“Head­ing North” is a sto­ry from May 2, 2011, and was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on www.alaskawaypoints.com, in my col­umn, “South­east, Vari­able.”  This post has been slight­ly expand­ed from the original.

A low south­west swell urges the Char­i­ty’s 46’ frame on. I’m perched on the edge of the pilot seat, as if the slight­est for­ward incline will move us across Dixon Entrance any faster than 7.5 knots. We left Seat­tle 5 days ago, and with a non-fish­ing friend aboard for the Inside Pas­sage expe­ri­ence, have been tak­ing it pret­ty easy.

I’ve crewed for Mar­tin on and off over the past 7 years. When I aban­doned my Seat­tle social work­er life, he pro­vid­ed the refuge of salmon trolling with him for sev­er­al sea­sons. I end­ed up jump­ing ship in favor of work­ing on the Ner­ka with my sweet­heart, Cap’n J, but still return to the Char­i­ty every spring to long­line for Martin’s hal­ibut and black cod pounds. “You’ve got a life­time con­tract,” he assures me.

For­mer boat kids who grew up treat­ing Sitka’s docks as our pri­vate play­ground, Mar­tin and I speak in the half-sen­tences of life­long friends who are as famil­iar with boat life as we are with each oth­er. I wor­ry that our guest will feel iso­lat­ed in this for­eign float­ing uni­verse, even as he express­es end­less curios­i­ty about our lifestyle. Hav­ing an out­sider on board reveals how much of our infor­ma­tion is mus­cle-deep, so ingrained that we strug­gle to put expla­na­tions into words.

Two days ear­li­er, we’d clicked the VHF over to the after­noon weath­er update to learn what we’d be in for with that evening’s Queen Char­lotte Sound cross­ing. The water was smooth, but our faces grew tight as we lis­tened to the omi­nous fore­cast. “It’s com­ing,” Mar­tin said.

Our guest has gen­er­ous­ly pre­pared every meal on this trip, and was study­ing the cook­book for that night’s menu plan. “This might be a good night to have an ear­ly din­ner,” Mar­tin proposed.

I added, “This is going to be a peanut but­ter and jel­ly sand­wich kind of night.”

Four hours lat­er, the Cuisi­nart snarled through roast­ed red pep­pers and toma­toes. Glassy waters long gone, the Char­i­ty pitched and heaved her way through the increas­ing chop. Our friend casu­al­ly added the red purée to sautéed onions, stir­ring leisure­ly. Mar­tin and I threw more fre­quent glances at the stove, con­tem­plat­ing the sauce that slopped clos­er to the cast iron skillet’s rim with each roll we took. Clear­ly, we weren’t speak­ing the same language.

The cap­tain stepped in to assist. With­in min­utes, met­al bowls of pas­ta and sauce made it to the table. We ate quick­ly. Our friend sipped some wine with din­ner. No big clean-up after­wards, we piled every­thing into the safe con­fines of the sink. Things were going to get worse before they got better.

We put on a movie to dis­tract from the build­ing seas. Tossed some hand­fuls of M&M’s down as dessert. When the movie end­ed, our friend stood up. “So, I think I’m going to go throw up now. What’s a good place to do that?”

The calm in his voice belied the urgency. He made it out the door, but only just.

“Oh, no.” I fol­lowed our friend out­side as Mar­tin flipped on the halo­gens, braced myself against the cab­in in his line of sight.  Mur­mured advice between the retch­ing. Stay low, stay away from the rail, no big deal, it’ll all wash off. A grop­ing hand of water reached through the port scup­per, sweep­ing red angel hair away into the black water.

Today, that night’s dis­com­fort is a dis­tant mem­o­ry. We’ve passed through empath­ic guilt – should’ve been more clear about keep­ing things sim­ple, stay­ing away from acidic sauce, alco­hol and choco­late —  and have moved into excite­ment. As South­east Alaska’s Ton­gass Nation­al For­est begins to appear in the binoc­u­lars, our home­com­ing can’t come fast enough.

“Right about here, it starts to feel like home,” Mar­tin ges­tures out the win­dow towards Lucy Island. “I look at these hill­sides, and the weight of Down South slides away.”

I nod. There can’t be any dis­tin­guish­able dif­fer­ence between the ocean on either side of a man­made bound­ary – log­i­cal­ly, I know there can’t – but still I’d swear my soul knows when we cross into Alas­ka. Shoul­ders relax, breath­ing deep­ens, heart rate slows as an uncon­scious grin sprawls. Noisy demands are silenced out here: Phone, inter­net, news, rela­tion­ships, all left on the oth­er side of the Bal­lard Locks. Out here, life strips down to true con­nect­ed­ness – us and the sea, try­ing to stay safe and make our liv­ing in this age-old trade.

When we get to Sit­ka, the work will begin. We’ll bor­row a flatbed truck and bur­den the Char­i­ty with a moun­tain of long­line gear. Pick up the oth­er deck­hand, who’s green to hal­ibut fishin’, and rearrange our­selves into a coör­di­nat­ed team of three.  We fan­ta­size calm seas, set­ting in a spot free of sand fleas and dog­fish, get­ting our pounds quick­ly as the boat and our team work per­fect­ly. We’ll watch the weath­er and shoot up to the Fair­weath­er Grounds, mak­ing up for the empti­ness of the hold with the full­ness of our hopes. This time of year, every­thing is still possible.