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Mom and Dad brought back five cart-loads of food from Costco. There are boxes of olives, canned corn, baked beans, apples, nuts, cheese, steaks, and even a case of Alaskan Amber…which may be my clincher for staying another few days to fish. All the perishable food was put down in the fish hold. We still have about 2-3 tons of ice from Sitka keeping everything cold. Grandpa built the boat as a freezer boat, meaning that there used to be a generator in the hold that kept everything frozen. Fish were put on racks ad dipped every few hours in clean water until they were coated with an icy seal. But when Dad bought the boat he felt freezing was too much work, so instead we ice our salmon, packing them in rows and filling the bellies with ice, and sell them every five to six days to fish plants in towns like Craig, Sitka, or Petersburg.

This year, due to the high price of fuel, some fish plants have been sending packers out to the fishing grounds to collect salmon from the trollers so they won’t have to run the several hours into town. A day in town selling fish means a day not fishing. And with only a three month season, every day counts.

During the trolling season, my job is generally to clean and ice the salmon. We pull coho, sometimes kings if we can land on a patch during their short season, and a sockey every now and then. I dress in a ratty, blue hoody, and Helly Hansen raingear. My knees grow numb from kneeling on the ice and moisture from the ceiling drips in my hair when I am in the fish hold.

I begin to miss normal life after weeks on the ocean. I miss talking with friends, running, going to movies, but most of all I miss privacy, of being able to be alone enough to talk out loud to myself. Being on the water means being separated from the world. It is a place of its own, a silent life that keeps its own company.

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