Liv­ing sea­son­al­ly applies unique mean­ing to life.  Time does­n’t seem to pass par­tic­u­lar­ly quick­ly, as we mosey through the “off”-season, bal­anc­ing nec­es­sary boat main­te­nance and improve­ments with the lux­u­ries of being self-employed. Plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to indulge in hob­bies, re-con­nect with friends and fam­i­ly, and put­ter around the house. After six months of squeez­ing our­selves into the con­fines of 43 feet, we bliss out on the deca­dence of an 1800 square foot existence.

I keep an eye on the cal­en­dar and warn non-fish­ing friends that any good­bye get-togeth­ers need to hap­pen now, or they won’t hap­pen at all.  I take note of the red flow­er­ing cur­rant unfurl­ing in our green­belt, say good­bye to the var­ied thrush and start wait­ing for the evening gros­beak to appear at our feed­ers.  Even with that cog­nizance, even as a life­time vet­er­an of this process, I still feel awe at the annu­al demar­ca­tion of exchang­ing one lifestyle for anoth­er. The change is total — geo­graph­ic, pro­fes­sion­al, cul­tur­al, social, from liv­ing envi­ron­ment to dai­ly rou­tine.  No mat­ter how gen­tly you han­dle them, clos­ing one door to open anoth­er con­veys abruptness.

For the past two weeks, I’ve lived by lists, sur­round­ed by scraps of Do-Before-Leav­ing itin­er­aries.  Car insur­ance on hold, thrift store for hood­ies, can­cel net­flix. After sev­er­al months’ lapse, there was a sud­den, des­per­ate urgency to going back to the gym, and Joel got used to watch­ing me drop to the floor mid-con­ver­sa­tion for impromp­tu push-ups and sit-ups.

With all of this expe­ri­ence, you’d think I’d spend my last night ashore curled up on the red couch with Cap’n J. We’d reflect on our win­ter togeth­er and talk about our hopes for the com­ing sea­son, Bear the Boat Cat spilling across our com­bined laps. A very mind­ful, inten­tion­al way to embrace tran­si­tion, hon­or­ing what’s been and wel­com­ing what’s to come.  Instead, I spent Sun­day night in the midst of this:

Bear the Boat Cat, sea­soned crewmem­ber, knows this drill.

Our liv­ing room piled high with boots, gloves and raingear (sev­er­al sea­sons’ bro­ken in and smelling like it, plus a new pair as back-up), I demon­strate a brand-name alle­giance that you’d expect from an afflu­ent high school­er: Carhartt, Grun­dens, Romeos, Xtra-Tufs. The Ziploc bag of toi­letries bulges with Extra-Strength Advil, Tiger Balm, and Biofreeze deep heat­ing gel.  A sleep­ing bag and pil­low, mir­rored with a small moun­tain of socks — there’s no lux­u­ry on a boat to equal a fresh, dry pair.  And to shore-up my dock cred, a col­lec­tion of Ray Troll T‑shirts and hood­ies. Less typ­i­cal of your aver­age hal­ibut deck­hand: the sep­a­rate back­pack bulging with  note­books, jour­nals, writ­ing man­u­als, and netbook.

Watch­ing the back­packs and black plas­tic garbage bags stack up by the front door, I have a moment of grat­i­tude for my ver­ti­cal­ly-chal­lenged frame. “Per­son­al space” on a boat is gen­er­al­ly lim­it­ed to one space only, and at 5′2″, I can cram plen­ty into the foot and head of my bunk and still have a wel­com­ing nest.

Cap’n J drove us through a mis­er­able del­uge yes­ter­day to deliv­er me to Seat­tle’s Fish­er­man’s Ter­mi­nal.  For the next month, I’ve signed off from the Ner­ka, work­ing with cap­tain and part­ner Joel, to return to the good ship Char­i­ty, crew­ing for cap­tain and “broth­er,” Mar­tin.  The hal­ibut are call­ing, so we’re in the mad scram­ble of tidy­ing the Char­i­ty’s remain­ing loose ends.  I hope to have anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to share our progress with you, sweet read­er, before our Thurs­day send-off.  Mean­while, Cap­tain Mar­lin has appeared at the cof­fee house and the work day is ready to start — best fish­es, friends, until next time.