Marguerita

Here’s Tom and crew David and James, mending the jitney seine on Sunday afternoon. We loaded the seine onto the jitney first thing this morning (no pics, I was too busy keeping the seine straight and free from snags) and then mended the net after that. (When we got to a bigger hole I dropped my part of the web and grabbed my camera for a few shots.) We use the powerblock on the big boat (the big boat is the F/V Dolly B) to lift the seine high enough to see holes, and then Tom mends as we go through the net. Then we put the seine back onto the jitney and checked her over for tomorrow’s opener. The jitney is tied up to the big boat, just on the other side.

On the far side of the harbor is the cruise ship dock, with a ship in for the day. Seward usually only gets one cruise ship at a time, but there are rare days when there are two of them tied up, side by side, and they just dwarf the entire harbor.

This year I’ll be working a desk job while the guys and boats are out fishing. I’m pretty sure I am going to miss being in on the action. It’s very hard work, but it’s wonderful to work outside, on the water. On the other hand, they are stuck on the boat while I have my sewing machine set up in the living room – happily sewing and quilting and watching PBS specials on TV.

The net is called the “seine” on a boat that is a seiner. Here is the jitney’s seine, in the back of Tom’s truck. After working on the skiff outboard all morning, launching the jitney, filling her tanks, standing up the mast and then dealing with my broken down car, he and I loaded the seine from the warehouse (where it is stored for the winter) to his truck. I am so tired that I can’t believe that I can type, and I didn’t do a quarter of the work he did! Tomorrow we will load the seine onto the jitney and mend it. I’ll try and get a photo for you.

The pretty house in the background is a B & B on our street, and that’s the bay that Tom will be fishing in come Monday morning at 6am. Please wish him luck for a good fishing season.

I’ve been a busy gal since coming back from Portland Quilt Market! The boats still need work & maintenance and that is first priority in our lives. So, it’s been the usual routine of scrubbing the fish hold, mending nets, launching skiffs and stocking the big boat with groceries and supplies.

The jitney is in the driveway (what a sight!) so that we can repair hydraulic lines, the ram for the power block and the hatch covers.

And then there is my pal Vanta’s new bookstore! When I haven’t been working on boats I’ve been at Vanta’s store, helping with inventory and painting the interior and exterior of the business. She’s going to call it Cover To Cover (isn’t that cute?) and she hopes to be open for business in the next few weeks in downtown Seward, Alaska.

All this is in addition to my “day job” – the one that pays the travel bills and fabric expenses – lol! I hope your spring & early summer are just as much fun or more 🙂

It’s that time of year again. I’ve been on the boat, which is dry docked right now, cleaning and making her ready for another fishing season.

Here’s an older picture of me, when I worked on the boat as crew a couple of years ago. In the first photo I am surrounded by fish, hand pitching them for delivery. I am also very tired – lol! In this photo we have just caught the fish on the jitney and are transferring them to the big boat for icing and tendering.

We are incredibly careful with our fish because a good percentage will make it to your store as fresh Alaskan Red Salmon. That means frequent deliveries of heavily iced fish and “hand” handling, not pumped by machine. Here’s a photo of Tom’s seiner, the F/V Dolly B, at the dock for delivery. This is his photo, I was probably asleep in my bunk!