Crab season ends; mood is muted

ABOARD THE F/V EXITO, BRISTOL BAY, BERING SEA -- Both the weather and the mood improved today, at least for a while. Right now -- 5:30 p.m. Alaska time -- the crew is asleep, done with the final string of pots. They set and hauled pots 440 times this season, short of what the F/V Exito captains would have liked, but the weather slowed everything down.

With the last string collected, the Exito has turned southwest and is making about 9 knots motoring back to Dutch Harbor with a load of red king crab.

The good feelings about the end of the season -- even though the haul was much lighter than everyone wanted -- were muted when news came over the radio about the injury of a deckhand on the F/V Shaman, a boat based in Seattle. The news came in while I was out on deck. Captain Steve Toomey called me back into the wheelhouse to tell me the news so I could work on a story.

We learned that a deckhand fell from the Shaman. He was recovered unconscious when two fellow crewmen donned survival suits and jumped into the water to save him.

The deckhand wasn’t breathing as crew members brought him back on board. He was “knocked from the stacks” of crab pots and fell into the water. It wasn’t yet clear how that happened. He was airlifted by helicopter to Cold Bay, Alaska, about 50 miles away.

Steve told the crew about the accident after they were done working. It takes tremendous concentration to pull, empty and stack those final pots especially when a person is badly sleep-deprived. Steve said he didn't want them thinking about that when they were stacking pots on deck.

I was out on deck because the crew insisted that I learn how to throw the hook. This is the deceptively tricky procedure of snaring the pot line as the boat slides past the buoys. Once snared, you haul the line back in fast and thread it into the block. It winches the pot to the deck.

My new career with the hook was short-lived. I missed three times at a distance of about 8 feet. I finally got it on the fourth try, but that hardly plugged everyone's laughter. (Note to Alaska Department of Fish and Game: One way to preserve a massive healthy crab population is to mandate that people like me try to catch the damn things.)

Before they allowed me a redemptive throw, Steve called me in to tell me the news from the Shaman.