The Tuna Fiasco... Part 1

This story is old--a year old this weekend. And I've hesitated a very long time in posting it, because the adventure was... affecting.

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Friday while I was at work, R sent the extremely wordy text message:

"tuna sat?"

I was supposed to be getting ready for the Commercial Fisherman's Festival, for this upcoming weekend. I had planned on having the entire weekend to thoroughly organize everything, to be ready to load it in our big trucks this Friday, get tags on the jewelry, etc.

I took a deep breath. I thought I'd escaped this fishing season intact (alive). I thought we were largely done with salmon, and that thoughts of a big tuna trip had petered out of R and FIL's heads. Tuna requires going some ways offshore, depending on the water temperature, as far as I am given to understand. They'd been talking about it for years.

The thing about these two and fishing... They don't seem to particularly love to eat what they catch, but they do eat it anyway. It's that they like the sport of fishing. When they're catching. And not puking. Perhaps it's some caveman thing, where they feel good about themselves if they can slap a pre-historic looking sturgeon on the kitchen-table/rock, and tell Woman to figure out how to cook, following up with a question about whether there are any Potato Chips left, and did we remember to get clam dip last time we were at Freddie's? Perhaps, given R's very long nose and red hair, it's more of a viking thing. Either way, they're very one-track minded about it. If no one will go with them, they still go. And both of their boats are pretty large for two folks to handle on their own, while fishing.

Add in my issues. I am frequently seasick--an issue in and of itself which happens to be epic since I moved up here. Imagine Rosemary's Baby. Perhaps my larger problem is that I can't stand to be left ashore, no matter how much I'm not interested in fishing (which doesn't seem to include lots of catching when I am with them). It's part that I love a boat ride. And part that, simply, where my husband goes, I go. Probably the only exception being the men's bathroom. On occasions where I have not gone fishing with them, I paced in circles. It's very unproductive if they go during the work week; I can pace just as well at work, even if only mentally.

They've used my issues to their advantage this season: I am now almost a requirement. This is partially because I'm the only one woman enough to Patch Up, approximately 12 hours in advance. "Did you put your patch on?" "Hey, you have her on the phone...ask her, did she put a patch on?" "Make sure you get more patches for next time at the pharmacy." "Don't forget about the patches." It's a subject of more concern to Someone than whether or not I have taken a Certain Pill against Accidental Keel-Layings at a Certain time. (Paradigm Skew, anyone?) While R isn't always seasick, FIL is often, but isn't prostrated by it like I am (usually). The patch is not a panacea--there are certain translations and accelerations paired that might still override its useful effects, but thus far I only feel a constant questionable strong twinge instead of Rosemary's Baby + Spewing behavior. It means they can send me below if necessary for items needed on deck. "You: Food."

It also means I'm available to take the helm when they go salmon fishing on FIL's Cal, which is a motorsailor Ketch. It took them awhile, but they've learned that I am capable of responding to commands, with somewhat better success rate than R's dog. We're both female and inclined to think for ourselves on occasion, which is a very dangerous affliction in women, I am told, by men who seem to think they would know. This leaves the two of them, who seem to generally communicate by mind reading, to work in concert at the aft rail reeling in fish, or attempting to do so. They pause periodically to pee, re-bait, and holler directions and suggestions, which are frequently of a conflicting nature (how's that mind reading thing going?), followed by a "You Need to Pay Attention!" However, the blood, guts, bait, dead fish, and baseball bat are kept aft of the cockpit, as are the men, and thus the majority of the fish scales stay away from me, so... my only concern is staying dry. Since it's a center cockpit boat, the cockpit is drier than the stern, though not necessarily actually Dry. This is the ocean we're talking about.

And so... I made a mental list of the 100 things I needed to do instead of fishing, and started re-arranging and prioritizing. Then I called R.

"I hadn't planned on tuna because, as you know, I planned on having the weekend to get organized for Next Weekend."

"We'll just be gone most of the day Saturday. You could bring stuff along to work on." (He very well knows that's a recipe for hurling, but he's just bartering.)

"Who's coming?"

"You. And Dad and I."

"How far?"

"25 to 30 miles out, they're saying."

"Ours or his?" (Which boat? His: Cal 46, center-cockpit ketch motorsailor. Ours: Hans Christian 38, cutter-rigged sloop, which has left the dock approximately once in the past year, because we've been busy, you know, building boats.)

"Ours."

"What time?"

"6 AM? 5 AM?"

I bit back a scornful laugh. These two and doing anything on time, or getting up early, that's a good joke. "Well, you know, I'm going to have to work late tonight, and on Sunday, if I go. And I'm going to have to HAVE your help."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. I can do that." (Bartering. Lies.)

"This for sure?"

"No. Just talking." (Translation: Yes, and I've already moved the fishing gear, checked the tides, and ordered a smidge of bait in case we try for salmon at the same time.)

"...OK..." (Translation: Reluctance... but we both know you're taking advantage of knowing I will go where you go instead of pacing on land till you come back to the marina.)

"Love you!"

"Love you too. Be home 6ish." (Translation: Love me? You had better...)

So, we were at the shop till 11pm Friday night: me trying to organize for next weekend, him back and forth between the marina and the shop, doing God knows what. In the midst of my preparations I wondered, in fact, what exactly he was busy with, and wasn't this just a bit really too soon to be going across the bar and onto the ocean with his boat, when we haven't had her out and about beyond a few hours last weekend, in nearly a year? When he got back to the shop for the last time he tried to hurry me along, to go to the house and sleep. I am not one to be hurried. I get Snippy. I hadn't fed him either, and he was very likely about to be Hungry. Which probably made him more dangerous than me, but not by much.

He didn't make it to get groceries for the trip, which he mentioned at this juncture, which made me feel guilty and stopped me in my Snippy Tracks. The last time we'd taken a trip, I seemed to remember something about the propane system being somewhat decommissioned, would I even have a way to heat something up? I considered the few items I'd just added to his cupboard in the shop galley, for next week. I'd picked up a small variety of cans, a single each, to be lunch, and he had frozen roasted chicken for dinners. I decided that if one is going to make decisions to go fishing at the last minute, one must deal with the consequences that the cook will likely not be on her game, or perhaps won't have any game to speak of. Hell. He was herding me out the shop door when I thought of at least grabbing his coffee beans, but he was adamant we go to home and to bed Now, so no coffee beans.

The reasons they wanted to take the Hans over the Cal are probably numerous. The Hans is easier to sail and has better sailing characteristics. The Cal can be ornery to sail well. It's a motorsailer C/C ketch, smallish sails, all roller furling, and they've never set the mizzen when I've been aboard, and not particularly balanced without. The Hans deserves some use. More than anything, though, the Cal has quite high freeboard. The Hans doesn't, making it easier to gaff a tuna. The bulwarked decks also make a prime tuna stowing location. (Cart before the horse, though, retrospectively--no doubt we could get plenty creative no matter the situation.)

When we arrived at the house, R's parents were watching the news. MIL wanted to know why we were supposed to get up so early. We explained about it being a very long day, and that we'd aim to return over the bar by dark. R and I cooked dinner together, then went to bed.

I slept fitfully, something seemed wrong and I knew I would be getting up at the same time as I do during the week. We were supposed to get up at 0430... but R didn't get up till almost 0600. I had laid out what warm clothes I had the night before. I stepped into them, gave the furry children a last hug and kiss and moved them to their beds in the family room, grabbed all my overnight bags and was out the door. R had complained about my bags, but I hadn't had time to dig through for sunscreen, sunglasses, hat, extra socks, fish license, etc. I put them all on board the boat anyway. Murphy's Law of boating with this family: If you have it, you won't need it; if you need it, you won't have it.

I was accused of being the one who made everyone late. This is traditional for any event involving more than one person in the family leaving. Frequently they accomplish this by not informing women of the planned time of leaving the dock or leaving the house, or of some task they have not done that the women should do, like feeding dogs/cats/fish, checking the mail, or remembering someone else's hat. Or, they're just not ready to leave the house on time. However, if they can force you to run back into the house to do one thing, so that you're the last person out of the house and into the truck, you're still the one who "made everyone late." It's traditional that it's always one of the females' faults on any family outing. Absolutely impossible to leave otherwise, since it's never not occurred. (Pardon the double negative).

We got to the marina with appropriate fanfare and began offloading gear out of the truck onto the boat. Despite R's assurances that we were "ready" I noted a 66# Bruce in the back of the truck. Ah. I determined I did not wish to partake in any part of the fun involved in moving the anchor and busied myself in moving all of the rest of the somewhat lighter gear to the boat.

As per usual, approximately 3 months before we move to a new marina, R finally builds a boarding ladder for me to use. Since we don't have plans to move, I have no boarding ladder. This means that getting on and off the boat is quite a tall step up and down, since the bulwark at the boarding area comes up to my hip, and it was somewhat slippery with morning dew. So I minimized the embarking/debarking, and moved back and forth between the boat and the parking lot, line gear up along the side decks, and then start shuffling items to the cockpit in "boarding groups." Sort of like Southwest Airlines. Group A = food-stuffs. Group B = personal-baggage. Group C = miscellaneous boat gear/canvas to be put away for the duration of the trip. This allows the guys to get into the cockpit sporadically and through the cabin without too much complaint. I also check the location of the First Aid kit--in the head, in the slider behind the sink. I have always laid eyes on it prior to leaving the dock, and I have never needed to open it.

We were off the dock and headed downriver by 0715... a few other sleepy boats out and about, mostly all headed for the bar for tuna. The buoys were getting pulled downriver hard. The bar itself was... not calm, but not terribly vicious about it like normal, either. Remarkably unremarkable. Except that we all commented anyhow. Which, perhaps, was a bit of a jinx. The gods and goddesses have very fine hearing.

Another jinx: FIL put ice in the coolers.

Another jinx: They made me touch my pole. Lately they put my pole out and it catches more salmon than anyone else's, but I handle the boat while they deal with my lefty-pole. I never touch it. It just happens to be assigned to me.

Another jinx: No one brought the Whomper (short baseball bat). I realize you cut their throats and drain the blood out and that kills them, but I think that's also prolonging the misery and rude. Drain them, sure, but thwap them immediately... Treat the gods and their gifts with grace, and you'll get more. I'm sure they noticed the omission.

And another: I forgot my cell. I always text my own Dad to let him know what we're up to. I've always had my cell with us since getting the Droid, for the Navionics. But we had a video camera and a regular camera. Which I've been told scares fish off.

For that matter, they had a female on board, and I've been labelled a Jonah before, by a Norwegian Captain with enough sea-time to know a Jonah (Jonette?) when he saw one. At least it wasn't the 13th, it wasn't Friday, and it wasn't Friday the 13th. But we did also unfortunately have a red-head aboard.

The bar over and done with, it would be a few hours and a few miles till fishing began. With nothing doing, no action, nothing pressing to do, no food to cook, nothing to engineer, no dogs to deal with, no laundry to wash, and the weather strangely decent for Oregon, if chilly, I decided that the only thing I really needed to get done, or could do, was catch up on sleep. So I kindly took my leave and went below to snooze all-standing in the quarterberth, arms wrapped around my PFD.

It took about an hour to fall asleep, next to the busy Yanmar, hearing random chat between the guys, remembering to myself the various creaks, groans, whirrs, purrs, shudders, thudders, swooshes and pops, the Hans' language of life.

A while later, R shook me awake. "Get up. There's a shi* in the water." Or at least that's what I heard. I tugged on my ears. He must mean ship.

"A ship?" (Are you telling me this because it's going to run us down? How bout you move a few feet forward and, I don't know, ring the damn bell, get on the VHF, and throttle the engine up as high as she'll go, and maybe turn the helm, dodobird.)

"A shi* in the water." He didn't seem panicked. We seem to be missing a key consonant here.

"A ship in the water?" (Well where the hell else would she be.)

"A shi* in the water. Get up." He ran back up on deck.

I laid my head back down and perused this. I doubt he means a floating poo. Ship in the water? Must be one interesting ship. Shift in the water? Where would it shift. Did Moses come? Noah? We have no elephants. Or kangaroos. No koala bears. Much less two by two. We had spiders covered, though. And I had to pee. Which settled it. I'd pee, then look on deck at what the hell is going on. R yelled my name again from on deck. I guess he was going to be all Captainy about it. I clambered out of the berth and semi-sprawled onto the galley island as the boat turned, and gave him a "Keep yer pants on" for good measure, since FIL was in earshot.

I followed my plan of action up forward, then flung my life jacket on deck, following behind it. The water had ShiFted in color, to that stunning deep blue with just a hint of teal--a dark crystalline sparkling apatite gemstone blue. It was a gemstone color all of it's own, the longer I stared at it--apatite, sapphire, tourmaline, nothing quite defined it. Barely any wave action, just the merest hint of capillary waves on vague ocean swells. And clear down for miles, it seemed.

Hundreds of small jellyfish were out, very tiny clear gellatinous organisms with a single coral colored blob in their amorphous masses. Give us 20 degrees more and a thoughtful breeze, and you could have fooled me into thinking we were in the tropics.

"Be on the lookout for fish, boats, or birds. We're in tuna territory." FIL told me. He was on the helm. R was up forward, fussing with fishing poles.

"OK... there's a fish, but it looks like its dying, it's on its side wagging a little side fin." I gestured over to starboard, not 10 feet from the boat.

"FISH!" FIL jumped up and leaned over towards where I was pointing. R came running aft. I rolled my eyes.

"It's dying." I waggled my side fin in explanation and leaned over.

"No, that's what they do--they sunbathe."

"oooookaaaay..." I wanted to suggest that if this was the appropriate animal, perhaps we launch the dinghy and try to sneak up on it with our big net, so we'd at least have one. After all, it was the only fish I could see, sunbathing. Maybe the others had gotten the memo about scale cancer and UV protection? Could fish sunburn? Was that called searing? I pictured the tuna that I'd seen hanging back at the marina, waiting to be loined. One, with a surfer accent, says to his neighbor: "Duuuude, the sun was hot today, I'm a bit rare!" The neighbor, with typically large tuna-optics, twitches his eyes in response, and says nothing.

We glided on (glid? glood?), further offshore. There were not birds, or boats, or fish, to be seen. Except our lone cancer patient, now receding far behind us, turning himself into pre-cooked tuna. I saw a hint of indecision as far as where exactly we should head, straight out, or a bit north or south? We could circle forever, or we could get on the fish and come home.

I leaned forward from my perch and the cockpit and hollered at R on the bowsprit, "Um... I suppose you could technically go up the mast and look for anything hopeful?"

I hate having R go up the mast. Hate, hate, HATE. He goes up using the steps usually. Sometimes he uses the harness, but it gets in the way, or so he complains. Sometimes he doesn't really even say anything before going up. But he's never gone up while we've been away from the dock before.

"Uhh.... yeah..." He practically ran up to the spreaders, and I wondered if I'd made a bad suggestion. I groaned and started to wonder out loud when he started yelling directions at FIL. Apparently there was a group of boats off of our port bow, just over the horizon. We pointed towards them, found a compass course, and got our monkey down from the crow's nest.

Some time later, we were on a group of boaters who were mostly stationary, fishing for tuna. It didn't appear that they were seeing any luck. Periodically we would see a fish sunbathing, but there is another species of fish in the area that sunbathes--sunfish. Apparently Japanese find them good eating. Americans do not.

The powerboaters looked vaguely confused at our presence: "Sailboat + fishing poles = Does Not Compute" With our sail up and a keel below we certainly rolled less. I felt vaguely nauseated just watching them, but the usual impulse to meander up and ask if they have any Grey Poupon still surfaced. We desisted. No one seemed to be catching, faces look generally frustrated.

We repeated our monkey trick and puttered farther around, looking for fin-wagglers and whatnot, for a few hours. After the first few, I napped on and off, down below in the quarterberth by the engine, where it was warm. It seemed as though it might be one of those fishing trips where we went bust, but I don't really think it's polite to comment with the obvious at the time when it appears we're on a wild goose-tuna chase. We even goofed off, videoing from the bow as the boat plunged into swells.

Around 1pm, we decided to make the turn for home. After all, we'd planned on making the bar by dark. But till then, the sun was out, and I was determined to enjoy the day as I saw fit. And napping seemed fitting. It would be a long run home, especially with no wind. So below I went, to snuggle back down in the quarter berth.

I was in the middle of a nice snooze when I became aware of R and FIL talking in the cockpit. I woke up with the sense that something was quite wrong, but my brain hadn't assigned a topic to the wrong-ness. While I frowned and waited for one of my sense to give me a clue to determine what boat system was suspect. A few seconds later, R was running down the companionway ladder and ripping it off, just as the Yanmar went silent.