friends. We had some wine and got into a great conversationa about travel and life and what is really fulfilling and what makes you happy. Do I really need to travel? It's funny because with all these delays and just hanging here I was really wondering about that. There's 2 things that I want. I want to see the world and I want to settle down in a one room cabin with the husband I've always dreamed about and then be an artist. That last part is all lumped into wish #2. Log cabin, husband, artist. Oh, and right now the place for all this is Alaska. So, I'm at the point where I feel like I've seen a large part of the world and now I'm in Alaska and it seems like the plan #2 could be so close. It's that husband thing, what a hang-up. I think it was resolved that I would continue on my mission to see the world. All 7 continents in 5 yrs. That's all. To "see the world" is a life time quest. I jut want to make a few stops and be done in 2 yrs.
Emily and I hung out the next day, caught up on the news and things. I got to finally meet her husband. I met Emily last year when I worked in Fairbanks for that month and a half. We worked together. Her husband is in the air force and was stationed in Korea last year. Never saw him till about 5:00 on Tues. They treated me to lunch at Apple Bee's a much appreciated contibution to the travel cause. And they drove right to the door of Joe's where I soon found out that Joe had out and out lied about an E-ticket for Wednesday. Of course, I had asked him 3 times about it and the vague answers and lack of information had already given me doubts about the authenticity of this info. I also found out that this car- OH! And I know what kind it is! Imagine when Alex and his family, The mechanics, asked me what kind of truck I would be driving up. I had no clue. Joe had said the name but it had no connection to me. Well, it's a '92 Toyota 4-runner. I told you there was a number in the name of it. Anyways, there was a new problem a possible $1200 repair on the rear end to do AND Joe had been looking at other places to get 4-Runners and found a dealer with a good deal down in TEXAS. So, Goddards, take note, because if and I mean IF, people quit blowing hot air and actually get something done around here and I go to Texas before I go to Minnesota then there is no way that I will miss out on dropping in on you guys. This 4-Runner is in Dallas. How far is that from Tyler? Less than 5 hrs, right? Don't expect much more notice than this though. I won't count on being there till I am landing in the airport and I am in the 4-Runner, that's when I will probably get in contact with you next. It's annoying to get my hopes up. How long has it been since I got to see Charity? Years and years and now I just might get a ticket to TX . Mom is mailing my license right now, RIGHT? Oh, well, this thing has been dragging on since Sept 2. If they don't buy a ticket to Dallas this week then I won't do the drive. Sep. 30 I will look at the availablity of tickets for the following week. Oct. 1 I will buy my own ticket home and I will be purchasing it for Oct. 7,8, or 9. I think tomorrow I will talk once again to my travel consultant to see if we can start lining up a RTW (round the world ticket) I've had enough time to think and plot out my course for the next 4 or 5 months.
On Saturday Sonja helped me get all dressed up, she straightened my hair, borrowed me a bunch of clothes, did my make-up. I got to feel so hot and so girly!! You have no idea! A black filmy shirt, wide leg jeans, a belt with fringe and these pointy toed stilleto boots. It was great. It was Le Ann, Noam, Joe and Sonja, and I that all went club hopping. The bittersweet part of it though was I felt like a carbon copy. All the girls in Anchorage have the same slightly overdone make-up, the straight streaked blonde hair, something black. All my highlights are natural but in one picture it looks like I have color that is growing out. Sonja emphasized the importance of investing in a good straightening iron for those special nights out or that special guy. I'm quite proud of my curly hair, the ease in styling it, I feel unique and I think it's really pretty (she said with such humility as she lovingly caressed her hair). Why does being artificial and a clone to everyone else make me attractive? Unfortunately, I didn't feel like I could say this since her hair is about as naturally curly as mine and she only wears it straight. She's excited about a japanese straightening method she is going to have done.
The other days have been filled with mowing. Well, hardly filled. I didn't have much luck with partners till today. I think I have found my spot though and I will be going out tomorrow as well. Nice. Money. Of course, I'm pretty pessamistice about that. Am I really going to get paid? And when? The big contraversy of the moment has been a paint job in the office. "Applecider toddy" is on the label or "mustard" to others or "baby diaper brown" from the critic, Joe. It's too bad since it's his office. There are also a bunch of untrained, misbehaved dogs around here. One just peed on Noam's bed. It's midnight by the way. High drama. That's what is here. It has inspired me to take a lot of long walks. I missed out today though because it was raining. Anyways, that's it. I'm off to bed. I want to be some place normal! Imagine that.
Love,
Rachael
Emily, welcome to the list, see what you're in for now?
Nina, I haven't actually put you on my group list, I'm just showing you what I write and it's an update. If you'd like I can add you and you'll get long e-mails like this from me as I travel.
September 5, 2003 - now what?
Good morning!! I am so glad to be around electricity and hot water, old friends, internet, land, clean smells. My hair is still curly when it's properly washed. I begin to wonder sometimes. I did wash up and wash my hair on the boat. I did some clothes as well but everything still had that sea water feel to it. The thing with fishing is that you don't really know that you're getting a day off until it's over. So how do you think the "letter" worked out? I hope it wasn't too strange. It really helped me with organized thoughts late last night. Whenever I was lost I just copied. Anyways! I'll just continue on from the date that I wrote that. It would have been Thursday or Wednesday or something.
After I sat and wrote on the boat, Aug 20, we took a long drive and pulled up next to the Kelly Girl sometime that evening. I got to hang out with Abby again. Another boat came and tied up. It was a big social. I was so excited and so happy to see other people that I just kept running around from conversation to conversation. It sounded like Bob was giving up on fishing. I wasn't too upset about the idea instead I was thinking about a chance to find a job on another boat. I could still make money. Well, Steve and Jenny talked him out of it. This is Mark's little brother. Mark is my first skipper ever.
Thursday we all regretted that Bob had changed his mind about fishing. He was all grouchy about it and took it out on us. I mean the whole fishing experiance plummeted, sank, nose dived, any sort of word that defines shooting straight down from a high spot. First we were woken up at 7:30 to wait in an hour long line. No reason, except to listen to complaints about how nothing gets done and how lazy the crew was. I realized how small the boat was. I was exhiled from my bed, all I wanted to do was sleep. There was just no where to go. If I was seen I was summoned for a lecture. I seriously sat back and watched him go and pick on each individual crew member. Then he came over to me and gave me a lecture and a lesson on how to mend net. He didn't ask me to show him what I have learned, he didn't even let me show him. I didn't mend for him any more. Pay someone else to do it. !
For all of Thursday it was very difficult, we stayed in those lines all day, sometimes waiting almost 2 hrs but we all felt like we were supposed to stay busy. You tell me what there is to do on a boat for 3 people. Dishes, food, some deck scrubbing. Noam and I baked a little. It was just aggravating. A relaxing, beautiful day fishing, easy sets, slow but none of that was allowed. He'd come down in the cabin and wake us up if we were sleeping. Didn't tell us to do anything except to sleep at night. He also decided that I wasn't qualified enough to release the skiff (you give a sharp jerk on a rope, sometimes it's stubborn).
Friday was actually worse. Another bad day for fish, Bob was changing the net every other set, we still weren't up to his expectations but there wasn't more work to do or to do better. Instead we ignored his thickly layed hints. It was never, "Do this, do that," it was "you two lay around and do nothing," Duh. But we all made it through the day and then had to deliver a measly amount of fish with an equal amount of jellyfish. We had jellyfish up to our fore arms when we were pitching. Your back of your hands just burn. We still survived that. We weren't joking and laughing but we weren't complaining. Now, before this I had assumed that people/bosses sort of lay off when things are going rough, sort of let everyone deal with problems in thier own way. Well, Bob let us deal with things by telling us how to clean the fish hold, minute by minute. A job we had been doing on our own for 2 weeks. It !
turned into him calling Noam lazy, Noam yelling back and Bob slinging buckets of jellyfish everywhere. We were all caught in the cross fire, he even threw the bucket itself. All in front of the tender as well.
I thought Saturday would be a welcome break but it wasn't enough. Instead it was a day to think about the jellyfish on Friday and how close Sunday was. At least I got to go onto the Kelly Girl. I was with a functioning family and crew. People were down right friendly and sweet. They served me up breakfast and never asked why I was there. They already knew, it's like Bob is legendary. Everyone has heard about him except his crew. I mean, chatting to the tender or other skippers, even other crew who are fishing thier first season. Once they hear that I am on the Neptune it's like,"Whoa! Bob? What's that like? I've heard stories." We all went to the beech and looked at the Donna Ann. Dave was there. We beech combed for personal belongings. The boat looked like it had been there for years. The tophouse was upside down beside it and there was nothing left !
of the cabin. I mean nothing, it was just a flat deck. Cabin kindling was strewn up and down the beech. I guess getting off the boat had been a little more hairy than I had realized. Julie hadn't just gotten her feet swept out from under her. She caught herself on the boom and hung from that, lost most of her clothes and got some nasty bruises on her back.
Abby and I went to the lodge that they had gone to. The PHONE!! I was so excited, so happy to call home. That didn't help me feel much better though, I mean, Saturday was rough. Home was just another place that I would rather be than on the Neptune. Dad and Mom did give me some surprising advice though. That it's actually ok to walk away from a job. I felt better with that idea. The lodge people were so nice, offering food and all that. They let the Donna Ann crew stay for free, Dave had been there since they had stumbled in on that early Wed. morning. He had found his skiff and was trying to get it running. Karluk is this little village, I only saw the abandoned part of it really. It's right at the mouth of a river and there is about 3 lodges that charge about $200/day to stay there. Really the lodge was more like a shack with partical board walls and all that. People jus!
t want to fish and the mouth of that river was just popping with silver jumpers.
Sunday and Monday were 2 of the most miserable days I have ever had. Just knowing that fishing was going to go on forever. That it was the beginning of another week, the end of a month. By the way, Friday we got 1800 lbs of fish and the Kelly Girl got 7000. Monday, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I wanted to cry ALL the time. Nothing was funny, I didn't even care what Bob was getting riled about. I just quit talking to him. He thought I wasn't hearing what he said. I had to tell him specifically that I wasn't answering his questions. I reread my e-mail sometimes and it's hard to really understand what was so bad. Nina had the best way of putting it. Bob is a micro manager and a control freak so he never fully explains himself and we never know fully what he wants so he always always has to tell us. It was such a psychiatrical pressure all the time. As long !
as Bob was supervising there was never a routine to anything but he insisted that there was but it was like no matter what I did something was always wrong. We got 7000 lbs on Sunday which made it all worse since it guaranteed that we would be out here even longer. The idea of quitting was the only consolation. I didn't really want to think that I was quitting just because my parents advised it so I didn't quit on Sunday. On Monday we were having another good run of fish so I decided now was my time to quit and at least hope for a half a crew share, some leverage. At least I got to make Bob mad. Instead of quitting we had a long long talk. Everything, jellyfish, end of the net, blah, blah blah. And like I said Bob likes to talk but he likes to listen as well and he really did seem to listen. I came to find out that Bob is totally oblivious to the way that he makes people feel, that it wasn't a personal a!
ttack like I had felt. He apolagized for all wrongs and misunderstandings. I had a complete change in my feelings. I also had a good cry in front of everybody because I was so relieved. I felt like such a retard, such a girl. Crying over a job. I also felt kind of good though, my crew got to see me a way that almost nobody has. I hate hate hate crying in front of people. I suddenly felt like we were this little family. Noam had noticed before that I was definately not ok. He would say little things, try to cheer me up. I've got my quote from him. My kodiak quote: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger and whatever kills you makes your mother stronger." Ha! Tuesday I was exstatic just because I was happy not to be miserable any more. We also caught 12000 lbs of reds. Very awesome. In 3 days we caught more fish than we had in the past 2 weeks.
Wed. Thursday and Friday we really did nothing, certainly no fishing. We traveled and explored beeches. There was sort of a misty rain, Bob says that this is part of the same rain forest that the big California redwoods reside in. Noam and I went exploring, Bob went deer hunting. This forest was just amazing. Everything was covered in 4 inches of green moss, almost neon. Big ol' bumps, stumps, maybe rocks, you didn't really know. There were so many differant kinds of mushrooms everywhere. We didn't walk too far, instead we sprawled out on the ground. It was so spongy, and we just talked about Isreal, maybe the army, maybe travel, I don't remember. Everybody is required to go straight from school into the military in Isreal, guys spend 3 yrs. Can you believe it? Actual fighting too. Or active duty or whatever. Noam said that his unit would do house to house searches in Gaza !
strip. He said that the streets are often booby trapped so they go house to house by giving 2 males each a sledge hammer and forcing them to smash through thier wall to the next house. Noam's part was to guard the women and children while men were questioned. I just can't imagine. It was easy to see Noam as an Isreali soldier though, he got a bit of a beard and all his clothes were shades of olive green, he even has a black stocking cap. When we were out in the woods we all had radios so we were called sometime later to help Bob drag back a deer that he had shot. It worked out that Noam carried the deer and the rest of us, Bob and I, followed. Later I helped butcher by holding a hind leg steady in the drizzling rain. I watched Bob hack at stuff and thought about Aunti Linda telling me about the technique to skinning animals. As I stared at the hide I tried to think if I could remember what she had said. Wou!
ld I be able to? Oh I remember why we quit early on Wed. We had 3 rather large holes by the rib line. I got to help mend that. I heald the rib line. Whatever. I had the rest of Wed. and Thursday to work on the holes but I was completely uninspired.
Bob never told us we were done fishing we just drove some more, it sure seemed like we were heading north. We were taking guesses. Was this a long weekend? Was fishing over? Then Noam and I would practice telling each other that we were going back to Homer. It's so hard to tell a lie and keep a straight face especially when I think of all the lies Noam has gotten me to fall for. He has some small scars along his jaw and on his cheek. He got me to believe they were from ejecting bullet casings, little dork. Well, here I am. Yes, fishing is finally over but it took another 3 days to actually be done. We were all so eager to be far from the Neptune. Instead we sat in the Homer harbor and did a little work every day. Bob was the only one that knew the plan. He'd show up at 10:00, tell us to do something like,"finish cleaning the cabin," and then be gone till 3:00 or 4:00.&nb!
sp; The relief was the evenings. Nina and I have had so much fun together. She is amazing. She has worked for Bob the entire season. Rumor has it that Bob has actually had crew return but it hasn't been confirmed yet. Anyways, the first thing we did Saturday night was to go to the Salty Dawg. I spent $5 and listened to my favorite songs. No Everclear or Eve 6 though. Nina went home early that night and I hung out with a couple, played pool, found a massage therapist. There is an awesome hand massage that I have to learn. I learned this summer that tendonitis is really common for lead stackers, in fact as I thought about the other lead stackers over the last 3 summers it's almost a given that they all had issues with numb or tingly fingers. Abby has her coffee business on the Kelly Girl where she trades espressos for fish. I think I need to become a massage therapist out on the boat and offer the same!
sort of trade. I stayed at the cabin with the couple that I met at the Salty Dawg. How could I refuse my very own bed? On Tuesday I was DONE. We (Nina and I) woke up at 9:00 and Bob was once again gone. We vaguely knew his plans. You would never get a straight answer if you asked him directly so we sort of pieced together certain clues and did it our way. We waxed the cabin which he wasn't pleased with and we dried up the skiff so that we could scrape the growth off of that, he didn't like it that way either. His way would have been to take it out of the water on the trailor but he had taken the truck when he had disappeared. Noam was off in search of a dentist. His cheek was all swollen Nina says it started on Sat.
We followed Bob around once he finally showed up. He was hmming and hawing that we might possibly be done. Noam and I were right on his heels but Nina was calmly helping Bob. I guess you would have to be there. He told me to figure out my own pay. I had to sit down and add up the numbers that I had collected off fish tickets. I bet it took another hour. Since when do skippers have thier crew figure out thier own pay? When I finally gave him the figure he said I was wrong, differant system (than what was originally agreed on), minus some more things, collect more numbers. Just a lot of book work to drag out, then he pulled out the paperwork with our wages already figured out on it and that was it. See, an hour. Just wasted of me doing a totally pointless job. It worked out to a little over 81/2 % which is a pretty decent starting wage for your first year on a boat!
. Actually, I wonder how it works. I believe that skippers pay between 7 and 9% but I don't see how you can get a higher wage after each continueing year. I have my check, I made my goal of $2000. I am set. Today I was figuring out budgets and things, how long I can travel if I split my money up this way. Blah, blah,blah. Noam and I hitch hiked together, left Nina. I felt bad to just run off like that but I was more anxious in getting away. Noam's attitude had even gotten a little more cynical he kept calling our skipper "the old man". Noam went to a hostel and I went to the Roths but we're keeping in touch because we might be traveling together for a bit. He doesn't have to leave till the end of October. Me, I want to leave by mid September. I plan on checking out some ticket prices as soon I finish with this.
Anyways, I came in to find the Roths eating. Mark and Linda are up, Alex is still here, so is Josh, brother of Heather. It was great talking to them and complaining about Bob. I told them what great skippers the two are, Alex and Mark. Alex acted all put out that Bob was able to make me quit and Alex hadn't been able to push me that far. He's threatening annoying tactics next year. I keep telling him I won't be back next year. I'll be hiking. One thing we talked about was being a push over. Alex says I am and I didn't believe him but after having such a great crew on this boat I definately can't see myself being a baby sitter again. And the idea of a yelling match doesn't seem so scary any more. One night Nina really went out on the town with me. Didn't just walk me to the bar. We went and played pool, and out and out swore. I was priding myself all se!
ason how I hadn't sworn aloud since 5th grade. Dave and Joey were terrible, I think the offensiveness lost it's signifigance. Nina throws in swear words all the time. So on Sunday I finally broke down and we carried it on into the rest of clean-up, swearing at each other like dirty fishermen. It was hilarious. I think part of my problem with yelling is, what do you yell if you aren't going to swear? Some people need the tough words in order to know that you mean it. Anyways, If I ever get to go fishing again I plan on making things differant.
Today I washed clothes and helped on the new Roth project. They want to take 2 junked boats, make on good one and go Halibut fishing. Good luck. I helped clean up a bit on one of the boats. I got myself a new pair of sandals, a little big but good quality. I'll be keeping my eye out for better ones. The coolest thing though was a hat. A big rabbit fur one, like the Russians. I really like it. I'll probably be heading to Anchorage on Friday. Josh is flying out. Free ride to Anchorage. I think Noam is going to Anchorage as well. I'm looking forward to getting to Fairbanks. Well, talk to you all later. Sorry about all the grouching, it was one miserable trip, I should have just left it at that. I'll get over it later.
Should I end with a brighter story? My first night back I am sitting in the Salty Dawg with my favorite music in the background, right? And I get to talking to this couple. Mostly the girlfriend because the guy, Joe was playing pool. Well, there was all the "Where're you from," and all that. I say Minnesota and they say how, oh. They just bought a truck over the internet and wouldn't you like to go back home and visit your family for a few days and then take a roadtrip through Canada in a brand new truck, all expenses paid? And I'm like, are you drunk? But I called them on Monday and continuously on Tuesday and that is why on Friday I am going to Anchorage. TO FLY HOME!! And I told Noam that he should go. He is really excited about the road trip across Canada, doesn't care much about meeting all my friends and family, J/K. I'll be dragging him all over. I figure that we got along great for 4 weeks o!
n boat, we can handle 5 days in a car. SO COOL. Of course, I don't like to say it's all in the bag yet because no tickets have been bought, or I haven't heard of any. Still, they assured my that it was a deal on Wednesday. We'll see, so hopefully I'll be seeing some of you soon. I think that I might swing North to Bagley and Bemidji on my way across the border. I am so excited. I have had a terrible time trying to stay focused on writing and e-mail I just think of being home and how I wasn't even thinking about it. Earlier this season I was thinking that it was completely out of the question. Too much money, too much time. Now it's being taken care of. They really don't want me to spend much time in MN. It'll be a long drive back to Alaska. I think it would have been a great surprise. Can you imagine rolling into the driveway in some fancy pick-up after being away for 8 months or whateve!
r. I think it's 257 days that I've been away. I've been keeping track. I'm all excited to bring a foreigner home! Who ever comes to MN? I get to be the tour guide instead of the one that's totally lost for a change. Still, I am still counting it as a maybe, we need plane tickets.
Love,
Rachael
Hey Lesley, can you tell me what happened to Gary Gorecki?
Lofthus' in Fairbanks, I'm thinking of you guys and I still want to come and visit. I'm really wondering. Now that fishing is over it suddenly seems like the time is flying by. Maybe in a couple weeks or so I'll have a better idea.
Grandpa and Lorraine, I have been trying to e-mail you guys and I finally found out from Aunti Linda that the address was wrong. I hope this gets to you! Hope you're feeling well. Take it easy.
Peter, have I been sending these to the right address?
September 3, 2003 - backtrack from kodiak
copied and revised from handwritten letter:
Dear friends and family,
According to my last e-mail my was that I would have been in Kodiak all this time. Did things go as I planned? Nooooo! If you're reading this it probably means that I'm back in Homer but I want to let you know that this original message is being written anchoered up somewhere in Kodiak on a damp writing tablet. The date is/was August 20.
I was originally planning to summerize what I remember most about about 6 weeks away from a computer but I changed my mind last night. There's just too much to talk about and when events are fresh in my mind I'm more interested in retelling them.
So, first. What did I do after my e-mail? We finished putting the boats away. The fishing season had ended. Cleaning and all, that's all that remained and I had a job lined up with the Neptune. When I had fulfilled my crewing part of the bargain for Alex I went with Bob on the Neptune for a bit of a demonstration set. Bob informed me that there was another guy that wanted to go fishing, never had been fishing, but Bob had invited him along so he could at least see what it was all about. He was actually sort of leading the guy on because this guy was under the idea that this was a job interview. But Bob had already hired me and Dave.
I was ready, I loaded my stuff on the Neptune. We did our set. I met this new guy, he was real nice, asked about tips for getting hired on a boat. Then Bob came down and told me that he'd rather take this new guy (this GREEN HORN) with him instead of me. I couldn't rationalize, couldn't fathom. My third season, I've been told that I'm a good worker, easy to get along with. Whywhywhywhywhy! Let's just say that I was horribly bothered. I had just been up all night (literally) e-mailing to you guys. Lack of sleep gets me all emotional in the first place, i.e. everything that goes wrong becomes a personal attack on my ego. Dave asked me for my e-mail address but I didn't take the time to get his. I was just trying to hold out, as in not break down sobbing over a stupid job- well, at least till I would be alone again. Back at the house I only saw Robert, went straight to my room and had a goo!
d ole miserable time. I was able to avoid everyone for just about 3 days. I didn't want to explain 12 times about Bob changing his mind. I sulked, felt sorry myself and spent my days wandering around town. I got to go to Robert and Heather's wedding. I was glad about that. I was done being upset on the morning of day 3. I tried to think of how to find other jobs, how to get a round-the-world ticket. All those sort of mundane details.
I hitchiked, helped with laundry, downloaded my camera photos, mailed letters, painted a ceramic bowl for a wedding present, Salvation Army had another sale, a gallery walk, helped clean the kitchen. These were my activities from Wed. to Fri. Chawn on the other hand, self dubbed "outlaw from okkie", was the moment to moment news in action. On Wed he bought an old 60-something truck for $500, it needed some major work but he drove it anyways, right into the ground. He had some other crew people with him at the time. they were all going to Anchorage. Instead they barely got out of Homer and left the truck beside the road and came back to the house. According to Chawn the truck was off the road, " Well, there's plenty of room for people to drive around it." Thursday it had been impounded. Chawn doesn't like to deal with the police so he went and bought another car for $500. On Friday morning he was in jail fo!
r a DUI and a list of other things. Bail was at $1500, his trial is in October. His money for fishing was already gone when I was handed my check.
On Wed, 8 days after I had been snubbed for the Kodiak job, the Neptune was back in the harbor and asking me to work. It had taken 2 days of rough weather to get to Kodiak and 3 days of catching no fish. In that time Bob had acquired a heap of unpleasantries for his newly hired crew. The guys quit and everyone returned to Homer. I guess some personalities should not be mixed and then confined to a cabin. Bob gave me and apology and once again asked me along. I hate being a second choice, second thought, B rating, whatever. The prospect for making more money nullifies any thoughts of pride. I was just worried he would change his mind again. We had a complete crew by afternoon, left that night, came back to Homer the next day. Bob had changed his mind about the net and we left again on Friday. When I had left the house on Wed. everyone was gone. Crews and Roths went home, back to WI !
and all that but any remainders had gone someplace for the day. Robert and Heather had gone to Anchorage to pick out thier wedding present, a washer and drier. I got to leave them a note:"Robert and Heather, went to Kodiak, be back later." Heh, heh. Kodiak is about an 18 hr drive when the weather is good. We had good weather, big swells at night but nothing any worse than other times I've traveled on the boats. I did a wheel watch, I even got to listen to MUSIC. I was so thrilled, to have a boat with CDs that I like! I blasted th Beatles, watched the waves.
I finally crawled in bed and tucked my camera up in a corner above my head. Mark has a story of crossing Kachemak Bay and having a wave crash through the cabin windows. I'm always paranoid about that now. Especially when traveling and watching water splash on over the bow. My camera is my one thing that won't tolerate water and it's a treasured (and expensive) loan from my parents. So, I tucked it in the safest place I could think of, rolled over in my sleeping bag and then guess what happened. A wave busted through the cabin windows.
Well, I was up again. Sleeping bag wet, mattress a sponge. My clothes were only wet on one side. The great advantage about being in the bottom bunk is that in my experiance/other people's stories water usually comes from above. Leaks or waves. Noam was in the top bunk above me, sitting in bed looking like he'd gone swimming but hadn't realized it yet. Bob swore, Nina spit out salt water, the dog shook himself off. This was actually the second time the dog, Toby, had gotten wet. He had gotten clotheslined by the skiff line and went in the water earlier on the trip.
Everyone sort of stood around for a bit, I guess it was the polite thing to do. We anchored up for the night, changed clothes. I had brought along my tarp in case I decided to sleep outside. I wrapped up in that, layed my damp sleeping bag over that and slept on the sponge mattress. I felt so clever, like a girlscout.
On Sat. we made an unscheduled stop in Kodiak- the town, to wash and dry clothes and fix the windows, etc. Here Abby comes walking into the laundromat! You remember Abby? The skiff girl from Kodiak that I was hoping to fish with at the end of our Kachemak season? The problem with getting a job on a Kodiak boat is trying to get into contact with one. Well, we got to hang out for maybe an hour, catch up on news. It was great to see her.
As for fishing though, I wasn't thrilled about that. It looked like we were getting nice sets till I realized that the fish were mostly pinks, worth 1/10 the price of reds. I'm hoping to make $2000- at LEAST $2000 in Kodiak but we weren't quite making the daily quota if I was to be there for 5 weeks. I just didn't want to be fishing. When I look back at the daily notes in my journal the days have very short comments about who was mad at who and then a bunch of numbers and info about money. How much did we average a day in Kachemak? What is that per hour? etc. Here, my entry for Mon. Aug 11: It's only Monday! Blah. Noam gets riled by Bob. Bob tones down. Starting to get a good groove going. No disasters.
By the end of our first week of fishing we finally had some Kodiak weather. I was also very annoyed (putting it extremely mildly) with Bob's method of skippering. The weather was fun, a challenge. Noam and I were such a team. Toby fell in again. Then I fell in on the following set. I've been waiting to fall in. Everyone has to sometime, it's like a requirement of fishing. Usually though someone falls in for a very stupid mistake. I can at least blame it on the weather. Actually I was REALLY mad at Bob. He's a teacher, he's been teaching me the same thing every day, every set since I started and it was already stuff that I know. Unfortunately I don't know it his way which he has decided is the only way but it gets revised about every other set and works best when everything falls into place. I'm talking about 4 lines falling from a height of 8 ft. This day he was adding that I need to pul!
l more webbing. Yes, the corkstacker's job, yes, the wind was blowing the webbing off the boat as the net came over the block, yes, it blows in the lead stacker's face. Do I know which way the wind is coming from? If I could keep the webbing from blowing directly in my face I could try that nifty little trick of licking my index finger and sticking it up in the air. Oh, and I needed to pull hard on the corks which I can't do at the same time as I chase after the webbing. During a pause in stacking the net I had to go and pull corks out of the water, a Kodiak thing I think. I stomped on across the deck and swooped down for my corks. A bit of those wild unihibited movements when one is royally P.O.ed. Instead of grabbing corks I grabbed the rail on the way in. Who would have thought that amidst all the rolling and pitching the sea and our boat were doing together, a wave might come along and finish my swoop into a dive!
? It was really just a dip in the water, I didn't even go under. I wasn't mad any more, though. I just felt fat and very wussy as my cloathes soaked in water and I failed to lift my leg high enough to pull myself back on deck. I couldn't even lift my knee high enough so that Noam could pull my leg up on deck.
The rest of the time has been boring old fishing. Stuff goes on but nothing worth writing about. I will tell you though, my plan for Bob was to make him regret even more for hiring Dave and Steve over me. My plan for this was to be the best worker he has ever had. I've sort of given up on that idea and redirected it to appearing like I am as good of a worker as the rest of the crew. This is the best, hardest working crew I've worked with. Everyone pitches in and does stuff. None of this," Who's turn is it now?" I feel like a slacker, stuff gets done even though I'm not doing it. I'm officially avoiding the cooking. Noam is an awesome cook. I mean awesome. There's lentil soup on the stove right now. All our dishes seem to have an ethnic flare to them, probably because he's from Isreal. It's strange though, I've been missing the Roths. I mean, the way they run a boat. What do y!
ou call it? They don't care how you do a job as long as it comes to the conclussion that they are looking for. Bob isn't like that. Example: yesterday Bob told me that a way that I was stacking the net was "stupid-ass" and to "quit right now". It was the way I stacked on the Star Destroyer all season long. It wasn't about how I laid the net down but where I stood. A stack is a stack, I was making the exact same kind of pile. It worked. There might have been some factors that wouldn't let it work as well in Kodiak but I don't know them because I wasn't allowed to figure it out for myself. Writing might not be the time to get into all this right now but I'll tell you that I seriously have screamed at Bob. It all comes down to the end of the net , the end of the set. The hook is done, fish are on board, the net is back on deck. Everything is over and those 4 ropes are falling down from the!
block. No matter how he explains it that he wants something done he changes the next set and yells at me for not doing it some other differant way. He doesn't yell, he lectures. First I listened, then I explained carefully why each set would come out differant. Then I tried to make it look like I was doing what he wanted me to do and then I fixed it when he got distracted with something else. See, when I made it look like how he wanted it, the job was actually unfinished. I just momentarily skipped things that he hadn't given me time to do. He can't actually see what's going on. He caught on to this method oneday. So then I went to playing stupid, just stopped doing anything. "Where do you think this goes, Rachael,?!" Shrug. Bob can stack his own net if he's going to treat it like rocket science. By the time I would be sorting out the tangle of lines he would be on the stack, taking stuff out of my!
hands, re-looping everything around and then I would watch him try to figure it all out. Finally I just screamed, you have to, he's so hard of hearing.
Noam was the first to yell at Bob though. First week, second day. Take a guy who has english as a second language and has never been fishing. Then have a guy give vague commands, lengthy explainations with fishing terms and skipper slang, and is half deaf. Make them work together. It was a bunch of, "WHOT!!" "WHAT?!" Yesterday the yelling circle was complete. Nina, the skiff girl did her shouting as well. Since then things might have possibly changed. I apolagized and explained to Bob that I didn't want things explained. I feel like a third grader. "Do you know how to untie a bowline? Let me show you just to make sure," (Insert your own third grade teacher voice here). I'm thinking that I'll be trying to talk to Bob about the end of the net thing again. He likes to talk, long lengthy discussions. Doubly tiring. First I had to get through the set and then!
I had to go back and review with him all the whys and how comes.
So, up till now all this has been written in one sitting. So far it doesn't look like we'll be fishing. I can see at least 2 other boats anchored up and we still get pretty big swells even though we're sheltered. Yesterday was more of an eventful day. We did a set or 2, not much. Bob got in contact with another fishing buddy who was having better luck so we drove 2 hrs south. Along the way we crew made a salmon casserole. We have a Bisquick recipe book and Bisquick itself. It's like fishing boat luxury. We've had caramel rolls, muffins, biscuits, etc. I've been baking to make up for leaving all the cooking to Noam.
I think we did 2 sets at this new area. Bad. The net got tangled, the wind was bad, and we didn't get much fish so we ended for the day. We've had a lot of early days. We're often delivering at 7:30. There's been mornings that we don't fish till 9:00. Bob is rather old I suppose but I think it's more that fishing is old. Can you imagine 3 months?
Well, the tender was getting rolled around by the swells so he moved to another bay. Soon there was a line of boats waiting to meet the tender. I don't know when we finally delivered. 11:00? Toby fell in again sometime yesterday. It was windy, rainy, late and miserable. Bob couldn't see the land much. Boats were having trouble finding shelter. The boats ended up in the same area. Then there was a bunch of driving around trying to find a spot that the anchor would dig in. I basically shared the misery of it with Nina. She knows all about dropping anchor. I heald the flashlight and agreed with her about how miserable this all was. A stupid anchor, some stupid ground, what's so difficult? Just to answer how difficult it could be the anchor went and tangled up on itself. How does that happen? Three times we had to put it out. We were finally done at 1:00 am. At 2!
:00 I was startled by the radio, "Quest, are you there? I'm on the beech!" It was the Donna Ann calling her kids. In that moment I got to learn why it's so important to make sure your anchor doesn't drag. I layed there and listened to the boats talk to each other. They tried to reach the Donna Ann with a skiff but then I heard Dave talking about the anchor being tangled. How could we help? This is Bob's fishing buddy, the one that we had followed down to this firshing area. I finally decided that maybe Bob should be the one to decide wether there was anything we could do. Dave said to call for help, his sons couldn't help. I got up just to double check. From the cabin door I could look out to the beech, 50 yds? There were 2 boats churning about, thier deck lights illuminating a very angled Donna Ann. She was laying parallel with the beech, leaning into the surf as it crashed onto the beech and!
when the waves crashed the entire deck was completely covered, only the tophouse roof would break through the waves. I woke Bob up, he hadn't heard a thing and there was nothing to do but gawk. The Quest went around the corner of the bay and called the coast gaurd. We listened to that and to the VHS. The crew got off onto the beech. I didn't see that. I guess Dave's daughter and skiff girl nearly got washed off the side and the crew basically had to swim to shore. They had nothing, no radio, no rain gear, no boots. Between the time it too to wake the sons up and then to give up and call the coast guard was maybe 15 min. What do you do on a beech in wet long johns? What can you do when your on a boat and there's a mad surf between you and 4 shipwrecked crew in wet long johns? The crew started walking. I guess there is actually a village relatively close by but they needed!
a low tide in order to get around the cliffs that stuck out into the water.
The coast guard asked about the boat, the situation, weather, colors, crew, available contact and they said they'd send a helicopter. The weather wasn't being very cooperative though. Everything, everyone was on standby, 5 boats had anchored up in this cove or whatever it might be called. I was trying to imagine being the crew on the beech. A little wave through the window, a little dip in the water and putting out the anchor a couple hours ago. Combine those experiances, multiply them a bit and then have them last all night. I suddenly felt very cozy. The spooky thing that I realized though was that I had been looking at possibly getting a job on this boat. The Donna Ann was the boat that Bob had recommended that I would find work on when he had chosen Steve over me. I had gotten in contact with Dave's wife. They're friends of the Roths. She was at the wedding. Dave had offered 7% but to!
ld me a flight to Kodiak was $300 and he wouldn't need me till Aug. 16. The Donna Ann had been my last choice. I had planned on finding a ride to Kodiak, finding the Kelly Girl, Abbey's boat, and talking to them. From there I would have found out that the Kelly Girl didn't need a crew and then I would have gone to the Donna Ann. The Donna Ann actually dropped off thier crew member on Saturday. That's when I could have started and that would make it yesterday- Tuesday, Aug. 19, that I would have been hanging off the rail with Julie. It's a small world.
Instead I'm sitting here at a table on the Neptune. Not sure what's going on. All I know is that Bob was too wound up to sleep after everything and that means that he's too tired to do anything today! Which means that we aren't fishing and I'm here writing everything I can! Woo-hoo, no fishing! Not the best attitude to have when you're hoping to make money. At 3:45 we heard Dave's voice for the first time since he had bailed to the beech. They had all made it too some guy's cabin or a lodge. Everyone was fine and his son could relay the message to the coast guard. After that there were a few more relays as the coast guard tried to get in contact with the Donna Ann crew, reports, police, Village Safety Coordinator, something. I was just glad that I could rest easy and not feel totally guilty about being cozy. I'm sure they were more relieved than I was. I'm waiting for the chance to hear thier side of!
the story.
This morning the Quest went and looked at the Donna Ann and reported back to his dad. The top house is upsidedown on the beech, the net is all tangled in the water and the skiff is nowhere to be seen. Minus tides are coming next week so until then the boat won't be dry. It's still in the waves. After last night I was making mental notes for my "grab this" bag in case I ever have to go through the same drill. My camera is already in a zip-lock bag. I might put it in one of those industrial sized plastic jars as well.
According to my meticulous calculations I think we're averaging about $90. I think I've made about $800 so far. Thoughts of money keep me going. Toby crawled in bed with me last night. I think today I'll wash my hair. It's been 2 weeks. (end)
Update: I'm back!!! Not only that but I have my check in hand and I am totally done on the Neptune. I wanted to say hihihi and rant and rave and go on but it's too late, there's more to say and some unfinished things as well. I haven't even taken the time to read my snail mail. Thankyou Charity, Bethany! Oh, I did read some of Charity's she says she has updated my website. More pictures and things to look at. Cool. I want to see that too.
www.roadsparrow.com . So, tomorrow I hope to be sending off another e-mail and gathering some of my thoughts. It's so nice to have contact again!
Love,
Rachael
Bud, this is my general e-mail group. I haven't actually added you to the list but I can do that if you really want. I just don't want to waste your e-mail space or something.
Charity, all your dress talk reminds me, did I tell you that I absolutely love one of the dress designs on your website? I have a feeling that I already said it but I think it's page 9. It was capped sleeves, just below the knees and these kneehigh boots with it. Like moccasins or something. So cool. Can't say enough about it. I would travel in that.
July 29, 2003 - kodiak
Hey all, told you I would be in Port Dick for a while and all that. Well, fishing has a way of making it's own plans. We went first to Windy Bay which is like 2 hrs from Port Dick. By the way it is once again a very late night. I am having a terrible time already using the keyboard. So far I am correcting my errors but please bear with me if I begin to ignore a few.
So, Port Dick. The ride there was so much fun. An experiance in itself. It is a tradition to leave in terrible weather. We fished reds, gave up, got the plans from the cannery, did some grocery shopping and as we did the wind was already picking up. By the time we left the harbor the waves were crazy. We have crossed Kachemak Bay at least twice a week all season and at when we finally went on our long trip Kachamak Bay was a torent. Awesome. It took us about 2 hrs to cross the normal 45 min. trip. Right away we lost our skiff too. The skiff line snapped and the nifty safety line was inexperiancely tied. It sort of negated it's purpose. Ha. It took a bit to get it back, bobbing around and all that. Then the same person that had tied the safety line also had to tie the new skiff line to get the skiff back to the boat. That took a while to watch him try to figure out the bowline knot.!
Once we got to some shore we had a nice wind break. It was neat to have the 3 boats together, they were all talking each other through it. The Lindy lost a plunger pole which we also went and retrieved. The boats drove to Saldovia and we harbored there for the night. The Little Star missed out on all the excitement. He has spent the season without reverse and didn't feel like taking his boat that long distance. His rebuilt transmission was supposed to be arriving in a couple days.
It was a lot of waves and a lot of sleeping. As soon as we arrived at Windy Bay we began fishing. Blah. It was rainy and cold and still a little breezy. There were times when we were traveling when I had to go to the bathroom but Alex wouldn't let me go out on deck. Try not to think about water when you're rocking around on a boat. Slosh, slosh. Everything in the cabin was tied down, put away. We had a nice little string rigged up for the coffee maker. Anyways, Windy Bay is a bunch of rocks. No luck, and all the fish were inside the markers. See they have markers near the streams that the fish are heading up to at least get them a fighting chance to get up them and spawn. The cannery was impatient for the fish, it was still a bit early to be fishing for them. We even checked out Port Dick. I forgot about Tuesday this week so I found out on Thursday that it was really Friday. That's !
nice to have the weekend jump up on you like that. Friday is when we found all the rocks, over and over. We never brought in a set. Quite annoying and the weather was gloomy to match. Alex did some driving around though so I took the time to do some fast watercolors. It's interesting painting scenerey as it keeps moving and the light rain sort of added to the misty qualitiy of the pictures. I am quite pleased with some, as abstract as they are.
The Lindy's water pump went out so he couldn't fish. On Saturday they moved the markers up, opened up the area so it was legal to fish Saturday and then wanted us to go fill a tender (200,000 lbs). So Mike, the Lindy skipper is the only skippper that isn't a Sabbath keeper so his crew took the Poseidon out. Under Mark's supervision. The Poseidon found the rocks that we found on Friday, had no better luck but they had a full day of no luck while we lounged, read, played cards ( I won in hearts, shot the moon twice, it's so fun playing with beginners), went to the beech and collected salmon berries. Going to the beech was fun. A nice reminder of the way things were last year. I showed the people my bathing hole. It's at the base of a waterfall, actually it's the second pool of a waterfall. It's a climb to get too, deep and frigid. You could never get a more invigorating bath. Skipped it this year. !
; In fact I never jumped in the water once. There was a guy that had started the tradition a year before I came fishing and it was my duty to carry it on. Jump in the water every Friday. For the first couple weeks it never worked out. Alex was a poop and wouldn't stop on the way in to town for me to take my moment. After that though I began to think, what's the point? I've done it, I can handle it, it's someone else's idea, he's not here. Why bother? At the beech though, we found tons of berries and and very well worn bear trail complete with bear skat. The Poseidon even saw a bear swimming in the water somewhere. Cool. The guys were testing thier testosterone on a fallen log that was over the raging creek that led to the waterfall. Psychos. Paul and Sherri took off in the skiff and we ended up sitting on the beech for hours it seemed. It was me, Joey and Mike. Crewman Mike, he's the on!
e that fished in Kodiak the first 2 weeks so that Abby could fish near home and visit family on the weekends. Anyways, we amused ourselves with rock skipping. You would never run out of rocks to skip on that beech. Mike got us in to trying to skip the biggest rock. It's slate all over the beech so we were skipping rocks the size of frisbees. Then the two got into plain old rock throwing contests. Every once in awhile I would chuck one. It was so humiliating though. I throw like a girl. Mike says I can skip rocks farther than I throw. He's right. People went fishing for halibut later as well. Mike, Sherri and Paul. That was after we finally got picked up. When Paul came to get us the tide was going out, the skiff doesn't have an outdrive that can tilt up and so we ended up wading out up to our knees. I took off my boots, Mike didn't. There, I was in the water. Halibut fishing didn'!
t bring much. Mike and Paul fished for hours, gave up gave Sherri the line and she caught a 20 pounder in about 5 min. You go girl.
Around noon Skipper Mike's water pump arrived. They had it flown in on a float plane. So cool, it landed about 100 yrds from the boat, Joey and Dave jumped in a skiff and drove off in the opposite direction. Didn't return for a couple hours. Alex went and got the part, put it in the Lindy in a couple minutes. The Lindy crew (on the Poseidon) returned and the end of the day in a rotten mood. They had caught maybe 20,000 of the 200,000 lbs. Tim is the boss guy at the cannery, the one that buys the fish and sends out the tenders to the fish areas to collect the catches. He called the tenders out. Season over. Just like that. We all regrouped, the Lindy crew talked about thier bad day, we went to bed and headed home at 6:00 Sunday morning. Just like that. We weren't even there long enough to have nice weather. I was sleeping when our boat broke down so I don't know how long we were into our !
trip but it wasn't very long, couple hours? Anyways, the Poseidon had to tow us all the way back. Something about a berring and the drive shaft. Vibrations, the prop spinning when it's not supposed to. I don't know. Alex woke me up to watch. I basically had to sit in the captain's chair, watch the skiffs, watch the Poseidon. I did that for hours. I was still bleary so it was easy to daze off and not need entertainment. Joey watched for an hour then went back to bed. We had a nasty hole from Windy Bay to fix. I worked on it a bit but I was right in the wind. Gave up. We did see some whales though. I think there was 2 of them and they were playing around, jumping out of the water. So awesome. Humpbacks. Every year they say, "Oh, you see whales out here all the time," And this is the first year I've seen whales. The other years I saw them blowing f!
rom a long way away. I'm going to have to stock Joey for copies of those pictures.
We got into Homer on good time, I think we made better time than when we left. Robert was just getting ready to put in his transmission so he let me "help" on that. I tightened bolts. It was still fun, getting dirty, pretending I was a mechaninc. Mechanics just seem so cool. To take a bunch of heavy metal things and bolt stuff and to know you are working on something so powerful. That it moves and makes noise when you're done and it's because you did something right. I've got to learn it. At least I can identify some parts. After that I went and worked on the hole. We broke the rib line, it's as long as the net. The hole took a bit of everything. Rock webbing, hangings, lacing, and webbing. It was midnight by the time Robert got the bugs worked out of the transmission and we went back to the house. Oh, look, I forgot to mention a very important thing. As soon as we arrived in the h!
arbor Alex disappeared to solve his mechanical problem and we packed up and cleaned up the boat. As I was doind this Bob dropped in. I feel like such a fishing veteran. I getting to know people that I see every season. Last season Alex hired Bob as a skiffman for a day when we were trying to 3-man it on the Death Star. Bob fishes the Neptune down in Kodiak and Robert worked for him for a season once. The Star Destroyer was formerly Bob's boat, the Jenna. So Bob drops in for a chat and then asks if there is anyone intersted in fishing Kodiak for the next 6 weeks. Hmmm. . . Hmmmmmmm. Dave jumped on it. I talked to him, tried to think. I blew my first chance this season because I was trying to think fast. I just have to learn to accept my way of thinking. It's just the way it works for me. I went and talked to Robert. He had good advice last time. I figured he would be able to finish!
talking me into it. See, the thing was that I had agreed to fish with Robert for silvers in Kachemak but he assured me he didn't mind if I changed my mind and I would make more money. I would also make more money than fishing on the Kelly Girl, the boat that I was planning on begging for a job. Hey, here was Bob offering me a job and right after our season was ending. 6 weeks. It sounded like Steve was thinking of going as well. He was all psyched for it. He's good with figuring his pay. So hearing him talk about $2000 and all that made me keep thinking as well. Steve needed the go-ahead from his girlfriend though and that was what was holding me back. I had a good while to think about it on the docks there. The Neptune was right there. There's another female crew member! She's the skiffman. I know Bob, he's really nice. By the time Alex had returned I had talked to Bob and had decided!
to go. He's even ok with me not fishing Saturdays. He's been 3-manning it all season so one day a week shouldn't hurt him. That or he says that there are other boats that are Sabbath keepers and he might just trade a crew member on Saturdays. I am psyched. I've been trying to estimate my traveling expenses and my earnings. Hoping that they will meet up. Honestly though, it's real close. Not too close, though. I haven't given up on Asia and Africa. Now everything is touch and go. We did our last official set today. Took some more pinks out of the lagoon for cost recovery. More money. Tomorrow it sounds like money will be divvied out and checks will be signed. Money in the bank! I'm pretty sure I drained out my account today.
I'm back to unfamiliar territory though. I have no idea when we are leaving for Kodiak or what it will be like. All I know is that we basically never go into town and fishing is 7 days a week. It's neat that Dave will be with. I asked him today if he'll be able to stand me for 6 more weeks. I think we get along pretty decent for being cooped up on a boat 24/7. I doubt I'll be sending e-mail again for awhile. Robert and Heather are getting married Sunday. I would really like to be at thier wedding. Tomorrow a group of people are going hiking and camping and then halibut fishing. I'm not counting on going but maybe by some crazy chance I'll get to. We'll see I guess. I also heard rumors that Bob was planning on leaving tomorrow. I would at least like to hold my check in my hand before I go. And then mail it. I guess it's just one day to the next. Tomorrow I hope to be up early and to!
go and get an Alaska driver's license. I missed out last night on the drunken crew bash. Last year I was hanging out with everyone every chance I got but this year I've sort of holed myself up. I haven't even been to the bar. I don't really miss it either. I don't get it. I guess it's the money thing. I'm in my stingy mode. No beer money. By the way, I keep forgetting to give you guys a snail mail address! I would really love to hear from people. It's kind of tough though without an address. Here:
Rachael Sorenson
c/o Heather Roth
PO BOX 1189
Homer, AK 99603
Of course, now I'm leaving but I plan on coming back after Kodiak. I still want to go up to Fairbanks and visit my relatives. Hi, you guys! One cool thing about Kodiak is that you can get mail out on the water! I think that would be so cool. I'll try to get that address before I go. Basically it gets sent to the cannery, you address it to the boat and they send it out to on the tender that the boat will be delivering to. These boats are fully equipped, I think. Washer and dryer, shower, real cooking stove. I haven't looked at the Neptune. I did a little last year. So, that's that. Money to be made, new experiances to gain. This is the real fishing. Bigger boat, rougher weather. We'll see, we'll see. More pictures! I'll be stocking up on stamps for those of you that wish to write. Sigh, e-mail is my only link to family and friends!
. I've been away long enough, new travel plans are beginning to form, it's these in between times that I think what if. I could be going home right now. Home. I'm calling Alaska my home though, it's cheaper. No time to get all mushy. I'll talk to you when I get the chance.
Love,
Rachael
July 12, 2003 - what's up with that?
Well, I got a bunch of e-mails telling me that they got nothing. Great. I looked for copies of my e-mail from last week but I don't have any. That's sort of ok because I didn't say a whole lot. Well, actually I did. I think I rambled. It was pretty late and my thoughts were real hazy so I would just sort of type till it made sense, as it got later I quit caring. I think it got real choppy. There was a couple mucked up sets last week to talk about but the important thing or the highlight or whatever- what shook me up the most- was while we were backhauling a set. This is when I am doing my described job, cork stacking. The net is pulled out of the water by a block or a "wheel" to you land people. Actually, that makes no sense does it. Two totally differant shapes to describe the same object. Well, it hangs in the air from a boom and the net comes over the block and is lowered onto t!
he deck. I stack so the corks all go off the deck in an orderly fashion or in a mess that can at least work itself out. That is not the point of my story, instead it's Alex behind me, he runs the hydrolics which runs the block and there are other parts of the net being pulled on and closed up, he also yells at the skiff man and scares the fish so they don't swim under the boat and out of the net. Yes, very multi-tasking. So Alex just pops out, "and by the way, quit writing s(tuff) about me in your mass e-mails." Oops! That was my first thought and then it was, NATALIE! And then I tried to remember everything I had ever said about Alex. Really, what did I say? I know, I wasn't nice but was I that mean? Busted. What can you expect. I thought exes didn't talk to each other, should have known better. I do hope you can make it up here, Natalie. It really would be!
great to see you again. Let this be a lesson to all you boys and girls, whatever goes around comes around. If you have anything to say about someone you might as well say it to thier face because they'll hear about it eventually. So, I would just like to say that Alex is the greatest skipper, a great fisherman, he's patient, hardworking, has a great taste in clothes, he's really smart, innovative, deals fair, a good teacher, he has a cool walk, sings great, stands up for himself and doesn't let tough going get him down. I've decided that Alex might as well read what I have to say about this whole fishing season himself so I added him to my e-mail list. Hi Alex! Oh, and I am so grateful that he buys raisins even though he doesn't like them. It makes my whole week a little nicer.
Alright, yes I still think it's ackward talking about someone and then having them read about themselves but I guess they can get over it or they could just choose not to bother reading an e-mail that they already know what it's about. After my lengthy e-mail last week I decided I would only wirte every other week otherwise it just gets boring. Fishing is fishing but then we had this week, an opener, so I thought I better sit down and spill the beans, that and last weeks e-mail no longer exists so it doesn't even count!
So this week basically started out with fishing is fishing. It was a great time though, made some money and then on Tuesday they opened Chinapoot. These are red salmon we were fishing. worth about 60 cents a pound. The fish return to the same place like migrating ducks do. But these are planted runs. People raise the young fish and then dump them in a lagoon that goes out to sea. It's like a mean trick when the salmon return because they are looking for a stream to swim up but thier instincts only take them to the lagoon where they were released. The people, Fish and Game, or whoever they are, have the say-so of the lagoon so no one is allowed to fish there. I'm not sure what they call Chinapoot, maybe it's just a bay. Anyways, Fish and Game get the amount of fish they need in order to make thier profit and then they pick an opening day and from there all the boats can go in and fish !
in this closed area, where all the fish congregate. Other wise the boats can only catch the fish that are common property and that is any fish going to or from it's final destination. We intercept. Hey, there is a boat called the Interceptor. Openers are a little crazy, it's about 10 boats fishing in a pond that's about as deep as a swimming pool. Somewhere are the fish, they get buzzed around with all the motors and at the allowed time everyone makes a set all at once then there are boats and skiffs zooming around dragging quarter mile nets with them as well, all in a place the size of a pond. It was between the Star Destroyer and the Lindy. We were the only 2 boats of the 4 boat co-op that could be there. Mike and Alex worked out their strategy and then we started vyeing for position. There's another family of fishermen, the Cabanas. They are pretty infamous, they have been fishing Cook inlet the longest and so th!
e rumor goes that they assume that the fish are rightfully thiers. You're invading thier turf. So Alex went in the middle of all of them. All 3. Three Jitneys against the Star Destroyer. Jitney's are like the sporty version of a fishing boat. They have the bare essentials, no cabin, big engines so they can move faster and go in shallower water but other than that not much wieght to throw around. Me, I don't like openers, it's rude and mean, everyone against everyone but after it was all done we were the talk of the night. The Lindy crew was the first, raving about Alex's fighting skills and living up to the boat's name. The guys on the tender were laughing at the entertainment we had provided them with and they were talking back and forth to other boats that had watched it all go down. Yes, we were awesome. Little jitneys tried to ram us, push us out of the way, cut us off, run us up on the beech, and Ale!
x never flinched. It's great to look back on. He just drove with this slight little smirk on his face and just grinded the Cabanas right out of his way. The Lindy crew watched the Cabanas start it. It's fun to be the big boat, that enginge sounded so mean when it got revved up. Our set was about 5 fish and a nice sized king but the distraction allowed the Lindy to quietly go off and make a good sized set. At the same moment that Mike headed to the fish his reverse went out and he had no choice but to plow into another guy. Oops. That night while Mike worked on his transmission the crews were going on about The Opener. We even have battle scars, the boat does. That same day the Little Star had a little cabin fire which Chawn the Oklahoma guy put out. Hero for the day. And the Poseidon caught a 30 ft tree in thier net which in turn ripped a 40 ft hole or so.
Tuesday after the opener we looked around a bit for reds, there wasn't any so we went into Tutka Bay to help with pinks. Last week it turned out that they needed boats for the cost recovery. Remember that I was telling you about Fish and Game and all that. Well, there is pink salmon as well, they do the same thing with them, planting runs and all. They come in bigger numbers but are worth less. The way that Fish and Game get thier fish and thier money is that they take bids from other boats. Boats bid to fish for a lower price than what the cannery pays per pound and the lowest is the guy that gets the job. This year the Cabanas won the bid, realized they wouldn't make any money and bakced out of the deal. It's easy fishing though, you fish where no other boats are allowed, no competition, you just have to hope that they have enough fish returning for the hatchery to make thier money. I think we are getting!
around 1 1/2 cents a pound or sometimes 2 cents. Some places take more time and effort so the price of fish is more. Two cents is not much money but we're supposed to catch 4 million pounds. That adds up. We caught nearly 1 million this week.
The Star Destroyer did one set in Tutka Bay and then as we were backhauling the net Alex started swearing slowly, something about a hole. I didn't notice it at first because it was a complete slit going the long way, all along the lead line. So the thing to do is to leave that part of the net out of the pile so that you can get some white string and zip the hole shut before another set is made. So we started stacking off of the net stack, we stacked and stacked and slowly there got to be less and less webbing until I was just stacking a rope with corks on it and Dave was just stacking the rock webbing with the lead line. Rock webbing is stronger, stiffer, bright orange, it scrapes along the bottom. And the hole just went on so we gave up stacking it out separate. In the end we had to go back to Homer. We took Linda off the Poseidon, Alex's Mom and net mender for 24 years or so. We stretched out that hole and got to w!
ork. We worked till 11:30 that night, even had the help of the Lindy crew because thier boat was in the harbor as well, transmission, remember? We finished the hole around 2:00 the next day. It was 195 ft long. Can you believe that? Linda says she has never seen anything like that. To have webbing completely missing for about 40 ft or so. We just replaced it all. Rehung that part of the net. We were back in Tutka late Wednesday afternoon. Not much luck on sets though. The first thing we did on Thursday was rip another hole. We delivered the fish that we still caught despite the hole and then went and anchored up to work with what we had. Alex was well stocked with various string and such since the first hole and we had 15 ft of extra webbing. It was me and him, hours of clove hitches. The other 2 got to sleep, I guess I didn't mind. I was curious about fixing!
this hole and I wanted to make sure to remember how to tie half hitches with a mending needle. The patch was too short. Finally around 6:00 we were out to make another set. Since the hole was close to the end of the net Alex tied it off and made it so that it wouldn't leave the boat and go into the water. Basically, we temporarily shortened the net. We put the net out once, changed our minds, back hauled quick, moved to another bay and set again and pulled up the net again. This time I saw the hole first. I really didn't want to tell Alex. I felt bad already. "There's a hole," I said, I felt like a mouse. "Well, why didn't you pull it out?" said Alex. So I pulled the webbing out that had just fallen onto our pile. Then I pulled the next 10 ft or so. Alex started swearing again, Dave joined in. "It's the battery acid, I tell you," said Dave. Ever since that first hole he had !
been blaming the Cabanas for pouring battery acid on our net. We called it a night. We anchored up and began zipping. The last hole wasn't so bad. Compared to the other 2 but it was still bigger than any of the holes we got last year. I got to bed after midnight and slept till we got in to Homer later the next morning. Alex and his dad decided that he might as well go into town, fix the hole, take our Saturday off and get ready to come out on Sunday. So Linda met us at the dock and we replaced another 80 ft of webbing. Today we also found out that the boats fishing the red salmon averaged 6000 lbs a day this week which is very good for them and sickening for us. So Sunday we will be back out trying for reds again. Woo-hoo!
Today was my mad day. There was the net to hang, rib line to rehang and I did that while my crew members hung out or slept. Nothing wrong with that. They don't know net mending but while they hung out and had breakfast and then made themselves lunch (and none for me) I had all the time in the world to grow a kink in my back and think of all the reasons I could be mad that day. Dave would also take the time to tell me what to do. He does this to everybody and he knows it so I normally don't care but it was a bad day to be nagging me. We all got into the net once we were settled and then it was finished restacked and then they watched me clean the fish hold, my turn they said. Ha. I won't even say it but I was SO mad really, and believe me I had all my reasons all lined up, I told you, I had all day to think about them. I did get slightly in a better mood when they tried to clean out the engine room. See, on!
Tues when we came in to fix the net we started to notice a really bad odor in the cabin. The cabin probably does smell of fish and stale clothes but you get used to it during the week but this smell wouldn't go away and we had to sleep with it there. Finally Joey found a rotting fish in the engine room on Wed. See, sometime last week, I don't remember what day it was but one of the hatch covers to the engine room came off. The hatch covers are in the fishhold on the front wall and we got a good many fish and one had stayed and stunk up our cabin. Well, today the guys said they could still smell it. I hadn't noticed. Well, once they cracked those hatch covers then you noticed. There was some big talk and machoism going on. Who would be albe to handle the fish. Joey got his rain pants on, his rain coat on, his gloves,he talked a lot and asked for something to put over his face. Before you know it Dave is fed up!
with his dawdling and goes to take care of these rotten fish himself. Now that was a funny sight. Have you ever seen someone gag and retch with a tongue piercing? Nothing special really, just a highlight for thier curled up tongue. Yep, gag and retch and hyenna laughed. I thought it was amusing. He couldn't even stay standing straight because he was gagging and spitting so much. Dave is pretty cool though to keep at it even when his stomach wasn't handling it. Still, I say they are a bunch of wusses. He got out maybe two fish, it was hard to tell. After that I went down in the fish hold and rooted out the rest of the fish. I know I got one for sure. Have any of you ever been around week old fish that has slowly cooked in bilge water? It wasn't even solid. It was the consistency of mud or clay and you just scooped it in handfulls. The meat was still pink. I breathed shallow !
and was thankfu once againl for my weak sense of smell. Secret weapon. I don't like to mention it often because I get stuck with the nastiest of jobs otherwise.
The day was finished up with laundry and a shower. This is my second time using olive oil as a hair treatment. I love it! This is the best my hair has looked since I left home. It has also let me realize that the haircut I got in Perth was pointless. It only took off inches, I have no layers. Drats anyhow. I also got to look at the goods that Heather bought in Ancorage it was a strange experiance to see brand new purchased clothes again. All from Old Navy. I guess it got me all nastalgic about back in the day when I would spend my money on clothes to look nice in. Sigh. I think I've been looking at girly magazines too much again. I'm planning when I can go home and work at a job where I can buy nice clothes and dress up all pretty. I've been planning make-up colors to buy and everything. I think one major reason for not wearing make-up is I can't decide what look to have so I just keep i!
t simple by never making the decision. Oh well, this season though is looking good. It could be my best ever. There is talk of possibly extra money for the crew of last year. This happens if the price of fish turns out to be higher than what the cannery originally gave us. It also sounds like I will be able to fish in Kodiak after this season is over. That would be awesome. Abby is fishing her own boat right now. Maybe I could fish for her. I sure hope so. Oops, if this clock is right it's 5:00 am the sun is just coming up. I think that's a sign that I should go to bed. Goodnight.
Love,
Rachael
June 29 - It's Been One Week
Well, just a bit of background here. It's about 1:15 in the morning, Abby, a wonderful skiff girl of 16 is trying to watch the Lord of the Rings, Two Towers and there is a stoned hick from OK that won't shut up. He's funny and he's entertaining the other crew members.
So, we worked on getting the boats in the water. Some painting of boats and things. I exploded an egg in the microwave, never did that before. Alex got his van broadsided. At the summer Solstice we went to the beech and drank beer, met the locals. I don't think the sun set. I have my journal sitting in front of me and the movie is actually nearly over so I am trying to be quick. What's important? What was interesting? I met my crew. I am now surrounded by jocks. These big built buff high schoolers talking about all the cool stuff they have done and all about healthy food. The first day that we fished we all did workouts on deck. It was great. I felt so tough. The other boats laughed at us so we beat them up. No, they just followed and I felt pretty silly doing push-ups with all my rain gear on. Of course the guys just sort of put up with me. They are good ! sports. Joey is the skifman and has had to learn alot. Dave is this big guy, just out of high school and has one short fuse it's kind of neat though because he'll blow up at anything and then be over it just as fast.
I do love fishing, I love that your entire living space and work space is contained in one area. I love the scenery and how you learn not to take luxuries for granted. We've had some bad sets and stuff. Thursday though was the real work day. We did 10 sets and we were catching plenty of fish. I'm back at cooking. Another perk of this year though is another crew member that also likes to cook, the downside to that is that he doesn't think that cleaning up after himself includes doing dishes. I'm beginning to think that he only likes to cook in a kitchen that has just been cleaned as well. I've realised that each year I have not gotten along with the lead stacker. Either it is that lead stackers have the same mentality or that I need to learn to communicate. I think it's that communication thing. I see a problem arising if I don't try to speak up but another problem is th! at short fuse, he's already gone off a couple times when I wasn't even mad or even slightly annoyed. Alex's new boat has a diesel burning stove, that means we have an oven. It won't exactly cook anything quickly but I can warm things up and I baked potatoes. Robert is talking that at the end of this season he wants to try out fishing for the silver run. It ends at the end of August. That would be awesome he even said that I would get a little extra if I went. I have already said yes. Abby is a girl that fishes down in Kodiak. One morning I was woke up around 6:00 by Robert with a cell phone. He was saying that Steve in Kodiak, a captain, was looking for crew members
to switch places for a couple weeks. Abby had family that was coming to visit and wanted to spend time with them. I had half an hour to decide. I thought that for 2 weeks it would be a great way to get a feel for Kodiak but I ! wasn't sure what it would be like to join a crew in mid season. I'd be doing it both ways, once I'd return from Kodiak I would still have to get used to being with Dave and Joey. I basically had a half hour to decide my whole fishing season, then Alex came down and said that he didn't care much for the idea. Great. Well, basically I blew it. I came off sounding unenthusiastic about the whole idea, even scared and so I didn't go. Later, after I woke up some more and talked to Robert I regretted my choice and even tried to change it but Steve was too convinced. Darn, since when were girls not allowed to change thier mind? . But I get to meet Abby now and the way that she talks about Kodiak and stuff it sounds like a lot of fun and it sounds like I could make some decent money even though it will be towards the end of the season. She told me that her and her sister set up a little coffee business on the boat.! They got an espresso machine and so when they are waiting in long lines to fish they announce that they are open and ready for business over the radio and people either call up on the radio an order and the girls will deliver it in thier skiff or the people will come over in their skiff. She didn't tell me the price of the coffee but they accept red salmon as payment as well. Wouldn't that be cool to trade fish for coffee? Abby says they make even more money that way because people often pay with a couple fish or more. At 65 cents a pound and averaging about 6 lbs you get an expensive coffee. It's great to have
another girl around. This entire week has been filled with nothing but the crudest of sick jokes. Ugh. I didn't think it bothered me. People have thier differant kinds of humor but this is just blah and it's already old. I wonder if they will have grown out of it by next week.
So far this season seems more laid back than last year. Preparations were few and easy. I had time to sit around and do my own thing. I only made breakfast a couple times. It's been great. Painting is a drag though. I got to be slightly creative though when I did letters and stuff. I got to paint "Star Destroyer" 3 times.
I spent $4 on some fish clothes, Salvation Army was having a sale! I've been altering some stuff you can't get cheaper than that. My big deal, big responsibility was the grocery shopping! I got to go spend $360 that wasn't even mine. Now that is fun. I was also threatened with losing this privelage. Whatever, I'm doing Alex a favor. But still, planning meals, all the ingrediants. How much will 3 guys eat? And what? Well, now that I know they are all into muscles and protein and all that some things will change, we will have 5 dozen eggs this week instead of 2.
Sunday we were out on the water. Monday was the early start and the beginning of the food experaments. I have learned that potatoes should not be left overnight to bake in our oven, spaghetti noodles really should have water that is boiling, people don't like the chewy sort of noodles, and taco shells get soggy when they sit in water, even if they have never been opened. On Monday we ran out of our water supply (35 gallons). Between you and me I'll tell you that it was my fault because I washed and sanitized every dish that we had before we went out on the water. Luckily we went into town that night. The Roths are trying to catch a bunch of fish to process and then sell back in Wisconsin. They figure that after all the expenses have been paid they can make $2 a pound instead of the 65 cents that is speculated for this year. This invloves more work. Fish need to be bled, handled gently, and kept on ice! and then brought into town in totes and shipped to the processing place. Wednesday morning we found out that Joey had left the skiff running out of the water and it had burnt up the impellar so we got to go to town again. We got about 50 lbs of fish once we finally got back to fishing. The skiff is like a heavy duty motor boat. Have no worries though because we have caught 7500 lbs on the Star Destroyer this week. We are the high boat. So cool. The only thing that I don't like about being high boat is that we are co-oping with 3 other boats and so for the moment it's like we're losing what we
made. I know. I know, it's because that the other boats helped that we got so much fish.
Fishing season is actually very early this year. Last year we started June 27. Alex is also extremely patient this year. I am really surprised. He talks and explains things to the skiff man and hasn't really lost his temper. He's yelled and sworn slightly but there's a differance. I say it's because he took a class on teaching english as a foreign language. He's been away in Russia for almost as long as I have been away from home. Another great luxury of this boat is our bathroom closet or bathroom cubby. It's actually a private place to sit on the 5 gallon bucket. It's so cramped it's hilarious. There's a whole art to getting dressed and undressed in there. Seriously, you can't stand. My technique is that I shove my feet into one corner then brace myself with my head on the opposite wall. The bucket takes up the rest of the floor space. If I feel strong and flexible I lean o! ver backwards, instead of kinked over sideways, and do a little arch, you know, like have you ever tried to put pants on when you were in a car? Hey, I got tosee whales.
So, this week has been about getting a routine down. I stack corks, the floaty things. You have to make sure that they go off the boat without getting tangled. For 3 days I couldn't do it right. I mean, they went off ok and everything but I was totally panicked. This is the easiest job but each year I have royally messed it up. And now I couldn't even do it. Luckily I figured out the problem. Minorly technical stuff. Basically I just had to change my perspective. I almost have a system down.
Crew Profile: Shawn
Works on the Poseidon. Favorite hobbies are drinking and smoking the illegal stuff. Very nice, very funny. Has never been away from home before which is a small, most likely hick, town in Oklahoma. When there was a discussion about the boats rocking so much his solution was to tie an anchor on each corner. Alright. I am tired I am now the last one to go to bed. Tomorrow is grocery shopping, my laundry, and hopefully some net mending. Linda gave me a refresher course and I am good to go, I think. Mending net is so cool. It means I can fix my mistakes, like getting the net caught and tearing holes. Oh, Joey already got the net wrapped in the prop of the skiff. Welcome to my world.
Love,
Rachael
Grandpa and Lorraine, this is the first time that I have put you on this list. I got e-mail forwarded about what is going on with Grandpa. I now vaguely remember you giving me an address. Am I right? I can't believe that I forgot that. Grandpa, hang in there, be careful. I love you.
June 15 - Homer, doh!
Look at me! I am back in Homer, AK! Back to something familiar! It's so great to be back. I've missed everybody and the familiarity. Last I talked to you I was in Cali. With Peter. At the library I was able to get 3 hrs of free internet. I am still all pleased about that. I got to try some liquid food shake or something really healthy. It was pretty good. But is what was better was hanging out with an old friend. OLD! After that was an overnight bus ride again and LA again, I slept at the bus station like a homeless person till 9:00 then repacked my things for the long hike around the city. My flight didn't leave for Alaska till 8:40 that night. I've got to get down to a lighter load.
I was determined to find something not so bad about LA or to do some sightseeing to at least make somebody jealous later on. I got to pose for a characature artist in training. He even did one in my sketchbook. I looked at the Hollywood sign and got a picture with it. I took the subway to the Chinese theater where all the actors stuck thier hands in cement. I saw Shirley Temple's, Clark Gable's and Maralyn Monroe's prints. The best one was Mel Gibson's though. That's the one I got my picure taken with. People were always saying hello but it always seemed like they wanted something. I didn't care to really find out what they wanted. It was a long day. I wandered, window shopped. It's really boring being in a town where you have to pay for your entertainment and you have no money. It was also a long subway ride to the airport and I started to panic that I hadn't allowed enough time. Someone fell in one of our subway cars so the whole train had to stop while an accident report got filled out. I think they landed on a bike or something. I didn't exactly feel like pushing my way to the front of the gawkers. There was a guy that picked a fight with a girl he didn't know, nice background noise, and then finally the airport. I was rushing to the Alaska airline counter. I didn't know the exact time but I knew I wasn't 2 hrs early. And just like that I got to have my see-a-famous-person-in LA experiance. Right in line, last thing before I leave. I got to stand in front of a famous person. AND talk to them. It went like this," Are you going to Ancorage?" I really didn't care about the fame, I was worried about missing my plane. Was I in the right line? What time is it? How late was I? I love to give myself mini heart attacks, It's like warm-up for the big thing. The reply though was, "Ancorage!? No! Reno." Ta-da. It was Norm McDonald everybody. I was quite happy, he's tall.
So, I had a night plane ride to Ancorage where we were given a tiny pizza and some apple wedges. Where's my airplane meal? I hadn't eaten all day because I was looking forward to a meal. I drank a bunch to make up for it. I also bought a new backpack. $9! Cool. Now I really look like a backpacker instead of homeless. Which reminds me that when I was at the post office and waiting in line they threw my stuff out into the bushes. Thanks.
I arrived in Ancorage around dawn and then realised that it was 1am. My plan was to hitchike to Fairbanks. I have been having some reservations about fishing. I have met some really awesome people on my travels. Were my expectations of human decency lowered because of fishing? I have quite a few people asking me if I had actually enjoyed fishing. Do I actually come across as not enjoying myself? What sort of feelings do I portray of my AK experiance? I always thought that it was obvious that I was having fun. There are a lot more intense moments but the fun is just as intense. Does that clarify for you? I was also thinking of my first year. On my first year I had a good cry every Saturday which was
really peculiar actually. I thought it was normal and just hormones or something. I would cry and be ready for a new week but then I realised that I haven't yet cried like that since I have been traveling. I will tell you I have been choked up a couple of times. The first was when I called in on my grandma and suddenly I was able to talk and listen to all my relatives and my family. You guys didn't know that did you. HA! Other than that I always get sad and lonely on transition traveling. You know, between countries or something. Like, the time in LA. I hate seeing everyone waving to families or traveling together and I'm there by myself. It's so in your face how alone you are. Anyways, enough mushy stuff.
At the airport in Ancorage I was trying to decide where to go, how to start. I wanted to hitchike but it was too early or too late. Depending on how you look at it. I met a toll booth lady who invited me home when I asked for directions. I was looking for a truck stop and a shower. I finally counted up the days since my last shower. It was in Tahiti and I'm not going to say how many days. We had a great talk, she gave me food and some clothes for fishing and then I was off for a hitchiking adventure. Like I said, I wasn't ready to go fishing. Ugh. I had seen a pile of nets in Tahiti and suddenly remembered what I had signed up for. Michelle, this lady was on the edge of Ancorage, I was hitchiking around
6:00. On my third ride I was invited on a train ride with 2 couples to a cabin by an ex-backpacking missionary. He started our ride by asking me if I knew who Rachel was in the Bible. It's fun to feel smart. It was a great side trip. And free for me. I saw some secluded wilderness. Had a bit of a hike, saw an 8x8 cabin, a creek. I also got a nap. Bud, the missionary had offered to drive me up to Fairbanks afterwards but when it actually came to afterwards he wasn't up for a 5 hr drive that he hadn't originally planned on. I also decided Faribanks was a silly idea. I might as well just get to Homer. It was time to go fishing, I had had my fun. I had met some great people. Bud went all the way back to
Ancorage so by 7:00 I was back where I had started almost 12 hrs ago. I got a ride with a cool lady who has been to Australia, it was getting windy. Another ride got me another 10 miles and then I found out it was 10:00 at night. It looked like it was about 6:30. I got a ride from William. A contractor. It was great. But he still wasn't headed to Homer. About half an hour into the ride or so though he had changed his plans and was willing to go over 100 miles out of his way. So cool. Too bad I can't remember what we talked about. I should write it down: "things to say so that people do what you want them to do without even asking." It still didn't matter that he was going to Homer. We stopped at a friend's house near Ninilchik about 40 miles away from Homer at about 1:30 in the morning. There was company, a brother and a sister. There was a bonfire. It was a great time, laughing, talking, making fun of people. If you ever want to find this place it's down Our RD and then right onto My DR. Isn't that like the coolest address? It was a little one room cabin with an upstairs and enough mattresses to sleep about 20 people. People just pulled them out and slept on the floor. My only concern was that I had called Alex and had actually got ahold of my skipper earlier that evening. I had told him I was planning on arriving that night. Well, the Roths aren't much for worrying so I figured no one was losing sleep except me. I worked on catching up on it but I was woken at 8:00 to finish the drive to Homer. I remembered how to get to the house, I better, and I introduced Will to a couple of the Roths. I quite liked pulling up with a former stranger, pulling my stuff out of the back of a huge honking diesel truck. I felt all rugged and independant. I was also a bit bleery, I don't think I had quite caught up on sleep. We had stayed up pretty late searing our shins with the heat of the bonfire.
Back in familiar territory I caught up with the Roths. This year all the brothers will be working. This is the first time that I have seen that. Robert and Paul on the Little Star, Mark (the dad) has James and then there is Alex who I work for. I am SO glad that I am not working with James! It sounds like some California guys are coming back as well. It's too bad because it sounds like Steve wanted to come but he called back too late. I had a pretty fun time with him last year. He's great, easy going, California cool, he just ran out of girls to hit on last year so he had to pick on me for the last week or so.
This is where I'll be for the next few weeks. I'm not sure how much I should introduce you to the people that will be filling these conversations. I guess we'll start with the Roths. There is Mark Roth, the dad, I fished for him for 2 yrs and now I'm done. He gets too worked up. It took me 2 yrs to realize that he's more like a dramatist and the world really doesn't end when thing don't go right. He bought a bigger boat last year, it's the only boat of the 4 that we fish with that has a real bathroom instead of the 5-gallon
bucket. It's called the Poseidon until a name can be picked. Linda, mother and wife, and I were saying that it should be Star Ship. All the boats have a star name and at 40 ft, this is the biggest of the 4 fishing boats. This is Robert's second year of Fishing. Fishing the boat his dad built, the Little Star. He's the oldest boy, 24, a bit quiet talking but still a stubborn Roth and won't back down from a fight. He's an easygoing sort of skipper but still new at it. James, soon to be 23 I believe, slow! That's all I really remember and it drove me nuts to fish with him my first season. Not much into conversation. He just got married 2 weeks ago too. I got to meet her on my first year of fishing. She's actually a bit of a nut case herself but I don't think James has figured that out yet. I think he likes her wild rebelious side. Alex just turned 21, it's his 4th year as a skipper I think. He bought a new boat for this season, it's going to be the Star Destroyer and I get to paint a Star Wars space battle on it. Very exciting. I have a feeling that this will turn into volanteer work though. He's already complaining at the cost of paints. The first year Alex drove me nuts as well, then I found out that it is his favorite past time hobby, making people hate him. He has a girlfriend but they are only together for a week or two a year. My nickname comes from Robert's girlfriend, Heather. That was what I was always called on my first year. She is up here living with Robert. She's actually sitting in the corner reading a book as we speak. Then there is finally Paul. The skiffman from my first year fishing. Heather tells me that Paul's 20th birthday is on the 20th. He's her exboyfriend which Alex loves to remind Robert and Heather about every once in awhile. Paul was gone last year. He had posed as Alex when he got pulled over for a very high speeding ticket, putting a mark on Alex's clean driving record. It was a bit of a soft spot last year and Paul had fled Wisconsin to avoid any encounter with Alex. According to Alex he has given Paul a good beating since then and all is in the past. Paul will be bringing up his girlfriend which I have never met. Me and her will share a domesticated bus. It was the traveling vehicle for Mark and Linda this year. It's all posh, with a sofa and everything. I hope it turns into the hangout. This will be my home on the weekends.
It's so great to be back. I will continue to emphasize that as I fish this year in order to avoid confusion. So got all that? Robert, James, Alex, Paul. Mark and Linda are the parents. Blah, blah, blah. Free internet!! Expect some looong e-mails. I love talking about the dramas of fishing.
Love,
Rachael
Mom, Heather has a manx named Jasper. What are the odds.
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