Seems that no mat­ter how much advance plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion time there is for the trip north, our final days are always fran­tic.  Way back in late April, before I head­ed off on the Char­i­ty, Cap’n J and I set a depar­ture date. June 8^th sound­ed just right… Time enough to enjoy our house after I fin­ished longlin­ing, time to go over the remain­ing Ner­ka details togeth­er, and time to enjoy sev­er­al weeks in Sit­ka before our salmon sea­son starts on July 1^st.  A sound plan, indeed.

I was pret­ty con­fi­dent in last week’s post.  It’s pos­si­ble that the uni­verse heard my con­fi­dence as cock­i­ness: “With an intend­ed depar­ture date of next Wednes­day, the remain­ing tasks are pret­ty slim.”  As many times as I’ve been through this process, I should’ve known better.

As you’ve heard before, fishermen’s plans change.   We planned to be slip­ping loose of the Belling­ham break­wa­ter in a half-hour; instead, I’ve got a cup of tea steam­ing beside me and am enjoy­ing a final com­mu­nion with the Bobs (you remem­ber, our res­i­dent Stellar’s Jays) and squir­rels.  Looked like we’d be hit­ting Queen Char­lotte Sound just in time to buck into a North­west 25.  Do-able, but we’ve got an awful­ly long sea­son ahead of us to get beat up right out of the gate.

Between avoid­ing an ass-kick­ing and this week’s mad scram­ble of final details, the cap­tain deter­mined that a 24 hour delay would be accept­able.  We should still hit the tide right at Sey­mour Nar­rows, and hope­ful­ly side­step the bumpy cross­ing.  Nev­er a good idea to feel too rushed or locked into one arbi­trary inten­tion, we’re breath­ing much eas­i­er this evening.

We’ll have a friend on board for the trip up, some­one to share wheel watch­es and con­tribute new con­ver­sa­tion. Sean was a first-time deck­hand on the 5 Girls last sea­son. Every June, Joel and I eye­ball the new crop of green deck­hands and make a game out of antic­i­pat­ing who’ll make it and who won’t. From the moment we met Sean, we were in agree­ment: he was going to be the star new deck­hand of the season.

And that’s how it worked out. He’s return­ing for a sec­ond round, but need­ed a ride up to meet his boat in Sit­ka. He and his part­ner, Angela — who’s a rock star deck­hand in her own right, a pow­er­house of endurance, strength and fish­ing exper­tise — drove up for a big send-off. It’s a bum­mer that our plan changed after they got here, so they’re hav­ing an unex­pect­ed amount of sit­ting-around-wait­ing-to-go time, but they’re pro­fes­sion­als who know, “That’s the way it goes when you wear rub­ber clothes.”

Chaot­ic as the week has been, it’s a fun time to be in the har­bor. After winter’s qui­et and the slow mean­der into spring activ­i­ty, every­one is in full-throt­tle prepa­ra­tion mode now. The 4 to 5 man (and some women) crews of the sein­ers sur­round­ing us have been hard at work, repair­ing nets, sand­ing rails, all kinds of bustling about. We’re all a con­stant tide wash­ing up and down the ramp, push­ing moun­tain­ous carts down to our boats, toss­ing match­ing har­ried grins at each oth­er.  This time of year, the har­bor puls­es with camaraderie.

Through it all, I try to remem­ber the relief that’s on the oth­er side of the break­wa­ter. As soon as the lines are untied and we’re under way, none of this cur­rent chaos will mat­ter. The men­tal brakes squeal, as we go from a zoom­ing fren­zy to a sedate 7 knot cruise. What’s inevitably for­got­ten won’t end up mat­ter­ing, or will be dealt with in Sit­ka.  If our weath­er holds, we should have about a five day migra­tion, a lux­u­ri­ous exemp­tion from the rest of the world that I’m hop­ing to use as a mini writer’s retreat.  Fin­gers crossed.

Below, some pho­tos from the past few days:

Mon­day: Pro­vi­sion­ing, Part 1.

Stock­ing a Fish­ing Boat with Fake Meat Prod­uct: Oxymoron?

Cap’n J checks our sur­vival suits. Bear, not so into it.

Sean & Ange, our ride­a­long squeez­ing him­self into an if-he-absolute­ly-had-to suit.

Fake meat in the freez­er AND prayer flags from the rig­ging? Bunch of hip­pies on this boat.

Cap’n J & T: fraz­zled, hope­ful, anx­ious, and eager to be on the way north.

That’s the update, sweet­ies.  My remain­ing tea has gone cold, and some over­ripe bananas are beg­ging to be trans­formed into bread, cour­tesy of Joel’s sis­ter’s Ashley’s deli­cious recipe.  Be well, friends — hope to share some good sto­ries with you by the mid­dle of next week.