en route to Ketchikan

I'm taking advantage of my final free hours in Petersburg to try and condense the last three weeks into something like a coherent thought.

It's certainly been a different kind of season than the last time I was here. For one thing, the high price of fuel has doubled the cost of the 22 hour round trip from Petersburg to the Hidden Falls fishery in Chatham Straits. In an effort to save money, the gentlemen of the Yankee Boy have been camping out on their boat away from town for the past few weeks, far from the internet and with only limited cell phone service. The isolation and change of environment has been at once refreshing, nerve-racking, and trying.

The major challenge that we've faced is the lack of fish. Living for weeks on an 18x50 foot seining boat isn't so bad when you spend most days hauling gear (fishing), but the runs have been weak enough that the Department of Fish and Game, which is responsible for managing fisheries around the state, has only opened Hidden falls twice a week (at most) since we've been here. We've only fished four days so far, and we haven't done that great on any of those days. The high price of dog salmon in this area--over 60 cents per pound--attracted pretty much the entire southeast Alaskan fishing fleet of 150 boats. This resulted in way too many boats scrapping for far too few fish--if you didn't make a several thousand pound haul at 5am, when the day officially began, then you were looking at 15 hours of doing your best to mop up the leftovers, which has been the story of our life so far. Adding to the stress is the fact that the pink salmon, a lower-grade fish that pays 30 cents per pound and that serves as the bread and butter of most guys' summer earnings, have not made much of a showing anywhere in the state so far. The skippers are getting worried that we are looking at another bust of a season through July and August, and this is concerning for everyone, including cannery employees to deckhands. The simplified formula for my summer earnings is as follows: (gross stock of fish)*(price of fish per pound)/10 - (food and beer bill)/5 - (fixed fuel share) - (taxes). The middle two terms come out to around 5,000 dollars of liability, while taxes are taken as a share of the non-adjusted gross earnings (though some of my expenses are partially deductible). At a 10 percent crew share I've only made 2,500 so far, meaning that I'm 2,500 dollars in the hole with my skipper before taxes. If the pinks don't show up we'll be lucky to even break even on the season, and will likely come home in by early- or mid-August.

The fishing days themselves have also been trying. We showed up late to a Thursday opening at the fishery three weeks back, after having driven the whole night, and immediately started setting up our gear. Hidden Falls is aptly-named. From Catham Strait, between Baranoff and Mitkoff Island, one sees waterfall’s majestically cascading into various coves and inlets, fed by glaciers of the surrounding mountains. On a nice day, particularly at sunrise or sunset, the place can be breathtaking and you realize why so many people come up here on Alaska cruises. That Thursday, however, Hidden Falls was somewhat more forbidding. A thick, clammy layer of marine fog veiled the coastline, and above the fog the mountain peaks were covered with snow, speaking to the unseasonably cool weather coming on the heels of a severe winter. These mountains released a cold, constant blast of wind, which stirred up white caps in the strait, tossed our boat, and prompted us to wear extra layers of clothing under our rain gear. We started fishing around noon, and it wasn't long before I had the privilege of meeting Jim Glenovich the deck boss, who only bears a faint resemblance to Jim Glenovich the cheerful and easy going sea captain. "You f*ing cocksuckers! Haul that gear! f*k! F*K!!! I need four new guys, goddammit!!! Our luck is like sh*t!" Anyone who has been doing this for a while will tell you that the secret to not breaking down or blowing up is letting the skipper's tirade role in one ear and out the other, a lesson that I'd internalized during my time on the Reality, but that first day was a rude awakening nonetheless. I have never in my life seen anyone who gets as hot as Jim. It's as if underneath his normal self there is some incredibly deep well of rage, bitterness, and shattered hope, all of which boil to the surface during the 30 minutes or so per set that he's alloted to do his "ass-chewing." To be fair, we've been having an incredibly tough time. Just about every set we make we have to negotiate a new problem: the net gets snarled up, the ring bar get bent, the hydraulic oil starts leaking, the bunt get snarled up as we're rolling the fish on deck, or worse, the boat drifts over our cork line and releases a couple hundred pounds of salmon. We never had these problems on the Reality, and I get the impression that Jim isn't used to dealing with them either. Though I'm learning quickly, I often confront the same struggle on deck that I confronted while playing rugby: knowing how to put yourself in the right place at the right time, and make a substantive contribution to the team. When the lines are snarled, the wind is blowing, my face is covered with jellyfish tentacles, Jim is screaming himself hoarse, and Harold and Tim are frantically scurrying around trying to set things right I tend to either get paralyzed, or bumble around like a fool and try to look busy. It's getting better, though, praise God, and I've even been the one to catch several errors and set a few things right on deck the last couple openings.

A useful mental trick I found for staying upbeat: Despite all attempts to stay positive, there will inevitably come a time when, in a challenging or uncomfortable situation, your mind says "let's be honest, this stinks," and you really are in no position to argue. The appropriate response at that juncture is "yes, but it's funny." Then you start laughing. A couple weeks back I was up on the top deck helping keep watch for jumpers, fish that leap from the water and often indicate a school, and Jim was still seething: "this is a f*king goat show. Our luck is sh*t!" I couldn't help laughing, to which he snapped "you're f*king broke! do you like that?!" "No, I hate it" I replied, "but all we can do is keep hauling gear." I have no doubt that God has a clear purpose for my time here. Though learning to trust in his provision when circumstances are beyond my control--as they are in every sense of the word right now--I'm also learning to tap an inner strength and resilience that I'm sure will serve me well in times ahead.

When not fishing I've spent a lot of that time reading--so far I've got through The Gates of Fire, The Audacity of Hope, Chaos, and am currently working on Bill Easterly's White Man's Burden--playing guitar, working out, eating, chatting with my crew mates, and getting off the boat to hike around whenever I can. Some highlights so far:

• Drew (the 20 year-old Western student who joined our crew the day we left) and I went to check out the salmon hatchery, and in addition to making friends with the employees saw a momma grizzly and her cub at a distance of about 50 feet.
• One morning, as I was sitting in the galley eating breakfast I heard a loud “SNUFFF” followed by a “THWOCK.” I hustled out onto the deck just in time to see a humpback whale—recently arrived from Baja Mexico in search of cooler water—in full breach, fins out and splayed wide as she rolled her belly up towards the sun before hitting the water with a terrific spray of white water and foam.
  
• We hauled a 7-8 foot long salmon shark onto the deck last Thursday. This was a legitimate, Discovery Channel-style, coal black eyes, sharp, pointy teeth, shark. When it came time for me to hop onto the deck after we'd rolled the bag of fish over the side I'll admit that I hesitated for a second! It was awesome to be in the presence of that animal, and I felt bad that we gaffed it in the gills, hit it three times on the head with a hammer, and then left it to struggle around on deck for half an hour. When it came time to hoist it over board we put a strap around its tail, and then used a winch to lift it over the side. Jim told me to grab a vickie, a thin sharp knife around the size of what you use a the dinner table, and saw its tail fin off. I told him didn't want to--it seemed kind of gratuitous to ruin such a powerful and beautiful animal that way, especially when I knew it was still alive--and he said "oh just cut the strap, then, you f*kin p*sy!" I was pleased to see the shark joyously thrash around in the water to free itself of the strap before diving out of sight. I was also glad we didn't haul it in again on the next set: in between whimpering parodies of me refusing to hurt a living thing, Jim threatened to leave me bleeding on the deck if we caught it again and it bit me. I couldn't help but laugh the whole time.
  
• Conversations with Jim and the crew have been awesome as well. For all the above, I don't want to leave the wrong impression about my skipper: though he gets mad, he doesn't stay that way, and when the day is done so is the ass-chewing, and he reverts to his normal self. He's opened up a bit about Vietnam, his philosophy about living well, thoughts about God, and has shared many hilarious stories of misadventures on the high seas. One of the things he has tried to impress the most upon me has been the importance of staying humble and genuine while in authority. His philosophy as a skipper is that he isn't good for much if he holds himself over his crew. He lives this out, getting up before any of us, working on different projects the whole day, doing dishes occasionally, and eating and drinking with us, instead of by himself in the wheelhouse. He tells me that I am here in his world only for a time to learn about this, and about the people who live in a reality that I will only ever be a guest in. Thought-provoking stuff.
  
• Bushwhacking in the Baranoff island mountains and hot tubs in the natural hot springs have been rejuvenating as well. I love being outside, and am awestruck by how beautiful my surroundings are every time I stop to look around. I forgot my camera back at the boat, but I hope to upload some photos soon.
  
• Reading Chaos and The Audacity of Hope was well worth it. I could write a full blog post about each of these books but I would boil it down to this: if you haven't read Audacity but are even somewhat interested in one of the most important Presidential contests in America history, read it. If you're scientifically or mathematically inclined, or are interested in how systems with fundamentally simple rules can generate complex behavior, read Chaos.
  

I'll wrap this up with a quick reflection. I've been asking myself over the last week or so "why did you come here?" There is rarely one answer to a question like that, but not a small portion of the answer in my case is that I was chasing this vision of the Rhodes scholar-fisherman, a man of both intellectual talent and gritty simplicity. A man whose mind dwells in the realm of lofty aspiration and service to God and humanity, but whose spirit and body have been tested by the strain of the real world. If this sounds pompous and silly to you then you're tracking right with me. My pursuit of this vision amounts to a deeply-held insecurity that I am not, when all is said and done, a person of substance. My foray into the world of commercial fishing is, in this sense, yet another attempt to prove to myself the contrary. Yet with fishing days few and far between I have progressively come to the realization that the situation I'm in doesn't really qualify as the kind of furnace that is capable of firing body and soul. After all, I've spoken with a 15 year old kid who worked 19 out of the last 20 days on cost recovery--around 380 hours of work in 2 and a half weeks--and my own little brother is pulling 100 hour weeks in the King Cove cannery (I'm proud of you, buddy, if you're reading this!!!). By any comparative metric, life for me has been pretty easy these days, and I feel my vision fading away into disappointment. I am coming to the painful realization that unless I abandon the irresponsible self-love that leads me to seek affirmation from my peers and my experiences I will forever be a slave to my insecurities. Both my friends Dan Blocksom and Cynthia Matthai have inspired me to consider once again the question "what does it mean to truly live one's live for an audience of One, letting all other concerns flow from there?"

The practical application of my struggle with this question has been around my alcohol consumption and language. If you think to pray for me, that my heart would stay soft and my mind sharp, I would be very grateful.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts/responses, and to know how you are doing. We're sailing south for leaving for Ketchikan in one hour: Pray for pinks!

With much love and respect,
Aaron