This morning we put the net in the hatch, chained the skiff to the back deck, and stowed our gear. After a hard season of scratch fishing and weather comparable to what you typically encounter further north on the Aleutian chain, we'll cross Dixon Entrance tomorrow on our way south to Bellingham.
It's time. Since my last post I've had the satisfaction of feeling that after two years of this routine I finally have a sense of what it means to be a deckhand on a commercial seiner. The shared camaraderie with captain and crew is something I will miss, along with the thrill of catching fish, the satisfaction of hard physical work, and the beauty of the Alaskan wilderness. But I won't miss the hard drinking, the brawls, the miserable weather, the close quarters, and above all, the sense of remoteness from a larger world of diverse people, places, and ideas.
In retrospect my memory of what I've left behind grows fonder, and my heart tends to yearn for what it is I don't have. I think this is a human tendency that's fairly common, and I will almost surely slip back into romantic visions of everything this time was (and wasn't) as I'm holed up in a pub at Oxford writing my master thesis. But after two times around my hope is that I've seen with a little more clarity the life of a fisherman and that my decision not to choose it for myself is an informed one. Though even greater adventures await, each time away brings me closer to knowing where it is I will ultimately land, like an oscillating pendulum that slowly loses energy as it tends towards a central point.
I now have a couple weeks divided between time with friends, family, and pre-Oxford prep before I fly to DC on the 27 of September, and from there to the UK on the 1 of October. Pray for safe travels back through the Inside Passage: if the weather stays as bad as it's been we may be in for some rough riding.
Aaron
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
from Annabelle's Chowder House
This will truly be a short one, since one beer and 2 hours of internet later these people will probably expect me to buy something else soon.
Fishing has picked up considerably over the last couple weeks, though each day continues to be fraught with misadventure. In fact, Jim informed me during our last opener that I have the distinction of being "the dumbest cocksucker I've ever met." Humbling, yet I can't help smiling even as I write those words. Over the past two days we caught 70,000 pounds of fish, which works out to be a pretty healthy share for each crew member. Combine that with our other good days to date, and the hope that we'll get a couple more, and the season is slowly winding down in a halfway-decent fashion.
We woke up this morning and spent several hours repairing the net, re-sealing the hatch, working on the winch, and changing oil filters. Ass-chewings received during fishing days notwithstanding, I feel more integrated into this crew than ever, and am proud of the time that I've spent here. The other day Jim looked me in the eye and said, "Aaron, I'm gonna tell ya, you're a good crew member." In a way, that's worth more to me than any accolade I ever received at Stanford.
Only a couple weeks now. I'm looking forward to seeing some familiar faces again.
Love,
Aaron
Fishing has picked up considerably over the last couple weeks, though each day continues to be fraught with misadventure. In fact, Jim informed me during our last opener that I have the distinction of being "the dumbest cocksucker I've ever met." Humbling, yet I can't help smiling even as I write those words. Over the past two days we caught 70,000 pounds of fish, which works out to be a pretty healthy share for each crew member. Combine that with our other good days to date, and the hope that we'll get a couple more, and the season is slowly winding down in a halfway-decent fashion.
We woke up this morning and spent several hours repairing the net, re-sealing the hatch, working on the winch, and changing oil filters. Ass-chewings received during fishing days notwithstanding, I feel more integrated into this crew than ever, and am proud of the time that I've spent here. The other day Jim looked me in the eye and said, "Aaron, I'm gonna tell ya, you're a good crew member." In a way, that's worth more to me than any accolade I ever received at Stanford.
Only a couple weeks now. I'm looking forward to seeing some familiar faces again.
Love,
Aaron
Thursday, August 7, 2008
in port in Ketchikan
Normally I wouldn't post entries so close together, but last Wednesday was a day worth writing about.
Last Monday Fish and Game finally opened Jim's favorite fishing spot of the coast of Gravina Island, a spot of good news in what has otherwise been a fairly dismal run for the past couple weeks. "That's where I make my money, boys, where else can we go?"
So we headed south from Wrangell early Tuesday morning, arriving at Gravina that afternoon around 2pm. For the first time this season we saw jumpers all along the coastline, another reason to hold out hope for the following day, and turned in early after a meal of roast ham and potatoes au gratin. The engine roared to life shortly before 3.30am the next morning and we crawled out of our bunks to face what we hoped would be a decent fishing day. Instead up line up with the majority of other boats on the southern boundary of the fishing area Jim headed to the northern boundary, where he's had some great hauls in the past, and we staked out our spot.
No jumpers. "F*ck! Get out of fishing, kid, it stinks," Jim said. Swallowing the disappointment brought on by the mysteriously vanished salmon we got our gear ready fully anticipating yet another 20 hour day of scratch fishing.
Our first set we only had one jumper go in, so we were surprised to haul in around 3,000 pounds. Our second set we didn't have any jumps, but hauled in around 3,500. Things were beginning to look a little better, though we all hoped that the fish would throw us a bone and start jumping. We continued that way until noon, when all of sudden fish began popping up all over the place. We made a set off the beach, and for the first time since our good day in area 7 had the satisfaction of seeing the water boil as we hauled in a 10,000 pound set of fish. Success!
Then the throttle controls went out, meaning that Jim was unable to control our speed. As Jim screamed himself hoarse I stood in the stairwell between the wheelhouse and engine room, relaying commands to Harold and Tim, who were frantically scrambling to fix the system below. No use: we couldn't get the controls back. "We're f*cked! We are completely f*cked," Jim shouted over and over again. But the fish were jumping, and with Tim working the throttle manually from the engine room we made another set at low speed. After we had the net out my job was to stand in the engine room and switch the controls on and off again and again, waiting for the digital status panel to say something other than "error 62." After I had done this about 50 times Jim ran down into the engine room, and yanked on the cable shaft that connects the control box to the engine. They started working again! A couple minutes later, as I was standing on deck watching jumpers pour into the pen, Jim came out of the top house and started poking fun at himself for being such a hot case. The tension that had built up during the last 1/2 hour suddenly expressed itself in a deep, uncontrollable laughter that rocked my whole body, very nearly becoming a sob. It's bad enough to almost lose a day fishing: it's 10 times worse when you're doing well for the second time in bum season.
As we hauled that set in Jim started complaining about the winch (which brings in the purse line) making a clinking noise. Just as we finished bringing in the purse line the chain in the winch snapped. I was dumbstruck: how could it be that our luck was this bad? Every day I pray that God provides this boat with what we need to thrive financially and relationally, but the constant stream of misadventure was beginning to seem like a cynical, mocking rejoinder. Yet as if to remind us that we still had things to be thankful for, the winch only broke after the purse line was in, allowing us to keep the set. In the end, we succeeded in rolling another 10,000 bag.
By now we were excited: this was easily the best fishing we'd seen all season. Despite having a broken winch, Jim decided that we'd make the set and fix the winch while towing. If we didn't succeed in fixing it we'd have to back-haul the net, cut our losses and head to town. Harold and Tim went to work, and 35 minutes later, after inserting an additional half link into the chain, we had the winch working again. "I wish you boys could have seen it," Jim said after we starting hauling gear, "while you boys were working we must have had a hundred jumpers go in!" That set was the biggest I've ever seen--probably over 20,000 pounds of fish. As we tried to roll the bag over the rail the whole boat keeled over and the rigging groaned in protest. Then the bunt line, which lifts the bag onto the deck, started snapping. Just in time Tim unhitched the single from the ring bar, ran across the deck, and snapped it onto the bag. "This day is unreal," I said to myself, as fish poured over the rail, filling the hatch and stacking up on the deck.
We made one more haul and filled the boat. Beautiful. After offloading half our tank on a tender we went back out, caught a couple thousand more pounds, and called it a day at closing time. In spite of an exhausting day filled with near misses we caught 60,000 pounds of fish, by far our best day of the season. Having paid for fuel several weeks ago in area 7, this day went straight into our pockets.
It turned out that we were the high boat in the fleet on Wednesday, and word has gotten out: we'll probably have to fight harder for our sets this weekend, but the fish are arriving, and we know that we can catch them. Furthermore, after last Wednesday I know that there's almost nothing this crew can't handle. The season will probably run for another two to three weeks, so it looks like I'll be home in late August or early September.
I love fishing,
Aaron
Last Monday Fish and Game finally opened Jim's favorite fishing spot of the coast of Gravina Island, a spot of good news in what has otherwise been a fairly dismal run for the past couple weeks. "That's where I make my money, boys, where else can we go?"
So we headed south from Wrangell early Tuesday morning, arriving at Gravina that afternoon around 2pm. For the first time this season we saw jumpers all along the coastline, another reason to hold out hope for the following day, and turned in early after a meal of roast ham and potatoes au gratin. The engine roared to life shortly before 3.30am the next morning and we crawled out of our bunks to face what we hoped would be a decent fishing day. Instead up line up with the majority of other boats on the southern boundary of the fishing area Jim headed to the northern boundary, where he's had some great hauls in the past, and we staked out our spot.
No jumpers. "F*ck! Get out of fishing, kid, it stinks," Jim said. Swallowing the disappointment brought on by the mysteriously vanished salmon we got our gear ready fully anticipating yet another 20 hour day of scratch fishing.
Our first set we only had one jumper go in, so we were surprised to haul in around 3,000 pounds. Our second set we didn't have any jumps, but hauled in around 3,500. Things were beginning to look a little better, though we all hoped that the fish would throw us a bone and start jumping. We continued that way until noon, when all of sudden fish began popping up all over the place. We made a set off the beach, and for the first time since our good day in area 7 had the satisfaction of seeing the water boil as we hauled in a 10,000 pound set of fish. Success!
Then the throttle controls went out, meaning that Jim was unable to control our speed. As Jim screamed himself hoarse I stood in the stairwell between the wheelhouse and engine room, relaying commands to Harold and Tim, who were frantically scrambling to fix the system below. No use: we couldn't get the controls back. "We're f*cked! We are completely f*cked," Jim shouted over and over again. But the fish were jumping, and with Tim working the throttle manually from the engine room we made another set at low speed. After we had the net out my job was to stand in the engine room and switch the controls on and off again and again, waiting for the digital status panel to say something other than "error 62." After I had done this about 50 times Jim ran down into the engine room, and yanked on the cable shaft that connects the control box to the engine. They started working again! A couple minutes later, as I was standing on deck watching jumpers pour into the pen, Jim came out of the top house and started poking fun at himself for being such a hot case. The tension that had built up during the last 1/2 hour suddenly expressed itself in a deep, uncontrollable laughter that rocked my whole body, very nearly becoming a sob. It's bad enough to almost lose a day fishing: it's 10 times worse when you're doing well for the second time in bum season.
As we hauled that set in Jim started complaining about the winch (which brings in the purse line) making a clinking noise. Just as we finished bringing in the purse line the chain in the winch snapped. I was dumbstruck: how could it be that our luck was this bad? Every day I pray that God provides this boat with what we need to thrive financially and relationally, but the constant stream of misadventure was beginning to seem like a cynical, mocking rejoinder. Yet as if to remind us that we still had things to be thankful for, the winch only broke after the purse line was in, allowing us to keep the set. In the end, we succeeded in rolling another 10,000 bag.
By now we were excited: this was easily the best fishing we'd seen all season. Despite having a broken winch, Jim decided that we'd make the set and fix the winch while towing. If we didn't succeed in fixing it we'd have to back-haul the net, cut our losses and head to town. Harold and Tim went to work, and 35 minutes later, after inserting an additional half link into the chain, we had the winch working again. "I wish you boys could have seen it," Jim said after we starting hauling gear, "while you boys were working we must have had a hundred jumpers go in!" That set was the biggest I've ever seen--probably over 20,000 pounds of fish. As we tried to roll the bag over the rail the whole boat keeled over and the rigging groaned in protest. Then the bunt line, which lifts the bag onto the deck, started snapping. Just in time Tim unhitched the single from the ring bar, ran across the deck, and snapped it onto the bag. "This day is unreal," I said to myself, as fish poured over the rail, filling the hatch and stacking up on the deck.
We made one more haul and filled the boat. Beautiful. After offloading half our tank on a tender we went back out, caught a couple thousand more pounds, and called it a day at closing time. In spite of an exhausting day filled with near misses we caught 60,000 pounds of fish, by far our best day of the season. Having paid for fuel several weeks ago in area 7, this day went straight into our pockets.
It turned out that we were the high boat in the fleet on Wednesday, and word has gotten out: we'll probably have to fight harder for our sets this weekend, but the fish are arriving, and we know that we can catch them. Furthermore, after last Wednesday I know that there's almost nothing this crew can't handle. The season will probably run for another two to three weeks, so it looks like I'll be home in late August or early September.
I love fishing,
Aaron
Monday, August 4, 2008
Sitting on a dock of the bay... (still in Wrangell)
Though we haven't had a good day fishing since I wrote my last post, it's still unclear whether or not we'll be heading home soon: apparently this is the worst that my skipper has seen things in his entire career. There are spots of good news here and there, however, and everyone's holding out hope that a late run of pinks could save the season. The other day Jim told me we'd probably be sticking around till September, but with all the grumbling about how bad things are nothing is for certain.
I'm not worried about the money: though it would have been nice to have made the 20,000 dollars per guy that the crew made last year, I can meet my needs between here and Oxford with a couple hundred. What really gets me down about the prospect of heading home in a week or so is the thought of prematurely concluding my time with Jim, Harold, Tim, and Drew. I love these guys a lot, and each of them, in their own way, teaches me much more than I could set down here on this blog. We're very different men, and the tension natural tension between us, combined with our shared camaraderie, creates extraordinary opportunities for growth each day. I also have no idea what I'd do with a month and a half of free time. I'm not worried, though, the way always becomes clear as I walk along it. I am confident that I will return from Alaska not one day too early or too late. I just hope this means early September rather than mid August. At least we're working around three days per week, which is a lot better than one: guys get restless sitting on anchor or bumming around the dock for too many days on end!
The book of Ecclesiastes concludes with the admonition that to fear God and keep his commandments comprises the full duty of man. After spending 12 chapters reading about the futility of all pursuits "under the sun" I was anxious to study, yet again, how one accomplishes this. Despite the fact that I've been a Christian years now, I'm amazed at how pressing this question always seems to be, at how unsettling it is to ask myself whether I am truly following God or simply inventing even cleverer ways of concealing my pursuit of my own ends. I find that it is never entirely one or the other, and that discerning my wrong motives and strongholds of insecurity is a never-ending process of leaning on God's grace and returning to the example of Jesus to reveal to me what it means to pursue Him with a pure heart.
As I've been reading through Matthew, I've been struck by two insights so far. The first is that during Jesus' baptism, the text says that "he," not necessarily the other bystanders, "saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him." It is also not clear that Jesus' audience hears the the voice from heaven saying "this is my son, whom I love, with him I am will pleased." I checked out the accounts of this story in the other gospels, and in none of them is it stated (though not ruled out, either) that anyone other than Jesus sees the vision or hears the voice. I wonder what it would mean if the vision and the voice where indeed unique to Jesus. I've often thought of him as "God in a box," simultaneously aware of his divinity and the experience of being human. I'm not sure that the gospels support this interpretation, however. Here and elsewhere Jesus seems to exhibit a relationship with God the Father that is far more dependent on God's willingness to meet him in prayer and to comfort him with His Spirit. A provocative question: did Jesus, the man, need the affirmation of his identity as God's son before he was led into the wilderness to be tempted? How does this principle translate into the life of the believer? Even more provocative: does Jesus never explicitly claim to be God because, in a sense, he wasn't? The gospels make it clear that his conception was divine, and that the Word which with God in the beginning became flesh and "made its dwelling among us." We know that he lived a sinless life, and that he died and rose again, but I wonder if the unity between Jesus in the flesh and the Word of God was as complete as the church often supposes it was. And if it was, how well did Jesus the man grasp this? When he says that "I and the Father are one," and that "those who have seen me have seen the Father," is he literally saying "I am God," or is he referring to something more subtle, perhaps even more profound? We know that he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and that ultimately all of creation will be made new through him, so please don't misunderstand me as trying to arrive at something along the lines of "accessing the God in all of us." It's only that now, more than ever before, I am struggling with how to understand Jesus. This point is profoundly important in the life of the believer, and there is something troubling me about the way I have typically thought of Him that doesn't quite fit, something I deeply want to understand.
The second insight is much simpler and (hopefully) less controversial. It that the unifying theme of the Sermon on the Mount is that of trusting God to be who he says he is: perfect, loving, and fully in control. Drawn out explicitly in the "don't worry sections of the text," which deal with relying on God to meet the believer's physical needs, this theme is implied throughout the entire sermon. How will the poor in spirit, the meek, and the dispossessed inherit the earth in a world that worships power, where the wicked so often rule the righteous? What reward will the man reap who does his good deeds in secret in a world that glorifies the praise of others? Why give to those who are already inclined to take from you in a world of opportunists, both crass and subtle? It is only possible to put the Sermon on the Mount into practice if we set aside our futile self-reliance and in all things allow the basis of our action be a deep faith in the perfect, unchanging nature of a God who is working to heal a broken world and draw all people to Himself. "Great," I say to myself. "Now that I have this knowledge in my head, how do I make my heart obey?" And I am lead back to my consideration of Jesus, his relationship with the Father God, and what this means for the life of the believer.
Just yesterday we were taking turns setting with four other boats, which gave me enough time to finish Sherman Alexie's "Indian Killer," a disturbing and convicting novel about racism and the history of racial violence that has shaped the Native American experience. I was particularly struck by the final encounter between the protagonist, an adopted Indian without a tribe, and a white mystery writer who poses as a Shilshomish Indian. In this scene John says to Wilson, "Please, let us have our own pain," before turning and leaping off a 40 story building. "The White Man's Burden" really hit home as well. In this book Bill Easterly ties the West's arrogant, messianic self-perception that it is tasked to save "the Rest" to contemporary aid efforts, and explains why a system dominated by planners who lack feedback and accountability can never bring about economic of political freedom. The path to development, he suggests, is through a bottom-up system that empowers "seekers," innovators who develop local solutions that work and are accountable for achieving results. This process is inevitably piecemeal and decentralized. Hard medicine for a kid who won a Rhodes scholarship with original intention of studying Development Economics!
1/2 an hour till Java Junkie closes. Hope you're all well, and that the weather is far better on average down there than it is up here!
Take care,
Aaron
I'm not worried about the money: though it would have been nice to have made the 20,000 dollars per guy that the crew made last year, I can meet my needs between here and Oxford with a couple hundred. What really gets me down about the prospect of heading home in a week or so is the thought of prematurely concluding my time with Jim, Harold, Tim, and Drew. I love these guys a lot, and each of them, in their own way, teaches me much more than I could set down here on this blog. We're very different men, and the tension natural tension between us, combined with our shared camaraderie, creates extraordinary opportunities for growth each day. I also have no idea what I'd do with a month and a half of free time. I'm not worried, though, the way always becomes clear as I walk along it. I am confident that I will return from Alaska not one day too early or too late. I just hope this means early September rather than mid August. At least we're working around three days per week, which is a lot better than one: guys get restless sitting on anchor or bumming around the dock for too many days on end!
The book of Ecclesiastes concludes with the admonition that to fear God and keep his commandments comprises the full duty of man. After spending 12 chapters reading about the futility of all pursuits "under the sun" I was anxious to study, yet again, how one accomplishes this. Despite the fact that I've been a Christian years now, I'm amazed at how pressing this question always seems to be, at how unsettling it is to ask myself whether I am truly following God or simply inventing even cleverer ways of concealing my pursuit of my own ends. I find that it is never entirely one or the other, and that discerning my wrong motives and strongholds of insecurity is a never-ending process of leaning on God's grace and returning to the example of Jesus to reveal to me what it means to pursue Him with a pure heart.
As I've been reading through Matthew, I've been struck by two insights so far. The first is that during Jesus' baptism, the text says that "he," not necessarily the other bystanders, "saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him." It is also not clear that Jesus' audience hears the the voice from heaven saying "this is my son, whom I love, with him I am will pleased." I checked out the accounts of this story in the other gospels, and in none of them is it stated (though not ruled out, either) that anyone other than Jesus sees the vision or hears the voice. I wonder what it would mean if the vision and the voice where indeed unique to Jesus. I've often thought of him as "God in a box," simultaneously aware of his divinity and the experience of being human. I'm not sure that the gospels support this interpretation, however. Here and elsewhere Jesus seems to exhibit a relationship with God the Father that is far more dependent on God's willingness to meet him in prayer and to comfort him with His Spirit. A provocative question: did Jesus, the man, need the affirmation of his identity as God's son before he was led into the wilderness to be tempted? How does this principle translate into the life of the believer? Even more provocative: does Jesus never explicitly claim to be God because, in a sense, he wasn't? The gospels make it clear that his conception was divine, and that the Word which with God in the beginning became flesh and "made its dwelling among us." We know that he lived a sinless life, and that he died and rose again, but I wonder if the unity between Jesus in the flesh and the Word of God was as complete as the church often supposes it was. And if it was, how well did Jesus the man grasp this? When he says that "I and the Father are one," and that "those who have seen me have seen the Father," is he literally saying "I am God," or is he referring to something more subtle, perhaps even more profound? We know that he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and that ultimately all of creation will be made new through him, so please don't misunderstand me as trying to arrive at something along the lines of "accessing the God in all of us." It's only that now, more than ever before, I am struggling with how to understand Jesus. This point is profoundly important in the life of the believer, and there is something troubling me about the way I have typically thought of Him that doesn't quite fit, something I deeply want to understand.
The second insight is much simpler and (hopefully) less controversial. It that the unifying theme of the Sermon on the Mount is that of trusting God to be who he says he is: perfect, loving, and fully in control. Drawn out explicitly in the "don't worry sections of the text," which deal with relying on God to meet the believer's physical needs, this theme is implied throughout the entire sermon. How will the poor in spirit, the meek, and the dispossessed inherit the earth in a world that worships power, where the wicked so often rule the righteous? What reward will the man reap who does his good deeds in secret in a world that glorifies the praise of others? Why give to those who are already inclined to take from you in a world of opportunists, both crass and subtle? It is only possible to put the Sermon on the Mount into practice if we set aside our futile self-reliance and in all things allow the basis of our action be a deep faith in the perfect, unchanging nature of a God who is working to heal a broken world and draw all people to Himself. "Great," I say to myself. "Now that I have this knowledge in my head, how do I make my heart obey?" And I am lead back to my consideration of Jesus, his relationship with the Father God, and what this means for the life of the believer.
Just yesterday we were taking turns setting with four other boats, which gave me enough time to finish Sherman Alexie's "Indian Killer," a disturbing and convicting novel about racism and the history of racial violence that has shaped the Native American experience. I was particularly struck by the final encounter between the protagonist, an adopted Indian without a tribe, and a white mystery writer who poses as a Shilshomish Indian. In this scene John says to Wilson, "Please, let us have our own pain," before turning and leaping off a 40 story building. "The White Man's Burden" really hit home as well. In this book Bill Easterly ties the West's arrogant, messianic self-perception that it is tasked to save "the Rest" to contemporary aid efforts, and explains why a system dominated by planners who lack feedback and accountability can never bring about economic of political freedom. The path to development, he suggests, is through a bottom-up system that empowers "seekers," innovators who develop local solutions that work and are accountable for achieving results. This process is inevitably piecemeal and decentralized. Hard medicine for a kid who won a Rhodes scholarship with original intention of studying Development Economics!
1/2 an hour till Java Junkie closes. Hope you're all well, and that the weather is far better on average down there than it is up here!
Take care,
Aaron
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