Ship’s Log August 5-7 2019
Alone at Sea
I was stir-crazy not getting any sleep while in Winchester Bay considering the 4 day wait for my new and reliable deckhand Mark Kimball. He had an infection in his hand from salmon poison. He had been guiding in Alaska, was home and done from that, fully available, but this hand infection was a no-goer for pulling tuna. The cost at this point was a ton per day. I explained that to him… I mentally tossed and turned and ultimately fired up my engines, went out and tossed my lines, pulled up my buoys, and motored away from the dock.
It was August 5th. The night was bright and clear, no wind. That dredge, the James T, was operating very near the docks, just right next to the coast guard station. I slid out between them and the herring dock, leaving Winchester Bay at 3am. My mind was set to go out and prove indeed that it was a one ton per day time of year. The fish were not very far out, the weather was great, and I felt very confident. Day number one brought me to the tuna grounds by 7am. It was very surreal. That day I landed 137 average fish this time of year was 11 pounds. I tossed back a lot of peanuts… (fish less than 9 pounds). This first day gave me about 1500 pounds, and I went to bed with Seanna at about 11pm feeling satisfied.
I remember thinking about the responsibility of fishing alone in this 54 foot vessel. I remember considering the fact that I must take full responsibility for that decision. There is no excuse for not watching out. There is no excuse for hitting a buoy or marker, or another vessel while claiming its not my fault cause I’m alone. They need not watch out any more than usual. I must watch out as much as usual, and take the fish that I can while I can when I can however I can while keeping an eye out for the fleet, and any other hazard. Fine I accept that.
I slept very well. The next day I got up at 5am, excited to start. I boiled my coffee, and set the gear. That day I ended up with 204 fish (plus lots of peanuts released)… It was an easy ton plus added to yesterday sort of rounded it out to two tons for the two days. I admit I was very exhausted. I gotta feed myself! Type 1 diabetic! Shit! That little factor threw a curve on a great number of moments! Irritating! Sometimes I would have to step back and just watch fish get on while I ran into the house to throw down a bottle of gatorade, or bust out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the total fly. Every trip from the wheel to the fish gettin zone meant either 3 or 4 high steps over 2 X 12 dividers, and there was a shitload of runs from the wheel to the fish, and back again. I got myself all worked up into a bit of a frenzy at times. One of the easy parts is that this is a salt brine vessel, and I only need to get the fish down there in the hold, and the job was done on my end. Catch them, spike them, bleed them, let them rinse off, and put them in the hold. They freeze to 2 to 5 degrees center. Easy pie. I went to bed feeling pretty tired but jacked up happy too.
Day 3 it was very difficult to fly right out of bed. My hands were toast, all numb and swollen with sores all over from crappy gloves or no gloves lots of the time. Reaching in and grabbing live bait out of the bait well made for wet hands into the gloves and the salted bait would just dry them out over and over and pulling on fish all day wrapping them around or whatnot makes for some messed up hands. Boiled coffee. I set gear before the daylight but after the crack of dawn. Body wasn’t too fast that morning! I ended up with 168 for that day, plus since I was going to pick up Mark, I decided to save my peanuts and have them processed at Chucks in Charleston that added 68 to the day. The ones I kept had 14 pounds average. Easy ton.
I hit the wall. I have done all kinds of athletic events and many different typed of competitions and games. I have never hit the wall til then. Complete shutdown, done. Crawling was an easy option. I kept the boat moving forward and whatever was on the lines could just drag along fine. Let the sharks eat them. I was on the couch watching the radar. It took about 15-30 minutes to gain my ability to go pull the gear, shut down the hydraulics and then set the autopilot for Charleston. It was 10pm, I was only about 25 miles NW of town so I arrived to the dock at 2:30am. Sleep finally.
The next day Mark met me for Breakfast at the Seabasket. Then we went and got supplies enough for a 20 day trip. I already had the fish from part 1 of the trip with Travis and Wyatt, and the fish I caught on my own. About 700 fish in the boat already gave us some nice ballast. Mark and I set out of Charleston on August 7th at 1:45pm.