Storm Warnings

April 24-27, 2006 — The challenge of this run south was trying to get to Bellingham by Thursday, so we could get a slightly better price for our halibut, which would be available for the weekend market. This added urgency brought the throttle up to 1,600 rpm from the engine and many glances at the logbook to study previous years’ transits. It didn’t look good for us making it by Thursday at noon, but there was a slim possibility, provided we made the tide at Seymour Narrows and weren’t slowed down by weather.

Our time-sensitive transit also brought the return of The Weatherman, a personality hidden within George, who comes out when there is (or isn’t) a concern for the weather. The Weatherman has been with us every season, but because they changed the reporting technique for areas in the Gulf of Alaska, he wasn’t sure which weather was being reported where, so he didn’t rebroadcast too much information. But as we ran our load of halibut through the inside toward Bellingham, George heard his familiar weather channels, so The Weatherman kept us abreast of the upcoming storms for which we needed to prepare.

There were storm warnings in Chatham Sound, but it was flat calm when we passed through (dodged that bullet!). There was a big blow around Bella Bella, British Columbia, but miraculously, we missed that one as well (whew!). A nasty blow was forecast for Queen Charlotte Sound, which would have left us vulnerable to open ocean for six hours of running, but we somehow escaped that torrent and sneaked through with just a 15-knot buck from the southeast.

In Johnston Strait we were bucking into 25 knots, which did slow the boat down, but the seas were insignificant. By this time we had calculated that even though we would make the tide at the narrows for certain, we would still arrive too late in the evening to make the Thursday delivery. With this knowledge, the throttle dropped down to its customary position, turning the engine at 1,400 rpm.

After we conceded to a Friday delivery, The Weatherman was not as verbose. He did hint we could be in for a miserable run down Georgia Strait, and it was quite bumpy for the first few hours. But on the last day of our transit, Thursday, April 27, the seas were flat calm, like glass. We arrived in Bellingham at 8:30 p.m. We had survived the storm.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Nightmare Crossing

April 20-23, 2006 — The weather held for us the whole time we were fishing the last of our halibut quota, up until the last string, when a swift breeze picked up out of the southeast on the evening of Thursday, April 20.

We started running for home with a 40-knot blow hitting us on our bow quarter, which makes for a REALLY uncomfortable ride. We didn’t lose much speed, as we were making 7 knots; had it been right on our bow, we would have been slowed to 4 knots at best.

We were charging for home, trying to get to the Arrowac plant in Bellingham, Wash., by Thursday of the following week. Tony, the plant manager, says Wednesday or Thursday deliveries bring the best price for halibut, as it is available for the weekend market.

We didn’t slow down, and neither did the wind. Nor did it change direction. It just kept blowing from the southeast, and we just kept heading east, rocking and rolling, diving and jumping as we went.

I wasn’t much for cooking in this slop, mostly because of the discomfort and inconvenience, but by the second day those reasons evolved to nausea. At breakfast on Saturday, April 22, I served meat sticks, which was simply fried hamburger broken into strips right on the griddle. I nibbled enough to satisfy me while I cooked, and then sat down with the guys at the table when they ate.

Watching them eat was asking too much, so I stepped out on the back deck for some air. The wind was driving hard into the cup of our back deck created by the shelter deck and the bait house. Spray was lashing the bait house, sending vaporized salt water swirling through the back deck area.

The cold air and spray should have been enough to cure my ill, but with the relentless sea rolling and pounding the boat, my guts just got tired of fighting the urge. My puke was green and chunky, and tasted nasty as ever. I though it was interesting that it was green, since I hadn’t eaten anything green since we began running.

Later that day Mike put on his rain gear and headed out to the bait house to overhaul some gear. He said he was tired of wedging himself in, attempting to find a comfortable position in the sloppy roll of the Discovery.

The wind had backed off a little, but I remained anchored to my spot on the galley bench. A couple of hours later Mike came back and urged me to come out and join him, assuring me I would feel better if I did. It sounded like good advice, so I got my gear on and headed out to the bait house.

Mike was right; it really wasn’t bad in the bait house, but it smelled of rancid squid, and with the country music blaring, I thought I was going to puke for a whole new set of reasons. A quick roll would sometimes try to flip my overhauled halibut skate onto the floor, but the attention required to keep my work on my bench was a welcome distraction from the way I felt, and from the country music. George and Brett joined us after a short while, and for a couple of hours we were all out there overhauling halibut skates in the windstorm.

I had prepared a lame beef stew that would be done when anybody wanted to eat it, so the others went in when they were hungry. As for me, I was the happiest I had been in two days, especially after I turned the music off and opened the door for ventilation, so I planned on going nowhere until we were inside the protected waters of Cape Spencer.

I wasn’t sure how far out we were, but I remember Roald mentioning earlier in the day that we should be in by 3 a.m. Sunday. So I worked through the dinner hour and through the evening. At 11 p.m. George hollered out to see if I wanted to stand a watch, but I told him I wasn’t coming in until we were in calm waters.

The weather never seemed to improve; in fact, it got worse. My skate was constantly being flung upward, and several times almost hit the floor; I would desperately flop over my skate and hang on to the baiting bench as my feet slid out from under me. Eventually I burned out on gear work, and at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 23, I came in from the bait house. I had been out there a full 9 hours.

Brett was in the galley when I came in, and he told me we still had 35 miles — almost five hours of running — before we were inside Cape Spencer. I couldn’t believe it; this was the crossing that wouldn’t end! I took a watch, and as time does pass, we eventually reached calm water. It was a crossing I would just as soon forget.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Halibut Panic

April 17-20, 2006 — We arrived back in Seward on the morning of Monday, April 17. There were a few other boats that had called in ahead of us, so we had to wait until the following day to deliver the last of our Blackcod. All we had left to catch was 40,000 pounds of halibut, which we were running south to deliver in Bellingham, Wash., so we were almost done.

Our postponed delivery didn’t slow us down. Early that morning we pulled from the freezer enough squid to bait half the halibut gear, but the cold weather kept the 30-pound blocks of squid too hard to break apart, so we didn’t actually start baiting until 4 that evening. While we were baiting I sensed this strange urgency, like if we did anything aside from baiting this halibut gear, the world would come tumbling down around us.

I decided to get the groceries that night, because if I was absent the next day, it would be considered a capital offense, especially considering I could have gotten the groceries while we were waiting for the bait to thaw (but that was before I knew we were in panic mode to get out of town).

So after the baiting was done, and after I called my wife, I headed up to the Safeway for the latest boat-shopping session ever, walking into the store around 10 p.m. I was back on the boat and had all the groceries stowed by half-past midnight — what a great time to do the groceries!

I was up at 6 the next morning, Tuesday, April 18, to make a couple of phone calls, and then I migrated out to the bait house to bait gear while I talked to my wife on my phone with the hands-free headset. It wasn’t too long after I sneaked out there that George came to join me, and then Mike and then Brett — and it wasn’t even 7:30 a.m.! These guys were SERIOUS about baiting halibut gear, so I was all the more glad I had done my shopping the night before.

We stood in the bait house and baited all through the delivery at Resurrection Bay Seafoods. We stopped only if it was absolutely necessary, like when we took ice and bait. When they were done with us at the RBS dock we got the hell outta there; we were off by 3 p.m., baiting gear as we sailed away. Goodbye, Seward! See ya next year!

Halibut fishing went really smooth. We were out on the grounds by 2 a.m. Wednesday, April 19. There was a bit of a swell, but the wind had died down, and it was really easy going. We set out one string of 12 skates in the darkness, then hit the rack until 6 that morning, when we set out two more.

We went right into hauling halibut gear after a quick breakfast. We had more than 5,000 pounds on our first string, and everybody was happy. Then we had close to 6,000 pounds on the next string. We set out a couple more skates. The fish were coming aboard, and the way it looked we would have our quota in just two days of fishing. Then it would be off to Bellingham!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Blackcod Cleanup

April 15-16, 2006 — Finally, on the morning of Saturday, April 15, the boat sailed out to go fishing. The forecast was for northwest 30 knots, so we would have it on our tail as we ran out to the grounds, then it called for a one-day break in the weather, on which we could catch the remainder of our blackcod.

We had only 13,000+ pounds to catch, so if all went well, this would be a short trip. The biggest concern seemed to be the possibility of a strong current associated with the minus tides, which could wreak havoc in hauling the gear in the deep waters of the blackcod ground.

The run out was a dream as the wind had died down to a gentle breeze, but there was still a big swell on our stern leftover from whatever torrent was brewing in our absence. We set three 25-skate blackcod strings starting at 10 p.m. and finished until about midnight. We started in at 6 a.m. on Easter Sunday, April 16.

The nice weather was holding for us, and the swell had died down significantly. We cut up a string’s worth of herring to bait while we hauled, grabbed the buoy line, and started hauling gear. I was hauling, and there wasn’t ANY tide. In fact, I just kept the boat in neutral for most of the time; so much for the concern about strong tides!

We had close to 4,500 pounds of blackcod on the first string, which was about one-third of our remaining quota. We stopped baiting because, with fishing like this, we weren’t going to need to set any more gear. Our next string had close to 5,000 pounds of nice big fish.

During our last string, Arnie on the Evening Star swung by us to take our picture, and the whale that had been following him latched onto our gear and picked us pretty clean for the second half of the string. We had been whale-free up until that moment, and we wound up with only 3,500 pounds after the whale took his share. We finished hauling by 6 p.m., and cleaning up the boat was a total breeze… because it never had a chance to get dirty!

We hauled all of our gear in only 12 hours, since we never reset any gear. If you count the soak time on the gear, we were done in 20 hours. And the weather co-operated so well it was unbelievable; just as we hauled the last buoy line aboard, the wind picked up to 25 knots, right on our stern quarter, so we had a great ride in!

TO BE CONTINUED…