gas bath

gas bath

How I got there is another story, but not so many days after high school graduation I'm having a silent dinner in the galley of a small WWII vintage ship. Alaska, land of my boyhood dreams. Forested flanks of show capped mountains rising from clear green waters teeming with salmon.  Big Creek in Bristol Bay, not so much like the boyhood dreams. Bush plane landed on the beach and a rough looking gang came around the corner in a six wheel drive rig. WWII surplus hand painted red lead oxide. 

Load our gear over on to the Kayak, settle into a prefab wood bunk house lashed to the top deck with cables that looked a little light to my eye. Laying flat on the mud with anchors strung out in four directions she wasn't about to go anywhere and I'd been hoping for a life on the open sea. Wipe that grin off my face pretty quick.

Boss at the head of the table along with four or five of the regular crew, Tom the cook keeping watch and he didn't allow conversation at the table.  Foot of the table us green kids. Jack looks up, asks if any of us had steered a small boat before. The other three guys looked at each other with blank faces, I spoke up. Surely an hour or two at Suzi's helm gave me the qualifications.

Move your gear onto the Unalakleet.  Yes! Now I'm living in a real boat instead of a totally not nautical cabin and I won't take the time to describe the Kayak but she had more in common with a covered wagon than a proper ship.

Unalakleet, WWII vintage landing craft, carry a heavy truck or even a tank would fit in the cargo area before Jack and his partners got hold of it surplus after the war. Weld the ramp closed and deck over the cargo area. They scrounged the wheel house from a larger ship and welded it to the deck aft, engine room below. Heavy glass portholes. Laughed within myself remembering looking out through the porthole in Suzi.

Settled in for my first night in the real boat, or a reasonable facsimile of one, engine room hatch slams open and Jack cranks up both Jimmies. Six-seventy-ones. I'm on deck instantly. Long days in that country in June. First time I'd been awake in the dark and it's really dark but the tide has come in way higher than I'd seen. Jack tells me to let go the lines and he heads for the open water. Around an unmarked corner into the open ocean except that at low water that area looked like mudflats as far as the eye could see and as soon as we got on the bar that boat turned every way but over. Suzi didn't roll around like this on the way to Blake Island.

Suddenly Jack gives me the wheel, barks out the campus heading and slams the engine room hatch open. Blinding light from below reflects off the window as if I could see anything anyway. I never tried to steer a boat by compass even on Lake Union, and now in the dark and it's my first time on the ocean and I can't get past the perception that I'm holding her steady and the compass card is spinning.  Went clear around in one direction before holding her steady on course for a few seconds then she starts around in the other direction.  Didn't help that the steering gear on that boat had a quarter turn slack between starboard and port rudder. 

Jack emerges from the engine room, slams the hatch shut with a curse,  catches me about ten degrees off his course and cusses again. I'm thinking lucky he didn't come up five minutes ago when I'm heading straight for a sand bar.  People lose their lives in that country getting on a sand bar and beaten to death by the surf.  

Next day Jimmy came down and sorted out the overheating issue with the engines and at high water we headed out again into a calm sea and I steered all the way up to the Naknek River. Pushing past the settlements and canneries on both sides and around a corner to where the other half of Kayak Packing Co. lay with a classic Puget Sound freighter lashed alongside and a hive of gillnet boats rafted around and I'm starting to get the hang of tieing up but Jack always finds something to cuss about anyway, shouting instructions out through an open porthole while he maneuvers the boat.  

The Bearing and Belana had a more casual atmosphere.  Can't remember if we hung out for a couple days or so, they put me to work with the regular crew. Lots of things to get done before the fish run starts. On the way back downriver to the fuel dock in Naknek Jack taught me how to coil lines clockwise, which he called 'with the sun and it took me a few tries to catch on to his meaning.  

Big tides in the Naknek River and at low water we were sitting on the mud. Long way up a rickety ladder to the fuel dock, I stayed down in the boat.  After Jack and the fuel dock guy exchanged pleasantries then lowered a gas hose. I got a lecture about what a bung is and how to use the bung wrench and set to work. Cargo area filled with fifty-five gallon drums squeezed in like cans in the PBR half rack for Seahawk Sunday.

My job for the morning, fill all the drums with gasoline for the fishers down in Big Creek camp who ran outboard motors.  No automatic shutoff like down at the Arco. I had to keep my ear close enough to the air vent, let go the handle when I hear the escaping air change pitch all of a sudden.  Too soon and the fisher guy who buys that one gets shorted, let go too late and gas sprays up out of the vent.   

Jack and the fuel dock guy watched while I filled the drums under the open hatch, but when I started crawling my belly filling drums under the deck, the two of them drifted off uptown somewhere.  As if Naknek had an uptown, but they were nowhere to be seen when I needed help.

By the time I got into the area where the space between top of drums and the deck head got tight, I had gotten a lot better at cutting the gas flow off at just the right time. Some drums were even full without gas sloshing around the tops.  Breathing a lot of gas fumes by then but a young guy thinks that makes him tough. Once again I have that burned into my memory moment.  I'm listening to the air escape from the vent bung thinking 'I've got this now ... 

Let go the lever at just the right time. Suddenly and for an instant impossible to believe my eyes then blinded. The old looking orange rubber gas hose popped off the shut off valve and started dancing around the tops of the drums like a fire hose that got away only its gasoline spraying everywhere. 

I scream for help but no one is around. Blinded by gas in my eyes, glasses covered, must have been splashed all over my clothes and I'm scrambling up the long ladder to the dock and no one is around and I don't have any idea how to turn off the gas.  Finally stumbled on some gate valves and got the thing turned off. Ran up the long dock toward the beach looking for help. Tiny office building empty and locked.

Took off up a sandy road toward some buildings, stuck my head in the first place, a bar. Do you guys know Jack and the oil dock man?  They went up to the whore house ... laughter and I took off back to the boat. Jack and the oil dock man returned, surveying the disaster. Green kids fault. However, in fumbling around blindly searching for a shut off I zeroed out the meter so they had no way of determining how much gas spilled. Cargo area sealed from the bilges thank goodness. Oil cook range flaming away up in the galley the whole time.

About then a van from the airport in King Salmon rolled in with several people for the Bearing's crew that Jack planned to take upriver before heading out to Big Crick again.  Cousin Jon climbs out of the van and I'm totally glad to see a family face. Then I threw him under the bus. Talked Jack into taking Jon back with him to the Kayak and let me stay on the Bearing.  

After filling his boat half full of gasoline the poor man was more than glad to see the last of me.

** I worked for Jack four seasons and figured out what needed to be done around there and we got along just fine.