Saturday and Sunday -- Alaska Letters

                After our incredibly warm evening, I sort of expected it to be really warm on Saturday morning, but it was not.  Around ten, Marcus and I always check in and usually go to breakfast or whatever, but this morning he texted me to say that overnight he developed a fever and a runny nose and is feeling horrible.  So I was on my own, which was fine, because I had my lunch date with my Alaska friend Brynn.  I lazed around all morning until noon, which was lovely.  I couldn’t do a thing with my hair because I had left it down while we were fishing, and it was just a mangled mess.  Fair sea maidens have some very tangled hair.

                I had tons of time and I was sick of being in my room, so by about 11 I went out to buy my last few items.  I went to the Safeway and found a sweatshirt for myself, and the ONLY Iditarod mug for Aspen and the swim team was having a bake sale so I got out $20 in cash and supported them.  After that it was only 11:15, so I went across the street to the Alaska Ship Supply and bought a tee-shirt.  Then it was 11:25, so I sat in my car and tried to figure out what to do next.  It was pretty foggy, but I decided that it was worth dropping by the Sitka Spruce National Forest for a few pictures for Poppers.

                I learned that the Russians, when trying to colonize the Aleutians, tried to plant Sitka Spruces in Unalaska to make the island more self-sufficient.  It was 1805, so it is considered the oldest afforestation project in America.  It was afforestation not reforestation, because technically there were no trees here to reforest.  Prehistorically there were trees, and there are some petrified trees on other islands in the chain.  It didn’t work all that well, because of course there was a reason that there was no forest on the island before.  It’s too windy, and too cold, and there’s almost no useful nutrients deeper than like 10 feet in the ground.  So the “National Forest” consists of about 25 spindly looking spruces that have been here for almost 200 years but look no bigger than Christmas trees.

                I got some very cool misty photos, and it was definitely worth walking out there.  The salmon berries here and much sweeter than the ones in Washington, but that might be in part because we don’t let them ripen quite as long as they do around here.  By this time, it was about 11:50, so I drove over to Harris Electric to see Brynn.

                Brynn’s boyfriend was there too, and when they were done smoking (everybody here smokes), Brynn and I hopped in her car and Alex (boyfriend) went in his truck over to Amelia’s.  We had a lovely lunch, it was mostly me and Brynn talking about stuff.  She seems like a very nice girl.  She came to Alaska after her parents divorced.  She had been living with her grandma in Eatonville, but her mom moved up here, and when she was fifteen she came up too.  By the time she was 18 and pregnant with her daughter, her mom was ready to move to an actual place, but Brynn stayed.  I guess by that time she had decided she was enmeshed.  Brynn sort of reminded me of Rose, which initially made her feel very familiar, but once I identified it, I started to feel the same kind of, “oh, honey,” that I feel for Rose.  Which is always a little misplaced because both of them are older than me.

                After lunch with Brynn, she and I stopped at the post office, which didn’t open until two and we were there at one.  She was expecting a package of fish food for her mollies, but since the post office wasn’t actually open, she just grabbed her regular mail.  As far as mail is concerned, Dutch is Bush Alaska, so everything goes to PO boxes.  Which is a real pain in the ass for me, because I ship stuff to Tim all the time, and FedEx insists that I give some kind of physical address.  You could practically make something up just to make them happy, and it would still get there.  If it’s going to Dutch Harbor, it’ll get to the right person.

                We headed back to Harris, then I said good bye to Brynn and went back to my hotel room.  I had this yawning couple of hours to kill, and I spent most of it prepacking and listening to music and lying on the floor.  The sun was starting to come out, and it was warming up.  Right around four I rationalized that it would be better to shower now and get some of the Pollock off me and do something about my hair before I went to a party.  And I decided that if anywhere deserved my skirt, it might as well be a Dutch Harbor party.

                Just as I was coming out of the shower and had successfully untangled my hair, Tim texted me about needing the Chelsea truck back.  I thought that Marcus was still dying slowly in the infirmary, and I figured I’d just take that one to Brynn’s.  So I threw on my skirt and my sneakers (I had no decent shoes to wear with a skirt, it was atrocious.  I looked like a Duggar.) and drove over to the plant.  I couldn’t find Tim outside, so I went to his office, but it was locked, so I went to the dock, but the Chelsea K hadn’t pulled in from the fuel dock yet, and Tim wasn’t there either.  I stood there for a while, and I saw this big cloud of black smoke come out of the stack, and I thought, well that’s not good.  Tim eventually texted me and I went and found him by the trucks.  We drove all the way to the hotel before we realized that we hadn’t really solved my truck situation.

                Marcus, it turned out, had doped himself up on DayQuil and had made it to the plant.  So Tim and I drove back to the plant to find him.  The Chelsea K made it to the dock, and was beginning to off load, and that’s where we found Marcus.  He was talking to Chris about the fuel pump going out, which had caused the engine to die, sending out that plume of black smoke.  They managed to slide it in with no engine, and they have spare pumps so they will be ok for their last two trips.

                Marcus gave me no end of shit for wearing a skirt to the plant but I kept insisting that I wasn’t supposed to be at the plant, I was supposed to be at a party.  Eventually Marcus agreed to drive me to Brynn’s.  We found it easily enough, with only minor confusion over which brown apartment complex was hers.  Marcus had been asked a few times which of his daughters I was, and it was sort of confirming the expectation having him drive me to my friend’s house.

                At first it was just me and Brynn and her boyfriend Alex, then Angie and her husband and baby, then another pregnant girl and her boyfriend, then some more people.  For most of the fights, there were only a few people in the room, which was good because even though the living room was pretty spacious, it was getting really warm.  Sophie, the baby, was our barometer of the heat.  At first she was in a dress, then more people showed up and she got in her onesie, then more people showed up and she got naked, then a few more came and she cried so we all went out on the porch.

                The first few fights were good, a couple upsets for people who might have been betting.  The main event (I don’t remember who) was supposed to be five rounds, but it ended in the first.  The guy who won was basically hanging on the other guy’s arm, and was using the second arm to try to dislocate the one from which he was hanging.  The guy tapped out and it was all over in like three minutes.

                After that, it was fast becoming eat steak and drink beer time, so I called Marcus.  I’m a total party pooper, but it was ok.  We left and even though he was sick, the weather was so nice, we went out on Haystack Hill and looked around.  It was beautiful, and no amount of photos will ever quite capture how gorgeous it really is.  Pictures are too small, and not bright enough.  We went home as the sun was setting, and got cokes from the bar and went to bed.

Sunday:

                I’m too lazy to make a separate posting for Sunday, and besides it would be too small anyway.  I very lazily woke up about nine.  It was very hot and I had the windows open all night.  It was still hot in the morning, so while I got dressed I kept lying on the floor to cool off.  Eventually around 10 it started raining and I was all packed up.  I have so much more stuff coming back.  I really hovered over leaving my boots as a call-back to make sure that I return, but I decided I love them too much to leave them.  My suitcase is now entirely comprised of Things That Smell Like Pollock.  It’s much fuller than when I left, and my tote is incredibly full.  The only souvenir that had to go with the Things That Smell Like Pollock is Aspen’s coffee mug.  Sorry Aspen.  I figured it would retain the least amount of smell.

                So we got all together and went to the Grand for the brunch buffet.  I had hashbrowns and sausage gravy and bacon and coffee.  When my tummy settled a little, I got this martini glass with cheesecake, kiwis and this bright green kiwi Italian soda syrup in the bottom.  I t was very good, but I’m still picking kiwi seeds out of my teeth.  I had hoped Brynn and her daughter would make it, but they couldn’t.  I’ll find her on Facebook and keep in touch.  It was cool to make some friends in Alaska.

                We didn’t want my feesh to melt, so we had to go to the plant to get it.  Tim got a call from Mike Booth on the Chelsea about getting a box of crab legs for Chris’s birthday.  25 pounds is a lot to eat at one time, so they were asking to see if Tim wanted any, and he asked if I did, and I said hell yes.  So we got an invoice for the Bairdi crab legs, and went and got a box.  We put probably seven or eight pounds in some bags and stuffed it in with my feesh.  Then we taped up the whole thing and took it to the airport.  From breakfast on, it was raining pretty good, and our bags were in the back of the truck.  There were only the Things That Smell Like Pollock in it though, so I wasn’t worried about it.  My computer rode in the cab.  Marcus and I check in without incident, and while we were waiting, he went to the bar for a coke (Marcus and I drank a lot of coke over the week).

                This black guy comes out of the little airport bar, and is clearly the big happy drunk in town.  I guess he was with the guy who was sitting behind me, because he comes over and starts talking to him, and getting me involved, and everyone was getting touched and told how great they were.  So when he floated off again, of course me and this guy behind me were required to start talking.  His name was Anthony (drunk guy: James), and he works for the City of Unalaska as a city planner.  So he does zoning and whatnot.  We talked a little, he’s from Chicago originally, and he seemed nice if slightly awkward.  He was there to say good bye to his friend, who was on my same flight.  He went to the University of Wisconsin, and of course they also call it U Dub.  Eventually he wandered off to have a drink with his friend before she left, and I saw that Marcus had found Tim and Chris and Mike Booth, so I figured it would be safer to use the fishermen as my cock block.  It’s not often that that’s the case, but at least Marcus could play dad and give people the stink eye.

                The rain didn’t let up, so our plane didn’t arrive until almost 2 (we were slated to depart at 1:20), and we finally got on the tarmac just after 2.  My feesh supposedly went into a freezer, so it was supposed to be staying frozen.  We arrived in Anchorage very handily, but it was a little tight to our flight home, so we didn’t have much down time.  Getting through Anchorage security was really bossy.  The TSA lady tried to give Marcus some flak for his pocket knife, which was a TSA knife, and he told her so.  She’s like, “what’s that supposed to mean?”  Like he was copping some kind of attitude.  They wouldn’t let me bring my juice despite the fact that it was a sealed aluminum can.  Jesus people, think logically.  The airport in Dutch seems like what airports are supposed to be, seeing people off and hanging out and meeting people.  Not like big airports where it’s all taking off shoes and giving sass and people being harried.  The funny thing is that I’m not supposed to have the mace with me that Matt bought, but they didn’t catch it through either security checks.  At least the TSA in Seattle are nice, these Anchorage characters had a Mounty complex.

                Once we got through the TSA, we grabbed some soup up in the board room (SSSSOOOO luxUUUURRRIOUS!), and I went to take pictures of the native art exhibit.  I managed to go with almost dead battery the entire trip, and it finally died in the airport on the way home.  I thought that was pretty good timing.  The flight to Seattle was good, just a little turbulence.  I sat next to a very cute Russian couple who were probably in their seventies.

                I had to check my bag after all, it wouldn’t quite fit in the overhead, so I had to go pick it up with my feesh from the luggage claim.  My feesh’s box was a little dented, and I could smell seafood, which wasn’t a super great sign for it still being frozen.  I got all my things together, and pretty much as soon as I walked outside, Matt pulled up.  We were home by about 11:45, and we stayed up talking and distributing gifts until about 12:30.  I was super wiped though, because traveling is very tiring, and to me it felt like one in the morning.

                I got dad the Russian flask from The Grand, I got Aspen his mug and his Alaska Grown tee shirt.  Mom got some hand knitted mittens made by an island natives and an inlaid wooden pin for her hair.  Matthew didn’t want anything, so I got a couple chocolate bars and some fancy tea.  (And of course I brought the feesh and the crab legs.)  I got myself a Port of Dutch Harbor half zip sweater, and my headband.  Overall, I think it was a really great trip, and I would love to go back.  It caused a lot of anxiety for pretty much everyone involved, but hey, when is travel not anxiety filled?

Friday -- Alaska Letters

                Friday turned out to be probably the most epic day of my entire life.  I started out with a shower, and some writing about my adventures from the previous day.  Eventually, around 11 or so Marcus and I went to get breakfast at Amelia’s.  By now it was practically lunch.  I ordered a sandwich, and it came with clam chowder, and I want dad to know that I actually ate a good portion of it.  I always like having breakfast with just Marcus because he’s really interesting and cool.  We talked a lot about families and stuff, because his family is really nomadic too, so they’ve lived all over the place.

                Then we went and I grabbed my truck, and we headed to the plant.  He was following me in his truck, but by the time that I got there, it had started to rain so I just went straight inside to Tim’s office.  I didn’t see Marcus again for like four hours.  I don’t know where he went, but he was busy doing stuff.  Tim gave me some information about how the co-op works to read.  Basically the co-op is the collection of boats that have all agreed to use Westward Seafoods over any other processor.  When they did the American Fisheries Act, they got locked into their quotas, and had to form these co-ops.  Tim does a lot of management for the co-op, which contains more boats than the ones for which we do accounting and management down in Seattle.  We talked about the whole rationalization process, and why they would do it, and it was all interesting in an inherently boring kind of way.

                Eventually Tim and I sort of ran out of desire to talk about the co-op, so he went to get some food, and I went to see if Carolyn had opened up her shop yet or not.  She hadn’t, so I called again, and today she had to get her check engine light fixed, so she said she would call me when she got in.  Which was fine, because I still needed to go say hi to Brynn at Harris Electric.

                I hopped back in my truck and drove over there, and she was in.  She looks WAY too young to be 30.  She’s got a daughter who is 12, and I’m like, no way.  She’s really nice, and I like talking to her because she laughs easily and stuff, but it’s situations like this that remind me why island/small town life is really kind of bad, especially for kids who grow up there.  They can’t help but get into trouble, or get pregnant or something like that.  She’s not married, and she’s had a few boyfriends, and I’m just like… That’s really sad.

                But anyway, she’s a lovely girl, and she thinks my idea for a bra boutique would be awesome.  She said even Anchorage doesn’t have a really good store, like a Macy’s or anything, so you can’t even get a proper fitting somewhere in Alaska.  You’d have to go all the way to Seattle.  She invited me to a UFC party she’s having at her house.  She bought the fight on pay-per-view, and is having a couple people over.  It should be fun, and now I have Alaska friends.  J

                Carolyn called, so I left Brynn and went down to the Dutch Harbor Mall.  I think I already mentioned that it’s right across the street from my hotel, which is good because I was supposed to be grabbing my computer to do stuff with Tim when I got back.  Anyway, I parked at the mall, and went in, and she does have just the coolest stuff.  It’s all like, native made, or handmade by somebody, and there was just so much to look at.  I got a sea urchin Christmas ornament that Carolyn had hand painted, and several gifts that I won’t say what they are, and a really nice earmuff warmer that is blue and green.  Carolyn said that the lady who makes them brushes her (goats?  Sheep?  Alpacas?  Don’t remember) and spins, dyes and knits the yarn.  Mine was a proto-type, so it was a little cheaper than some of the others.  I put it on right away, and it is very lovely and warm.  It’s exactly what I need here because a hat is too hot, and it’s really just my ears that are cold anyway.

                So when I go to get back in my truck, the car won’t turn over.  The radio came on, and it was trying and making this kakakakaka noise, but it wouldn’t start.  I think it must be in the starter because obviously the battery isn’t dead.  I called Tim and he came and got me in the Chelsea K truck, and we went back to the plant.

                When we got in, Marcus was hanging out in Tim’s office, and while they were talking about what to do about the Westward One truck, I organized the books in the outer office by size.  Marcus made fun of me, and Tim was like, is my office still bugging you?  And it was, because we hadn’t done anything with the boxes that we were keeping after we took out everything we were throwing away.  So he let me move some more stuff, and I lined it up against the walls and got it off the floor, and put all his power cords (there were a LOT of power cords) in a box, and showed him that he had two paper punches and three tape dispensers and two boxes of staples but no stapler.  So he’s kind of all lined up.  There was one pile of paper that he was still working on, and I tried to straighten it, and he’s like, don’t touch it!  But I put it in a neater stack anyway.

                Brynn was texting me about our respective plans for the rest of the night, and eventually we decided that we would go catch lunch tomorrow (Saturday) before the UFC fight, and then she would go back to work and I would come over for the fight.  Marcus and Tim and I went to The Grand Aleutian for dinner, and had so much food.  It’s a testament to how much I’m getting used to Alaska-portions, because I ate WAY more than I did when we were there on Monday night.

                We had duck comfit flautus, which were delicious, and I had another wedge salad and that bacon steak (which was just as good the second time), and this time I ate most of my vegetables and appropriate starch, and I was even thinking about getting some dessert.  It had been raining most of the day, so we had kind of lost hope that there would be time to go fishing before I left.  But during dinner, the skies began to part, and it got really beautiful outside.  Tim and Marcus were both looking slightly wistfully out the window.  I was chewing, so I gestured a fishing rod, and they agreed that if I asked so directly, I deserved to get to go.

                So out we go to get ready.  I called home, and talked to everybody.  I shouldn’t have warned everyone that I would catch a Halibut for them, because I set the bar really high for myself.  Every one of them asked if it was still light out.  It was 8:30, so of course it was still light out.  It’s still light out at home at 8:30.  But whatever.  (For anyone who is not in the family, this fishing trip happened at midnight, and the sun still hadn’t set, ok?)

                So we all show up at the dock, and we had roused this poor Rick character out of his house to give us the keys to the little environmental skiff.  Tim brought us some fishing rods and The Alden, which is what we call our halibut fighter, which is basically a piece of PVC pipe set into a leather belt so that you can put your fishing rod in your hip without killing yourself while you bring in your fish.

                This is a little boat, maybe 15 feet long, and it’s got a little wheelhouse and not much else.  Marcus navigated us away from the big fleet boats and the plant, and I finally got the picture of the plant I had been hoping to get.  The plant is huge, and now I can show you.  We start heading out to, where ever we went, I’ll have to check a map and guess.  We could see Mount McCushion (sp?)  which is an active volcano and actually shuts down the airport some times.  I guess we get little earthquakes all the time.  I haven’t felt any, but that’s pretty normal.

                Tim brought some beers, so we’re all in this little dingy trying not to wear our freshly cracked beers.  Marcus let me drive for a little while, and I had to ask him to hold my beer, and I almost said that every good story starts with “Hold my beer.”

                This is going to be one of those stories.

                We pick a spot near this waterfall, and we’ve got a pretty good wind pushing us about 3 knots out toward the Bering Sea, and we should be right over some humps where the fish are.  Tim gives me a fishing rod, and is like, well, reel it out til it hits the bottom.  This took forever, and was made worse by the fact that there was something wrong with the spool (turned out it was screwed down to tight), so I was paying out the line by hand.

                This took forever, and I still don’t think I ever really hit the bottom.  But I felt like there was something on the end, so within probably 30 seconds of thinking I had hit the bottom, I started reeling it back in.  This also took forever.  I’m reeling and reeling, and it is really, really difficult.  Whatever is on there is pulling back pretty good.  So I’m reeling, and hauling on the line and reeling up really fast on the way down, and it’s just taking forever.

                Tim eventually got me The Alden, because I seemed to really be working for it, and I have bruises in both my hips from going without at first.  He checked my line, and at first he didn’t think there was anything on there, but eventually, when I was really working for it, he started to think I might have actually caught something.  He was saying all these fish names, and I guess they started really small, and were getting progressively bigger as he’s watching me work for this fish.

                It was twice as exhausting, because my left arm is trying to stabilize and haul up the line, and my right hand is really working to get the reel around.  I felt like I was never gonna get this fish up.   It’s been probably, five minutes of pulling on this fish, and I was very close to giving up.  I was going to make Tim bring it in because my forearms were on fire, and here comes a Fucking Halibut.  A real Fucking Halibut (that’s a technical term).

                It’s gigantic!  And it’s all flopping all over the place, and we pull it in with one of those giant spikes on the end of a shovel handle, and Marcus takes a picture of me with this Fucking Halibut.  Somebody clubbed it over the head to get it to quit flopping around all over the place.  Its blood is still on my pants.  I kind of wish I had hit it, since it was my fish, but that’s ok.  We dragged it up to the front of the boat, and I went and sat with my fish for a while.

                This whole process took approximately 15 minutes.

                Poppers, I hope you’re proud.  I was not trying to rub it in, but both Marcus and Tim were just shamed by the fact that the first thing I ever fished in my life was  a Fucking Halibut.  I wore The Alden like a beauty queen sash, and walked around.  Also, I was wearing my fisherman’s sweater and my ear muffs, so I look so Alaskan in these pictures it’s not even funny.  I also forgot to tie my hair back until it was too late, so now it’s a tangled mess.  I’m a sea-woman now.

                I was kind of rubbing it in a little.  I said that me and Chuck Norris don’t go fishing, we go catching.  Stuff like that.  Marcus said that normal people get little stuff and then work up to a big fish, but it was like I went straight to the triple dog dare (in a minor breach of etiquette, he skipped the triple dare, and went straight for the throat!).  God, I had never been so excited in my life.  I am the happiest person ever.

                We had another hour or two of day light (because it was only 9:30 when I caught my fish), so we went back and tried that spot again, and then we jetted around and fished elsewhere.  No one else caught anything (it was the triple dog dare that did it).  It suddenly got incredibly warm while we were out though.  We got really close to the waterfall, and if the wind hadn’t been whipping by so fast, it would have been uncomfortably hot.  It’s the weirdest thing to be being swept away by wind, but it’s hot so you never get cold.  We’re all stripping off layers and stuff.

                Once you catch a Fucking Halibut, you don’t really have anything else to catch, so as the sun was going down and it started to rain, we headed back to the plant.  No one was there, because none of the boats were in, so we had the entire fish plant to ourselves.  We weighed me and me with the fish, and I had to stick my hand in its gills, which was very uncool, but I have a picture.  It weighed 14 pounds. 

Unfortunately, Marcus employs several people who all do their jobs correctly, so no one had left any knives or anything around.  We had to roam around this big silent plant until we found a knife.  I watched while Marcus cut off these giant fillets of my fish.  I rinsed them off with a hose, and we got my four fillets (and two tiny, scallop sized cheeks) into a surimi bag and put it in a Westward Seafood box and found a freezer to  put it in.  Again, everyone did their job and locked stuff, so we had to find a little freezer that Tim hadn’t known even existed.  I suspect Marcus did it on purpose for just such occasions.

We’ll be able to bring my fish home in an ice box thing, so I’m very excited about that.  I would have loved to eat it with the crew of the Chelsea K, who got in at 2 this morning, but I had to bring it home.  So we left my fish in the plant, and I gave Tim and Marcus a hug and thanked them for taking me fishing, and Marcus and I left and I bounced off the walls for another hour before I finally crashed and went to bed at midnight.

Thursday -- Alaska Letters

                Had to get up a little faster this morning because I needed to be at the plant by nine in time for the boat ride with the Westward One.  So I got myself together, got dressed, and hopped in my car by 8:45.  It was silly for me to think that it would take me so long to get there, because I arrived at approximately 8:52.  Cause nothing is far away in this town.

                I got to the plant, and this time did not get lost and was able to successfully get straight to Tim’s office.  He had given me a key in case I got there before he did, but he was in his office when I arrived.  There was some slightly awkward sitting while I watched him do some data entry, and I sorted all of his piles of vessel letterhead so that each boat got its own folder.  I also measured his office to see what kind of space we are looking at related to furniture purchasing.  It’s 125” by 187”.  I initially kind of guess-timated the long one because Tim didn’t hold the measuring tape, and I guessed 190” so I want you all to appreciate how good of a guesser I am.

                Around 9:10 or so we went to listen in on the radio check with each of the boats that are still out, to see how their fishing is going.  I’m learning a lot of the terms which is making this more interesting.  For instance, when they say they have forty on board and 2 eggs in the bag, what they mean is that they have about 40 tons in the tanks already on the boat, and the sensors along the length of the net that tell you how full it is are kind of egg shaped.  They are spaced along the net where approximately 5 or 10 tons (depending on the size of boat/net) would have filled, and when each one goes off, it means your net is at least that full.  So having two eggs in the bag means there are at least 10 or 20 tons respectively in the net already.

                After that, we went back to Tim’s office and went to go check on the Westward One.  Marcus was already down there, and he and Brandon (captain) were talking about satellites or something.  I had taken my Dramamine already, so I was ready to go when they were, but the Harris Electric guy was on board and wanted to finish the light he was fixing before we went for fuel.  After some lazing around in one of the captain’s chairs, Tim and I decided to go back upstairs.  He tried to find a computer I could use, and he really put in a valiant effort, but it didn’t seem all that important to me, and since the Westward One wasn’t leaving for another hour, he went to get breakfast and I used his computer.

                I don’t know what in the hell is all over his key board, but half the letters you can’t even see because they are so grimy.  I’m like dude.  Get the fishmeal powder OFF your hands before you start typing!  And he’s still on Windows XP, which is hilarious, because both Google and Facebook were like, we… haven’t existed as long as this operating system, you’re gonna have to go to the simple version.  If I surfed Facebook on the oldest system, I would die.  It was so lame.  People would be like, THIS is Facebook?

                But eventually Tim came back, and eventually the boat was ready to leave, and so we went down (after I ate a third of a box of Tagalongs.  I’ll bring some home, I forgot how good they are).  I didn’t realize until we were already pulling away from the dock that we had even started moving.  We were doing about one knot, I think, and we had to calculate the difference between nautical miles and regular miles.  The ship had a pretty good roll to it, but it wasn’t too bad.  It seemed like we were plowing along pretty good, but I think the only reason it looked like we were traveling so fast was because there was land nearby to gauge movement.  Otherwise, we were just rolling around in the ocean.

                We only went around a little spit to get around to the Delta Western dock, and it took a whole hour.  I did pretty well, and I officially have been in the Bering Sea.  Marcus took me on deck to walk around, and I did pretty good, although I took these giant swarthy steps everywhere, and sort of stomped around a lot.  My boots were not slipping, which was really great, so it was just me stumbling around.  Marcus took some pictures of me, so hopefully I’ll get those off Facebook (regular Facebook) eventually.  He was hoping that I would get a good spray of water to the face, but me and the ocean have an understanding.  It’s a woman thing.

                I was really impressed with the docking of the boat.  Tim said that sometimes on crowded docks, they will give a ship literally 5 feet on either side to squeeze in.  We just parallel parked like it was nothing.  I was really truly impressed.

                Roy (from dinner last night) took us out for lunch at Amelia’s.  I’m working on my true Alaskan ability to eat tons of food at one time, and I tried.  I had enchiladas suizas, and they were both spicy hot and heat hot, which is sort of the double whammy of food consumption.  It was rough.  But I plowed through, and ate pretty much everything except for the beans (which I never eat anyway).  Then I was overcome with this tiredness that I have never really appreciated before.  I almost fell asleep right there.  I think all the weird hours had collected.

                Roy drove us back to the dock to take the Westward One truck to the plant, but I guess they were still using it to get food or something, so we went back to the plant too.  Round trip, 15 minutes.  I had checked out some Dania furniture for Tim while he was getting breakfast, and I showed him and Marcus some of the options for couches and desks.  Tim kept insisting that he didn’t really need one, but Marcus gave him this very serious look and said, you need a new desk.  So we picked out two desks, and a couch for his office and for his house, (we got him a reclining couch like ours for his house).  I tried to sell him on an ottoman for extra seating, but he was like, meh, which I felt was a very man attitude.

                Eventually Marcus and I left.  We stopped at Carolyn Reed’s gift shop to see if she was in, but she wasn’t.  I called her number, and she said she’d been sick and she hoped it be in later.  So we went to grab coffee on our way to get the Westward One truck from the fuel dock (this time it was there).  I drove that back, and holy crap batman, that thing was a monster.  It took me a five point turn-around and waiting for a Delta Western guy to move his truck, for me to get off the dock.  Then I went around and bought dad something at the Grand Aleutian, and went to find this Island Gypsy consignment shop.

                I have been searching everywhere for a reasonably priced maxi-skirt while this look is still in style.  And I have been foiled at every turn.  And wouldn’t you just know it that they had one all the way in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.  My god.

                So I bought that, and went to see if Carolyn had turned up, which she didn’t.  The Dutch Harbor Mall is across the gravel road from the Harbor View, so I just went back to my room after that.  When I come in my room, I lock the door, throw the extra door lock thing, take off my boots, my pants and my jacket and try to trap the Pollock smell at the door.  So I was instantly in comfortable mode, and I lied in bed and read for a little while, but eventually the powers that be were too strong, and I took a nap.  It was a glorious nap.  I thought I would just sleep for 20 minutes or so, and then get up again, but it was too good, so I extended my nap in 10 minute increments until I eventually got a call from Marcus at 6 to see if I wanted to go see Summer Bay.  By this time I had napped off and on for an hour.  It was good.

                The weather had really become wonderful, and so Marcus and I set out for Summer Bay, which is on the mainland side of the bridge on Unalaska proper.  We headed northeast and I have some absolutely incredible pictures.  The wind was a little stiff, but it was sunny and fairly warm, and it was just a stunning day to be in Dutch.  I saw many ground squirrels, and I was no more than 10 feet – 10 feet!!! – from a bald eagle.  He was hanging out on a piece of an old bridge scoping out the salmon struggling upstream.  He walked around a little, and he was just like an oversized chicken.  The most awkward walk I had ever seen.  Marcus threw a rock near him and he flew off, and that was pretty majestic (not the rock, the bird).  I said that now he was going to go shit on our truck, and we would have to explain to the rental company why there was such a large dent in the cab, and Marcus thought that was funny.

                I was dying to see a little fox, and as we were leaving, I saw one on the quarry pile.  He even held still so I could take his picture.  Cute little foxy.  He was adorable.  We saw one stream that was full of fish who were headed up to leave their eggs among the remains of their friends who had already done so.  It was kind of weird to see them, because there was basically a demonstration of the whole life cycle and decomposition cycle of the whole salmon species, all in one stream.  They are ugly little fish at the best of times.

                It was about 8:30 when we got back from Summer Bay, and we thought it was probably supper time.  The only restaurant I had not yet tried was the bar and grill in the Harbor View, so we went down and I got a pizza.  I really enjoy Marcus’ company, he’s very smart and very interesting.  He’s sort of like Matt in a lot of ways, which I think is probably why I like him so much.  We talked about his wife, and I told him about how Matt and I met (that story always plays well).  We talked about school and learning stuff, and how difficult it is to negotiate building plans and things with the Japanese people who basically run the plant.

                Eventually we headed off to bed around 10, and I took the other half of my pizza and shoved it in the window overnight.  It rained, but the box made it ok, and the pizza is still good.

                So that was my Thursday, I don’t know what I’m doing today, but I’ll probably do some more shopping.  Hopefully Carolyn will open up today and I’ll be able to buy some things there.  I already did some serious window shopping, so I think I know what I want.

Wednesday -- Alaska Letters

I brought three books with me, although one was almost finished when I left (I practically ate that for breakfast so it's gone now), and I got through Confessions of a Shopaholic on my epic never-ending flights.  Actually, my other book is The Causal Vacancy too!  How funny.  I just bought it in paperback recently.

There are tons of businesses on the island, but pretty much all of them are fishing related stuff.  On the island, there is the runway for the airport, piles and piles of fishing nets and crab pots and heaps of other gear and scrap metal, and then there are approximately three processing plants, stores for all the boat gear/repair, and then a couple restaurants.  As far as hotels, The Grand Aleutian which is the nice one, and the Harborview Inn are basically it, because anywhere else to stay is all company housing for the processing plants.  The plants employ so many people, it's ridiculous.

Dutch Harbor is kind of the big harbor for a little island in the middle, and the bigger island of Unalaska is surrounding it like a horse shoe.  Technically Dutch Harbor is just the body of water and the docks, and the city is the city of Unalaska.  But that’s not really important.  There's one little bridge across a narrow part of the harbor, and that's how you connect to the rest of the island of Unalaska.  There are mostly houses out there, the primary school and secondary school (because you're either in high school or not, as far as buildings are concerned), and a few more restaurants.  The MAC Enterprises guy is out on the Unalaska side, and I think that's basically so he can live in his office.

I think all the businesses know that even though that's "the competition," we're more like sister companies in the industry.  Because whatever is happening to us is also happening to them, so it's not really worth competing.  Marcus was telling me about when they rationalized the fishing industry: he said that 15 years ago, before rationalization, everything in Dutch was constantly anxious, high speed, everyone raced around and even the coffee girls would rush you out because you were taking too long.  And I understand why, because here you have an island that is only populated when you’re fishing, but the seasons went off and on, and everyone fished right up to the line to get as much as possible.  People were leaving for November and December, and June and July, and during the off-season, there wouldn’t be a soul on the island. 

So it’s really important to rush around and get as much as you can.  But since they rationalized the industries about 10 years ago, it’s made everything a lot more stable.  They were able to develop more consistent residents, and seasons that ended sooner because people were catching quota instead of as much as they could.  And the thing is, as one guy who struck gold early in the season moves out, that means that the little guy who hasn’t been doing well now has fewer people to compete with, and can also get closer to wrapping up his season.  Rationalization is one of those mixed bag sort of situations.  Some of it is probably really good, and some of it is just a big demonstration of a functionally organized economy.

But on the flipside of that, you’ve got The Corporation.  Which is a total misnomer, because it is just a false-front for the Indian Reservation.  The Corporation of Ounalashka (which must be the more traditional spelling) owns basically everything on the island, both where Dutch Harbor is located, and the horse-shoe part of Unalaska.  It probably owns all the islands, really, but I haven’t checked them out yet.

The thing that is such a classic government bullshit problem, and I feel is probably exacerbated by the fact that it’s a tribal government to boot, is that there used to be the World War II bunkers all over this island to defend against the Russians and the Japanese.  And there was this incredible network of underground munitions caves and cool look out points, and all the cool things to see, you can see from the gun stations and stuff like that. 

And it’s all just collapsed and gone to hell because no one is taking care of it because the little island can’t afford to, and besides who would see it beside fishermen and locals anyway?  And you know that if anyone had suggested, thirty years ago before everything started collapsing and getting covered in graffiti, that we should sell the whole Bunker Hill complex to someone for housing, they would have been up at arms.  They would have said that a private owner would ruin the integrity, the historic quality of the bunkers, and they would have never allowed it.

Which is awfully rich considering how great The Corporation is doing taking care of it now.  Marcus and I agreed that the gun turrets, which are sunk in the ground with tracks so the guns rotate, would be the coolest living room ever and you could have a fireplace in the center and circular couches all around.  And the sighting bunkers would be super cool for sitting rooms or bedrooms because they look out on the most gorgeous ocean ever.  And you could scatter the in-laws across the hillside in their own private bunkers, and they could travel by underground tunnel to the battery where you could have a massive dining room.  All the kids could have their own Quonset hut bedrooms.

But, whatever.

Grammers asked about the ExtraTuffs.  These are not your garden variety rubber boots.  They are brown with thick pale yellow soles, and they are about as heavy and sturdy as they come.  When I bought mine, they were still slick with the PAM cooking spray they use to get the rubber out of the molds.  These are not your mother’s rain boots.

Ok.  So today I had time to check my e-mail and write all this stuff (above) before Marcus and I went to breakfast.  We went to Amelia’s again, and this time I had corned beef hash, and it was just me and Marcus and Tim, so I was fairly involved in the conversation.  We talked a lot about camping and Marcus is always full of stories.  He used to live in Dutch, and he’s just a really interesting and active guy.

After breakfast (again, we ate until noon.  Marcus seems to enjoy endurance meals.  Hour and a half breakfast that doesn’t start until 10, 10:30 are normal), Tim and I went and grabbed my truck and we were going to go deal with his office at the plant.  That’s all fine and dandy, but I wasn’t exactly confident in my ability, so after turning around – almost all the way there, mind you – I called Tim from the Safeway parking lot and I’m like, “so… If I were coming from, say, the Safeway…”  I made it there eventually, a security guy saw me roaming around the outside of the plant trying to figure out which door to go through without getting crushed by something, and helped me find my way to Tim’s.  I saw him again later, and he’s like, you make it ok?

Tim’s office is a fairly small, standard rectangle.  It’s a really horrible shade of lilac though, and I would really love to paint it.  The mint trim around the windows makes it all a little sickening.  There was a whole wall of banker boxes about four feet tall that lined one whole wall, and Tim was fairly sure that there was not a single valuable thing in any of them.

Tim was much more willing to part with his crap than Elizabeth had been when I cleaned out her office, so we pretty much went to town dumping stuff.  Except for one box of things to be sent to Seattle, everything went.  Most of it was either fish tickets from 2001, or giant boxes of urine-tests for the boats.  They were sending gross boxes for each vessel, every year.  So we got rid of eight boxes of those.  Had to be nearly 2000 pee-cups.  Re-diculous.

So just as we remove everything from his office into the waiting room outside all the other offices (there’s a whole office floor and a bunch of Japanese people are in there doing stuff or whatever.  I think it must be for the Japanese selling end or something. Anyway,), that’s when Tim says the Viking just got in, so he’s going to go talk to Mike Johnson about some kind of violation.

He grabbed me an industrial dolly and showed me how to use the giant elevator, and basically said, go stick all this crap in a dumpster somewhere.

So five trips later, I got it all out.  I was proud of myself, I averaged probably six boxes a load, and each were very heavy or large or both, and I got it all done.  This was my route: From Tim’s office on the second floor, out the doors, down the hall, through the parts department, through the parts department, wait for the elevator.  Open the giant elevator doors, wheel the dolly in, push the button.  Go downstairs, stand awkwardly in the way as forklifts are going by while I am waiting for the elevator.  Open the elevator, unload the dolly partially (because there is a one foot difference between the elevator floor and the ground floor.  No difference on the second floor, so this was a new problem for me to figure out.), lower the dolly, reload the dolly, shut the giant doors, wheel through the forklift runway to get outside, walk past 8 Maersk semi-truck trailers, find a dumpster.  Unload dolly into dumpster, close dumpster, walk back, carry dolly upstairs, repeat.

So it was a long process, and luckily it had stopped raining by the time I was making all these trips.  It’s about as cold as Seattle in October or so, so it’s just a little brisk.  I didn’t bother with my coat because indoors it was hot and outside it was chilly.  I was sweating my ass off.  Everyone along this route was super nice, like the guys with the fork lifts were being super nice, and at some point along the way on each trip, somebody held a door open, or helped me get the dolly off the elevator or something.  One guy saw that I was putting so much paper stuff in the dumpster, and got a guy to bring me some totes to put it in.  Which was really good timing because the dumpster was getting full.

After that, Tim was back from talking to the Viking, so we went over there and looked around.  I was a little anxious about going over there, because when I messed up the checks for Dean Scates and Steve McLean, it was a big hairy mess that still hasn’t been all the way sorted out.  So I didn’t really want to walk into somewhere that was going to be like, hostile or something.  And of course, the first guy we walk into is Dean, who was the one who was short $6900 and was the most upset.  But he seemed alright, and I guess Steve just paid him the difference for the switched checks and they’re ok with it now.

Interestingly, for all the hullabaloo that Dean was raising about getting his money, Tony (not the same Tony, can’t think of his last name) was telling me that since I joined the office, they are actually getting their checks really reliably.  I know that’s true, because I put them in the envelopes every other week, but I guess when Elizabeth was super swamped, she sometimes wouldn’t get to it for two or three periods in a row.  So Dean really shouldn’t have been worried, because it was not that unusual from before.  He was getting spoiled by my recent appearance and got used to it.  Antsy bastard.

We met up with Marcus for a little while, and then Tim and I went to the radio meeting, which I guess is just a check in with all the boat captains to see how they are fishing, where they are, and size estimates and stuff.  One of the Japanese guys makes the call, and then Tim and I were there with like two other Japanese guys to see what’s going on.  One guy, the Bering Defender, is out almost to the border with Russian waters, he’s like 80 miles from it.  He’s hella north.

I had time to go back over to MAC Enterprises to give Jimmer my card.  I can’t remember the name of his secretary, but she was really nice, and she gave me a map of the island roads so I quit getting lost and turning around (which I did on the way to MAC, so yeah).  She was cool, we chatted for a while, then I drove back to my hotel.  I realized that I had plenty of time before the dinner with Roy at The Grand Aleutian, which was cool because I was sweaty dirty and fishy from the plant so I took a shower.

While I was in the shower, I was thinking to myself that these poor women out on this island must have a hell of a time finding a decent bra.  And unless you know your size and can order online, getting fitted must be a massive ordeal.  You’d have to go to like, Anchorage for any major shops.  So I was thinking that if this whole Alaska thing gets really serious, I might just open a bra business on the island.  I bet I’d get TONS of traffic.  Women from other islands might come over just to buy my bras.  That would be super cool.

I broached this idea to the nice girl behind the counter at The Grand Aleutian, who checked me in and who just cracked up at my Sarah Palin impersonation, and she said that it’s tough to find a bra.  She said it would be a great idea, and I probably would be very popular.  Later when I mentioned this idea to Tim and Marcus, they insisted that the men probably preferred for the women not to wear bras at all, so they wouldn’t be interested, and I felt that that is exactly the kind of thinking keeping women off the island now.  So good job there, guys.

Anyway, I perused the gift shop in The Grand, and I think I’ll probably buy some stuff there.  I don’t want to cut it too close to the wire with my purchases, and end up buying stuff in the airport.  Cause that just seems wrong.

The buffet was tonight, so everybody and their brother was at The Grand.  Roy was there with Tim when Marcus and I sat down, and I gave Roy my card, because I had them now, and I guess he realized when he went to grab his own card that he had left without his wallet – and he was supposed to be paying for dinner tonight – so he ran off to go get it.  While he was gone, we three went and got our first course and there was SO much good food.  I started with some weird salads, like a walnut, bleu cheese, beet salad which was weird but good.  The beets were yellow, which was part of the weirdness.  There was a Greek salad and some baby bok choi that were sprinkled with bacon and sesame seeds, and that was pretty good.

Roy got back and gave me his card, and after a little while we went back for entrees.  So apparently Marcus got the point of the “appropriate starch” comment a little better than I thought he did, because as we grabbed our entrees (there was one of those roast beef cutters), we discovered that they had provided an appropriate starch, and Marcus realized that with the bread and the rice, he wasn’t sure which was the appropriate starch.  We decided that the bread didn’t count, because it was starch, vegetables AND bread, so he was able to eat happily again after that.

They had so much food.  There was a lot of seafood, and I tried some fried clams (ok, kind of chewy) a fried scallop (yuck) and a tempura shrimp (meh).  They also had sushi, and I grabbed some neutral looking pieces and one of halibut, which was wrapped up with pickled asparagus, so it was actually pretty good, and I could have eaten a couple more of those.  There was also dessert, and our third trip up was for cheese cake and shooter sized dollops of berries and custard of some sort.

A guy from Stabbert Yacht and Shipyard in Ballard came and table-hopped our table. I guess they are thinking of building a shipyard in Dutch, so Marcus talked a lot to him about that.  At some point we talked about debate, and camping and skiing, and Alaska, and a little bit about how much money they put into kids who do sports on the islands.  I guess it’s like $40,000 a kid if they do a competitive sport in high school.  And most of that is air travel, and these kids will be gone multiple weeks at a time for competitions and tournaments.  I guess if you do sports in Alaska, you better do it well, cause there’s a lot of money invested in you.  That seems like a lot of pressure.  But it explains why a lot of their teams, like the college debate team and stuff, are really good.  There’s a lot invested, and they take it seriously.

After dinner, I walked over to the Alaska Ship and thought about buying stuff, and didn’t.  Then I drove back to my hotel and got ready for bed.  Tomorrow I’m supposed to be riding with the Westward One over to the fuel dock so I can, I don’t know, see how that is.  I was feeling a little sick while we at the dock by the plant.  The seas were a little choppy, and the boat in front of us was moving differently than we were, so I was getting some pretty good vertigo.  I hope I don’t get seasick in just an hour’s trip, but I’m taking some Dramamine or whatever anyway.

So I’ll keep you updated, I’m glad you’re all enjoying the stories.  There’s so much to talk about, so I’m sure I’m not even getting it all.  Keep asking questions, because it gives me more to talk about.  And for those of you following on a map, it’s was actually Cold Cove where we had to turn around during the enduro-plane ride.

And also the new narrative is that I’m from Alaska.  Just to update you about my entire life history that now is changing.  I’m an Alaskan now.

Tuesday -- Alaska Letters

So I had a rather rough night sleep.  The constant generator noise from the processing plant across the street is mildly irritating, and any gap in the curtains means that the (day) light or car headlights can get in and terrifyingly fly across your room.  The sun isn’t setting until almost 11:30, and it comes up around 8.  I kept waking up, and I’m pretty sure there was loud music playing somewhere below me, but I don’t know, and Marcus said he didn’t hear anything.  But he’s kind of a bad witness to these things.

I got up and showered and typed up Monday’s adventure, and got done right at ten, when Marcus, Tim and I had agreed we would all congregate.  Marcus and I share a wall, so it was easy to find him, but Tim is on fish time so he arrives whenever he arrives.  We went to Amelia’s and Marcus and I arrived first, waited for Tim, he said he was coming, and now he’s bringing Tony Donovo from Caitlin Ann.  And we waited for Tim and Tony, and he said he was coming, and now Scott from the Nordic Fury was gonna come too.

Eventually Marcus and I ordered and that’s when Tim showed up.  Tony had already come to Amelia’s for breakfast a few hours before, but he ordered a burger anyway.  Scott from Nordic Fury was nice, and we all sat and talked (and by that I mean, periodically they stopped using so much jargon and I got a word in).  Mostly I watched CNN and ate my non-breakfast-carne-asada, which was delicious.  Then I considered napping with my eyes open, because breakfast went on for an hour and a half.  Bearing in mind that Marcus and I had already waited 20 minutes.  About noon we finally got out of there.

Then Marcus and I went out to see Roy with Delta Western, but he wasn’t there, so we drove along the length of the spit at the mouth of Dutch Harbor, and looked at a lot of piles of nets and other crap that’s piling up all over the island.  There were some boats tied up, including the Alaska Ocean which is where the guy with no fingers was going, and that’s a big ass boat.

When we got back from checking out the spit, Roy still wasn’t back, so we went into town (ish) and went to Harris Electric and talked to some people about some very exciting device that Jose desperately wants, and which we have ordered for him, and will have installed without telling him, and then have Brandon on the Westward One (who is also getting one) call Jose to brag, and apparently this will be very funny because Jose might have a heart attack because he wants this thing really bad.  They said what it is, and I think it has to do with imaging the fish going into the net, or possibly updating the phone system on the boat, I’m not sure.

After that, we got went back out to the Delta Western people, and Roy still wasn’t there, but we arranged to have dinner with him tomorrow.  Instead we stood around and talked to Maria the office manager for a really long time.  She’s in the process of moving full time to Anchorage, and she is some kind of an insomniac because she gets up at 3 am to get ready for work which starts at 8 and is only a 10 minute walk from her house.  Which I just think is crazy.  She says she does all her chores in the morning so her house is clean when she gets home and she can rest.  Maria’s a compulsive cross-stitcher (she’s on rotation off of knitting and crocheting right now).

We also stopped at Mac Enterprises, which is basically a guy called Jimmer and his wife in a single-wide with a lot of envelopes.  They were very nice, and they gave me a tee-shirt, and he gave me his card, and I kicked myself because I didn’t have mine in my pocket, they were in my room.  So now I have to drive back tomorrow by myself (which shouldn’t be too hard because there’s really like two roads) and give him my card.  If they still have cupcakes, I’ll take one, but I was sweet-thinged out from my coffee at the coffee stand after breakfast.

Then Marcus decided it was time for me to check out the plant, which meant that we spent some time on the Pacific Prince instead.  Vito Vanoni III (coolest name ever) was very nice, his family is from Northgate, and he says that when he’s back in Washington for Thanksgiving, we should go to dinner.  He’s very nice, and he gave me a tour of the boat, and it’s smaller than Chelsea K, but much bigger than the Caitlin Ann.  It was pretty nice, and Vito was pretty cool.  So we should probably go to dinner with his family, and I don’t know, talk about fishing or something.  I’m sure dad will be able to come up with something.

Finally we started the tour.  I’ll give this in as good of detail as possible, because I didn’t take pictures, because every time we left a work station, we had to dip our hands in cleaner so my hands were constantly wet, and pretty much everywhere tiny pieces of fish we flinging through the air.

So it starts with a pump that uses vacuum and reverse pressure to suck the fish out of the boat and up a giant outdoor silo.  At the top, they dump out into a dewater-er, and guys stand there and pick out the fish that aren’t Pollock or the obvious ones that are broken or cut in half or something horrible.  Those get sorted to different bins, and get reused later in other places.  It all gets weighed, and based on how much Pollock (and from the total pounds on the boat, reverse calculate how much other stuff as well) was fished and then the “fish ticket” gets sent to us in Seattle.  So that’s where my money comes from.

From the dewater and sorting, the fish get sent to some chilly holding tanks for a while, and when the plant is ready to process that 20-ton fish bucket, it gets pumped into the size sorter.  The size sorter is a clever set of rolling cylinders that get wider toward the end, so the little fish fall through the slots sooner than the big fish, and they basically are grouped as small medium and large.  Medium and large go to their respective fileting machines, where people are lined up to help make sure the fish settle in the right direction to get gutted, have the backbone and head removed, and then the skin peeled off.  They pull out broken ones that have gotten through to this point.

The small fish get sent right to the surimi section.  They also get gutted, debackboned, beheaded and skinned, but they get ground up really finely into fish bits.  The fish bits get washed, and turned into cold fish stew, then dewatered, and dewatered, and dewatered (and ground up some more) until they are a really fine paste.  Then there’s a whole system of grinders and a screw that presses even more water out of the fish, until it’s literally just the protein.

At this point, the protein will be basically destroyed if it’s frozen as is, because it’s too delicate without any other support, and defrosting it would turn it to useless mush.  So they add some sugar and preservatives as a cushion for the protein fibers.  This gets mixed together in a giant Cuisinart and put into 10 pound bags.  Marcus grabbed a little, and I tasted it, and it’s completely neutral.  Slightly sweet, and gummy kind of like dough, but it’s just sort of neutral.

What’s cool about this whole system – side note – is that Marcus planned and designed this whole plant.  When I tell you about the five other things being created here, it’s incredible that all the frozen things end up in the same freezers, and everything is organized into a maze that puts you right back out at the beginning again.  It’s truly incredible.  This is also a story of how you can use every single freaking part of the animal.  And you thought we didn’t make anything in America anymore. Pshaw!

So the surimi gets made into things like fake crab (who knew).  It gets mixed with about 15 to 20% actual crab, and then gets rolled super thin and dyed and rolled up (because crabs grow rings like a tree) and sold as krab meat.  Also, there’s just a ton of Japanese foods that are made with Pollock and surimi, and I guess there is such a thing as fish sausages, and I’ve probably eaten something from Westward Seafoods at some point in my sushi dabbling.  So how about that.

Meanwhile – elsewhere in the plant – the filets get cleaned and neatened to be frozen, the roe gets made into the stuff in miso soup and the sprinkles on some sushi.  The roe is better in the mating season in A season because obviously there are more females carrying around eggs when they get caught.  They pull out the whole, basically the ovaries, and I guess in Japan they take the whole ovary, cure it in salt and spices, and smear it on crackers.  Which is like Pollock caviar or something.  Very salty apparently.

Everything that isn’t Pollock goes to the other part of the plant, and they take these massive Halibut and cut off the cheeks and filet and skin and behead and freeze them too.  They are massive fish steaks.  Marcus said you could sew yourself a windbreaker out of the skin of a Halibut.  He also said you can tell when there’s Halibut in the plant because it smells kind of sweet, which is does, but in a gross cat food kind of way.

We have one boat that delivers Bairdi crab, and they have a whole place to cut off the legs and this weird machine that spins and you use to shave off the tough crab gills (didn’t know crabs had gills, but how else would they breathe?), and it’s the technique for making baseball bats.  The boil the crab right away, and then they acclimatize it to colder and colder water before freezing it.

Everything ends up at these giant freezers that are negative 20 Celsius.  My nose hairs froze and I got a drippy nose when we came out again.  It was so cold in there it was snowing lightly.

The last thing we do, with all the broken fish and fish bones and junk and bits, it send it to the fishmeal section.  That’s just a series of mechanized conveyer belts and hoppers and cookers and dewaterers and steamers, so there are very few people, but it’s very hot in there.  Basically we make a fish stew, separate bits from oils and waters, bits become really dry and make fish meal (they sell the fish ear bones to an artist who makes earrings), and the soup becomes fish oil or fish liquid that I forget what the liquid does after that.  The fish oil is most interesting because it fuels one of our diesel generators.  We’re practically a self-sustained operation.

There are a ton of generators, and a lot more native Alaskans in the plant, and a TON of Japanese.  Westward Seafoods was originally Japanese owned, until some laws got enacted, and we couldn’t have such a big foreign power eating up our commerce, so they gave most of it to Greg and Marcus.

After that we went to Dutch Harbor Fast Food (which was not fast at all), and had some dinner.  I had a very interesting conversation with Marcus, and I find him to be a very interesting guy.  He’s got some Matt in him, which is weird, but cool.  He sweats on contact like Matt does.  Hot room?  Sweaty face.

We did more driving around, and we went up Bunker Hill, and dear God it was so beautiful.  The skies parted, so all my pictures are sunny, and you can see the rays of sunshine.  It’s like where the dinosaurs used to roam.  It’s incredible.  I got pictures throughout the day of the Russian Orthodox church, and so many hillsides, and some flowers, and a bald eagle.  I didn’t get a picture, but I am in love with the little ground squirrels.  Coming back from Bunker Hill (which really does require pictures, to follow), we saw one that was a big fat one, and Marcus said the quote of the day “I got my nuts, nom nom.”  It was so funny, and he’s got this walrus mustache and he built a multi-million dollar seafood processing plant, and it just cracked me up.  It’s so incongruous.

We stopped at Alaska Ship for snacks, and now I’m chowing through Starburst.  I don’t know what things to buy for everyone, there are really cute moose shaped salad tongs that I want.  I am thinking about getting some sweatpants that say Dutch Harbor on them.  I don’t know.  I might get a classic Alaska Grown shirt for Aspen.  I haven’t seen any wolf stuff, only eagles and whales.

I’m super tired now, and all I did was sit here and type this.  It’s so overwhelming how much stuff I have seen and done today.  Somewhere in the melee I stopped in at Tim’s office, I met some other office people, Elizabeth needed my timesheet I forgot from Friday, and probably something else happened that I can’t remember where it fits chronologically.

But, I realized that I can see Russia from my hotel room, so everything is ok there.  J

Monday -- Alaska Letters

                Ok, so here’s my update on Day One of Alaska Adventure.  Got to the airport promptly at 6, and Marcus arrived at about 6:30.  Because Marcus is a big shot or whatever, we got to go through the TSA pre-check with the DoD and military people, so I didn’t have to get a full body scan which was cool.  And security was just really fast.  Also, I brought my flat iron (despite the fact that I’ve given it up) to act as a cover for the fact that I was taking my pepper spray in my carry on.  So that was cool, sneakin’ shit around and whatnot.

                Then everything was pretty much normal airport stuff, I had a little time to go grab a chai latte (and a cup of water) which was a bad choice because I had my giant pink tote, a huge North Face, my drag-a-long suitcase and now two cups to carry.  I made it through alright, and even though the boarding lady gave me some flack about my bag not fitting in the overhead, I just took it with me anyway, and it totally fit.  Like I’m gonna wait for all my panties and shit to show up in Dutch whenever it gets there.

                The flight was cool, I had plenty of room because the other lady was in a window seat.  Going up to Anchorage means that there were a lot of fairly salty looking people, and I expect that a lot of them were fishermen.  Got a fruit and cheese plate that had some brie.  I don’t like brie.  And I don’t know if you’re supposed to eat the rind or not, but I did, and I don’t like brie.  No wine and cheese parties for me.

                When we arrived in Anchorage, you could see the meringue mountain tops for miles as we approached, and then as we descended into Anchorage it got really super flat.  It’s like flat right up to the edge of the mountains, at right angles.  Horizontal then vertical.  The trees don’t seem that big around Anchorage either, which is kind of weird.

                So Marcus and I went up to the board room fancy place, which was pretty cool.  They had a Starbucks coffee machine that made your latte, steamed your milk and even made the layers of coffee/milk coffee/milk.  And they had all the flavor drizzles.  And a pancake machine (a machine!).  It spit little pancakes off the conveyer belt.  It was very fancy.

                Downstairs where the lay-people were waiting for their flights, they had on CNN, but up in the board room they had Fox News on.  Interesting much???  I also met a woman who used to be the mayor of Dutch Harbor, and I guess she’s just the world’s most knowledgeable, fierce ladies out there.  So that’s cool.  I don’t remember her name.  Marcus said that when he wants to see old friends, he just goes to the airport in Anchorage.

                Marcus was on the 12:30 PenAir little plane to Dutch, and I was a sure thing for the 3:45, but they had a few seats available on his flight, so when he went to check in, I went too to see if I could get on.  Sometime between when we had the board room ladies call to see if there was room, and when we got down there an hour or so later, I was confirmed on the 12:30.  Which is great of course.

                So we grabbed some sandwiches that said they were Quiznos, which makes me wonder if Alaska just hasn’t heard that Quiznos went out of business…  They were premade sandwiches, but they were pretty good, though I should have gotten the chipotle chicken like Marcus did.

                I guess flight times for PenAir are sort of suggested.  Our flight was for 12:30, but we didn’t even get out on the tarmac until almost one.  But pretty promptly we got in the air, which was cool.  Everyone who I’ve talked to agrees that I’m crazy that I felt more comfortable in the little plane than in the big jets.  But I feel like one of the ends is going to snap off of a big jet, and besides, commercial big plane pilots seem much more willing to take all of us out with him.  I don’t know.  I also had a fairly non-confrontational flight, as far as traumatic, death-defying flight nonsense.

                I got seated right next to this guy who fishes for Alaskan Ocean, doing Pollock.  I didn’t find this out until we all got off the plane and suddenly got chatty.  I guess once we lived through the flight, we could start talking to each other.  It was ridiculously loud, and they gave everyone earplugs, so that probably quashed a lot of talking.  The interesting thing about this guy was that he had no fingers (how does he fish??).  It looked like frostbite amputations, because he was missing every fingertip except his left thumb from the first knuckle on.  I felt very bad for this guy.  He was Alaska Native I think, because before the flight he was talking on the phone in a non-Asian, non-Spanish language.

                Anyway, the flight was not terrible, but it took three times longer than it was supposed to.  It was supposed to be a 2 hour and 45 minute flight, but it took almost six hours.  We got all the way to within 30 minutes of Dutch at like, Crystal Cove, or Cove Bay or somewhere like that, where we were supposed to refuel, but their tarmac was completely shut down.  So we flew all the way back to King Salmon (like an hour away) to refuel there (don’t ask, I don’t know why, and it has been explained to me.).  So we take 15 minutes to refuel, I pee in the tiniest bathroom ever, find out our stewardess (who was on quite the power trip and wouldn’t let No Fingers move up a row even though there was no one there “for weight”.) used to be an EMT/safety supervisor at Westward Seafoods.  Alaska is a tiny place.

                After we fueled up again, we flew back out to Dutch, and circled like three times trying to get a good opening in.  It was really cloudy, so he was dodging pretty good winds and very low visibility.  Finally we landed, but I guess we were this close to flying all the way back to Anchorage.  I would have died.  I was so done being in that plane.  And I finished one of my three books already, and I’m concerned that I’m going to finish them all before I make it all the way back home.

                But once we were in Dutch, Tim met us at the airport, and we grabbed a rental truck, and Tim gave me a phone, and we checked in at The Grand Aleutian.  I told the check in lady about Cooking with Sarah Palin, and she knew Jenna Marbles but hadn’t seen it, and she thought I was just hilarious.  People definitely laugh very easily here.

                We didn’t get into the nice hotel, because there are two concurrent conferences going on, so we went down the street to Harbor View (which involved driving right through a competitor’s fish processing plant, which is weird.).  It’s ok, it’s like a low rate motel.  I don’t have a roommate, which is a relief.  We dropped our stuff off there.  On our way down, we went to the Alaska Ship Supply across the street and grabbed me some ExtraTuffs (giant rubber boots, if I can I’ll bring them home so you can see them.  They are ridiculous.).

                While I was on the plane trying to take a nap, I woke with a jolt and realized that I had forgotten to pack my most essential of all travel items.  This stands as a testament to how much I have changed already.  *sigh*  I forgot my tooth brush.  Oh the humanity!  So we grabbed one of those at the Alaska Ship too.  Alaska Ship Supply is like a non-name brand Wal-mart.  Shit is SO expensive here.  My boots were $106.  They increased by $10 per shoe size.  It was crazy.

                So I put on my boots, and some more pants cause it’s cold, and Marcus and I go over to the plant to see Tim and the Chelsea K before it leaves to go fishing.  As soon as I step out, I gag like three times, because it’s not normal fish smell, it’s this horrible rank like, rancid blood smell.  It’s the most horrible thing ever.  So horrible.  I wish I could bottle it for you so you could smell how horrible it really is.  It’s horrible.  We parked right next to the chum area, so I guess that made it worse.  Dear God.

                We walked around and went to the Chelsea K, which was moored up at the dock.  Mom, forgive me, but it was the world’s longest drop down to the ocean, and I stepped right over it.  God.  I lived though.  The boat is one of our biggest, and most complicated.  Jose (Joe-zay, cause he’s Portugese) is in Portugal right now visiting family, so Chris Franulovich (fran-ula-vi-CH) is running the boat.  Everyone seems super nice, and I got a whole tour.  I didn’t take any pictures, because there are so many giant engines you can take pictures of.  They have the same one as the Alaskan Command, so it was old hat to me.  I got to ask questions about stuff though, because I had already seen the other boat, so I felt like I was being impressive with my knowledge.

                They have like, 20 different screens in the bridge displaying different things.  It’s fairly organized actually.  Jose is apparently a creature-comfort kind of guy, because he’s got an espresso machine in the bridge, he just bought super nice home-theater-style chairs (a whole row of them) for the galley, and made a storage room in the mid-level into a gym.  There’s an elliptical, and a rowing machine (slightly ironic) and a tv in there.  It’s pretty cool.

                After that, I said hi to Tony Donovo on the Caitlin Ann, and that boat is one of our little ones, and it’s pretty cute.  Marcus said I would think it was cute, and it’s true, cause I do, and it looks exactly like what you imagine a boat should look like.  Like a toy boat.  The Chelsea K is the only one in our fleet that was intended to be for Pollock fishing for our plant when it was built, and all our other boats are retrofits from other industries.

                We went and checked out Tim’s office in the plant, which was pretty messy.  Like way worse than Elizabeth’s office ever was.  We have to get him some new furniture (I don’t know if that will happen while I’m here or after), but I’m here to kind of put in the plan, get him some window coverings so people quit bugging him, and help him sort through all the junk in there.  There is a whole row of banker boxes that are completely full, and we’re not even sure what they are.

                After we checked out his office, I got much own truck.  Since the Chelsea K is going to be out for like five days fishing, I’m driving their truck.  It’s very fussy about unlocking and also starting, but it works fine.  I’m a big girl.  We all drove over to The Grand Aleutian for dinner, and it was so incongruous because dinner was SO fancy, with waiters in white button ups and food on platters and whatnot, and we’re all in there in our ExtraTuffs and stuff.  It was very weird, but SO good.  I had a wedge salad with candied pecans, bacon, bleu cheese crumbles and balsamic vinegar ($9) and a bleu and bacon filet mignon (the only kind of steak they really had) with balsamic reduction, bleu cheese compote, and sautéed vegetables.  I died.  The steak was so good.  I didn’t even chew it, it just melted.  It was so good.  $36.  It was RIDICULOUS.  Marcus said I would have to get over it, or just go hungry.  I was so shocked by the prices.

                Dinner was on a little inlet on the island called like, Margot Bay or something like that.  It was beautiful.  Everything was so incredible.  The menu said that all dishes were served with “an appropriate starch, and seasonal vegetables.”  Which just cracked me up, because what in the hell is an inappropriate starch?  Marcus and Tim do NOT get my sense of humor, because they tried to explain to me that you don’t eat potatoes with fish, and that you also have to kind of eat whatever is available in Dutch at the moment.  Which I found extremely patronizing, and I will get them back later.

                Tim told me that the original plan had been to take me straight to the Chelsea K before the hotel, and while I was touring the boat, go and put all my stuff in an estate room and then shove off before I realized what was happening.  But I guess the weather is going to be pretty rough, with 18 foot seas and 30-40 knot winds, so they decided not to make me completely miserable.  And they are going north east pretty far, so it would have been most of my week.

                So yes, that’s all very funny.  I’m glad it did not happen.  But I guess they eat really well on the Chelsea K, so that part would have been nice.

                Anyway, I’m sorry this took so long to get to you, I’ve got to go find Marcus and Tim and figure out what I’m going to be doing today.  I’m throwing on my fishermen’s sweater, because dear God, what else would you wear!  Talk to everyone again soon, I’ll e-mail this as soon as I can.

                LOVE YOU ALL!!!