After doing such exten­sive work on the good ship Ner­ka this win­ter, her insides pulled apart, mucked about, and put back again, we left Belling­ham rid­dled with anx­i­ety. Would every­thing work? What grem­lins would reveal them­selves? Spend time with boats, you quick­ly learn they’re full of sur­pris­es, and not the par­ty-and-ice-cream kind.

Oth­er than an ini­tial scare that we were on our way to Alas­ka with­out a work­ing stove, she was indeed a “good ship.” We enjoyed a record-quick trip at 4 days and 8 hours, our smoothest yet, the miles fly­ing by with love­ly weath­er and con­ver­sa­tion. (And yes, hot food. Cap’n J saved us from days of PB & J when he tri­umphed over the reluc­tant stove.) Our friend Sean, deck­hand to the Five Girls, hitched a ride and proved an excel­lent trav­el com­pan­ion. Bear the Boat Cat threw up only once. Glassy-eyed in dis­con­cert­ing­ly calm waters, she howled for Sean to move his feet from her pre­ferred puke site, then appeared to gain her sea legs.

We pulled into Sit­ka at 2 a.m., Tues­day morn­ing – per­fect­ly timed to get a few hours’ sleep, then make it to the Backdoor’s open­ing for pie and cof­fee. We’ve nes­tled back into the com­mu­ni­ty and have been divid­ing our days between tin­ker­ing on the boat, rig­ging up for our king salmon sea­son to open on July 1^st, and rev­el­ing in the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to relax in town. Plen­ty of writ­ing time for me, hikes and pho­to mis­sions for Cap’n J. Bear’s been nos­ing around on the cruis­er parked next to us, per­haps a fan of how rarely it leaves the dock. Pret­ty con­tent, all of us.

Last night we parked our­selves on a shore­line at the west end of town, wait­ing for the sun to wink below the hori­zon. Up here these days, that’s a long wait; sun­set is list­ed as 9:59, but the sky remains per­me­able for anoth­er hour. Joel got some great pic­tures, his first oppor­tu­ni­ty to recon­nect with Sit­ka in the way that’s most mean­ing­ful for him. (And skilled? Oh yes. You can check out some of his work here.)

Cap’n J and Mt. Edge­cumbe, reunited.

Yep, feel­ing pret­ty full of the warm-fuzzies. So it was good tim­ing for a fel­low fish­er­man to tell me a sto­ry of how he end­ed last sea­son. He was on the run south, trav­el­ing with anoth­er boat. They stopped one evening, raft­ed up togeth­er in the anchor­age, and cooked a Thanks­giv­ing feast. It didn’t mat­ter that it was late Sep­tem­ber. Their season’s salmon har­vest boun­ti­ful, they gave thank­ful acknowl­edge­ment for the life they’d taken.

This kind of thing warms my tree hug­ging, hip­pie heart. Inspired me to give my own pre-sea­son thanks here. I’ve received an awful lot of kind­ness­es that deserve pub­lic appre­ci­a­tion, and some of these acco­lades are shame­ful­ly late.

Sev­er­al months back, I joined She Writes, an online writ­ers com­mu­ni­ty. After years bemoan­ing the lack of writ­ers’ ener­gy in my life, She Writes has meshed beau­ti­ful­ly with my migra­to­ry lifestyle. The wealth of expe­ri­ence and project diver­si­ty is at once hum­bling and invig­o­rat­ing; I’m thank­ful for the inspir­ing con­ver­sa­tions and new friends.

One of those hap­py She Writes con­nec­tions is Fl (Girl with a New Life). Tina, the author, cel­e­brates wom­en’s sto­ries with an eclec­tic blend of writ­ing prompts, film reviews, and per­son­al reflec­tions.  She’s tire­less, main­tain­ing a faith­ful sched­ule for her read­ers, posts rich with her warm, con­ver­sa­tion­al tone, with remark­able consistency.

In May, I came back from sea to find that Tina had post­ed about Hooked, nam­ing this fishy lit­tle site as one of her favorite trav­el blogs. Her praise was a delight­ful sur­prise, a pow­er­ful exam­ple of the way sto­ries bring peo­ple togeth­er. We live on oppo­site sides of the coun­try, in dai­ly rou­tines that are worlds apart, yet when we share reflec­tions of what mat­ters to us, what’s life giv­ing and what keeps us awake at night, we find kin­dred spir­its. Thanks to you and your hus­band, Tina – I’m glad our vir­tu­al paths have crossed!

The past month was very good to Hooked. Pacif­ic Fish­ing, lead­ing busi­ness jour­nal for the West Coast seafood indus­try, ran an “Intro­duc­ing the Blog­ger” sto­ry in their June issue, and has gen­er­ous­ly post­ed a link on their home­page. I’ve been a Pacif­ic Fish­ing read­er for decades, so this was par­tic­u­lar­ly touch­ing to me, and has great­ly increased Hooked’s audi­ence. Thanks, Pacif­ic Fish­ing, for your sup­port; it’s much appreciated.

I’m thank­ful for a whole mess of good­ness. For May’s long­line job, a safe, suc­cess­ful, laugh­ter-filled sea­son with my fan­tas­tic “broth­er” and a good-spir­it­ed crew­mate. For the Back­door for being my Sit­ka haven, and for Bernadette and Sotera singing out, “Wel­come home!” with­out hes­i­ta­tion or qual­i­fi­er.  For all of Cap’n J’s work on the Ner­ka while I was gone, and the fan­tas­tic din­ners he pre­pared upon my return. “You just keep writ­ing,” he insist­ed, when I was deep in the words and would’ve end­ed up scroung­ing for a bread-and-cheese mid­night snack, if not for the deli­cious meals he set before me.

“Din­ner with Steve.” A deli­cious sand­wich, a sto­ry for anoth­er day.

Five days ago we were run­ning up the coast of Bara­nof Island, glassy water pierced only by hump­back exha­la­tions. The cab­in filled with a col­lec­tive pulse of excite­ment and relief. We were reluc­tant to speak of the mag­ic we were feel­ing, jinx-wary, but Sean, Joel and I all agreed: this sea­son just feels good. Hope­ful. With plen­ty of time ahead to be smacked by real­i­ty, we’re enjoy­ing the pos­i­tiv­i­ty of the present.

As we approach next week’s sol­stice, may it be so for you, too, sweet read­er, that the light in your heart reflects that of these length­en­ing days. Be safe, be well, and be sure to find time for pie.

Thanks, Bernadette and crew… Love you guys.