The Tachyon

After my fishing debut upon the Ingrid and subsequent departure I set about looking for other boats to work on. Little did I know that week or two I was casting about for work, my boat had already been picked for me. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say every captain I talked to inevitably pointed me in the direction of the Tachyon. Seeing the writing on the wall, I eventually gave in and walked down the dock to my destiny.

The Tachyon was a small aluminum boat, less than 30 feet long. It was purchased in Seattle by Gabe’s son in law for $15k off a drug addict who needed some money. That’s a steal. Albeit, he then sunk $75k into repairs and retrofitting. But that was back in the early 2000s. I have no doubt he easily made the money back and then some. The boat is called a bow picker. Meaning, that instead of the net reel being placed behind the main cabin and the net pulled over the stern, it is in front of the cabin and the net is pulled over the bow. It makes it really easy to slowly pull the net onto the boat and pick salmon out before the net is wound around the reel.

Gabe is a large 75 year old Aleut elder. 5' 10. Quiet, but that is probably made worse by him being hard of hearing. A mix of working around machinery his whole life and possibly driving tanks in the army. I am a soft spoken guy and for whatever reason I had a difficult time understanding him. It made our conversations short, infrequent, and often awkward.

The first morning out we woke up at 6 AM, put our rain gear on and set a net. Immediately after, Gabe looks up at me and says “well, go cook some breakfast up.” My mouth dropped open a little. No one had ever asked me to cook for them before. It was……heartwarming. I went inside to rummage around for stuff to cook, that’s when I realized….oh. I went back outside and sheepishly asked “What are you feeling like eating for breakfast?” At this he raised an eyebrow, then responded “bacon and eggs” with an expression of “hmmm, yes, that sounds delicious. What else would I eat?” Little did I know, although I could have surmised, that this is basically what fishermen eat every day for every meal. Meat, eggs, and potatoes and all variations thereof. The occasional illegally caught fish is thrown in to mix things up. I should add the caveat, the eggs and potatoes are tiny side dishes. Back in high school I took a health class which informed us that each meal should include only a small piece of meat, about the size of a few quarters. Fishermen believe meat should take up most of the plate with the potatoes and eggs being about the size of a few quarters. They fondly refer to vegetables and none meat/eggs/potatoes as “green things”.

I forgot to mention, I have spent most of my life as a vegetarian. I have never cooked any meat before. Aside from when I was a kid and put Costco Buffalo chicken wings in the microwave for 10 minutes. Now, as a greenhorn I had face to save and couldn’t admit I had never cooked bacon before. So with trepidation I went inside to learn the ways of cooking bacon to a crisp, how to fill the cabin with grease smoke, and apparently under cook and overcook eggs. Gabe never said a word of complaint. The closest he got was “don’t overcook my eggs” and “don’t under cook the pork chops.” But when he was back on shore and hanging out with the other captains at the bar, my brother said he had a few words regarding my cooking, Louie response was “well it’s better than only eating pizza pockets like you did last summer.” Gabe responded with “mmm, I don’t know about that…” Can’t say I disagree.

Every morning after the first set I’d go in and cook a greasy meal. The rest of the day was snacking and drinking several pots of coffee. First person out of bed would start a pot of coffee (usually Gabe at 5 AM). Then throughout the day we’d make several more pots. Over the past few years of working and studying long hours I developed a bit of a caffeine dependence and also never had to brew my own coffee (#spoiled millennial). The first time I made a pot of coffee, I probably put in a solid cup of coffee grounds. I didn’t think anything of it, but I should have. Stranding myself in the middle of the ocean because my captain had a heart attack isn’t exactly ideal. Would that count as murder? As we were heading out to haul in a net, he commented “you made the coffee strong, how many scoops did you use?” I wasn’t exactly sure, “oh, I don’t know six? “ “do only four scoops.” He said while his heart was probably trying to decide if it’d go into tachycardia or just stop.

Alaska department of fish and game designates certain time periods for fishing salmon. These are called openers and the first one of the season is always a big deal. It is kind of a game to the fishermen actually. Early June the salmon are just beginning to swim though that region and it is anyone's guess where the salmon will be. But it is fun to see who makes the lucky guess and catches the most salmon. Maybe they believe it is some sort of indication of how the rest of the summer will go. Gabe decided for our first opener we’d steam out to Eagle harbor which is nested in the folds of Nagai island.

Before we left though we stopped by the processing plant to fill up the fuel tanks. As the dock worker handed the fuel hose down to us, Gabe mutters “we better be careful not to spill any diesel, it’s a biiiig fine, mmm hmmm, gotta be environmentally friendly”. According to the sign on the dock, each instance of pollution was at least $15,000. 15 minutes latter I hear “oh shit, Jon grab me some diapers.” The dock worker was off helping someone else thankfully. I grab a few of those thick white absorbent cloths fishermen call diapers and handed them to Gabe while I took the Fuel hose. I looked down to the water to see a nice fuel shine spreading across the water. I looked over to the overfilled fuel tank and thankfully Gabe had it mostly cleaned up. I lugged the hose up the ladder and distracted the dock worker for a bit, got the fuel receipt, and we steamed full power out to Nagai. When in Rome, do as the Romans do so i have been told.

Being in a little 30ft aluminum boat while crossing large stretches of wind whipped water can be a thrilling and bouncy ride. I suppose one way to think of it is Calypso, the Mother and Goddess of all seafarers bouncing her children to sleep. I slowly drifted off to sleep in the cabin while looking out across the distant island and thinking how much this felt like being in a truck driving across the US. I remember waking up, unkinking my neck and seeing the captain looking amusingly at me. I guess normal people get sea sick rather than falling asleep their first time out on the ocean.

A few hours later we arrived at Eagle Harbor. Gabe showed me how to set a net. Lots of lines, anchors, net, and other hazards to avoid as it all flew by and into the water. He was a good teacher and patient for the most part. the process goes something like this; First a large buoy is connected to a line and the line is connected to the top part of an anchor. the main line is connected to the bottom part of the anchor. The buoy is thrown over and then the anchor after. The captain puts the boat in reverse and slowly begins to back it up while letting out the line and net that is wrapped around the reel. Once all but a little bit of line is out, the boat is put in to neutral, I quickly disconnect the line from the reel and connect it to the bottom part of an anchor and the line attached to the reel is connected to the top part of the anchor. Then I get the fuck out of the way before the boat is put back into reverse and we cross our fingers the anchor goes over the bow rollers smoothly (it often didn’t and I had to get far too close to a 60 lb piece of metal and line with thousands of pounds of tension on it). Then when we got to the end of the line, I’d disconnect the line, attach a buoy, and over it’d go. We’d then wait for the tides to change and start pulling it back in.

Ok, I think you probably understand how that works. Now to get the net back on you have to snag one of those buoys, get it over the bow rollers on the boat, disconnect the buoy, and connect the line to the drum line, then Gabe would start winding the line up and pulling the net onto the boat. So essentially the process described above except in reverse with the added complexity of pulling all the fish and kelp out of the net.

After setting the first two nets we called it a night. Boat have electronics running 24/7, which means the batteries are always draining, this means dead batteries in the morning if something isn’t charging them. I wasn’t aware of this minor detail. But apparently on small fishing boats it is standard to have a generating running at night. Now imagine what a generator would sound like on a tiny metal boat with one cabin. It is loud. like someone banging on metal loud. None of this peaceful waves rocking us to sleep nonsense for fishermen. No, we sleep to the angst of industrial noise.

6 AM came sooner then I wanted and with it more fun. As we started hauling in the first net I was relieved to see there were no fish. Cause I was still figuring out how all the lines connected to each other. Gabe on the other hand, well fishermen generally become grumpy when not catching fish. I could have swore I heard him mutter under his breathe “must be the greenhorn”.

Not much later I reinforced this by asking if seeing seagulls diving in the water indicated where salmon were. Thankfully he only chuckled and said nope, seagulls mean nothing. Side note, fishermen on the Bering sea affectionately refer to seagulls as “Sea Vultures”. This is most likely because they follow the boats around and eat bait and fish offal that gets tossed over the side.

The second net we pulled up a few scrawny sockeye. Gabe then learned I couldn’t even identify the different types of salmon. This is when I noticed he had a tick. When he was exasperated he would pull his hat off and put it back on while exhaling quietly. Sometimes he would even have to walk back into the cabin. This time he only lifted his hat and offered silence. Well, he knew I was a greenhorn. So I felt no shame. I did however feel a bit sheepish about how difficult it was for me to pull the fish out of the net. It is a bit of an art form. There are two options, the first is to hook your fingers inside their gills and pull the webbing out and over their heads. The other methods is to grab their heads and pull the fish through the net. By the end of June, my fingers were swollen sausages and my hands were so stiff from grabbing fish heads I couldn’t close them without pain.

Did I mention that I am a peace loving vegetarian who’s nickname is “hippie” on every single boat I worked on over the previous two years? It took awhile for me to become desensitized to crushing fish skulls, ripping gills out and watching fish asphyxiate. Philosophically I can understand and accept it, but even now I still cringe a little inside knowing how many fish I have killed. Let me assure you, it is more than you.

Let’s talk a little more about life on the water in a tin can of a boat. Let me begin with there was no bathroom and no privacy. We had a bucket out on the deck, just like in the good ol’ days before modern toilets and separate rooms for defecating were a thing. If someone needed to pee, well you used what god gave you and aimed over the boat railing and if you missed, well fish pee in the ocean too and the boat gets covered in the ocean water soooo. After the first set of the day I became partial to taking the bucket and heading to to the back of the boat and dropping down onto stern platform above the propellers. There I would put a little water in the bucket, take a seat and enjoy the scene of jellyfish, butterfly snails, birds, epic landscapes, and the occasional whale, seal, or otter swimming by and eagles flying overhead. Best shits I’ve ever had and not because of all that bacon I ate. Afterwards, I’d empty the bucket into the ocean. Depending on currents, sometimes I’d head to the front of the boat and see the toilet paper and other float by and in the direction of the net. Thankfully it never came up in the net…..

The wildlife was amazing though. I can’t over state it. One day a porpoise decided to follow us around. It was like watching a very curious dog. It was would swim around the buoys, along our nets, and try to race us. In particular it really seemed to enjoy playing in the bow wake, bouncing back and forth between the port and starboard side of the bow. At times, I could look straight into its eyes and see joy. I couldn’t help myself and reached down to try and touch it. Not surprisingly it startled and swam away. Curiously, it never ate the salmon in our net. Gabe said they didn’t eat salmon so I guess that makes sense.

The wildlife was everywhere too. Summer in Alaska is intense. In the span of two weeks the islands go from dirt brown to green to covered in wild flowers of every color. While it is difficult to see much change in the water, the first sign is the arrival of the salmon in early June. Another is the sheer number of puffins on the water. They are everywhere and I often wondered if boats ever ran them over. It’s terrible, but they are really stupid birds. They would wait until the very last moment before the boat would hit them. This is ironic cause they are really bad fliers. They couldn’t lift off the water and would instead beat their wings enough to essentially bounce off the wave crests in and land 10 feet away. Five seconds later the boat would be upon them again.

In June, each opener lasted five days, we’d steam into port Saturday morning, I’d head to my brother’s place and swap stories about our adventures, and Sunday morning we’d head back out to sea to start fishing early Monday morning. It was grueling. We set our nets close to shore, so I could always see gorgeous landscapes and incredible wildlife, but I could never climb those steep cliffs or walk the beaches. It was like being constantly teased by Dame Natura. Instead, I would take long naps between sets and read or listen to audiobooks. Then we’d do the hour or two of work setting or hauling in which something almost always went wrong. Thankfully nothing as epic as what happened to my brother, but we came awfully close.

My brother’s captain is a local legend. Another Aleut elder who had worked as a captain on the Bering sea and a man who knows how a fish thinks. He was known for catching the most salmon of any set netter in the area. So many in fact, that my brother reported their nets would often sink from all the fish in the them. A problem many fishermen wish they had, but I imagine it is also a huge pain in the ass and expensive if you can’t get that net back. But anyways, I digress, during one set, the captain was checking for fish in the net by steaming along its length and looking down. Unfortunately the current pushed the boat too close and the propeller snagged the net. The captain, unaware, tried to move forward and subsequently wrapped the net around the prop. Thinking he could undue the damage, he put the boat in reverse in the hope it’d unwrap the net. Well it didn’t. Fishermen would call that net whaled. Meaning, it was destroyed. This is in reference to when whales, such as humpbacks, are swimming along and give zero fucks about tiny weak nylon nets such as used in gill netting and swim right through them, effectively destroying the net.

But the sea was no kinder to my boat than their’s. At first, I was the main culprit of any holes in the net. “Fuckin’ greenhorns” is a favorite phrase of captains and any seasoned fishermen. When I would try to remove fish from the net I would break the nylon threads of the net. I deservedly received copious head shakes from the captain for this. But as time went on the occasional sea lion would find its way through our net, the c-links would catch on the net when setting, etc. My favorite though was a whale of an event.

My captain had an annoying habit when setting the net. He would uncoil the net faster than the boat was backing up. There were several consequences to this, first the net/line would unwind and pile up underneath the reel and then start wrapping around the reel in reverse, effectively tying the net into a tight knot and also ripping holes in it. If i wanted to stop this, I had to do something that is admittedly extremely dangerous; I would pull the lose net and throw it behind me and towards the bow of the boat. Somehow I never got caught in the net, but I did see what happens if you do. One particularly time this happened, the captain was unwinding the reel especially faster than normal and I was having to throw yards of net behind me. Unfortunately, when I did this, the breeze blew part of the net onto one of the 60lb anchors with 40lbs of chain that was on the boat railing. It ripped the anchor off the railing and had the captain not stopped the reel, I am sure it would have been pulled over the bow and into the depths. As it was, that net was effectively whaled. A good 20 ft section of the net was now destroyed. We still set it.

That was just one of the many hazards of the job though. Probably the most entertaining and scariest for me though was immediately pulling the second anchor of a set net onto the boat. What happened numerous times was this; one the second anchor was on the boat there was still a buoy in the water with nothing holding it in place, so it would start to drift with the surface current or the wind. Sometimes it would go behind the boat and wrap itself around the boat propeller. You might think this is funny, it was funny the first time, until I realized I had to stick my arm down and behind the propeller of a boat that was running. Now, I initially thought that was simply bad luck and it wouldn’t happen again. I was wrong. In fact, it happened with enough frequency that I started pointing to the buoy as it would drift by. Somehow it still occurred a few times. The worst though, was actually when we tried setting right next to a particularly rocky area and the wind/waves were pushing us into the rocks. Thank god Gabe bailed halfway through the set and reeled the net back in, but in the process the last buoy became entangled in the propeller. Gabe told me to hurry and untangle it cause we were about 50 ft from the shore and quickly closing. Somehow I was able to unwrap it, but not without getting my whole arm and gloves soaked. Better that than beached though.

I did have some near misses though. One day after we had offloaded to a tender and I had finished cleaning the fish holds which were directly underneath the net reel and also in front of the cabin door, I took a fall. For some reason I was working with my back to one of the fish holds which had its lid propped up against the side of the cabin. I unwittingly took a step back and directly into the fish hold, plummeting five feet. On the way down I grab the cabin door latch which open just enough to knock the fish hold lid down. As I touched bottom and regained my balance, the fish hold lid came down on my head. The proverbial cherry on top. After letting the moment sink in and appreciating my lack of injury I shoved the lid off my head and looked up to see Gabe’s face peering down through cabin door window with a look of concern. I gave him the thumbs up sign and he gave me the “ya dumb shit” look with a hint of smirk.

That smirk characterized our relationship to a large degree. Fishermen have a great deal of pride in their work and for good reason. But sadly that often translates into a lot of posturing and chest thumping. If you aren’t doing this then you are a real fisherman. Gabe of course knew this and whenever we were around other fishermen he would crank up the rhetoric to incredible levels of bullshit. Whenever we would offload to a tender he would suddenly find his voice and begin yelling at me to move faster or stop standing around and do such and such. It was actually really amusing and I would oblige with the proper look of terror and speed. The moment we cast off from the tender though, we would settle back into our silence.

Being a fishermen requires a highly specific skill set and characteristics. By “highly specific”, I mean able to fix anything on the boat with duck tape and line, engine included. First is the net, you can’t catch fish with holes in the net. I never learned how to fix a net. I was shown several times but never got the hang of it. You also can’t fish if your boat does not run. For a good week or two we’d wake up in the morning to a boat that wouldn’t start. Slightly worrisome, but as the greenhorn, my sole job is to keep my mouth shut and do whatever I was told. One particular morning I got tired of not doing anything and jumped down into the engine room while Gabe was trying to start the boat. After a little fiddling around I discovered that the battery terminals were loose. I love it when it’s an easy fix. Gabe handed a wrench down and I got to tightening them down. I didn’t tell him I may have over tightened and broke one of them, but hey, it was tight and still worked.

There is a rail in front the the reel which has two sliding guide posts on it. This allowed for easy wrapping of the net. As I discovered, it is really really nice to have those things because trying to guide the net by hand is difficult. Well, as fortune would have it, the chain that controlled the post position snapped while hauling a net in. Somewhat inconvenient, but it could have been worse. We spent the afternoon anchored and trying to fix that chain. Turns out, some previous fisherman had used a hose clamp and piece of metal to fasten the two ends of the chain together. A classic fisherman fix. Well, we tried using the correct piece of metal and some wire. That worked for all of one or two days. Thankfully Gabe was able to find the actual clips and I somehow got those things on. But let me tell you, chains are heavy, greasy, and a pain in the ass to get back on their cogs when they slip off.

Another instance which epitomizes my time on that boat was at the end of an opener. Over the course of the previous week the deck hose on/off switch was getting stuck. It decided to make its final protest as we entered the harbor. The hose turned on and was spraying a nice jet of water over the side of the boat. For some reason Gabe told me to go outside and fix it. I tried hitting the button a few times, nothing. I looked at Gabe, he shrugged. Something had to be done because our slip neighbors probably wouldn’t enjoy getting hosed. I opened the cover to the outside control panel, as I did this I saw the classic look of terror Gabe got when I would do something spontaneous. I reached in and yanked some wires. The hose turned off and the boat hummed along.

Weather could also make life interesting. If the wind was blowing and the waves were high, it was a roller coaster of a ride to hook buoys and haul a net in. To hook a buoy I had to lean over the side of the bow and use a long aluminum pole with a curved piece of rebar on the end to hook the buoy line. Imagine doing this when the boat is moving vertically 20ft every five seconds. I never went for a swam, but there were certainly some close calls.

At the end of June, our fishing hadn’t been that great and Gabe decided to finish the season by himself. So concluded my time set netting in Sand Point. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but my back, hands, and body ached and were glad for a break. I spent the next month relaxing, going for hikes, and working on computer projects. And then I received a phone call….