Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Gillnetting

Some of you may not know my boyfriend is a commercial fisherman - to be more specific - a gilnetter.

Most gillnetters have a crew member to help them maximize the amount of fish caught during the "peak" of the season - more hands on deck means more fish picked out of the net - means more money. Cha ching!

Ryan usually has a crew just for the peak (July), but this season we planned to have me and B on the boat for the entire season.
Free crew for Ryan. Family time for all of us. A new adventure for me & B.
Alas, pans changed, so B and I were only on the boat for the month of June.

Ryan went to Wrangell in May to start the King Salmon season, so in order to join him, B and I had to travel. Normally I would prefer to take a flight, but Alaska Airlines smokes crack and was trying to charge us $400 for a 45 minute flight. Ha. Right.

I am not a big fan of the ferry, but because I refused to pay for AK Air was willing to compromise, we hopped on the Matanuska for a 12 hour sailing.
The last time I went on a ferry trip was 12 years ago for sports/choir.
When I travel, I mean business. I like to get to my destination as quickly and effortlessly as possible. Sitting around on a big boat, with lots of strangers and a child who doesn't handle unstructured time very well is not my "cup of travel tea".
To make things easier on all parties I booked a sailing from 7pm-8 am. AND a state room - the best $79 ever spent!

B and I slept for most of the sailing, woke up at 6 am for some cold cereal in the cafeteria and then watched the boat dock in Wrangell.

B walking down the ramp to the Matanuska

B quickly fell in love with Wrangell and even jumped on Ryan's "Lets move to Wrangell" bandwagon. 



In Wrangell, good times with friends always involves a good party :)


R was so good about showing B how to prep the boat for a week of fishing. B had his own jobs/chores on the boat. Filling our water tank was job #1.

Stay tuned and you'll see what my jobs were...


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