Frenchman's Coulee

Life in the Saltwater apartment in Seattle is too crowded and cluttered to take it for long. So Eric, Alex, Keith and I set out to go camping and rock climbing. We went to Frenchman’s Coulee, which is across the Columbia River from Vantage near George. Between looking for a camping permit in the off season and trying to buy some fire wood we got quite the run around. We finally found the one store that had permits at this time of year and we swiped some two by fours from a stack of broken pallets behind a building.
The coulee is pretty impressive with hundreds of basalt columns lining the sides of the canyon. We got in kind of late but managed to get in a couple of climbs on the feathers, a single line of columns with a small gap in the middle to get to the back side.
We cooked hot dogs over the fire for dinner and sorted our selves out in a small tent and the car to sleep.
The next morning we went to look for the main climbing area. It turns out that it is very popular and gets crowded on the week ends. We lost a lot of time looking for a route that was not too difficult and not being used. We eventually got a chance to climb and took turns belaying as every one got a chance to climb. We moved to a less crowded area after that and got in one more short climb before we had to head back to Seattle to get Alex to the airport on time.

Pictures: First - Eric is leading a climb at the Feathers. Second - I am belaying Eric in the main climbing area while Alex watches.

St. Paul

At the airport I discovered that the “slight problem” was that Saltwater had booked the ticket from Anchorage to St. Paul instead of from here to Anchorage. Of course slight problems are easily fixed by getting the next available seat – in three days. The woman at the counter and the taxi driver advised, since Sunday was Easter and everything would be closed, those of us who were stuck at the hotel at the airport should go into town and stock up on groceries to get us through a couple of days:
Cheese, crackers and summer sausage
+ Cup of Noodle (4)
+ microwave dinner
+ mixed vegetable tray with dip
+Chips
= $50
There were four other people stuck waiting with me. One was Jorge, who was a deck hand on the Intrepid, I had not gotten to know him on the boat but I thought it would be interesting to talk to him for a while. He lives in Columbia, and his only baggage was a clear plastic bag full of stuffed animals for his girlfriend. He found the television lounge in A wing and parked himself there for 20 hours or more so I never did get to talk with him.
There was also a middle aged man who wore shorts and unbuttoned his shirt half way when he was inside. The stringy hair that hung across his face only half covered the scabby infection on his temple that had got him sent off the boat toward a doctor. He liked to read Clive Cussler and was fortunate enough to get a standby seat on Monday’s flight.
A greasy haired hick was the third and the fourth was young guy of Asian descent. The latter looked on the verge of panic when he discovered that he might be spending a day or two in a hotel room alone. A little later he commented that it would be nice if we could just drive back home. I laughed and said if he could get a boat we could drive that back. He turned serious and asked if there was no way to drive back on land. I told him we were on an island and he said he thought maybe there was a bridge or something. I shook my head partly to tell him no and partly in disbelief that any one could be so ignorant of their location.
After sleeping 14 hours to catch up from the last two days of finishing up work and packing, there was not much left of Sunday. I went out in the afternoon; walking east to the end of the road and then south to the beach. I was taking pictures of an icicle, trying to get a drip of water just falling off the end when an Arctic Fox came over the dune, he came within 3 meters before he realized I was crouched nearby. He quickly darted away, I tried to zoom in to get a good picture, but my battery was too low. According to the posters in the airport St Paul is a great place to come and bird watch because there are a number of rare species of puffins and auks that nest there, also there are thousands of fur seals that breed on the beaches. Naturally that takes place in the summer; in April there is nothing but dead grass, patches of snow and black sands.
I waited optimistically on Monday, but there were no spots on the plane. So I walked from the airport to town and back again. I bought a few candy bars and a bottle of coke to get me through the last night. Most of the time I was stuck I spent reading ‘I Robot’ by Isaac Asimov I was not sure about reading it thinking that I would know the ending after seeing the movie, but the only connection between the book and the movie is the 3 rules that govern the way Asimov’s robots think.
Tuesday finally came and I got out with out problem. It was a relaxing couple of days but it was good to get back to a real city and see some people I knew.

Disembarking

With the 90 day mark approaching it was time to get off the boat.
The Intrepid was fishing well north of Dutch Harbor so it was more convenient to off load the product to a tramper in St. Paul. The only information I had from the office was that a new observer was getting on and I would get off the boat and fly to Anchorage, but there was a slight problem with my ticket.

The harbor had just recently been dredged, so in theory, a large boat like the Intrepid could have gotten to the dock, but there is a tight squeeze past a jetty, and it made more sense to use the skiff. The skiff was craned over the side of the boat with all of the luggage loaded and one man to pilot it. He started it up and took it around to the stern ramp, where the fish are normally dragged up on deck. Then the four of us that needed to get to town walked down the progressively steeper ramp holding a rope to keep from sliding into the Bering Sea. There were some swells so we puttered along slowly to avoid splashing as the bow came over the waves. We headed around the cliffs to the dock. A local guy with an SUV who filled the role of taxi took us to the airport.

Ice

Like many other places, the Bering Sea was hit with some late winter cold. The sea ice moved farther south than it has for several years. The captain tried to avoid it by going down into the Gulf of Alaska but, the fishing was bad and the reports from the ice edge were promising so we headed up to the yellowfin grounds.

The ice was mostly broken up and long flows of broken sheets formed up. The boat would pass one flow and then find open water again. It took me about two days before I got up to the wheel house at the right time to see ice.

The atmosphere in the wheel house was tense exitement. Cruising among the ice flows is something that doesn't happen often, and while it is not really dangerous, one has to be careful not to hit the really big chunks, and one never knows when the weather might turn and pile the ice up trapping the boat between flows.

First Picture: The America No. 1 crossing a large ice flow.

Second Picture: The edge of an ice flow through the rail

Time off

As the Intrepid came back to Dutch harbor after the cod season out west the mate ran over a crab pot and wound a big ball of buoy line on one of the propellers. Also there was a leak in one of the fresh water tanks and some crew was leaving while new crew was trying to fly into Dutch to get on the boat. With all of this going on we stayed in town for two full days and part most of a third.
I spent most of my time staying at the company appartment. It was really nice just to stretch out on the couch and watch television and check my email at the same time.
On monday the weather was bright and sunny and it got up to the high 40's, it felt much warmer than that in the sun. I went out to Summers Bay with Doug, Saltwater Inc.'s Dutch Harbor coordinator. The bay is the next inlet over. It has some nice black sand beaches stretching between 1,500 ft snow capped peaks. Rumor has it that there are some friendly wild horses that roam the valley there. The signs on the ground indicate that the rumors are true but we did not see any horses despite the complete lack of trees or other cover for them to hide behind.
Tuesday blew snow all day long. Which was alright with me, I couldn't go hiking but at least there were no flights coming into Dutch and the Intrepid had to wait until Wednesday to get the new crew.
Wednesday was sunny in the morning so after calling and checking in with the boat. I decided to try to squeeze in a quick ascent of Pryamid Peak. I left out the back door of the house and headed straight up the ridge. The snow in places was knee deep or more but I could avoid that by watching for the tops of grass and shrubs poking up. Over the first ridge I dropped down about a hundred feet into a saddle. The snow in the saddle was firmer because the wind the day before had kept much from accumlating. The snow field curved up onto the next ridge. The sky turned overcast and there were a few flakes of snow coming down, but no wind so I headed up. I could not really judge the steepness or topography of the snow field because it was pure white, I tried to compensate by staying near to a rocky ridge but ended up getting into a steep icy section, it wouldn't have bothered me except that my rubber boots were less than ideal for kicking steps in hard snow and ice. I backed down and traversed to the left abit and discovered the the snow field was less steep than its blank face looked from below, so I started up again. I would have been able to work my way to the top of the ridge but I had to get back to the boat, so I regretfully turned back.
Picture: Doug and Ziggy on top of a hill near Summer's bay

Pacific Cod

Fishing Cod is messy. Cod need to be bled before they are processed. So the deck hands slit their isthmus on deck and throw them into the tanks. by the time they get to me they are covered with bits of gooey red blood and whitish bits of mashed liver. It is much easier to collect the data from a sample of cod because they are much bigger than rock sole or yellowfin sole. It is much easier to count out 30 or 40 cod than to count a basket of sole and then calculate the average weight, and it is much easier to find any by catch. Some of the flat fishes look very similar to each other and take time to sort out. During the rock sole season I might spend 2 hours in the factory for one sample, for cod I can get done in 45 min.

Fishing grounds

The Intrepid started the year fishing Rock Sole near the Alaska Peninsula, then fished some yellowfin sole and cod in the same area. The rock sole is pretty good eating especially the females which have large orange roe sacks.
When that season closed we headed out west looking for cod. You have to be in the right place at the right time to catch cod. They are few and far between until they spawn and then they form tight balls that can fill a net in a matter of minutes. It takes longer to fill the boat with cod but the price per pound more than makes up for the time lost by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When the Cod season closes the next big thing is Yellowfin, however there was some cold weather and a lot of ice was forming in the yellowfin grounds. So the Intrepid headed to the gulf to look for Arrowtooth flounder and Rex sole. That was a bust, so after spending a day to get to the gulf. A day spent fishing with out catching much, and another day heading back north we found our selves up in the icy yellow fin grounds.The last trip that I made with the Intrepid was for flathead sole south and east of the Pribilof Islands.

Fish: The cod are red because they bleed; the arrow is for arrowtooth flounder; the orange is reminiscent of the roe in a rock sole; green spot is for flat head sole; and the yellowfin sole is, logically, yellow