Thieving Rascals

A new fisherman had joined our fleet of trollers. His name was Donnie.
  I must say here that Donnie passed away after a fierce battle with cancer some years ago. He would smile if he could read this today. No, he would have a beaming smile, wave his huge hands in a come here sign, and offer you a big chunk of cheese cut right off a big Costco block. With the cheese would come a hot cup of coffee and a very wonderful day of visiting. That was Donnie.
  He was a good friend of Wayne and myself, and also came from the tournament bass fishing world.
  The lure of Alaska proved too strong for Donnie and he retired from his business in the lower 48's and talked (conned) his wife into letting him purchase an old wooden troller. His boat was long and narrow and tended to roll a bit in the ocean, but Donnie didn't mind one bit. It added to the wildness of his new adventure.
  Donnie was so excited to get into salmon fishing. He had made many sport fishing trips to the Oregon coast and considered himself a fairly knowledgeable fisherman. Trolling was something different indeed.
  I had ran a small load of King Salmon to the fish buying plant in town, shoveled a ton of ice, cleaned the fish hold, re-iced, and fueled up.
  I now put-putted my way into the harbor and to my slip. Big Donnie was standing waiting for me to toss him a tie up line, a big smile on his face.
  Tomorrow I was going to lead him out for his first solo day of fishing on the wild North Pacific Ocean.
  "Hey Donnie!" I shouted out the wheel house door, "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
  He made a quick job of tying up my boat as I shut down the pumps, electronics, and engine.
  "Man, I can hardly wait!" his voice was almost shaking with excitement.
  As Donnie was speaking I looked past his head at a huge black Raven flying towards us.  It had something white in its beak.
  "Look at that Donnie," I said, "that raven has a marshmallow in its beak!"
  We both laughed at how funny it looked as it zoomed past us to land and eat its stolen booty
  Donnie and I stood chatting, leaning against the bow of my boat.
  Just then another raven came flying by with yet another marshmallow looking thing in its beak.
 "Ha, must be having a raven camp fire across the harbor," we joked with each other.
  It is not uncommon at all here in Sitka to see ravens flying around with food in their beaks. They are very bold and like to dig in trash all the time. We called them "Sidewalk Eagles".
  Here came another raven with white in its beak, then another...
    "I just did my grocery shopping," Donnie casually remarked, "so I'm ready for a week of fishing.
  It suddenly struck me.
  "Donnie, did you put your groceries inside the house of your boat?" I asked.
  "No, I laid them on my hatch cover to come help you tie up your boat," he casually said.
  I took off running for his boat, directly in the fly path of the ravens!
  I got to Donnie's boat ahead of him to find all of his groceries scattered on his hatch cover.
  "What the Hell?" exploded Donnie. Why those Thieving Rascals have gotten into everything!"
  Those "marshmallows" we had observed flying by were two dozen of his newly purchased eggs!
  We had only caught a few of the thieving rascals flying by. Most of them had been sitting happily on Donnie's boat eating the bounty of a new fisherman.
  "I can't believe it," Donnie sputtered, I left all my groceries in bags so they would be safe.
  "There is your mistake, my friend," I told him, "these Ravens have learned to dig open bags, and can do it so quickly that if you just turn your back they can sneak off with a slice of bread... or an egg!"
  After Donnie cooled down a bit he was able to laugh at himself. I don't think he ever made peace with the ravens of Sitka. He would go out of his way to make one fly if it were sitting minding its own business.
  His "thieving rascals" gave us hours of conversation and laughter in the summers to follow, as we fought off the boredom of trolling by ones self waiting for a salmon to bite a hook.
  We will always remember Big Donnie and his thieving rascals.

Bowling with a Boat

 It was the middle of the summer and a huge storm blew across the Gulf of Alaska forcing the commercial troll fleet to either take cover in some anchorage or race to town and tie to a dock. Most of the fleet opted for the town run and a nice time fellow shipping in town.
  The harbors were packed with boats and activity was non stop. Boats were being repaired, restocked with food, and even some trading deck hands for a fresh go the last half of the season.
  I had decided on making my storm tie up in the little board walk town of Pelican. By the time I arrived most of the good stalls were filled, but the harbor master found me a spot way on the inside and near the ramp, easy access to the store and gym. Not bad at all for me.
  When the entire fishing fleet is forced in at one time it jams the unloading at the one cold storage and a waiting list is made. When you are in sight of town you can then call the cold storage on the radio to get your boat name on the list. You then tie to the dock and just wait for your turn. When enough boats are in it can mean a wait of several days.
  Each boat unloads its catch of salmon, the deck hand then shovels the tons of dirty ice out of the fish hold into the ocean, then scrubs the hold completely, and tons of new ice is blown back into the clean hold.
  Most times the hold up in the unloading is in the clean up and re-icing. If things tend to drag tempers flare and things can get a bit ugly. This late in the season, and with the weather calling for days of blow, no one is in a hurry.
  I had gone to one of the town's two restaurants to eat a burger ( a $20 ordeal in the 80's), and then back to the boat to listen for my name to be called for unloading.
  I was pleasantly surprised to find live music on the dock as I neared my boat. A group of young people were playing guitars and singing. They were lined along the dock in a straight line to allow the fishermen to pass by. Near where they were playing and singing was an open slip. No one seemed to pay attention the reason for the open slip.
  I sat down to listen to the impromptu group, enjoying the rare entertainment. These youngsters were pretty good. Others were stopping to listen as well.
  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge troller approaching the empty slip. The boat was owned by a good friend of mine so I decided to put my things on my boat and then help him tie up once he got into his slip.
  The singing group was on the far side of the little dock just doing their thing.
  As the captain eased the huge boat into the slip he throttled back shifted from forward to neutral, then into reverse. As the bow of the boat was about five feet from the dock he throttled hard in reverse to bring the massive boat to a stop. The deck hands were ready to jump off with tie up lines.
  Instead of reverse, the massive boat lurched forward and drove straight into the dock. It was not going very fast but with tons and tons of weight it hit the dock like a battering ram.
  "Crash!"
  The singers and guitar players were mowed down like pulling a blanked out from under their feet!
 I could see it like slow motion as the entire group toppled over backwards.
  The big boat was still racing its engine and still in forward instead of reverse!
  The Captain quickly shut down the engine and the deck hand secured it tight with the tie up lines.
  The poor captain hopped off the boat and raced to the pile of singers. He was red in the face and apologizing profusely.
  It seems his boat used a hydrostatic shifter and a link in the line had chosen that moment to come apart.
  He had shifted the boat into reverse but the broken link kept the transmission in forward causing the boat to ram the dock.
  Everyone was laughing like crazy. No one had been inured, except the captain's pride.
  We all laughed about it for days to come.
  To me standing a bit away it looked like a boat bowling ball hitting a strike, knocking down every standing pin!

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