Crea­tures removed from their nat­ur­al habi­tat are a sad sight, and I feel the same way about boats out of water. Perched on spindly pros­thet­ic legs of steel tripods and wood­en blocks, they loom gan­g­ly and uncer­tain, vul­ner­a­ble bel­lies exposed and dusty where they should be damp. A boat out of water nev­er fails to tug at my heart, so it was dis­tress­ing to real­ize that the Ner­ka has spent far more time out of water than in, over recent years.

Prime real estate: Parked out­side Steel­head Marine

Our girl has become a reg­u­lar in the Port Townsend Boat Yard, her tired, neglect­ed bits tend­ed by expert crafts­men Tim Hoff­mann, Tim Quandt, and Joe Smith.  Joel and I have spent the past 3 years dis­put­ing the myth of the fisherman’s “off”-season, fill­ing our win­ters with an end­less, expen­sive litany of boat projects. We sleep well, know­ing we’re doing our part to sup­port our teams’ fam­i­lies in tough eco­nom­ic times.

This win­ter was an ambi­tious one. Among oth­er things: Rip out over 200 pounds of ancient, fear-induc­ing wiring, and re-do the entire elec­tri­cal sys­tem.  Take down her crooked, worn-thin trolling poles and replace with new alu­minum poles, stiff-legs, and rig­ging. Replace the steer­ing lines. Strip more than a decade’s worth of mildew from the foc­sle. Replace the 5 leaky cab­in win­dows that gushed with every wave we took last Sep­tem­ber. (We’d fin­ished the sea­son with paper tow­els stuffed in the frames.)

Straits of Geor­gia, Sep­tem­ber 2010.

After sev­en months on land, she was ready to splash, and we were more than ready to trade the 2‑hour-and-a-fer­ry com­mute for a 15 minute dri­ve from home to har­bor. We stud­ied the fore­cast and deter­mined there could be no more delays: On Tues­day, we would bring the Ner­ka back to Bellingham.

In the slings, ready to splash.

When our alarm went off at 6:00, we rose from the (mildew-free) foc’s’le and anx­ious­ly peered out the cab­in win­dows.  “Look at that, the flags are total­ly limp!” Joel cheered.  By 6:15, we were untied and pulling out of our stall, slic­ing through the still har­bor with a glo­ri­ous pump­kin of a full moon super­vis­ing from the starboard.

Joel steered us past the fer­ry embark­ing on its first morn­ing run, while I sat at the table, ears cocked for the slight­est vari­ance in engine pitch.  After months of mon­key­ing with every major sys­tem on board, we felt more anx­i­ety about this lit­tle jaunt through Rosario Strait than we do about fish­ing forty miles off­shore every July.

(Per­haps it didn’t help my nerves that I’d stayed up late the night before, read­ing the sto­ry of a ship lost on the Bering Sea.)

There’s always a men­tal adjust­ment to trav­el­ing by water, after months of dri­ving over pave­ment.  Port Townsend is less than two hours from Belling­ham by car, but we were look­ing at a trip of over 7 hours.

With­in moments, our voy­age became more inter­est­ing. When we clicked on the autopi­lot, it popped its break­er. “You’ve got­ta be kid­ding me,” growled Cap’n J. “I don’t believe this – looks like we’ll be hand steering.”

Our hopes for a glassy cross­ing washed away with an increas­ing chop­pi­ness, the kind of ocean that always make me think of gal­lop­ing hors­es, spray kicked up like manes in the wind. Books and cups slid across the table, and an inter­mit­tent shud­der began rever­ber­at­ing up through the floor.  As we trad­ed ideas on what could cause such a deep vibra­tion, we saw a sol­id line of white­caps form­ing ahead, froth gleam­ing cheer­ful­ly in the sun.

August 2010

“I hope that’s a whole mess of dol­phins up there,” I said.

Joel peered out the solid­ly-sealed win­dows. “Maybe it’s just a tide rip. They don’t look like surly waves – just festive.”

I grabbed the ket­tle off the stove and stashed it in the sink, where it couldn’t slide around. Quick­ly iden­ti­fy­ing and secur­ing items that would fly when we hit the waves ahead, I mum­bled assur­ances under my breath. “Fes­tive, they’re just festive.”

“Uh-oh,” Joel said.  “Hang on!”

[In 22 sea­sons fish­ing, I’ve learned that noth­ing good ever comes from “Hang on!”  Please vis­it “Hooked” again in the next cou­ple days for the con­clu­sion to How Ner­ka Got Her Sea Legs Back.]