In this tale of King Crab Fishing during the 1979
Bering Sea Crab Season, we had finally gotten all but one load of crab pots on
the fishing grounds.
September 15th
finally arrived, and at exactly the stroke of noon, we started baiting all of
our pots. The last load of crab pots was still on deck with the intention of
dropping them in strings alongside the best of our pots that were already in
the water. This meant that we had to pick and bait nearly 250 pots to even
begin to catch any crab.
“Those crabs won’t crawl
into our pots without any bait in them” Harold would yell down to us over the
deck intercom. “Come on guys, let’s get going!” He didn’t really need to give
us much encouragement at this time of the season, as we were well rested and
plenty ready to make some money.
We worked for 36 hours
straight baiting all the pots in the water before starting to ‘pick’ pots. Most
of our strings of crab pots did pretty well, and after we’d picked about half
our gear (pots) we found a good enough string to drop the last deckload of 75
pots in the water – in strings parallel
to our best string. Finally, after 48 hours all our gear was in the water,
baited and ‘fishing’. Whew!
“Let’s get a few hours
sleep you guys and let these pots soak for awhile before we pick the rest of
them. What do you think?” We were dead on our feet and too worn out to do any
more anyway. “OK”, I shouted up through the deck intercom. “Let’s shut ‘er down
for awhile”.
But, you can’t just drift
around in a boat at sea without anyone on watch, so each deckhand had to take a
turn ‘watching the wheel’ while the others rested. The first and last watches
were the best because these guys were able to sleep through without being
awakened for their ‘watch’ in the middle of a deep slumber. Of course the last
watch was the best because not only did you get to hit your bunk right away,
but you also were able to sleep through the other 3 men’s’ watches. As the
Captain, the skipper never has to stand watch – one of the many advantages of
being the skipper.
The season went pretty
well, but it could have been better. Each man on deck earned about $10,000 a trip and the
trips were taking about a week each. Some of the other boats were loading up in
2-3 days, but they also had a crew and a half on board and these boats never
shut down, ever. They might fish for a week straight without ever stopping. On
the Marcy J we never worked more than 48 hours straight without getting at
least 4 hours sleep. This was the one thing I didn’t like about crab fishing.
We never got enough sleep while on the fishing grounds.
And this was tough work –
the toughest of my life. We were constantly fighting the crab pots which
weighed 500 pounds each – without any crab in them. When they were full, they
could weigh 1,000 pounds or more. And there was always weather. 8 foot seas made
a nice day. Most days the wind would whip up to 25 – 35 knots and pick the seas
up to 15 feet or more - with a chilling cold, wet wind. It was brutal.
The cold water of the
Bering Sea would come over the rail in wind-swept sheets and pummel us
constantly. If you can imagine being hit right in the chest with a full, 5
gallon bucket of water, you can get the idea. But it was more than that and
constant. And LOUD! The wind through the rigging was shrieking, the seas
crashing
And the raging sea; it
works like this:
The ripples turn into
chop. Then the chop turns into waves, 3 or 4 feet high. Then after awhile the
waves turn into ‘seas’ that can mount to 10-15 feet. But after a day or two of
wind in the same direction, ground swells form that can mount to 25 feet and
more. Let me tell you what; when a 15 foot sea climbs to the top of a 25 foot
ground swell, and the boat hits it at that precise time, there is more energy
involved than you can imagine. It is awesome.
For many, this weather is
dreaded. And for me, while on the grounds fishing, it really slows down the
operation. But I loved this kind of weather and drew energy from it. There is
nothing in the world like being a healthy 28 year old man in perfect physical
condition working in sync with good friends in frightful conditions. I loved
it! The bonds I have with these guys have lived a lifetime.
We delivered our catch to
an old WW II Liberty Ship, the All Alaskan, which had been converted
into a cannery. It was anchored up in the bay at Port Moller and had a fleet of
about a dozen crab boats delivering to it. Sometimes we had to wait a day or so
to unload if our timing was off, but most times Harold timed it so we could
unload immediately. Sometimes we delivered some percentage short of a full load
so we wouldn’t waste a day waiting to unload our catch.
We all called the All
Alaskan the Blue Zoo – for good reason. First of all, every inch of the ship,
was painted a very strong blue. And besides the professional crew that managed
her, all the ‘cannery workers’ were young kids in their early ‘20’s looking for
an adventure. There were about 75 young men and women aboard and they were
aboard for the better part of 5 months – never able to leave. After all, where
would they go? There was an abandoned Salmon Cannery at Port Moller, but
otherwise it was just wilderness, and the Captain didn’t allow anyone to leave
for fear of someone getting lost or killed somehow. Port Moller is on the
Alaskan Peninsula and one could run into half dozen or more Brown Bears around
the creeks and rivers eating spawning salmon.
Although the Marcy J was a
‘dry’ boat, there was plenty of beer on the Blue Zoo, and when the cannery
workers were off duty, the parties began – actually the party never really
stopped. As for our crew, there was always plenty of work to do while the crab
were being unloaded. We needed to take on fuel, do maintenance to the engines,
get fresh bait, purchase provisions, mend crab pots, repair broken machinery…
There was never enough time to get everything done. We worked steady until we
headed out to the fishing grounds. The trips back and forth to the grounds were
when we slept.
This Season lasted almost
90 days during which time we never set a foot on solid ground. We were tired
and beat up. Although we didn’t have much weight to lose in the first place, we
all were down to bone and muscle and sinew by the end of the season. When the
final day of fishing was announced, we were jubilant and all ready to go home.
None of us had seen our wives for a very long time! All of my children were
conceived upon arrival from a fishing season.
But of course we still had
to bring in all our crab pots – 4 big loads of them. And now it was December
and the weather continued to deteriorate. Every day now was some kind of a
storm – it was just a matter of degree.
When we store pots, we
need to take all the buoys and ‘shots of line’ out of them to store until the
next season. Each shot of line is 66 fathoms long – almost 400 feet of heavy
3/4” hard lay poly or nylon. They were heavy. Our system was to lash down the
first layer of 6’ pots on deck with a narrow path back to the lazarette, the
compartment in the stern that housed the rudder post. We could get a lot of
shots of line in there which made for more deck space on which to stack more crab
pots.
On our second load, the
weather was bad, real bad. There was a 45 knot wind blowing pushing 25’ ground
swells. The first string of gear we were picking was running in a direction so
that the seas were quartering in from just starboard of our bow. This meant
that the spray was constantly washing over the deck and we were fighting every
single pot into position on deck before lashing it down. And of course we were
tired. Dead tired. But we had to get the gear put away. We didn’t have any
other choice.
After this first string of
gear, we had 21 pots secured to the deck, leaving a path back to the lazarette.
“OK boys”, came the call from Harold over the intercom. “We have about a half
hour run to the next string of gear. Let’s get the shots of line down into the
lazarette”.
“Got it Harold” I shouted
back over the din of the storm. “I’ll let you know when we’re finished and
secure”.
After a few minutes, all
the line was safely stowed and Mill and I walked back across the deck to behind
the deck house, leaving space for Chris and Dave to emerge from the lazarette
through the hatch. The wind was screaming and sheets of water washed over the
deck constantly as we quartered into the huge, boiling seas. Mill went into the
deck house to make a pot of coffee for us and I waited behind the Deck House,
out of the wind and water, and lit a cigarette. What a day, I thought to myself. It seems like the weather is getting even worse…
End of Part II
With the weather continuing to deteriorate, the danger
mounts. What is going to happen? Watch for the conclusion of this story in next
weeks’ Newsletter.
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