~Artestie

6-24-08

We left Seward yesterday at around 11am, we were planning on leaving Sunday evening I believe but right when we put our net into the fish hold we started seeing jumpers everywhere. About 50 jumpers in 15 minutes just about everywhere around the bay. So instead we looked around some more, watched some more fish jump here and there then we attached the Jitney to the back of the skiff and retreated back into port. After we docked we took the net back out if the fish hold and piled back onto the boat, then we headed off to bed.



Monday (yesterday) we woke up at 6, went out into the bay ready to set our net, set it at around 7 after watching more fish jump, pulled it up by 8 and caught about 30 fish. Now 30 fish isn’t worth it for cost recovery, they weigh about 5lbs avg. and we are getting 30cents per. lb. so that’s only 45$ for the boat, which is about $3.60 for me at 8percent of profit. 3.60 for an hours worth of hard work? Hmm… McDonalds pays better! but I’m not complaining, I enjoy it immensely. And we’ve made way more than our share this summer so I’m not whining over that. Though with all the jumpers we expected more, so we drove back to the harbor, delivered out 30 fish, cleaned out the fish hold, and proceeded to pile the net back in it. Once we finished that we reattached the Jitney to the back of the boat and started driving to Homer. Dave had already taken the skiff and loaded it onto the truck trailer to drove it back instead of accompanying us on the boat. Well I guess someone had to take the Truck back, and if it wasn’t Dave then it would have been me because Mark’s truck is a standard and I’m familiar with driving standards as you well know.



Uncle Mark took the first shift from 11 until around 2, then came down into the cabin and woke me up to take the second shift. If your not driving, most likely your catching a few winks of sleep, or in my case according to Dave and the rest of the crew, sawing logs. They catch winks, I saw logs. Unfortunately I have been assigned ‘cook’ since Dave is not here to take up his job, and I had to make lunch around 11, it consisted of soup and grilled cheese, if they wanted better they could have just made it themselves, though they didn’t complain. I drove from 2 until 3:50 when Mark came back up and relieved me, I was surprised, I wasn’t expecting anyone to relieve me for a couple more hours still, but hey, whatever. I went down into the cabin and ‘sawed some more logs’.



I was having a weird dream that coincided with last year then the net came off the jitney as we were traveling and we had to slowly winch it in at 10 ft at a time in 10ft sees. Anyway, in my dream the net came out of the fish hold and we were dragging it through the ocean (again) and we had to slowly get it back onto the boat. I was asking Uncle Mark how it came out of the fish hold when all of a sudden, in reality, out of my dream Uncle Mark starts attempting to get my attention by whistling and calling my name from the door of the cabin. I, thinking that the net is still out in the see and we have to get it back on the boat, jump up, hit my feet in multiple items rushing out of my bunk as Uncle Mark says “Hey! A whale just surfaced right next to the boat!” I just stare at him. Uncle Mark woke me up, out of my dream where something went wrong on the boat to tell me that a whale surfaced by the boat?! I had seen hundreds of whales last summer, and multiple whales this summer, why did I need to see another one!? Heh’, it made me laugh though how I thought the net was in the water like my dream. =]



I went back to sleep about half an hour later, at 5:30 and caught some more sleep before being woken up at 8:20 to make dinner. Dinner consisted of some spaghetti sauce, noodles, and green beans. I created this meal then headed up to the Wheel House and relieved Travis so he could go down and get something to eat. Once they had finished Travis came back up and relieved me so I could eat something as well. There were a few noodles left that I put olive oil and pepper on and some green beans. Guess what? I went back to my bunk and attempted to fall asleep again. Mark went up a couple minutes later and Travis came back down and hit his bunk as well. A few hours later I woke up and walked around in deck, we were going through a pass of some sort that went by a glacier, there was 5 acres of land for sale way out here, it was mainly flatland and it would be perfect for me if it were a we bit older and had the means to get here and back… and to survive the winter. Mark figured they would probably take just about any offer they got for the land, not too many people would wish to buy land way out here, it wasn’t to far from Homer by land, you just had to walk across a mountain and then take a boat across Kachemak bay. Too much work for the avg. american. But it would be heaven for me… nice little straw bale house, wood heater, middle of nowhere, secluded all to myself… yea… I would love that. I went back to sleep about an hour later.



I woke up at 1am this morning and noticed that Uncle Mark was asleep in his bed, therefore Travis was taking a shift up in the wheelhouse. 2 hours later I woke again and decided to relieve him, I went up there and told him to go down and get some more sleep. I’ve been up here since then and its 6:20 right now. I’ve seen a couple whales (gasp) so far, and a few proposes… nothing new or exciting. That’s life so far… I’ll attempt to write more later, we have about 4-6 more hours of driving left.



We reached Homer at around 10:28.