Fawn John’s First Night Out

October 17-18, 2006 — When Fawn John went out on his first solo night of fishing the Satisfaction, he took with him Andre, his friend from the contractor/landscaping world. John made his first set south of Restoration Point and east of Blake Island, which has always been one of his favorite spots to fish.

He watched the fast passenger ferry Skagit zip by on the way to the Vashon Island, Wash., ferry landing, and about 30 minutes later he watched it zip past him again, running pretty much the same course, except a bit closer to the net… quite a bit closer in fact… then it turned hard to the port and (oops!) ran over the net, right next to the end ball. The momentum of the flying ferry stripped about 50 fathoms before losing its speed and settling into the water near where the end of our net used to lie.

The Skagit had run outside of its normal route because it was done for the evening and was headed for the barn. John and Andre watched in disbelief as it ran the length of the net and turned just in time to run over the net. Why? Why do such nonsensical things happen? Perhaps the gillnet gods wanted to give Fawn John, after a 10-year absence from the gillnet game, a warm welcome back.

John’s warm welcome took him about three hours to untangle. Fortunately he had 60 nice, bright chum salmon out of the ordeal, which made it all better. Unfortunately 100 fathoms of net was destroyed in the process, which sucked because nets are expensive and our net was now short of both length and catching potential, so it makes it tougher to pay for that lost gear.

Unfazed by the first set’s disaster, John stuffed the scraps of dead net into garbage bags and piled them up in the bow of the Satisfaction. He was ready for another set. (John told me later that if he had any wits about him he would have taken the hint the gillnet gods were presenting him and regressed back into gillnet retirement.)

He went back across the sound, in front of his house where we had made our first set together a couple days earlier. He scratched up just a few fish for a couple of sets, but his morning set off Alki Point brought him a solid 100 fish. He was all excited when I talked to him on the phone as he told me about the jumpers he heard splashing around the boat when he was taking a catnap.

John wound up with 200 fish for the night, and the loss of 100 fathoms of net. That math really doesn’t compute with black ink, but us Puget Sound gillnetters really just do this for the thrill of it (really, I’m serious!). The highliner for the night was ol’ Joe Popich on the Big Dog.

Joe brought in 400+ fish, all from his morning set! John didn’t ask where he was fishing, because it really didn’t matter; there were good fish out there this fall, and we were ready for them.

To be even more ready for the fish, on the following Sunday we added a 100-fathom piece of net I had as spare. Fawn John helped me with the project. We tacked it on to the end of the net right where we were tied up at the tugboat float. I backed the truck onto the very small, not-intended-for-vehicles pier, slid my 100-fathom scrap of net off the back of the truck, then got my truck off the dock as quickly as I could before somebody noticed. Next we threw a line down to the Satisfaction and pulled the end of the net off the pier and then to the back of the boat. It took a while, but we tied and laced the net into one single piece, and then reeled the rest of the net aboard.

I was pretty happy we could manage all those net antics right there at the not-intended-for-net-work Harbor Island Marina, especially since we had commandeered our spot at the dock in the first place.

What a great way to operate!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Enter: Fawn John

Monday, October 10, 2007 — I pulled up to the staging float at the boat launch and met up with Fawn John, who I tagged with that name because his old gillnetter was called the Fawn. This was the first time he had seen my boat, and it was the first time we had seen each other in years. His first order of business was to show the girls a card trick. While he did that I added to my depleted tank the 5-gallon bucket of hydraulic oil he brought with him.

We laid out our first set in front of Fawn John’s house, which is about a mile south of Alki Point. I set the net to show him the procedure. It was a quick set, but we still picked up around 30 fish. John set the next set to get the feel of the boat. It was fun to be a crewman on the stern of my own boat, especially in Puget Sound, where I have almost exclusively fished alone, and never dreamed of being a crewman. We held this one till morning, which didn’t take long because we were up bullshitting for most of the time we could have grabbed a catnap.

It was a successful trial run all the way around for the Satisfaction and its weary crew. I dropped off Fawn John at the boat ramp, then roused the girls, who went to sleep after the first set with Fawn John, so they were quite fresh when I woke them.

We were headed for Sea Freeze, which is somewhere up the Duwamish Waterway Industrialized Zone. What a scourge that place is, with monstrous piles of scrap metal, mountains of gravel, huge cranes swinging about, rusty old barges moored all along the shoreline, and amazingly enough, tribal set gillnets strung occasionally from a buoy to the beach amidst the barges and toxic waste piles.

We found the Sea Freeze cold storage plant about a mile past the West Seattle Bridge. We had 175 chums for the night, for an $864 stock at $0.55 per pound, which was a really shitty price. Boats in Kingston were paid $0.65, and Northern fish in Tacoma paid $0.78, which is awesome!

My plan was to work this operation out of the Sea Freeze plant because of the ease of taking fish home to sell on the island, and because of the close proximity to Fawn John’s house. So I gritted and bared the screw-job on the price, and kept my focus on the promise of local fish sales and convenience of the entire operation.

My next challenge was to find a place to tie the boat up in the Duwamish Waterway. I called around, and even looked around various places on the waterway in the months preceding the opening, but I could find no prearranged moorage for the Satisfaction. I knew if I just went for it I could find some kind of renegade spot to tie up my boat, and sure enough I found one down at the Port of Seattle’s Harbor Island Marina nestled against the West Seattle Bridge.

I elected to tie on the shoreward side of the tugboat float, tucked between a couple of pilings, on the inside of the float just feet away from the rocky bulkhead. I tied forward of the single sporty boat that was already tied to that side of the float, so as not to draw attention to myself by being in his way if he decided to go for a boat ride.

This meant I was shoved way up between the rocks and the float, which was quite a precarious spot, but worth it because I knew there would be little chance of somebody ratting me out since nobody in their right mind would tie in that spot anyway.

I thought it best to back in, so when it was time to get out of there I could just let go the lines and head out in a hurry. Backing in was no simple task because of the strong current running full speed from the narrow river channel that makes Harbor Island an island.

My skilled crew and our determination to be done with this fishing trip brought the Satisfaction safely to the dock. She teetered on a midships buoy-ball with four criss-crossing spring lines, which held her fast through the worst of storm or flood.

The weary crew trudged off the dock with armloads of gear and made our way to Fawn John’s truck. He gave us a ride to the airport, plus a tour of his toil as a high-end landscaper. We parted ways at Galvin Flying Service at King County Airport, where we were soon swept away by a light aircraft that zipped us back home to our little island in the San Juans.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Satisfied on the Satisfaction

Sunday, October 15, 2006 — When the 5 p.m. opening fell upon us, we were right off Point Madison, which isn’t a bad starting point. I decided to blow off the unobtainable meeting with Fawn John, and instead slap it out where we were. The girls raised much protest, but I explained the tiny chop that was bouncing the boat so ferociously as we bucked into it would barely be noticeable when we were hanging on the end of the net. And miraculously, by the time the net was out and the engine finally shut off for the first time in hours and hours, it calmed down to just a ripple.

With the calming of the sea, the girls came out of their hiding spots like hornets from hibernation. Their stomachs were empty, so they filled them once again with Top Ramen while they played a game of chess. When we picked up the net they helped pick fish out and toss them into the hatch. We had 30 fish our first set, which lent to much excitement from the 11-year-old girls.

The second set was even more fun. It started with Bruce and me switching the hydraulic hoses away from the leaky net reel valve, which rendered the stern roller powerless. This wasn’t the fun part, but if we hadn’t done this it would have leaked out all the oil before the next set was hauled back, then we would have been finished. With that task completed, I cut up a chum salmon and had him on the barbecue in no time flat.

While we were chomping down the chum, we compiled a cardboard box full of combustible material, dumped a splash of diesel on top, lit it on fire, and set it adrift. I usually launch a burning raft of combustible material when on anchor so the tide carries it way into the night, but this time we were at the mercy of the non-existent wind to move the floating raft of flames away from my vessel. It was a close-in and intimate fire, kind of like a campfire with no chance of roasting marshmallows.

While the campfire floated around the boat, I serenaded the night with a few songs on the accordion. The girls even sang along by making up words that suited them. Then they joined in further by blasting a few struggled notes out on my trumpet. When interest in that activity waned, the seagulls took centerstage with a feeding session of leftover rice and fish scraps. I didn’t know so many activities could be fit into one drift. The girls helped pick and pitch the fish again, and we had 50 fish for the long soak of more than two hours.

By the time we had the net up and were headed for the Duwamish Head boat launch to pick up Fawn John it was 10:30 p.m. The sea was flat calm, the night was crystal clear, and the stars were shining brightly upon us on the hour and 15-minute run. The girls played cards the whole way, and I was so glad they stuck out the shitty weather so they could appreciate this great night on the water.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Trapped Aboard the Satisfaction

Sunday, October 15, 2006 — Bruce showed up around 5:45 a.m., just as my alarm was going off. I only half-slept that night because I was edgy with anticipation of the 20-mile run across the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the kids aboard.

We left the dock at around 6:20 a.m. on Sunday with 10 hours and 40 minutes until the start of the opening. The plan was to meet Fawn John, my friend and fishing companion, in West Seattle so he could join us for the night’s fishing and learn the peculiarities of the Satisfaction, since he was going to run it one night a week throughout the fall season.

The weather, with a gentle but steady southerly of 10 to 15 knots, was by no means anything to complain about, but it wasn’t anything to brag about either. I had to slow the boat down a couple of times to avoid items on the dashboard taking flight, but that is mostly because the Satisfaction is not that great a sea boat, especially when it is missing the extra weight of full fuel tanks in the stern.

My biggest concern was my cargo — Madeline and Yuki. I didn’t want them to get sick and have the hates for the whole trip. They were signed on for the run down, and a full night of fishing all the way through to the next morning. I didn’t want them slathered all over their bunks, green and puking, hating every minute of the trip.

A tide rip just past Smith Island took its toll on Yuki. She hucked up the bowl of Top Ramen Madeline had prepared for her, but then felt much better. The weather came down temporarily, but the swell stood up again at Point Wilson. Yuki held tight, and both girls were quite happy to set foot on a solid fuel dock in Port Townsend. The boat took 200 gallons of fuel at just under $3 per gallon, and after filling up the water tank, we were outta there.

We opted to take the hole-in-the-wall, the narrow channel between Marrowstone Island and Hadlock, in effort to avoid lousy weather outside in the greater Puget Sound. Unfortunately, the wind vortexed through the pass so we had to buck a stiff head wind, plus we were bucking the tide.

This was really disappointing to me because I knew we would be going 9 knots had we headed outside around Marrowstone Point, but instead here we were struggling to make 6 knots, and we still had an uncomfortable ride.

The girls had a brief reprieve from the weather as we approached Point No Point, tucked in tight to the beach. But as soon as we rounded No Point, it was shitty as ever. I had to slow the boat way down to avoid an all out mutiny. It was 2 p.m. and we were barely making 5 knots with 20+ miles to go to our destination in West Seattle. These numbers weren’t panning out for a 5 p.m. opening time, but all I could do was press on and hope for the best.

It was the approach to Kingston that brought the first plea for land from the girls. “Dad, we want to go to land — ANYWHERE, ANYWAY! Just PLEASE take us to LAND!” I made a few calls to our friends and relatives in the Seattle area, but there was no way to arrange an escape for the girls. They were trapped aboard the Satisfaction, bucking their way toward West Seattle.

TO BE CONTINUED…