Christmas Alaska Style

Many years ago... I think either 1995 or 1996 I spent a Christmas to remember... Diving.
  Scott and I had teamed up diving for Abalone for the month of October. We met other divers who informed us that there were other options to keep us busy for most of the winter. Diving for Sea Cucumbers.
  During those years of Abalone diving, the season for Cucumbers did not open until the first of November and would go into January as the quota of harvest remained strong.
  It was mid December by the time the close to town quota was harvested forcing us to make a two day run from Sitka to a Bay on the far side of Chatham Straits, called Tebenkof. Scott was called by a friend just days before we left asking us to haul a complete camp of tents and other supplies as the dive group had no boat and planned on staying for a full month until the dive season closed. We ran with another friend and troller, Jay, who had a boat named the Lillian Ann.
  It was bitter cold and Jay talked us into hauling some old scraps of carpet with us. That would come in very handy we were to find out.
  Chatham Strait was unusually calm for our trip down and we made great time. We cruised into Tebenkof early in the afternoon the day before the opening. All our dive ares were on a Monday - Tuesday dive time.
  Scott and I were diving off an eighteen foot aluminum skiff that we towed behind Scott's big troller, the Elizabeth Ann. We had an old fisherman for our tender, Bill. Bill was in his seventies or eighties, strong as an ox and a mechanical genius. Anything that broke, Bill could figure out how to fix it. A real blessing to have on a dive operation.
  We anchored the Elizabeth Ann in a quiet bay and enjoyed a relaxing evening.
  To bed early in anticipation of a grueling hard day tomorrow.
  At about one or two in the night we woke up to a horrific sound. A grinding crushing sound of wood being ripped open.
  "We mush have dragged off anchor and are crashing into the beach!" on of us shouted as we bailed out of bed and fired up the boat spot light.
  No shore close, but what we saw was unbelievable. The bay had frozen over and the out going tide pulled all the solid ice right into our anchored boat.
  "Quick, get the skiff untied and break ice so it does not cut the wooden hull in half!" Scott shouted.
  Bill and I raced outside to biting cold. Back inside for more clothing and then to the skiff tied to the back of the boat.
  Scott had the Elizabeth Ann's engine fired up and was pulling anchor rope in as quickly as the winch would wind. He needed to get to the heavy chain before the ice sliced the poly line in two.
  Bill and I drove the skiff around the Elizabeth Ann to its bow and began weaving back and forth in front of the boat to break the huge bay of frozen ice racing to the helpless boat.
  Scott was quickly getting the carpet scraps tied to lines and hung over the side and into the water. The carpet would protect the wooden hull... if he could get it in place quickly enough.
  Back and forth, back and forth Bill and I ran the little metal boat grinding and breaking ice. It was a nasty sound to anyone who cares about boats and motors. We just hoped the ice would break before the thin aluminum hull. Throughout the early morning we would switch running the skiff to come inside and warm up.
  Darkness gave way to dawn at about eight thirty and we were still grinding away in the little skiff. Hands and feet were frozen, as was ears and noses, but we could not stop, our lives depended on us making this work.
  At daylight the last of the ice moved past us and we tied the skiff to the mother boat. Exhausted, we staggered into the warm house and fell into soft seats.
  "Well boys, Bill said, "Diving starts in about an hour so if you guys want to get into your dive suits, I'll rummage up something for breakfast.''
   Starting a six hour dive day totally exhausted is not the way to do things, but we had no choice... and we were young.
  Scott and I dove in that freezing cold water all day, and the next one as well. Sometimes Bill would have to use the skiff to break ice as it drifted towards our yellow dive hoses. He did not want a big slab of ice to cut our air hose and leave us on the bottom airless.
  We spoke to Jay while selling our catch at the tender. He too had found a bay full of ice, but had thought ahead and had his carpet hanging the night before. They were able to sleep through most of the grinding knowing that at least his hull was safe from cuts.
  The group that we hauled the tent for opted for staying on Jay's boat as it was much warmer than staying on the beach in a couple feet of snow in a tent.
  We Dove for a couple of weeks in Tebenkof before the quota was caught.
  Christmas morning found us tied to a dock at a little waterfall, hot springs place called Baranof Warm Springs.
  The snow was a few feet deep and blanketed the entire place. A huge waterfall plunged out of a high mountain lake in a boiling sheet of white water. Ice coated the edges of the falls making this Christmas morning one of the most beautiful any of us had ever seen.
  We soaked in some hot tubs we cleared of snow and filled with the natural running hot water. Talk about a great time.
  I found a small branch from a pine tree and made us a small Christmas Tree to put on the table of the boat. We shared a meal with Jay and the other divers. I think there were eight of us. All of us thanking the Good Lord for His blessings.
  It certainly was a Christmas to remember, Alaska style!

Shower Dance

  Commercial fishing has a certain poetic appeal to the outside world. The real story is much different to those brave enough to attempt to make a living chasing ocean fish.
  I lived on a small boat for seven years. The house living area would be about the size of a camper on a Volkswagen. Always damp, even with the stove going, I learned to stack my clothes and sleeping equipment out of the constant leaks developed by a wooden boat pounding daily on the North Pacific Ocean. Romantic... hardly! To bathe one had to heat a kettle of water on the diesel stove and pour into a pan to take a sponge bath, crude at best.
  The cold storage provides free showers and pay laundry facilities... and therein lies the problem. The two do not mix! The washing machines are next to the shower stalls and compete for the same water.
  I was fishing off Cross Sound and doing my fish selling, fuel, and grocery restocking in a small board walk town of Pelican.
  Here is on of the stories of the difficulty of just taking a shower after a full week of hard work and sweating.
  I made a turn-around in Pelican the other evening. It was a routine event in the line of delivering the fish and taking on new ice. Also routine was the practice of my dance steps.  I know you're wondering what dance steps a crusty ol' fisherman could possibly have... Let me tell you.  I call it the one legged, screeching, eyes shut shower dance. 
  It starts like this; After a week on the ocean I am very ready for a real shower. I love to stand and feel that first blast of warm water course down my  body. Invariable a big, "aaahhhh" escapes my lips, of its own account. It is hard to explain the feeling of a hot shower after a full week of sweat. Sometimes I would find myself laughing out loud at the great pleasure of hot water.
   I stand there and smile real big for a while.  As I start getting used to the water I begin cranking up the heat to steam the weariness out of my bones.  Shampoo in the hair and a bar of great smelling soap on one leg hiked up in the air.
  It is very difficult to stand on one leg after being on the sea for a week and doubly so with one's eyes closed. The motion of the ocean continues while on land.
  Then it happens. Some one outside must know all the pleasure I am feeling right now and decides to put a damper on it. They put a load of laundry in the washing machine.
  I have tried for years to tune my ears in to the sound of a coin feeder being pushed forward and released to spring back starting a load of wash. I still miss most of them.  
  Here I stand wobbling around in a small shower room, one leg in the air, shampoo running over my closed eyelids when suddenly all the hot water is sucked into a washing machine! 
  "oooohhhh! sshheeessshh! ugggghhh!" I stammer as I dance on one leg trying to get out of the stream of glacier fed cold water.  I reach back and crank the hot water up to a tolerable luke warm to rinse the soap suds off me.
  I stand there trembling watching the goose bumps slowly recede to the size of oranges. 
  Alright, now I've been warned. I know there is a washer in operation.
  The tricky part of the shower is now underway.  I must time the water temperature fluctuation in order to finish this fine shower. 
  Even with that knowledge,I get lulled into a false sense of security. I forget.  
  I shampoo the hair again and begin soaping the other leg. 
  POW!
  "Iiiieeee!" I shriek as the now warm water turns scalding hot.
  I dance around in the shower room banging off walls in an attempt at keeping some hide left un-scalded.  The washing machine just went to cold water rinse. 
  "ouch, ouch, oweeee!" I mutter as I start adjusting the water to a once again luke warm temperature. 
  I give up on trying for another shampoo. I'll just stand here and enjoy the water.  The machine now goes into the spin cycle blasting little bursts of hot or cold water. 
  I dance around the shower until at last I am weary from all the dancing and water adjusting. 
  Back in my clothes I open the door and step out of the shower room to see a guy sitting on a washing machine reading a book. He looks up and smiles. "Wonderful shower, huh? he asks. 
  "Bah!" I reply as I walk back to the boat.  "What's wrong with that grumpy guy?" I hear him mutter as I walk out of earshot.

Dinner and a Movie, Ocean Style

  I'm recovering from yet another eye surgery, so thought I'd go back into some of my earlier years of commercial fishing to recall a story or two.
  I know my mind is as sharp as a tack... ok, maybe as sharp as the top of a large globe! I guess what I'm saying is that some of the details may be a bit fuzzy or not quite as accurate as when it happened.
  I was talking to my buddy Scott, who is in many of my writings. He informed me that when I write about him he has a hard time remembering it the same way I write it.
  "Was I really there?" he asks me.
  "Of course you were. You are the star of the story," I tell him.  "I may embellish a few things just to keep the story exciting. Our normal boring lives would not impress many people."
  Scott and I were commercial fishing late in August. It had been a long season and we had pounded day after day 19 to 20 hours each day. Scott owned and operated a beautiful boat named the Elizabeth Ann. she was a large horse shoe sterned 43 foot wooden vessel that had plied the Alaskan waters for many years.
  I owned and was fishing off a smaller 36 foot double ended troller named the Col. Lindy.
  If I remember right we were fishing off Cape Spenser. The Silver Salmon run was tapering down a bit on the open ocean but we were dragging our hooks from dark to dark hoping to land on the mother lode and fill the fish holds.
  Day after day we would pass each other as we fished. We would pause fishing to wave at each other. Our radio traffic was constant as we broke the daily boredom chatting about anything we could think of. Growing up in the same area and even attending the same high school gave us many topics to chat about.
  "one two, one two, Scotty are you there," I spoke into the radio mic.
  "Hey, I've got you," came the static voice over my scrambled radio.
  We had purchased voice scrambled radios so we could speak freely without the entire fleet hearing what was being said. The big trick of commercial fishing was to try and break other groups scramble code so you could listen in and get fish numbers without them knowing. Scott and I were not "High liner" boats so we doubted that anyone else really cared where we fished and what we caught, but it was still nice to know most of the fleet could not hear your conversations.
  "I've got a couple of steaks for supper tonight," I told Scott. "If we could figure a way to get together we could have a nice dinner."
  "I've got a good movie from my last turn around in town that we could watch," came his reply over the radio.
  We had been fishing hard all day and then just shutting our boats down and drifting at night. It saves the fuel of running a few hours to the shore and picking ones way into an anchorage by radar and spot lights. You then have to wake up in the dark to make your run back out to the fishing grounds early the next morning.
  "It is a beautiful ocean, maybe I could pull in close and you could jump on my boat for a meal and a movie," Scott planted an idea in both of our minds.
  We fished until the ocean was gobbling the sun in darkness before Scott brought up the crazy plan again.
  "You still up for dinner and a movie?" he asked over the radio.
  "Wow, thought you were kidding," I replied back. "Just how is this going to work?"
  We had both pulled our fishing gear but our 40 foot long poles with stabilizers were sprouting off the sides of both of our boats. When we tie together in an anchorage we would both pull a pole so we could lash the two boats together for the night. It takes very calm water to keep a couple of twenty ton vessels from grinding and crashing each other to pieces.
  "I think I could come up behind you, nose the Elizabeth Ann to your stern, you could hop aboard and I could back away," Scott planned.
  There was a large gentle swell running on the ocean that evening. A large swell would bring our boats into a very tricky situation. If Scott came in too close his bow could raise over my stern and crush my smaller boat. If my stern came up hard under his bow it could rip a gaping hole in his bow planks.
  "I guess we can set it up and see how it looks," I said with just a bit of doubt in my voice.
  I grabbed my steaks and moved to the stern of my now drifting boat. Scott edged the big Elizabeth Ann in close. The mild swells now looked like roaring waves smashing things to bits in my mind.
  I stood on the back of my boat under a cover called a hay rack. As Scott's boat neared I had to look up to see the top of his bow rail. I would be crushed in between his bow and my hay rack.
  I raced back in to my radio. "Not going to work. Your bow it to tall for the hay rack," I told Scott.
  "How about standing on your hay rack?" Scott questioned back.
  The playing field just got substantially more tricky. One thing to stand on the deck of a rolling boat, another to stand on the top of a flat roof on a rolling boat.
  I climbed up the hay rack moving my buoys, shrimp and crab pots, and other items stored out of the way up there. I tried to stand but learned quickly it was just not secure enough footing. Wow, this was going to be tricky!
  Scott once again maneuvered the big Elizabeth Ann in close. The bow of his boat and stern of my boat were not at all in sync. My stern would rise up while his bow dropped deep in the swell. We would have to have perfect timing to pull this off.
  The swells leveled just a bit and Scott throttled forward, as his bow and my stern evened out I jumped!
  I could hear Scott full throttle reverse as I left the hay rack of the Col. Lindy. I landed in the center of his bow deck and rolled onto my knees. I jumped up to see if we were clearing my stern. The tall bow of the Elizabeth Ann slowly backed away from my stern.
  We did it!
  I watched my boat grow smaller in the distance with just a little drifting mast light glowing in the darkness. My boat was now up for official ocean salvage. Once you abandon a boat on the ocean, the first one to come upon it can claim salvage rights. Not a good feeling at all to think about that.
  Scott drove us quite a distance from my drifting boat to make sure we did not drift into it as we watched the movie.
  We fired up the barbecue and had the steaks sizzling in no time.
  We shared a great steak dinner while watching a movie on the high seas of Alaska. When you have not had contact with a real person for days and days, it is just nice to be able to carry on a conversation without keying a radio mic. We visited into the pitch black of the night.
  "Well, I'd better get back to my boat for the night," I told Scott.
  We turned on his radar and waited for it to warm up. He adjusted the distance to a half mile. No blips on the screen. One mile. Still no sign of my boat. I was looking out the windows with Scott's binoculars and could not pick up my anchor light at all.
  We had lost my boat on a huge ocean!
  Scott cranked up the distance on his radar again. Three miles. The sweep went in a complete circle. No blip to indicate a boat. Unbelievable!
  The radar was completing its second sweep when a tiny blip showed up.
  "There! Is that my boat?" I asked.
  Scott brought the bow of the Elizabeth Ann around to point in the direction of the blip on the radar. I kept scanning the horizon with binoculars. We cruised a bit before the light of my boat became visible to us.
  "Whew," I let out a big sigh, "I sure am glad to find my boat again."
  Scott motored his boat to my stern again. Once again we played the fragile game of bumper boats. With perfect timing of waves and boat control, I was able to make the jump from Scott's bow to the top of my hay rack.
  "Hey we did it!" I exclaimed to Scott, over the radio. " Thanks for the dinner and the movie!"
  I fired up my boat and slowly gave distance between our two boats.
  "Happy drifting," we both told each other as we shut down our boats for a night of drifting sleep on the wild North Pacific Ocean.

Man Overboard

    "I'll meet you at the boat," Mike texted me early in the morning.
  I grabbed my rifle, back pack, and then layered several layers of cold weather gear before heading out the door to where Mike was hooking up to his skiff.  Daylight was just thinking about breaking through the sky.
  "Wow, it's freezing out here," I mumbled to him as I stuffed my things into his truck. Clouds of steam puffed around our faces as our breath vaporized in the morning air.
  Winter had its strangle hold on South East Alaska. The cold snow on the mountain peaks was here for the rest of the year, maybe to melt off by next June, July, or even August.
  "This is going to be a very cold boat ride," I commented to Mike as he drove to the boat ramp at the end of the road.
  "Sure is, Hope we dressed warm enough," he replied back.
  We were boat excited to run the beaches one more time in search of Sitka Blacktail deer. The snow level was not quite enough to move the deer onto the beaches, but with the constant cold and the November rut in full swing, we were hoping to catch the bucks chasing does onto the beaches.
  The boat ramp was frozen in a sheet of ice but Mike did a good job of keeping the sliding truck lined up with the boat until he reached the unfrozen tide line.
  "Wow, good job keeping it straight," I said. I unhooked the boat and grabbed the tie up line as he continued backing the boat into the water.
  I fired up the 35 hp outboard to let it warm up as Mike parked the truck and trailer.
  We struggled into our float coats, ear warmer hats, and mittens. Each item seemed difficult to get on as we were so bundled with clothing.
  "Not a day I would want to go swimming," I said to Mike as I pushed away from the dock.
  "It's froze up!" Mike said.
  "What?"
  "The shifter is frozen. I can't get it into forward or reverse," he said while working the shift lever gently back and forth.
  Not uncommon in such cold weather. We had ran the boat yesterday and the water had frozen on everything since then.
  At last he managed to get it moving a bit forward.
  "There," he said, "I got it to shift into forward. let me try reverse." Slowly he shifted from forward, to neutral, and then into reverse.
  "All good to go," mike beamed a smile at me.
  We made a freezing run from Sitka an hour to the North to Salisbury sound, I was huddled over keeping my two hoods pulled over my stocking cap, but even then the cold seemed to reach inside and squeeze the warmth out of my ears.
  Mike slowed the boat to an idle.
  "Need to hit the beach for a warm up," he said. I was more than ready myself. All my morning coffee was sitting hard on my bladder.
  "Wow, I haven't been this cold since the last time," I told Mike as I wrung some feeling into my fingers. We both danced about on the beach a while until we warmed a bit. I guess we could call it the "deer dance". It is more a bounce shuffle than a real dance, but on slick low tide rocks it can be interesting.
  We cruised into a Big Bear Bay, then around and into Little Bear Bay, dodging skiff ice in both of them. You know its cold when the bays start freezing in salt water.
  We rounded the corner near Surgis Narrows and decided to hit the beach for some muskeg hunting. We bungee anchored the boat. Mike has a long bungee cord attached to his anchor. We drop the anchor about twenty feet from shore, then motor into shore. We keep a long line from the boat to a tree high above the tide line, and then allow the boat to spring back over the anchor on the bungee. It is a great system for quick anchoring in tidal water. There is nothing worse than anchoring a boat while you hunt, to come back and find the tide gone out and your boat high and dry on the beach. You have to sit and wait for the next high tide swing before you can float the boat again. Yup, I really do like the bungee system!
  Mike and I hunted for a couple hours with no luck. Back at the boat we decide to cruise the beaches at low tide on the way home.
  We drag the nose of the boat onto the beach and get into our float coats and warm weather gear, wrap up the shore line, shove off and let the bungee spring us off the beach out to deeper water.
  "Hey, I can't find my ear flap hat," Mike said from the front of the boat. He was looking around near where his float coat had been laying in the boat.
  "I'll look back here," I said and turned to look in the back of the boat.
  Mike hauled in the anchor hand over hand and I heard it clunk into the bottom of the boat with a rattle of chain.
    I felt the boat lurch sideways and glanced up in time to see mike's legs following his body overboard and into the freezing ocean!
  "Mike!" I shouted as I dropped the gun I was holding and raced to where Mike had been in the boat.
  Mike's hands shot up out of the water and I grabbed the top of his float coat and pulled as hard as I could. He had a death grip on the side of the boat and was trying hard to climb back in. We got his elbows locked over the side of the boat but with all his now wet clothing, could not get him up over the side of the boat.
  "I can't get you over the side!" I shouted the obvious to him.  Mike raised a booted foot and locked it over the edge of the boat. I grabbed his leg and his shoulder and pulled as hard as I could while he rolled into the boat.
  Mike laid in the bottom of the boat panting and I stood in total disbelief.
  "I can't believe what just happened," Mike exclaimed. "I fell in!"
  "Are you soaked to the skin?" I asked.
  "No, I have so many layers of clothes on the water is only from my knees down. My boots are full," He answered back.
  "Ok, this hunt is over," I said, "Let's get you back to town. If you feel at all numb, if you feel like your teeth are chattering, we are hitting the beach for a nice warm up fire! Agreed?"
  "Yup, let's get out of here!"
  Mike started the skiff engine and pointed the bow towards home. It would be a good hour run in very cold temperatures.
  We hardly glanced at the beaches on the way back to the truck. I was constantly asking Mike if he was overly cold.
  "Only my feet," he kept answering.
  We raced back to the dock and Mike hobbled up the boat ramp to his truck. Cold feet makes you walk like a duck.
  The next morning Mike and I sat drinking coffee and talking over how lucky and blessed we had been.
  We discussed how quickly an excursion can go bad in Alaska. Had Mike been alone... he may not have been able to get back into the skiff. By getting his upper body out of the water quickly we were able to allow the layers of clothing to ward off the bone chilling water. We learned to always put our float coats on before getting into the boat, as you never know when it may save your life.
  Mike had stepped on a dock bumper buoy which rolled under his feet flinging him backwards over the side of the boat. One minute he was fine, the next he was in a survival situation.
  Mike was thankful he had placed his gun into the boat and not slung over his shoulder as he normally has it upon entering the boat. That would have been one lost gun, or at the very least a salt water drenched gun.
  We are both thankful that this situation turned out good. It could have gone so much differently. Thank the Good Lord for watching out for us!
                                              
                                                   heading back to the anchored skiff

Old Duffers, Steep Mountains, and Smart Critters

  "Hey Mike, it looks like tomorrow is going to be a good day for a hike up the mountain," my text read.
  "Sounds good. Six in the morning?" came his instant reply
  "Wow, sun up is only at 7:50. How about 6:30?" I wrote back.
  Interesting how we used to phone each other now we rely on the impersonal way of reading texts. How times have changed.
  One thing that has not changed... how incredibly steep these mountains are.
  "Let's take another breather," Mike huffed.
  I acted like I could take it or leave it, but I was more than ready to stop for a nice break.
  "Not much further," I said, but looking up the face above us we both knew it would be quite a while before we broke out on top.
  We had been hiking for nearly an hour by head lamps in the dark of the morning. Our theory being one must sneak up on the deer critters in the dark. If they can't see us coming, they won't know we're there.
  Mike and I were breathing like two fifty-something old duffers, trying desperately to climb an impossibly steep mountain before daylight caught us in the act. If a deer had been born totally deaf, was almost blind, and had no smell olfactories in its nose... we might have a chance of sneaking up on it. Other than that... not a chance!
  Daylight broke, spilling light down the mountain. The two old duffers were nowhere near the top.
  "Hey, at least we are getting exercise," we both agreed at once.
  "A few years ago I used to leave the truck about an hour later and get to the top to wait for it to get light," I told Mike. "You know, when I was young."
  "Hmmm..." was all he said back. I could tell by his look, he could not imagine me young.
  With a big groan Mike and I picked up our heavy packs and guns for a bit more climbing. Oh wait, those are empty packs. Oh well, they sure feel heavy. I did have a bottle of water and a candy bar in mine.
  For some reason, we climbed a few ridges further to the right than we usually do, and found ourselves mired in waist high brush. All brush in Alaska grows thick and lays down hill. To climb through it you have to either part it with your hands, or just lean far forward and bull your way through it.
  The top of the mountain found Mike and I with our coats stuffed in our empty but heavy packs, sweat streaming down our faces in the freezing cold morning air.
  "Whew, we made it," Mike panted.
  "I knew we would," came my smug reply.
  We hunted hard looking in every place deer usually are found, Of course by now all the deer were safely bedded down for their noon naps.
 Many time during the day Mike or I would comment about what beautiful views we have from high on top of the mountain. What we really meant was that we took so long to make the little climb that we missed the morning hunt and might as well find something good to brag about.
  Taking advantage of the time with no deer bothering us, I snapped some nice pictures with my cell phone.
  I received a text from one of my hunting buddies in Idaho. "Happy anniversary," it read.
  I quickly sent him one of my newly taken pictures and replied back, "On top of a mountain, deer hunting."
  I was more bragging to him that I made it to the top of the mountain than anything else. I expected a "wow, good job," or something like that, but no... nothing.
  After enjoying a nice lunch consisting of a candy bar and a bottle of water, we decide to head back down.
  Steep mountain downhill is almost harder than the up hill climb. Somewhere on the way down hill we again stopped to take off our coats, to slow down the sweating. We hiked a while when one of us exclaimed that he had forgotten his gun, leaning against the tree, while removing the coat.
  Back up the steep slope to find the tree the gun was leaning against. It was quite an Easter egg hunt in a forest of thick trees and brush to find the lost gun, but at last we spotted the run away gun and got it returned to its happy owner.
  "Couldn't be old age, could it?" one of us reminded the other.
  I wanted to tell a story of one of us leaving a spotting scope laying on a mountain while sheep hunting, but I refrained myself. By the way, the scope was never found even though I spent the best part of a day looking for it. Or how about a camouflaged shotgun was left lying in the grass of a parking lot... Nope, won't go there... too painful.
  Well, I must admit that the two old duffers made the climb all the way to the top and back to the truck... all in the same day.
  I received a text that night, "Want to hunt tomorrow?"
  I slowly moved my arm to retrieve the phone, then stiffly typed, "Don't know if I can tomorrow. so sore I can hardly move tonight!"
  "Me too," came the reply back.
  Oh the joys of old age and hunting critters.
                                         
                                                Mike heading down the mountain

                                                     fresh snow on the peaks

the view from the top

Cucumber dive page three

  After a good long hour break (closer to two hours) Mike and I idle up the bay a ways to some marks I have on the computer from years gone by.
  "Hope we find something here," I comment to Mike, shutting off the engines and letting the boat drift to a stop.
  "I guess We'll know in a bit," he quips back. "At least we have enough on board to make our trip paid off."
  Mike helps me back into all my dive gear and I once again plunge below the surface.
  I drop into the inky depths and right into a bottom covered in sea cucumbers.
  "Wow!" I shout into my regulator. It sounds like some space alien to my ears, gurgling and burgling. I have to laugh.
  I find myself talking alot under water. During hour long dives I will talk, hum, and sing. The weird bubbling gurgle sounds tend to amuse me and break the long lonely time underwater.
  For years we have talked about getting a dive system with com (communications). This would allow the tender on the boat to hear the diver and the diver to hear the tender. Sounds good in a perfect world... this is not that perfect world. I suffer major cramps in my legs while diving. When the "charlie horses" lock my legs up I crawl along the bottom with my arms but find myself screaming into my regulator. "Owe! You stupid cramp, let me go!" The screams are sent upwards in a swirl of bubbles never to be heard by anyone but me. I kind of like it that way.
  If I were linked to the boat by com and did my charlie horse screaming I fear my tender would think the Loc Ness monster had ahold of me and would either jerk my up by my air hose, or... cut my air hose and get himself and the boat far from the danger below.
  That settled I like the no com system.
  I am picking cucumbers as quickly as I can move. They are all over the bottom, but most of them are in huge piles of kelp. With the kelp leaves is powdery silt. I can see a dozen or more cukes in one kelp but by the time I have grabbed five or six the silt has me blindly feeling for the rest of them, the braille method. I can usually get a fix on most of the ones I see, and finish them by blindly patting the kelp and silt, but every once in a while I grab a crab, a fish, or star fish.
Cucumbers have no movement at all when I touch them. When something starts moving, jerking, or squirming in my hand I always Jerk away and quickly move to the next batch of cucumbers, outside of the silt!
  I am popping corks and Mike is hoisting bag after bag into the boat.  I keep watching my dive computer as it counts the minutes of bottom time. I know I should have about three hours on the bottom before the dive day ends at 3:00 p.m.
  I have swam quite a bit down the shore and have come to a creek area. Even though I am way below the surface I can tell when I get to fresh water coming into the ocean. Cucumbers do not like fresh water. They will stack in masses on each side of the creek flow. I have found that these areas are the best picking, but once you get through the big batch of product you must swim to the far side of the creek to begin the next big gathering of cucumbers.
  I realize I am going to have to swim a long ways on already cramping legs. For almost an hour I have been battling cramps in my thighs and calves. I have screamed, whined, bitten the regulator till I'm surprised it does not leak water, and crawled with my hands and arms.
  I decide I've had enough for this day and slowly head for the surface. I like to make my final accent of the day very slow to make sure I do not blow the dive tables. I trust my dive computer, but it does not hurt to go a bit extra.
  My head breaks surface to rain. Mike helps me back on the boat and I inform him that I'm done.
  "Good job, man," he says while shutting down the machines. "I'm guessing we have eight or nine hundred pounds."
  I agree with him as I have kept track of the bags I have been sending up all day.
  "Sure not as much as I had hoped for, but I guess not bad for a decrepit, one eyed, old guy," I comment, while wriggling out of all my dive gear.
  I struggle out of all my wet dive gear and into some warm dry clothes. I turn the boat heater on high and pour steaming hot coffee.
  Mike cleans up the deck and stows all the dive gear.
  while he is still tiding the deck I start the engines and idle in the direction of the tender.
  Glacier Bay Seafood's normal tender(A commercial boat usually a crabber or seiner) notified me last week that he would be out this week, installing a new transmission in his boat, but there would be a replacement tender, and gave me the boat name.
  I call on the radio to find where the tender is anchored and arranged for off loading our day's catch.
  "I'm anchored close to the beach near Appleton Bay," the packer's voice comes booming over my radio.
  "Sounds good. I'll see you in just a few minutes," I reply, turning the boat towards his location.
   Mike readies the deck, removes the tarp cover, and has the tie up lines ready by the time I pull up to the packer.
  "Looks like a purse seiner," I say to Mike as we tie to the lines tossed to us.
  "Hey guys, how's it going?" I shout over the deck to the crew on the packer waiting for us to off load. "Have you got a price for us?"
  Fishing in Alaska is a lot like farming. You grow the crop, weed it, water it, then harvest it. As the load of crop harvest starts getting old in your trucks, the farmer finds out what price the buyers are willing to pay. Most of the time you are disappointed at the low price offered you. Your choices are dump the load for compost, or sell to the person so willing to cheat you out of your hard work.
  Diving is the same way. All week before the first dive we are getting calls from the buyers.
  "Earl, are you diving this year?" I hear over and over. "We sure hope you will sell your cucumbers to us."
  "Yeah, I plan on diving, what price are we looking at this year?"
  It's always the same... a long silence, followed by much throat clearing... stuttering a bit... "Ummm... Well... Ahhumm... Well, you know, cough-cough, the market is not all that strong this year. The Yen to dollar is not looking good..."
  Oh come on guys. You are begging for our product. You need it, but you are trying to pay the lowest price known to man to the divers risking their lives to harvest it for you.
  "We have not been told the price yet... we'll announce it on the grounds on Monday," is the response always given.
  The price echoed over the radio just happens to be about a dollar a pound less then the year before. The divers start calling each of the buyers complaining about the low price... as the evening wears on the price will start crawling up to where it should have been at the start.
  I can sure see why unions were established. If all the divers could work together and hold out selling until a fair price is offered, we could save all the games played each year.
  A couple years ago, some divers flew to the orient and arranged to sell directly to the guys who want cucumbers. The price they came back with was more than double ever paid for cucumbers. As soon as we started committing to these diver friends the other big company buyers jacked the price above them to make sure and get our cucumbers. It made for some very lucrative years... until the little guys faded out and now it is back to the big company guys again. sigh...
  Mike and I bucket cucumbers out of my fish holds and into brailers, which the packers raises up and weighs. As the girl calls out the weights I write it on my grease board. One can never be too careful. Once the product is dumped into the hold of the packer it is gone.
  "689 pounds minus 39 pounds tare weight," the buyer calls out.
  I write it down, then get back to my bucket and more unloading of cucumbers. 
  We have done fairly well on our first dive. If I had been able to spend about one more hour on the bottom we would have been about half way with our poundage... but, as usual, it seems I'm just a tad bit behind schedule.
  We pull into Appleton cove and drop anchor. We wait for Scott and CJ to sell. They drop by for a quick visit. We make plans for the next day's dive. It is always good to be able to get together with another boat while working on the ocean. It is like the old days where drop by visitors were always welcome.
  Scott heads back out into Peril Strait and we head back into Rodman Bay.
  "Good luck, tomorrow!" We shout as they pull away, "Be safe!"
  Day two finds us picking up where we left off yesterday. I swim hard and pick like crazy, knowing that I only have four hours to dive.
  I have put on my newer dry suit for today's dive, but find it is leaking badly through the chest inflator valve. Each time I hit the inflator button to pressurize my dry suit, water gushes in with the air. I feel the bite of ice cold water flood my chest little by little, as the day progresses it fills the entire suit.
  By eleven I'm freezing cold and swimming in water from the flooded suit. I can feel my arms slosh in water.
  My teeth chattering on my regulator, I head for the surface, done for the day.
  "I'm freezing!" I shout to Mike as my head breaks surface.
  "Let's bag it," he replies. "Our deal is safety first. If you are wet and cold, the dive is over. We've done alright for this opening.
  We pack up and head for the tender once again. We find that we are just a couple hundred pounds shy of our quota for the dive. Not bad for a couple of old guys.
  We head back to town wore out but contented. We have made our first dive without too much trouble. And... lived to tell about it!

                                      Scott and C.J. swing by to visit

 

2014 Cucumber Opening page two

  Rodman Bay remains relative calm all night. We had one blast of wind come through around two in the morning. I get up to make sure the anchor holds. All is well, back to bed.
  Our morning starts at five thirty. We have cold boiled eggs and cold bacon for breakfast. We have learned over the years this is the easiest way to get the day going quickly and still have good protein for a hard day's work.
  Mike works  quickly getting all the machines warmed up. The new dive compressor is fired up and ran to the pressure settings, the hauler, that lifts the bags over the side, is warmed up. The kicker motor is fired up and left idling.
  "It looks like everything is good to go," Mike exclaims over the roar of all the engines.
  "Ok, I'm going to start getting into my dive gear," I reply back.
  Time vanishes so quickly in the morning. One minute is it six, and it seems only a minute later it is seven o'clock.
  At seven thirty I'm in my dive suit and beginning the process of attaching the dive gear. My pony bottle is hefted on by Mike. I arrange the shoulder straps, tighten the belt, and plug in the dry suit inflater.
  "Ok, ready for my 'best friend'," I say to Mike. My "Best Friend" is what I have named my very heavy dive weight belt. I have never weighed it, but I can assure you, it is heavy. By the end of a dive day it feels like it has bored through my back and is planted into my kidney.
  In a morning I will put on a heavy duty set of smart wool long johns, a top of expedition weight polar fleece, two pair of smart wool socks, and then the heavy full body suit of hallow fill material, which is like putting on a form fitted sleeping bag. Trust me, it is very warm, but also very buoyant.
  All these under garments, plus a crushed neoprene dive suit, has to be weighted to get me below the surface.
  I groan as I tighten the weight belt onto my back. "Just as heavy as last year," I grumble to myself.
  Two pair of gloves, one light weight under glove and one pair of heavy weight neoprene with enforced fingers go on with much tugging. My wet suit hood and my mask are in place. I sit on the back of the boat with a bag in hand waiting for Mike to count down the minutes to eight o'clock.
  "It's time," Mike shouts over the roar of the compressor motor.
  I glance at my wrist out of habit to check my computer. It's not there.
 "Mike, I need you to get my dive computer out of my dive bag. I forgot it!" I shout over the roar of the machines.
  He races inside and then back with the computer. He has to strap it on as I am so bulked up in dive gear.
  "Ready?" I shout to Mike.
  He gives me the thumbs up signal.
  I jam the regulator into my mouth suck in a sweet breath of air and push off the boat.
  The bitter cold water of the Alaska ocean bites my face and hands.
  I give Mike the OK sign and he OK's back. I deflate my suit and slowly sink out of sight into the dark early morning water.
  I pinch my nose every ten feet of depth and clear my ears. I want to make sure I get them good and cleared on the first dive.
  The water is not super clear as the rain from Saturday and Sunday has murked up the bay. Visibility is still about twenty feet.
  I see the white shells gleam on the bottom as I descend into the inky depths. I constantly check my computer to make sure it is reading properly as I descend. All systems go.
  I unroll my cucumber bag and start swimming to the clumps of kelp I see close by. Nothing. I swim a bit further, still nothing.
  Thirty feet. Drop to forty feet, still no cucumbers. I look up and cannot see the surface or the boat above through the dingy water. I start to feel a little panicky...
  "Come on Earl, you've done this a thousand times. Just put your head down and find some product," I tell myself. "Slow and steady breaths."
  Tug, tug, tug. Three tugs on my air hose. That is Mikes signal that something is wrong and for me to get up as quickly as possible. I look at my dive computer, I've only been down five minutes.
  I tap my chest inflater and head for the surface.
  Mike pulls me to the boat by my air hose.
  "A hose broke on the compressor!" Mike shouts above the roar of the machine.
  I give him the cut throat signal to turn off the noisy machine.
  "What's up?" I ask in disbelief. "This is a brand new machine, nothing should break."
  I drop my weight belt and get out of the bulky gloves and then out of my swim fins.
  Mike is holding up a hose that goes from the compressor to the reserve tank. It is broken off cleanly.
  "You've got to be kidding me," I whine. "How can a brand new hose like that snap off in the first five minutes?"
  "There are extra hoses inside the left hand compartment in the cabin of the boat," I instruct Mike. He races in to find them.
  I stand and watch him unscrew the broken one and replace it with a used hose from years past.
  "Hope that one holds up," I comment, more to myself than to Mike.
  "I was a tad bit panicky down there," I inform Mike. I've never been this way before.
  He stops his work and looks at me. "Are you alright? Sure you want to do this?"
  We have always said that we will never push ourselves if something does not look good.   "Safety first" has been our motto from day one.
  "I think I'll be fine. Kind of crazy though..."
  Mike had the hose installed and fires up the compressor. It pumps out air into the reserve tank. All systems look good.
  Back into my dive gear and into the cold water.
  This time I get to the bottom and feel totally comfortable. I guess I needed that little break to settle me down.
  I swim and pick cucumbers for nearly an hour when I get the tug, tug, tug signal again.
 "Now what?"  I say to myself as I head for the surface.
  Mike helps me on the boat, informing me that the pressure relief valve is malfunctioning on the new compressor. It pops and then allow the air pressure to drop way to low before it re-sets and brings it back up to the 110 pounds of air I need to breath at depth.
  Another hour delay as Mike fixes this problem. At last he announces that all is well and I am holding at one hundred and ten pounds of air in the reserve tank.
  Back to the bottom.
  The cucumber picking is very slow. I fill my first bag and look at my dive computer. It has taken me nearly an hour. I need to pick at least twenty minute bags in order to get my two thousand pounds in the day and a half opening.
  "Not good," I say to myself and just keep swimming.
  Noon rolls around. I am chilled through and tired from hard swimming and very little picking.
  I come up and Mike helps me on the boat.
  "Hey at least nothing broke down for a while," I said.
  "Isn't it amazing how new stuff breaks down so quickly now days," Mike comments. "It seems like the old stuff is just built better."
  "I'll take an hour's break and then let's find a different place to dive," I say to Mike. "Let me warm up a bit, and then we'll go from there. At least I've found enough to pay for our fuel and food!"
  Our goal each week is to just pay for the trip. Once the expenses are met, then all money from there is a bonus.
 continued...

                                           the new dive compressor

 
                                        Mike working a bag of cucumbers