The sound of the engine’s slowing woke me the next morning at daylight. I glanced out the porthole to see that we were entering the harbor at Kodiak. Even though we were now inside the harbor and in the lee of the island the wind was still howling. I joined the others in the wheelhouse as we approached the dock. Jim was bleary eyed from being up the day before and all last night. He told me that the wind had held steady at 60 knots all night.
As we moved slowly through the harbor the resident seals and enormous sea lion’s, trailed along in our wake, knowing full well that we were returning with a load of fish. Hopeful of being cast a morsel they looked up at us with their big brown eyes while pleading with their baleful bark. The more aggressive ones would jump up onto the ramp.
Because of the high winds my job was to get a stern line tied to a cleat on the dock as quickly as possible to act as a spring line in pulling the boat to the dock. This was when I fully realized the extent of my fatigue. I could not tie the line. Even though it was frozen, I normally would have been able to bend it enough to take a couple of turns around the cleat. But the muscles in my arms and hands were so depleted from bleeding thousands of fish and shoveling ice that I was helpless. The others watched as I fumbled around to no avail while the wind blew us away from the dock, forcing us to go around again for a second attempt. This time, with help from Jimmy, we were successful.
Climbing up the ladder and onto the dock, I looked down on the boat. The Collier Brothers was a sight to behold. There was not an inch of the boat, from the deck up that was not covered with ice. Even the radio antenna’s high atop the mast. And all of this whiteness was not from snow but flash-frozen salt water spray. Jim phoned the fish plant to find out when we could unload. We would have to wait a couple of hours while they finished another boat, so we took advantage of the wait to take our first shower in six days. The hot shower felt great but any thought of feeling clean is overridden by the ever present smell of fish.
I thought the smell could not get any more pervasive until we tied up at the fish plant. Now it was magnified many times over. Every commercially caught fish within miles goes through this plant on their journey by air freight or container ship to table tops all over the world. The cod from our trip would be processed as filets and then shipped to the Orient. During the various seasons the processing goes on 24hours a day.
The offloading of the fish is done by the plant workers. A man with a large tube that acts as a vacuum cleaner, descends into the fish holds, and by moving the tube back and forth, sucks the fish up the tube and onto conveyor belts on the dock. These conveyor belts then move the fish inside the plant for processing. It is gruesome work. As if it is not cold enough to begin with, he is standing in and sloshing through iced down fish for hours. Occasionally I would glance down into the hold to check his progress. There he would be, dressed like an Eskimo, hunched over, every breath a cloud of frost, while moving from side to side. The pile of fish seemingly scant inches shorter than it was the last time I looked. When you think about it, 200,000 pounds of fish is a lot of fish to be sucked into a tube.
Once inside the plant rows and rows of men and women dressed in what look like surgical gowns and hunched over the conveyor belts, each do their part to process tons of fish that only hours earlier were swimming some 300 plus feet below the surface of the Gulf of Alaska, to a packaged, finished product, ready to be shipped.
Jimmy and Ray headed into town for a little R & R. It is a hazard of the trade that fishermen often get carried away with their R & R and don’t return in time for their boat’s scheduled departure. The lucrative pay and temptations ashore prove too irresistible for some, leaving skippers scrambling to find replacements at the last minute. Because of uncertainty of the openings and their duration, the boats cannot afford to wait. Many a crewman has returned to the dock only to find his boat has left without him.
While we were waiting, Jim took me with him to the plant office to take care of some business. Accounts must be settled and like any business there is give and take. Fishermen may ask for advances against future catches to meet pressing fuel bills. Fish plants may ask fishermen to be patient during slow times.
As they were talking, I noticed a public phone down the hall. I decided to call Terry to tell her we were back safe from our first trip. Ever since the end of the first days fishing my right brain had been asking my left brain “What in the hell were you thinking when you decided to do this? It was a noble thought and all to satisfy a boyhood dream but isn’t this a bit much? You’re not a kid anymore”. My left brain would answer “It’s something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, I just have to suck it up and work my way into shape”. With the sound of Terry’s voice I knew in an instant that the right brain was the voice of reason if not sanity. When she talks, she radiates sunshine. I knew what I had to do.
I sat on a bench outside the office waiting for Jim, struggling with what I would say. There were many reasons for deciding not to make another trip but two in particular. While I had some idea, I grossly underestimated the physical demands of the job. It truly is a young man’s game. The exhaustive physical efforts with minimal sleep for days, and often weeks on end, are very taxing. It is possible with the added experience and toughening up that would come with additional trips, I would eventually become a half decent crewman. But that leads me to my second reason. I do not like being away from home. Somehow, the fishermen doing this for a living have come to grips with that aspect of their life’s work. Their wives and families do the best they can to compensate for their extended absence. As difficult as it is for all involved, it is what they have chosen to do for a living. As much as I love the ocean, I do not depend on it to sustain my family. To me, to be away from my wife and kids for any length of time, merely to indulge a fantasy of mine, is rather selfish at best.
Jim emerged from the office, seemingly pleased with himself. As we walked back to the boat I told him of my decision to abbreviate my commercial fishing career. As much as he tried to act surprised, he failed miserably. I got the feeling he knew from the moment I asked to fish with him that it would be short and not so sweet. He had been doing this since he fished with his Dad, brailing mackerel at Catalina Island in southern California in the winter and fishing albacore in the summer. He knew full well the rigors of the job and that my age was against me. But he was also a very good friend. I had made an albacore trip with him in high school and we had endless conversations over the years about fishing, so he knew this was important to me. As predictable as the outcome was, he was willing to give me a taste of what fishing in Alaska was like.
I had an open ended return airline ticket because I was unsure of when I would return home. Fortunately, I was able to book a flight out the next morning. After dinner aboard the boat, I watched the ongoing unloading process for a while, then fell asleep in my bunk, content in the knowledge that I was going home.
The next morning, after the last of the fish had been unloaded and the boat de-iced with high pressure steam hoses, we moved the Collier Brothers to its home dock, so waiting boats could unload their catch. I stuffed my clothes into a duffel bag, said good by to Jimmy and Ray and then rode to the airport with Jim in his pickup truck. As my plane took off and banked left toward Anchorage, I got a brief look at Kodiak before ascending into the low, thick cloud cover. The ocean and sky were still slate gray, the wind was still howling and there were white caps everywhere. I thought about Jim, who would be heading back out into the Gulf about the same time I would be changing planes in Anchorage.
I arrived in Orange County at 10:40 that night in a driving rain storm. Walking through the terminal I felt like Charlie Browns friend Pigpen as a cloud of fish smell moved with me. Terry, my kids and my brother Mike were there to greet me. I felt a bit sheepish at the thought that a scant week ago they were here to see me off on my great adventure, not knowing when I would return. Terry still jokes that the dishes were still in the sink from my going away party. She discreetly placed my duffel bag outside the house. Even though I was unshaven, had bloodshot eyes’ and a gash over my right eye, I was one happy guy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment