When we got to the homer airport, were we bought our tickets to fly to anchorage and from there we fly to Kodiak. Kodiak is located one hundred and thirty miles away from homer. Once we boarded and got on an era Alaska air plane and flew to Kodiak. The plane could only carry twenty people at the most. For me the funniest part was taking off the ground. When the plane starts to speed up really fast, your whole body gets pulled back against the seat. The view from the plan was awesome. When you look at the cars that were driving on the road, it looked like ants moving around.
Already when we arrived it was cold. The roads were black ice. When we got to the boat, we noticed we needed supplied so we went to town. Grocery shopping usually costs about one hundred or more dollars every week. We returned to the harbor, took all the supplies to the boat and we headed to the fuel dock and got some fuel, and headed to the cannery.
We bought a couple thousand pounds of bait the bait it was in twenty five boxes of 20-30 pounds each, the price of the bait had gone up, from last year, it was almost two dollars a pound. The crane that they put the bait on our boat was big. The crane had a pallet on the end of the cable that it was attached reel on the cane. The bait was stacked on the pallet, that’s how they gave us the bait. Then once they lower the pallet down on to the boat one of us got into the fishing hole and started to stack the bait .We also got a tote of ice so we could ice the fish so it would be fresh.
We headed out to the fishing grounds it took about three hours away. By the time we arrived the whole boat was covered in ice. When every wave hits single drop gets frozen to the boat when there is a lot of ice, the boat gets top heavy and could easily flip. We anchored up, got some rubber hammers, and started to break the ice and threw it over board.
When that was done we took out the anchor and headed to our spot where we fish. When we got there our captain told us to gear up and go set when we are ready. So we started to throw out the buoys out of the boat and get some extra rope in the water so the anchor that we will attach in some amount of rope wouldn’t float. Then when we attach the buoy to the rope we sit down on our seats and started to set. There are about two thousand hooks that we have to set and every string that we set is about two miles. We have two stings after we are done we go and cut some squid for bait for the string that we will pull out.
The hooks have to be in the water for about three hours so that all that bait wouldn’t be coming back up on the hook. After we wait for about three hours we go gear up again so we wouldn’t freeze outside. The temperature was ridiculous. The temperature of the wind shield was about -50 degrees. Then the boat went by the buoys I threw the hook and caught the buoys and pulled them on to the boat. After we caught it we start to pull the string out.
The weather was so cold that all my life I was fishing I had never seen the weather so brutal and cold. When I looked outside the window I saw steam coming out of the water. The steam was coming out of the ocean was because the air was much colder then ocean.
When we were done pulling out the second string I was tired and hot after unhooking five hundred grey cod that I couldn’t wait to go inside, eat and rest. When I started to through the fish into the fish hole and grabbed the fish and some fish was frozen to the deck.
After about ten long strings. I only slept for about couple of hours in two days. When finally the fish holes were full, the boat was loaded and ready to go the harbor to deliver the fish. When we got to the harbor I looked in the back of the boat. The back the water was only couple of inches from the back holes. The back was so under water because the entire gear was in the back. All the hooks, anchors and some other heavy stuff.
When we tied up to the dock and headed inside the boat because we don’t have to do anything. The workers on the dock almost do everything, open the fish holes and unload the fish. The way the workers unload the fish was like this. They brings down an empty tote and take the fish from the fish holes and put them inside the tote and lift it up and weight the tote.
Finally when we are all done delivering we head back to the fishing grounds. When we got to the fishing grounds the captain says, “We only have one day of fishing, before a big storm comes our way and we won’t be able to fish anymore. “The forecast said that after midnight it will be heavy freezing spray so we went our set the gear as fast as we could and worked really hard for a day then the storm came.
The wind really started to pick up and the waves became really choppy. So we took out all of our gear and anchored up. We took out all the gears out of the water because strong currents and big waves could pick up the anchor and drag it some were. So when we were anchored up and iced the fish so the fish wouldn’t rot and stay fresh. When I went inside, the captain was cooking something it smelled really good. Once we ate I asked my captain,
“When will the storm pass?”
“He said, I don’t know it shouldn’t be much longer then couple of day.”
When we were sleeping, the captain woke us up said, “Wake up”! “We need to move, the anchor isn’t holding us”. The strong winds moved the boat about half a mile closer to shore and almost against the rocks. The second deck hand got dressed up and went to the front of the boat and saw that the winch was all frozen and when he started to pull out the anchor. The small reel didn’t move because of how much it was iced up. So he went back inside and got a picking axe and started to chip the ice so that the reel could spin again. Once he was done, he started to pull out the anchor. When the anchor was pulled out, the captain moved to a more secure place. We dove in this little cape and dropped the anchor. This was way better place because the little cape was blocking the wind.
When finally for six days later the wind calmed down and we were ready to go to town. We needed to go to town because sitting on the boat for six days made us run out of food. When we got to the harbor we saw that lots of boats were tied to the dock and probably left home because of the storm. So we delivered what we had and tied up to the dock and decided to go home.
i LIKE TE WAY YOU EXPLAINED THE COLD WHEN YOU WERE FISHING. iEXPERIENCED THE SAME THING OUT THERE.
I like they way you wrote it, it discribes like the audience is there on the boat. I would never want to go fishing on the boat there, but the kind of money you guys make their who wouldn’t want to go fishing for that kind of money. i really like your story.