You know what I love about the picture that I’m including with this post?
The trucks.
In the foreground we have a white Ford F-350 flatbed that belongs to my husband, George. In the background, we have my dad’s black Ford F-350, a diesel “dually” ( for its dual tires) with “Tim’s Trailer” and a Kubota tractor on [...]
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“No doubt about it. Fishing is a hard way to make a buck…Pile on top of that the worry about the health of the industry, the physical wear and tear, and the separation from family and you’ve got a career that is so difficult, most human beings wouldn’t last a minute in it.”
(Letters to Fishing [...]
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The Writer Mama has a post up on her blog in which she celebrates the start of summer by sharing a list of things currently bringing her joy. It’s such a nice idea that I decided to celebrate the new season by sharing my own list.
Writing Mentors. I am happy that I can learn from [...]
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It’s amazing the way life’s pace picks up the second your husband and his boat arrive home from fishing. I felt the the change–the quickening of the household pulse–even as I stood on my porch last week and watched George and the Vis glide across the bay, home from the Alaska halibut and blackcod season.
Here [...]
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Bryan pitches halibut into the brailer. (A brailer is a small sling net that lifts fish off the boat to be sorted and weighed on the dock.)
Bryan helps guide the brailer out of the hatch and off the boat.
A tote of Yelloweye Rockfish.
A tote of Lingcod.
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Our boat, the f/v Vis (rhymes with “fleece” 
coming across the bay as George and the crew arrive home from Alaska.
Kelly, Bryan, and Brett pitch halibut out of the back hatch and into a brailer.
A brailer of halibut is lifted off the boat. It will land on the table on the dock to be sorted [...]
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I was sitting in the rocking chair last night reading to Eva when the phone rang. “Schile, George,” my talking caller i.d. announced.
Finally!
I’d tried to call George’s cell phone over the last couple of days because he was driving the boat home from Alaska, where he recently wrapped up his halibut and blackcod [...]
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Dialing…881631530…for the fifth time in a row.
“Hello?”
Finally! The long-awaited answer.
“What are you doing?” I ask G.
“I’m driving the boat home,” he answers.
“What were you doing?” I ask.
“Bringing in the last of the halibut,” he replies.
“Where are you?”
“In between Yakitat and Sitka.”
“When will you be home?”
“I expect to be home on the 11th.”
“Well, I was worried when [...]
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“Fishing families are known for having strong family ties that help them manage the daily strains of fishing.”
(Fishing Families Project/Oregon State University 1997)
One of those daily strains: Worry.
Now, I seldom worry about George’s safety and well-being when he is at sea. The boat is well-built, seaworthy, and solid. Its engines and equipment are current [...]
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“Fishing families experience many benefits from the lifestyle that commercial fishing brings, but they also experience challenges in adapting to husbands’ trips to and from the sea.”
(The Ebb and Flow of Fishing Family Life—Oregon Sea Grant)
I got a call from George while he was in Seward last week getting ready to deliver his latest load [...]
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