Hey friends — if you’ve been fol­low­ing the sto­ry of Aman­da, our first-time fish­er­man guest writer, you may be as eager for her lat­est update as I’ve been. The fren­zied life of a ten­der deck­hand has­n’t allowed much land time (and even less inter­net access), so we were very lucky to get a quick update from her in the com­ment thread fol­low­ing her first post. I’m pub­lish­ing that com­ment as its own post so you don’t miss her lat­est. Be well — T

Thank you so much for all of your sup­port all! I am so flat­tered that you are excit­ed about what I have to say! It’s been about three weeks now and I’ve been so eager to respond to you all and to get anoth­er post out. This is the first time I’ve sat down at a com­put­er for more than 5 min­utes since I’ve been here. I cur­rent­ly have about a half hour, not enough time to pro­duce a post that is writ­ten with the atten­tion that it deserves. I’ve got pages of jour­nals to turn over and will do so as soon as pos­si­ble! I sin­cere­ly appre­ci­ate every­thing you’ve all had to say and wish I could respond to you all individually.

A few quick lists, I’ve got to get this out:

Biggest chal­lenges: KNOTS!!@!!#$#@!, fish tick­ets and the sim­ple but tedious math that goes along with, learn­ing to sleep in only 3 hour incre­ments, pro­ject­ing a pos­i­tive atti­tude when I secret­ly want to com­plain, not belit­tling myself inter­nal­ly when I mess up, for­get, or have to be told and re-told some­thing that seems so simple.

Biggest rewards: a won­der­ful crew of sup­port­ive indi­vid­u­als, cook­ing for peo­ple who are open to cre­ativ­i­ty and exper­i­men­ta­tion, end­less moun­tain ranges and morn­ing light, a day off at Bara­nof Warm Springs, the sheer amount of things to observe and take in, the mas­sive amount of skills and infor­ma­tion I’ve learned and will nev­er for­get, all the sources of inspiration.

Proud­est moments: com­plet­ing a 21 hour work day, low­er­ing the anchor (using the hydraulics) for the first time, learn­ing the lan­guage (the times are few­er and few­er when I look some­one in the face after being asked to do some­thing and say “I don’t under­stand the words that you just said”), final­ly being able to tell a Coho from a Sock­eye from a Pink from a Dog, work­ing a full day, cook­ing for three, clean­ing the gal­ley and sink­ing in to bed with an aching body and a nour­ished spirit.

More to come! Thanks and thanks again! Bless­ings to you all!

- Aman­da