Combined with the 'pin money' I had earned painting the interior of the house my buddy Tony would eventually buy, and after working on the Western Girl, the Halibut Schooner that I had helped unload and overhaul their 'skates' of gear, I had almost $500. A fortune; my money problems were over for the time being. That issue out of the way, I continued my quest of getting a job on a fish boat from one of the vessels that fished out of Kodiak, Alaska. It was 1972, I was 21 years old and life was good.
 |
| The MV Pacific Pearl |
The unified
fishing canneries made a couple of offers to the fishermen in the Shrimp
Association and although neither of us could vote, Tony and I attended each
meeting to keep abreast of what was happening in these important negotiations.
The Fishermen were asking 7 cents/pound for shrimp and the canneries were
offering 3 1/2 cents per pound; they had been paying 2 cents during the
previous season. Of course as the weeks went by, the canneries started coming
up in their offers and the fishermen started coming down; everyone wanted to
get to work.
At one of these
meetings, the canneries offered 4 1/2 cents per pound and the consensus of the
fishermen was that 'maybe we should just
take it; we have boat payments to make'. Towards the end of this meeting,
just before the vote was to be taken, one handsome, chiseled featured boat
captain stood up, and with a booming voice, and great resolve he stated the
case for waiting it out until we received at least 5 1/4 cents per pound. His
oration was extremely convincing and as he talked I could see lots of nods and
whispers agreeing with this well respected man.
The vote was
taken right after the captain stated his case and the 4 cent offer was voted
down; the strike would continue. I commented to Tony that the captain that had
swayed the room had delivered an amazing speech; he had taken control of the
room of more than 100 independent men. "That's my dad, Harold Jones",
Tony said. "Do you want to meet him?"
"Well sure
Tony", I replied. "How come I've never met him before?"
Tony smiled back
at me, "My dad runs a big dragger called The Tradewinds. She is a
big, Herring Seiner type boat from down the coast off of California. They just
arrived with the boat a few days ago", Tony explained.
"How come
you're not going to go fishing with your dad?", I asked.
"He has a
crew already that worked for a long time in Seattle getting the boat ready and
he has a full crew with those guys. If one of them quits or gets hurt, either
my brother Chris or I will probably get onboard", Tony replied. Brother Chris
was down in Port Angeles, Washington working on a construction crew waiting for
the strike to end before he came up to Kodiak. He and Tony were to be the
crewmen on the Pacific Pearl.
We went over to
meet Captain Harold Jones and were able to talk for couple of minutes, but he
was in a gaggle of other skippers talking about the strike, so Tony and I
wandered off. A few days later, a buzz went up through the shrimp fleet that
the canneries were going to make better offer; everyone was heading up to the
town hall to hear the offer and vote.
The president of
the Shrimp Assoc. announced that the canneries were offering 5 1/4 cents; 5
cents for the fishermen and a 1/4 cent going the fund the new association. Once
again, Harold stood up and said that he thought this was an acceptable offer.
The president called for a vote and it was unanimous; the strike was over!
Immediately after
the vote, the room cleared as all the fishermen headed to the harbor to leave
for the fishing grounds. The race was on!
As Tony and I
walked briskly toward the harbor I asked Tony what he thought I should do.
"You have to get to your house, get your gear and get down to the harbor,
right now", Tony exclaimed. "All these skippers are going to leave
the harbor and head to the ice dock to take on ice on their way out to the
fishing grounds. If any of their crewmen don't show up, anyone standing there
is likely to get a job!"
"Holy
Smokes, Tony", I said as I cut-off in the other direction to Paul's house.
"I'll see you down there in 15 minutes!" I stopped the walking, and
ran to the house, threw a bunch of clothes in my backpack and high-tailed it
down to the harbor.
The scene at the
harbor was bedlam, as the skippers and crewmen were making last minute provisioning
to their boats. Fishermen were all over the dock, the boats, marine hardware
stores, and the grocery stores were already making 'standing order' deliveries
of groceries to the boats tied up in the harbor. This was exciting!!!
Of course I was
wearing my hip boots and asked everyone I saw if they were looking for a
deck-hand. A few replied with the question, "Maybe. Do you have any
experience?". I didn't, and did not receive any job offers.
The Pacific Pearl
was tied up on the last dock 'finger', about halfway down the dock, and when I
got to her, Tony was standing on deck jumping up and down waving for me.
"John, I called my brother Chris and he won't be up here until tomorrow.
Dick the skipper wants to leave right now and he's out trying to find a second
deckhand so we can go fishing. You need to wait on deck with me; if he can't
find anyone I think he might take you!"
"Geez Tony,
I can't believe it. Really?", I said.
"I don't
know for sure, but the first boat to the Ice Dock gets loaded and out to the
fishing grounds first. He might take you. I know he likes you, and if he can't
find an experienced guy right away, I told him you'd be down here in a few
minutes. We'll just have to wait and see", Tony explained.
I could hardly
breathe I was so excited. Peering through all the boat riggings we finally
spotted Dick, rapidly walking along the dock toward the Pacific Pearl. Alone.
Next week in 'The Pacific Pearl' Part
II, find out if Dick hired me as a crewman.
John Mickman
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