July 3, July 11, August 8

August 8 - now what?

Mmm, I smell french toast.  I'm hungry.  That's the main thing on my mind now that we are DONE FISHING.  How am I going to eat?  Do the skippers still feel that they are obligated to feed us till we get our checks?  

All right, is has been a long long time since I wrote and that is because I have been off in the remote bays of Alaska.  So cool.  I don't even remember what I last wrote you about.  Why don't I go back and skim?  . . . .Oh boy.  

During our few days off we loaded up.  " Shop for 3 weeks of supplies,"  Mark said.  We spent $176 on groceries for 4 people.  It didn't look like enough food for hardly 2 weeks.  Oh well, I like saving money, even if it's not mine.  I felt bad for Alex, the skippers are the ones that lose out on bad seasons.  Crew always gets paid first.  Anyways, the anticipation of a "voyage" is so fun.  People say good-bye to family.  I tried but it turns out they never got the message.  You've got to stock the boat, tie things down, fill up with gas, do your town errands.  You never know when you'll be back.  And you won't be seeing anyone but crew for that time that you're gone.  

Monday it was back to fishing.  There was another group of 3 boats in Nukka, the Buchannons but according to the Roths they can't really fish so they weren't really competition.  Cliff had forgotten how to drive a skiff though so we had some problems.  Cliff is a character.  The nice thing is that watching him drive made me realize that I could at least do the same as him.  At LEAST.  Hey, I know which way to stear.  "I don't want to go this way,"  that's the way you turn and that's the way you don't go.  

We fished by the mouth of a river and the tide came out of there so strong that it made you dizzy to watch the water.  The Star Destroyer couldn't make it up there.  The idea was to try to put your net down in that water before you got washed away.  That's why knowing how to stear at all is helpful.  Well, Tues.  It  didn't help too much because the tide at that spot, bad timing, a break down and a bunch of nets in the water turned to a clusterf***k as Allen likes to call it.  I was thinking I would explain the whole scenario but it's just complicating.  There was a prop, 2 nets, 2 boats that got all messed up and innertwined and it took 3 boats, skiff trading and we had to go dump our net off in the water somewhere and come and pull up the net that couldn't be pulled up by its boat in order to work the problem out.  We also let a broken down skiff float off while every thing else was worked on.

From there fishing dwindled and the weather decided to spit on us while we were down.  The kind of weather to brag about how "bad it was".  The boats stopped early. We were so happy not to be fishing in the rain that a bunch of us jumped into skiffs and went to look at the glacier in the rain.  I think that's worse than fishing.  Freezing rain on your face, wind coming off a block of ice.  We made a bunch of noise to try to force the glacier to calf.  Imagine standing in a skiff for hours watching a block of ice as big as a small island.  We were cold.  We played skiff dodging and skiff bumping and we weren't fishing!  

Nukka was relaxing.  Hardly any time was spent fishing,  instead we played Hearts, Shit Head, or Risk.  I did lots of work on my scrapbook.  One time the skipper of the North Star started fishing early early in the morning as revenge for losing a game of risk to another crew.  See, Skipper Mike of the Lindy is highly motivated.  He always has to be the first one up to fish and he keeps making a set over and over hoping for better luck.  Unfortunately, his crew is great at counting sets (everyone else loses count) and they'll be standing out on deck as Mike drives by.  "That's 9!"  and we're standing on our deck counting our fingers going, "what do you think?  Have we done 3 or 4?"  So Paul knew that Mike would be right behind him for the early sets and Mike was right there with his bleery-eyed crew.  The rest of us didn't do a set till 10.  We were losing enthusiasm.  Actually, I think we lost that our second week.  One thing that has been nice about fishing is that I can stand and look at the other boats and the other crew members and we can all laugh together because it's exactly the same for all of us.  We all got to experiance this together.  

This year fishing has been absolutely awesome for crews.  There have been so many cool people, it's just been a blast and I have been really happy about having girls to interact with.  They have all been really great.  In the close quarters there was no "personal" problems.  Everyone knew who had what tiff with who.  Each boat had the crew member to complain about.  There was the one that wouldn't do "women's" work, the one that survived only on snack food. There was the crew member always hitting on the other one, the boys that were loud and obnoxious, the other crew members that were the monitors and later dubbed "body gaurds."  This year I really couldn't complain.  Dishes were left to pile up for way too long.  That was it.  Hey, I could still get ticked off about it too.  

I love Port Dick, did I say that yet?  The boys ran around and gathered driftwood, I picked a quiet moment to bathe at the icy waterfall.  And  I mean ICY.  Your feet go numb and your whole body burns and tingles.  The Poseidon girls heated water and washed thier hair that way.  See, our boat is bare bones basics.  We have a 35 gal water tank to last us a week.  Cooking, cleaning, drinking.  Imagine that.  No washing hair.  When we ran out of water we borrowed every plastic jug from various boats that we could, milk, apple juice, grapefruit juice, someone has been drinking aloe vera juice.  Then we'd get a funnel and the gray water bucket and drive up to a waterfall that was pouring into the ocean. I think you can work out the rest.  Good mountain water too.

After I had my bath at the waterfall there was a fire to enjoy on the beech.  One day was spent salvaging the Ranger.  A boat that has been beeched on Goar Point for a few years.  That's the Roth business.  It was cute to see the father and sons out there eyeing up chunks of metal, estimating values and then hacking away with various tools.  They were serious too.  Generator, sawsall, grinder, drill, crow bars, etc.  I found pants, cook books, photographs for my scrapbook, sweatshirts, and dipping ink.  The wreck had been a huge tender, food still in the fridge, mattresses, clothes, paper, it was like an abandoned house.

The day after the salvaging project the guys were bored and guess what they came up with to do.  A hot tub.  It involved going back to the wreck, dragging off a fuel tank nearly the size of a dumpster, dragging it to the beech at Shelter Cove and trying to cut the top off.  The process began Monday.  There wasn't enough fish to call for a tender on Monday, there was the idea that we wouldn't fish Tues. either because Wed was closed to fishing as well.  Can you imagine only fishing for 2 days of the week?  It was still dreary but the rain was no longer a drizzle, more like occazional sprinkle.  The Lindy crew set up a smoking lounge, a tarp ove the deck ,it was often an outdoor hang-out otherwise we lived on the beech around the fire.  driftwood was too wet to burn so guys would climb nearby trees and throw down branches.

Tues was like a kick in the butt.  When we finally got to fish on Tues, after 4 days of doing nothing, it was wind, waves, and pouring rain.  Allen, on the Lindy, told me that his sleeping bag was so wet that he got up, changed into dry clothes, put his rain gear on and went back to bed.  Poor guys.   At least fish had come and a tender had been called. 

The way that our boat works is the Skipper gets up, starts the boat, unties us, drives around and we should be getting up.  He'll give a wake up call when it's getting closer to actually making a set and you know you should be out and on deck ready to go.  "Get ready to go fishing," usually means we have less than 5 min.  You get that morning set out of the way and things sort of calm down.  That set sort of lets you know what's going on and if you're following the pattern for this year it's usually "not a whole lot," for the answer.  Obviously, a set can't be made without the skiff man.  He is the driver of the skiff, the other end of the net, and you just can't put that end in the water when the skiffman is still on board.  There was Cliff, in the cabin, telling me that he wanted to quit and he's grabbing himself a bowl of cereal.  The night before he went and listed of a heap of medications that he said he was perscribed and had run out of.  Lithium, sleeping pills, insulin, whatever, and by the way, he wanted to go home. We're like, great.  I'm taking notes of weapons on board.  Maybe I'll just follow him around.  I can see a crazy man trying to take out his skipper.  How could Cliff quit now?  We had one day to fish then Wed. fishing would be closed, then 2 days of fishing and we would probably go home.  You don't even get a full crew share if you quit.  Somehow Cliff didn't grasp the logistics of it all and when he finally got confronted by Alex for not doing his job he immediately blurted out that he quit.  It was a messy morning.  We sort of drove around and I wondered how we were going to work through this day.   Eventually Cliff went back in the cabin and crawled into bed with his boots on.  Never moved.  Complained that he was diabetic and needed sugar.  Whatever.  Alex came to the conclusion that Ciff is a patholigical liar.  Either way, he had flipped out.  Luckily Linda, Alex's mom had joined her husband when he had gone to Seward.  She's skiffed for years.  She was soon over and guess what,  I was in the skiff being trained!  Can you believe it?  Alex had said, and I quote," It will be a cold cold, cold cold day in hell before I let you drive my skiff,"  And what a day.  We had white caps, the wind howled.  It was crazy but I am getting over the fear of driving.  In fact I was over it.  I just kept thinking, let me drive already!  There's no way I could do worse than Ciff.  I've been practicing.  I've been trading off on other boats when Alex doesn't want to set.  Skiffing is  just another skill, that's all skiffing is.  The Roths make you think it's a talent.  There's a talent in picking it up fast and I know I don't have that.  I do have the determination to learn though.  How can you NOT learn when you set out to do the opposite?  So I drove, the weather was crazy and I actually had to struggle to stack net.  But the whole time I thought about last year in Kodiak and I was so happy about how well everything went.  We worked out a system where I would drive the skiff then leave the rest of it to Linda, hop onto the big boat and stack the net.  The thing about fishing is that it makes no sense if you don't have it illustrated to you so don't worry about it.

And then it was like a fairy tale.  Things seemed to turn around.  The bad weather stopped, the fish had come, we had a sunny day off, the North Star had returned from delivering in Seward.  And we had another day off.  It was great.  The hot tub idea had to be put on hold for next year because there was no cutting torch available.  We went halibut fishing again.  Halibut fishing was slowly becoming a neccesity.  Boats were running out of food.  We had a bag of peanuts for snacks.  No chips, no crackers, no bars, no cookies, no fruit.  Milk and hamburger went early as well.

We had more crew drama, Sarah came to our boat.  She's having a difficult time with her crew.  It's been neat to watch the other girls deal with the same thing that I have worked with for years.  Guys.  Am I too soft?  Is it just my crews?  Is dishes and cleaning up such a big deal?  Well, I guess it is.  Every once in awhile one of the girls would come yelling out of the cabin.  "You get in here and do the dishes!"  or "It's your turn",or "You call that cleaning up?!" Ahh, it's not just me.  And the neat thing was that crew on other boats would sort of egg at the slackers as well.  Well, Sarah is the sort that doesn't "take it", she said so.  I was thinking that this seemed like an interesting approach.  Maybe one to try, you have to be very persistant though and I think it would wear me out.  Well, her approach landed her on our boat for the rest of fishing.  Linda went back to the Poseidon and Sarah was now our skiffman.  Ahhh, it was so nice.  Someone so energetic about cleanliness I had to struggle to keep up.  I like it way better than having my standards be how clean the boat remains.  My standards had lowered throughout the season.  

Then it was Saturday.  Relaxing.  People scattered.  I just hung out.  The sun was bright and hot, a beautiful day.  I talked with the other Sabbath keepers and 3 of us ended up sitting in the Star Destroyer reading our Bibles.  Just to be around people studying was so nice.  The guys were scheming again and collected coils of copper tubing.  They converged on our fire on the beech with various tubes and duck tape and within minutes had water running from the creek, through the fire and out of a piddly showerhead that was hung from a tree branch.  With some major heating and coals people had various degrees of shower temps.  Mine was lukewarm.  They set up a wood pallet for a floor, stood styrofoam up for privacy and we were in luxury.  I was getting more and more popular with my Thai Massages.  Awesome.  People were getting creative with the extra time.  There was a berry pie or berry crisp nearly every day that we didn't fish.  Fry bread, breaded halibut, pot pies, then the boats ran out of pancake mix.

Sunday was another beautiful day.  Hiking was the plan but I am still planning on going back to the trail and am not at all inspired to hike.  In fact, I don't even want to hike on the Appalcian trail.  It's a bummer to say that and hopefully I'll get over it.  I do want to finish it. So, everyone scattered again and I went nuts. I don't know what my mood was, I wanted to do stuff, do nice things for people or something.  There was tons of mending to do.  I don't know how many times I have had to mend all my pants.  RRR.  Well, there was a crew member that hadn't showered or changed his clothes for nearly the entire fishing season.  Another complaint to hear about.  One reason for not changing clothes was he didn't have another change.  People finally donated stuff and his crew gave him an ulitmatum, clean up or get thrown in.  The Lindy crew was very helpful that way.  Two best friends, helpful in the first place but they also enjoyed flexing thier muscles, they sort of took care of backing up orders that were made by people who might be ignored otherwise.  It's easy to get boys to semmer down when someone looking down on them says they'll toss them in the water.   Actually, Jaime almost got tossed in.  A totally unfair fight.  Paul, Alex's little brother tried to steal pancake syrup from us and Jaime tried to defend him.  So she found herself flung over Alex's shoulder, hanging over the water.  "You can have your syrup back!  You can have your syrup back!"  

Anyways, I was talking about Sunday.  Someone woke Alex up early, accidently, but big mistake anyways, he blasted some sort of rock music and soon had eveyone up and blasting whatever sort of music in response.  Jaime was about to throw Alex in that time.  She's 5 ft tall.  I keep trying to explain the mending to you and getting distracted.  It's not like it's anything special but is what happened was one of the pairs of pants that needed mending were green wool pants.  My size!  And Jacob let me have them!! Can you believe it?  I had to move some buttons and sew a seam and that's it.  New hiking pants!  Now I HAVE to return to the trail.  I also did some berry picking and we made a dessert from the meager supplies that remained.  We were now out of meat, cheese, eggs, milk, everything.  I mean everything.  We had a head of lettuce, lunch meat, a bag of spaghetti, some lentils, some rice, a little dry cereal.  Plenty of condiments though. Lots of bartering took place. 

A strange thing happened while we all stood around having our farewell drinks.  I think Alex and I broke up.  I've never had the experiance of being dumped but as a skipper and crew member Alex said we are too differant and needed a break from each other, as in, spending a fishing season apart.  It was a fine speech, there's no way to keep it from sounding wierd and it sort of exemplifies the comparison that Sarah and I had made about fishing.  It's like being married, we've decided, the down side of marriage.   So I guess I'll be looking for another boat, I've thought about it before but I felt bad, like I was being disloyal.   "Good thing kids weren't involved," Brian said.  

Tonight Jacob told us his check.  He worked on the Lindy and the Lindy was probably the high boat this year.  Jacob made $1093.  Ouch ouch ouch.  I'm afraid to see my check.  When I pay back the money I had to borrow from my parents to get here I will have nothing.  But that brings up some cool news.  Charity has gone and updated my website.  She put a bunch of pictures on from Asia and Sri Lanka.  The other thing is that she is just about to offer some products with my artwork for sale.  I think I did what I needed to do to get an account going.  Anyways, that's all on my website:  www.roadsparrow.com go check it out.  I'll let you know as soon as my art stuff is set up for sure.  Charity also e-mailed to tell you all that there is a guestbook on the website and she is encouraging you all to go sign it.  I'd love to see who has been there to see my stuff.  I think I'll be selling mostly cards and things but it's all from paintings that I have done as I've traveled.  I have no idea what sort of great things Charity has been up to, I'll have to check it out.  Thankyou Charity! 

Hello Welsh Nomad, I have your picture to mail.

Hey, Half Full, I am SOOOOOO sorry for not saying hi last time.  Not really, of course.   No, I feel bad.  I have a letter here to mail you but of course you don't believe me.  I hope to mail it soon and then when I have a plane ticket I'll let you know the details.  I want to get out of Alaska as soon as possible but flights are expensive and I have been avoiding finding out how much it's going to hurt to get to Maine.  Not like it matters.  I have no money anyways.  The trail is all I can afford.  I'm sure the wise thing to do would be to go home and save some finances but I don't have time!  Winter is coming, there are 2 other continents to see before next July!  I gotta go, gotta go.  Once I have absolutely stranded myself in a desolate spot I think I will one by one beg to my various relatives. 

Aunti Linda, Uncle Gary, Uncle Erling, Aunti Valerie, Grandma and Grandpa, hello to all, by the way.   Did you guys peak at the message for Half Full?  It's just a forwarning and hopefully a silly joke.  Hey, now traveling is getting interesting.  Actually, I have wanted to see what it was like to travel without funds just to see how things would work out.  I think stuff can work out.

PS to all.  Here's my plan since I am beginning to sound groveling:  I want to get to Maine for as little as possible, as soon as possible.  I will hike and I will think about the next year befroe fishing.  I might try decide to stick with the trail and finish it sometime at the end of October, then I will come home for Thanksgiving, stay a very short while, 2 weeks?  And then take a bus down to TX to visit Charity.  I don't know what we will do, catch up, maybe brain storm about art and business, whatever.  I will also look around for the ports.  Maybe Brian will be in TX and I can visit him.  He was on the North Star and has done ranching in the summer.  I would LOVE to do that.  Hmm.  I should talk to him.  Maybe he has some work ideas.  See, the thing is that I would like to find a cool short term adventurous job.  I think by December I will be flat broke again.  That's if Mom and Dad let me have an extension on thier loan.  Otherwise I am flt broke now.  Anyways, I want to go to some port, maybe it's in Lousiana, maybe Texas but I want to find the place that sailboats harbor at on their way down to South America.  I want to get on one of them, maybe I can work on differant boats and get to a couple countries in South America.   I don't have the funds to explore the continent.  Maybe I can get to Peru.  I've heard good things about Peru and Iwould like to go to Chile.  It would be nice to actually make some money on the boats and then fly to the southern tip, would that be Argentina?  That's where boats leave to get to Antarctica.  I would do the same sort of dock pounding and try to get on a boat heading to Antarctica.  If I could just step on the land.  I don't need to do the 4 month work thing.  I think I'll still try to get hired for it though.  I'm just trying to make my 5 yr goal.  All 7 continents in 5 yrs.  If all would work out, the most money I'd have to ask for would be a plane ticket back to the states but maybe I can get boat rides back.  Then I would stop in TX again, stop in NC and then got to Damascus for Trail Days to be reunited with my hiking buddies.  From there I could get home to MN for a bit then catch a ride to AK for another fishing season.  All of that money would go to pay back money I have borrowed.  I would return home, find an office job in Foley where I would be dressing in A-line skirts and high heels.  I would bike the 12 m. to work every day, maybe I would cross country ski the distance in the winter.  I would live at home, help my Dad with his retirement projects and work on my book about my travels.  I'd save up for software, classes, a computer, everything I need to create a real book and everything I need to create art products like prints and cards.  I think I would spend about a year restocking my bank account, learning some skills that I've been meaning to acquire, such as martial arts, belly dancing, fiddle, power yoga, and Hebrew, and then I would relocate to Alaska.  Shall I go on?  In Alaska I would get a job bartending in Dutch Harbor after my summers of fishing in Kachemak.  Mark says that if I want to make an investment in fishing without the commitment of having your own boat, I should buy a permit and let someone else fish it.  If you own a permit they fish for you and you get 15%.  Awesome.  Maybe I would do some road tripping in the lower 48 to visit friends, and promote my book(s).  Eventually, I would find the perfect piece of land and Dad would come up and build me a one room log cabin with a loft.  All money I would be scrimping and saving for this then I would quit outside work and only work from home as an artist and homesteader, I might still make room for fishing in the summers.  That is my plans for the next 5 yrs but please note:  This is just a means of biding my time before I get married.  If my wonderful husband would hurry up, get over here and woo me I could quit all this talk.  Don't get me started on THAT.  All I will say is that it's hard to pencil in marriage when you don't have the other half of this "2 become 1" thing.  Stupid details.

Talk to you all later.
 Love,
Rachael

I am so excited to be on e-mail this week! I got so much mail! Why didn't you guys write last week when I wasn't writing this long thing? Actually, it is all new friends, many aren't even in on this e-mail list.

I have so much of nothing to talk about. I haven't written for 2 weeks and the reason is more becuase I didn't have many adventures to talk about. I could tell how I have avoided paying for showers. Woo-hoo. Yeah, I met a lady at a Sabbath service, she invited me to spend the night I and got a shower.

Weather has been awesome, fishing has been easy. Easy, as in, there is no fish so our skipper doesn't spend the time making sets. We did maybe 3 or 4 sets a day. That would be a total of 4 hours of work spread over a 14 hr period. Last week was muttled into boredom and worry. What is happening? Where are the fish? What book am I going to read now?

Friday night I spent the night at that woman's house (you know, from the church group) I wandered with the people and visited around Homer and something happened where I missed out hanging with the boat people. Oh yes, I remember. Last week was the first 4th of July that I had a chance to go and celebrate in 4 yrs. I have always been on the boat doing sets. Someone would blow up a seal bomb or two and that was the celebration. Well, last weekend I came to the house and did e-mail and missed the crowd that went out to party up the Fourth. I had a bit of a mopey time. It's Fourth of July weekend. I was in Homer, my friends were off somewhere. I guessed they were at Alice's. I had just talked to my mom and relatives and knew that my family was all together in MN. It was a great time to feel sorry for myself. I knew I had to go and make new friends on the beech. I went, watched, moped, looked for the crew members. I watched the cutest little kids and that helped to distract me and then there was a monstrous bonfire and I knew that this would be the place that the crew members would finally find there way back to. I saw some cute guys and got more distracted from my self pity. Eventually I was pretty much hanging out and having a good ol' time.

Becky and I walked around. She was a new friend I met. She was great. We ended up running into the crew for the Neptune. Remember the Neptune? It's the boat that I went and fished on last year in Kodiak after our season here. It was a terrible terrible experiance. I've never had mental problems- at least I have never THOUGHT that I had mental problems, but when I worked on that boat I got a slight glimpse of what a mental breakdown must be like. Sheesh, what a spectacle. Enough about that. The thing is that these guys are still working on the boat. I couldn't believe it. It was so great though because we all stood around for an hour complaining about the skipper. It's just amazing, he's doing the exact same stuff as he did last year. They get the same impressions and reactions that I had. The thing is that they had a healthier outlook on it all. They could laugh about everything, "Yeah, he ran right over the anchor line, cut it right in 2. Hahaha, yeah, what and A-hole." My problem was I was pulling my hair out thinking the same thing when I was working for him.

Sometime after that, around 3 in the morning I saw a familiar parka stumbling down the beech clutching a box of cheap Ice beer. It was my Australian crew member Nathan. I asked him if he was drunk. No, he said, the 2 mile walk from the bar had sobered him up. It's the rocks on that beech. Makes anyone look drunk. He pointed out a few more crew members and we sat around and socialized. It was great. Nathan quietly sat and burned feathers to find out what they smelled like. "These circles are freaking me out,"said Nathan, in the middle of our conversation. We looked down at him. He was sitting cross-legged amidst a ring of flat rocks, many of them had a circle scribbled in the center of it. Nathan was gripping a nice yellow chalk rock and after finishing another circle on another rock, he threw it somewhere in his radius. "Aren't you the one drawing the circles?" We asked. He paused, looked around him,"Well, yes, but they're freaking me out." Yeah, keep sniffing those feathers.

So I was all ready to have a lonely Fourth but it was great. I went out on Sunday as well. I haven't been keeping a day tally on my activities so I don't really remember what was so special about Sunday. There was some Kaoroke with awful awful singers. I don't know. All I know is that the boat was going out at 4:30 and I wasn't going to kiss a moment on the beech. I walked from the beech, to the boat, untied and went fishing. I was counting on another slow day and it was. So was the WHOLE week. Ick.

Crew members are getting a lot of sleep and a bit bored. Except for the Lindy. They are sort of the margin tester or something. The skipper just can't accept that the fish aren't around. His crew is doing the usual 7 and 8 sets a day and coming in with just over 400 lbs. 400 lbs in one day is awful. I mean, awful. That's just a descent set for average fishing. An ok day of fishing is supposed to be around 2000 lbs. We are doing so bad that we count every fish at every set. You listen to all the gossip on the radios. That's the entertainment.
"Why aren't you going to make that set?
I just got 23 fish."
"Well, I just got 7, I think I'll wait."
We get excited about 20 fish. Sad. It was so hot on Tues or some day, Nathan came out on deck in swim trunks. Uh-oh, someone is scheming. before you know it Alex was fashioning a rope swing and Cliff was getting some ideas. I haven't introduced Cliff. To do that I should tell you about what happened Sun-Day. We had been at that fire till 3 in the morning and we were all groggy and comfy in our little shelves/bunks late Sunday morning. I heard Matt ask Alex to come outside. "What." Said Alex. Ok, a little bit of a talk back and forth Alex finally pulled himself out of bed and went on deck. I just layed and listened. I suddenly realized that Matt was QUITTING! He was bored and wasn't making enough money. I couldn't believe it. I had always thought Matt would be a good worker, I had never thought that he would QUIT. What a way to wake up. To break it to Alex nicely Matt went and found a replacement for himself. I listened to a slight accent talk about 6 yrs of boating experiance. He was avid about fishing. Said he was willing to do any sort of grunt work, anything for the experiance (heh-heh-heh). Lots of talk. It sounded impressive and then I was slightly doubtful. Big talk is a warning light on my character radar.

I heard Cliff was from Kentucky and I was waiting to meet a slightly redneck sort of type. Shaggy hair, hat. Kind of skinny. Instead he looks like an ex-surfer. Orange spiked hair and brown, he's got cat eyes. Like they're yellow or a pale green or I think one is a differant color. When I first talked to him I was trying to figure out if he was glaring at me. He's really outgoing though. So, he decided to jump in on that Tues or Mon. and it was so fun to stand on the bridge with my camera and watch these oblivious guys about to jump into ice cold water. I was not disappointed either. Cliff had the funniest face I have seen yet. His lips pulled back into this snarl that was supposed to look like an exhuberant smile but it was really pure terror. I laughed so hard and missed a chance to photogragh it. Instead I decided to go in. All right, I'm a terrible show-off. How often to I get the chance to show up guys though? I dove off the bridge, not the deck, piont for me. I didn't scream this time either. I have finally done it enough that I can now act like I'm not scared. After that I swam around the boat, and pulled myself out. The guys were clinging to railings, the net, anything in thier reach that looked like it would get them out of the water that much faster. Alex has his own system where he holds out his hand and just pulls in each person. Personally, I didn't want him to realize how much effort he'd have to put forth to pull me out.

I told you Jamie and I went swimming the first week? I thought I would mention her, she went swimming again but by accident this week. I wish I could have seen that. She was pushing off, you know, getting the boat away from a tie up area. She leaned, pushed, and belly flopped into the water. She's tiny so she should be pretty easy for the guys to pull out. Brian said that she was real slippery.

Another bit of entertainment was Ryan. He's on the Little Star and a big talker as well. I think he's kind of funny this little kid. He says he's 17 but he looks like he's 15. This little kid going on about how much he can bench, who he can beat in arm wrestling, how much money he can make in a weekend. The guys can't stand his arrogance but I think he's funny, so over the top confidant. Anyways, a dare started and soon people were throwing money into a pool for him to stack the net in his hawaiin swim trunks. Alex made the mention that he'd pay $10 if Ryan would stack net in a thong. Luckily there was no one on the boats that pack a thong, at least none that would admit it. Those Roth boys are inventive though. Somehow the conversation got on the radio and Paul spoke up that Ryan could acheive a thong with duct tape. AND DUCT TAPE HE DID. Wait till you see the pictures. Announcements were put out on the radio (channel 74) and as the boats in our group finished up sets and what-not, they came from all directions. Made thier circles around the Little Star, crews were out laughing and pointing and Ryan was squirmming, something like a duck walk. He had taped his "suit' directly to his skin. Oooh. That's what everyone was saying with a grimace. The sun was shining and it would reflect off his silver butt. It was too perfect. Now who has ever seen a sight like that at thier work place?

Cliff has made this week a bit interesting. I suddenly see how good of a skiff man Matt was. Why did he leave?! One of the first sets that Cliff did solo we were on deck doing our thing, then we were waiting and sort of wondering where the skiff was. Cliff was doing an Austin Powers beside the boat. Do you remember the scene where Austin Powers is trying to turn the golf cart thing around in the hallway? He was doing something like that but there was no barrier. He just kept driving and backing up like a yo-yo. He did this on Friday as well when Alex surprised him with a variaition of the set that we do. Does everybody know what I am talking about when I say "set"? It's putting the net in the water and taking it out. Like playing a hand in a card game we are doing a set in fishing. Takes an hour, about. Anyways, the idea about a circle set is speed. You make a circle in the water with the net, the boat on one end, the skiff on the other and you come together as quick as possible. But when we got around to Cliff he was doing the yo-yo thing again. It doesn't accomplish anything. I had fun though because this is when team work came into play. This is why it is fun being with the group of boats. We help each other out. In fact, when we did this circle set the deck crew from the Poseidon was on our boat,"learning to stack net". That means that they had messed up royally and Mark was so mad at them that he sent them off his boat to figure this out. They were supposed to figure out where they had gone wrong in thier stacking job and why there was a 30 ft hole in thier net. So, we're all hanging out, trying to be fast paced and we are watching the Austin Powers sceen being played out in the skiff, alon comes the Lindy with thier skiffman on the bow of the boat. He's got 6 yrs experiance. He hopped in the skiff. Nearly knocked Cliff over with all his cool skiff moves and we were back in business. Got 3 fish.

So, Thurs we got 41 fish in 2 sets. Alex asked if we wanted to climb a mountain. The crews from the Star Destroyer and the North Star went. It wasnt' much of a mountain. 2500 ft in about 3 miles but the top was absolutely beautiful. Stunning. I was hoping I still had my hiking legs but I found that there is a real privy at the base of the trail and I got distracted and never caught up to the people till the top and then down I can't do fast so I was still lagging. At least Brian was nice enough to walk with me. I felt sorry for Cliff, he was behind the whole time. I didn't feel sorry enough to wait for him though.

Last night was another night on the beech. Met up with a few people from last week and got to try to break into a car. I failed Bummer. I was so set on getting it open too. It's great to be outside in such beautiful weather and such beautiful scenery. To be with friends as well. I love it. Today there was a church group that Mark took out on the Poseidon, we picniced on the beech and had a great time. THe sun shone on us the whole time. This group is into rediscovering the Hebriac customs. It's interesting and fun, they DANCE. We were dancing on the beech. I can't help thinking of it like Jewish line dancing. Alex was extimating that we got about 2000 lbs this week. I would like to add that up for real but I'm sure it's not much more. I think the biggest day was 800 lbs. 2000 is a sort of bad DAY of normal fishing. The theory is that the baby fish were killed in an epidemic a few years ago. Sigh. I think I can make it back to Mane without owning any money but I don't think I'll have any saved. Well, there is a movie on downstairs. A new one that I haven't heard of, that would be anything that has come out in the last 6 months. It has Ben Stiller, so I am distracted. I think I will head out. Talk to you later. I have got to try to answer all these great e-mails!

Love,
Rachael

PS. Welsh Nomad, I added you to the list for sure. I thought I added you last week but I also sent you last week's e-mail as well. Hope you can work it out.

Can I tell you my first impression of fishing this year?  My first sight?  It was the greeting of the crew members down at the docks.  I was met with wide stares, pale eyes. It wasn't that everyone had such spooky eyes it was that they were sunburned beet red from thier hairline to thier cheekbones.  The contrast was eyecatching.  "You don't sunburn in Alaska."  I heard that all the seasons that I have fished but no one has mentioned that yet this year.  

Monday fishing opened so the week is meant to be slow and crappy.  We ended our first day out with 1200 lbs.  Not a good day but great for a first day.  Things went well, Matt caught on quick to skiff driving.  Matt is Casey's old friend.  I've known him since I was 7.  Makes me think of home and my brothers and all that.  Sigh.  At first I wasn't excited about having someone that I thought of as my little brother on board.  I was remembering back to the day when the boys were such pains.  I've realised that I'm about 10 yrs behind in my thinking.

We have an addition this year, the North Star.  Paul, the youngest of the Roth boys went and got himself a boat.  It came with the name, the tradition is that all the boats have the word "star"  in it.  Hence, Little Star and Star Destroyer.  Today I told Paul that he can name his boat Porn Star and he absolutely loved it.  I would laugh so hard if he really did that.  

All right, I think that's my momentary ranting.  Another really wierd thing this year?  GIRLS.  Every Roth boat has a girl on it.  Down in Kodiak was the first time that I had ever worked with a girl on the boat.  Now there is 3, besides me.  I was a bit shell shocked at being in Alaska, being back to work after a year off, being in a time zone 4 hrs differant than where I just was, not hiking, being back with people I already know, not having any of my luggage.  These sort of things sort of over-rided my social skills. Basically I was anti-social, and it has taken me a couple days to be warming up to people but I am having a blast.  

Not much for wildlife, not much for jumpers, no injuries but we have loads of music!  Alex's, Nathan's, and Allen's.  Allen has some good rock stuff.  I have been catching up.  So awesome.  A picking boom broke, Sarah's skiff went dry,this isn't on my boat- at this very moment there is a dilema working up in the kitchen.  Alex and Sarah are having a bake off and Alex just locked his cookies in the oven.  Mike says that counts for losing.  I am quietly snorting to myself.  Do you have any idea how funny it is to see some burly guy violently shaking a relentless oven door?

After our 1200 lbs day, fishing absolutely died.  5 fish was the average for our sets.  One day we tied up to the Historian, the tender and just sat around in lawn chairs telling stories. It was great and relaxing.  The Historian always has a cooler full of  drinks for the boats.  One night there was even Miller in there.  Nice treat and Kennt knows my name, I'm definately veteran!

We finished Thurs. with a total of 70 lbs for the day.  Not encouraging.  Matt went back home for a wedding.  He decided to leave Thur. night so Alex saw no point in making an effort to fish.  Cool, that meant net mending.  I am sure I will get my fill of mending but I might as well enjoy it while I enjoy it.  

Alex was supposed to come to the boat early yesterday but that didn't happen.  Eventually my impatience and eagerness took over and I decided to try to remember how to do things myself.  You have to start the boat, turn on the hydrolics and turn the right levers, then you have to sort of rearrange the net so you can start winding it and looking through the webibng for holes.  I remembered.  I had already mended my first hole out on the water.  Quite proud, no mess ups and it was on the salvage, the edge.  That is tricky.  And it turned out fine.

Well, I hadn't taken a shower yet, I was still trying to figure out how I would get one for free.  And I was halfway debating just not showering for the entire season as stubborn revenge. The jump into the water sort of counted for something.  Maybe I should just bring in a bar of soap with me.  

So, today is Saturday.  What did you do today?  I went to the beech and learned Hebrw dancing.  It was great fun.  We had a salmon and halibut cook out.  So much fun.  There was a very diverse group of Sabbath keepers, relaxed, informal, and the discussion really was discussion and interesting.  Mike got bored though and called Paul to rescue him.  When Skipper Paul finally arrived we all piled into the station wagon.  I have been on a mission to find scrap paper.  I need paper to create my scrapbook for this year.  The key though is that it needs to be free.  Well, I think I might have the paper I need for the year but it ended up costing me a dollar.  After that we stopped at a church, it was closing up a garage sale and gave us whatever we wanted.  I have all these funky clothes to try on now.  I got leather pants.  Since I have remembered that and since that is the update for the past week I think I am going to go and see just what sort of clothes I will be wearing in public.  Woo-hoo.  I have a suede leather skirt.  It's red.  I hope it fits.