fishing

I got back from fishing in Bristol Bay yesterday, being home has never felt so good. my dad, brett (the other deckhand) and i drove down from Anchorage on Friday night, actually getting home at 2 am. collapsing into my bed was glorious! it was a good season, even though we didn't catch quite as much as we wanted to... the weather was beautiful and with only three people on the boat we had plenty of room. neither brett nor i had ever fished before, and my dad had never been the captain of his own boat - so we were all beginners. we had a few mishaps... running over the net and getting it caught in the propellers... getting too close to the line and having to roundhaul the entire net (with 1,500 lbs of fish in it) onto the deck by hand... no big deal. we got through it, built a little muscle, got funny tan lines, ate a lot of oreos. we started out the season in the Nushagak district, before moving on to Naknek-Kvichak and then Ugashik. the one district we didn't fish was Egegik, which ended up having the best season after all. that's how it goes, i guess - they'll do better next year, although i'll still be finishing up my exchange during the peak. still, we had fun, made some money, got a ton of sleep (not). it made me appreciate a lot - like showers, and non-frozen food, and milk, and not smelling like fish all the time. 

i'm going to go sniff my clean laundry now.