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June 27, 2009 – At Sea, 54 19N 166 27W
by Herb McCormick
(June 27): There’s a helpful sign at the door of the Harbor View Inn in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, stationed just over the shoulder of the burly bouncer, that ingoing patrons are wise to note: Check your knives at the door. They may be retrieved on the way out. And once inside, in the early evening mayhem, one gets the feeling that the note was first posted after a memorable night of dastardly consequences, not before. The infamous bar scene in the movie Star Wars had nothing on the Harbor View.
The crew of the 64-foot cutter Ocean Watch put the rugged Aleutian Island port of Dutch in their collective rear-view mirror today, motoring into a placid Bering Sea just after 0800 this morning. Next stop: Nome. The roughly 680-nautical mile leg-a tad longer than a Newport-Bermuda Race-follows a course heading just a degree or two shy of due north. The forecast, frankly, is incredible.
A ridge of high pressure has eased over the waters bringing westerly winds of around ten knots that are predicted to clock into the south and build into the low- to mid-twenties. Both the direction and the strength would be ideal, but calms are just fine, too. When skipper Mark Schrader laid out the initial itinerary for the outset of the Around the Americas trip, the first real offshore passages, across the Gulf of Alaska and up through the Bering Sea, looked to be challenging tests.
The gulf was bouncy, but in relative terms, fairly tame, providing a good shakedown for the boat and crew. (Those waters are currently experiencing gale-force conditions that Ocean Watch happily dodged). And the Bering Sea seems to be in an unusually mellow mood. After an hour or two of pure sailing at the outset of this morning’s trip, the wind died altogether and OW is back in motor-sailing mode. As all sailors know, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
Our stay in Dutch proved to be memorable on multiple notes. The work list, the skipper said, is now up-to-date. Well, it’s up-to-date to Juneau, he observed, which seems long ago and far away. But progress is progress, at whatever pace.
At Dutch, the day-to-day rhythm of the small island village pulses around the fishing and crab industry. And in the peaks overhead, the remnants of many a World War II embankment are lodged in the headlands. There’s a lot to discuss on both fronts, and in the next few days, as we journey to Nome, we’ll address both the present-day realities of fishing in the Aleutians, and the historical significance of these distant, somewhat forgotten isles. But today, we’ll focus on some lasting impressions of Dutch.
Dutch Harbor is a company town, and that company is Unisea. Of the 4,000 residents at any given time, the grand majority are Unisea employees, many of whom land here from distant places like Mexico, the Philippines and Southeast Asia. They earn a minimum wage, plus room and board, and in return work countless shifts at the packing plant and related facilities. After a couple of years, having amassed a nice pile of dough-there’s not much to spend it on here-most move on and a new round of workers arrive. Rush Hour in Dutch basically consists of a round of packers shuffling back to their dormitories through the muddy streets, all wearing the ubiquitous knee-high Extra Tuff rubber boots you see everywhere in Alaska (a.k.a. “the Ketchikan slippers”).
You do meet a fair number of folks from the Lower 48, most of whom love the Aleutians, are carving out intensely interesting lives here, and are ensconced for the long haul. One such individual was our port host for the stop, marine biologist Reid Brewer, a transplanted Californian, environmentalist and educator who serves as a marine advisory agent for the Alaska Sea Grant program. Reid’s office and laboratory was abuzz with activity. A certified dive master, he also teaches diving and is in the water-working, instructing or conducting archeological surveys-several times a week. He even dove on Ocean Watch to inspect the hull, take a video of her bottom and replace the zincs.
Frankly, however, Reid’s a much heartier soul than I am. I walked around Dutch in a haze for several days, and only felt whole again once Ocean Watch was underway.
Internet connections were a nightmare in Dutch. Cell phones are useless, unless you book a completely new plan with the local provider. If anyone from AT&T, Verizon or the rest is reading this, you need to send someone to Dutch. Like, immediately. Your bloody network has been hacked and hijacked. Hello? Hello???
A wander through the aisles of the grocery store, particularly the produce section, is a date with sticker shock. Two red peppers cost $8. Small watermelons are $7.99, a single lime a buck-eighty. You want cantaloupes? Another $8 will get you a pair. As we wandered in to the store, scientist Michael Reynolds told us to get him some grapefruit. Yeah, right, professor. The citrus was nowhere in sight.
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| Eagles are everywhere, as in, EVERYWHERE. |
Eagles, however, are everywhere, as in, EVERYWHERE. We awoke one morning with one plunked on our masthead, amidst our impossible array of instruments and antennas. What he found alluring, or even comforting, remains a mystery.
And when photographer David Thoreson stopped at the marine supply store, he innocently inquired about the cartridge-like bowl of cylinders next to the Chapstick.
“Oh, those are seal bombs,” said the clerk. “About a quarter stick of dynamite apiece. They’re supposed to be for chasing the seals out of the nets. But mostly the boys just throw them at each other.”
That brings us back to the Harbor View. There are plenty of lonely fishermen about, but there sure are aren’t many available single women, so the barmaids there get more than their fair share of attention. They were actually incredibly nice ladies, even the rather compact blonde with the arms like an NFL cornerback and the tattoos to match them.
And that brings us back to those knives. Luckily, when I first visited the place I’d left my sailing knife back on the boat. But I did have a nail clipper in my pocket, and I’ve been through enough airport security lines to know what a menace to society they pose. The bouncer eyed me warily but I kept my resolve, shouldered my way in, and successfully smuggled the piece inside. To paraphrase the lasting words of those modern-day poets, the Beastie Boys, sometimes a man has to fight…for the right…to manicure.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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