There and going back again

I am packing my belonging tonight. Tomorrow morning my mother and I drive to Portland, Oregon where we will spend the day shopping and volunteering to help keep Portland strange. The following morning at 8 AM I board my flight to Anchorage, Alaska. Just over three weeks ago I flew out of Anchorage, having just finished the Salmon fishing season. Now I am returning, this time to be a crab fisheries observer for the next nine months. I will spend most of those months on a boats measuring, sexing, counting, sampling, noting bycatch, and living on a boat in the middle of the Bering Sea…..in frigid, stormy conditions. I have already perfected my “crazed fisherman” expression. Soon I too will be able to tell stories as only fishermen can.