A young former lawyer from Israel came around the Totem this week, looking for some work, or a bunk on a ship to Kodiak, or both. He says he’s done with the law game, he’s got a new plan. His father always wanted to be a fisherman, live the life, but a marriage and two kids put the kibosh on that grand design. Now the kid’s doing the proxy thing. He jumped on a jet from Tel Aviv to Stockholm to Dallas to Seattle to Anchorage. Now he’s in Homer, still hunting for a site, determined to discover his slimy, smelly glory. He’s got no money and no prospects and he’s loving every minute. It’s fun to know other people’s stories, and find the occasional reminder of souls out there taking a bigger flyer than you are.

The Totem approaches readiness every day, sort of. You find one thing that’s broken or busted, and chasing it becomes like the layers of the onion. The more we fix, the more we find wrong. We’re due in Bristol Bay for fishing on the 20^th - we got the tools, we got the talent, and if the onion isn’t too big, we even got the time. Today I was live with no net, fussing with 220 volts while hanging by my knees thirty feet over the deck. At least it wasn’t raining. Actually, the Alaska summer weather that I enjoy finally crept in today - clear, sunny, mid-60s, just a puff of wind - perfect. I tried to check MSN Weather for the latest conditions over in Bristol Bay, and the report came back “Not Available”. Hmmm…

The rest of the crew flew in from Kodiak yesterday, Captain Allen and another deckhand, Loren. We got a little work done, then went into town for a little bonding session at Pudgy’s Roadside. I put on my extra-thick skin when I go out to bars because I don’t drink and it takes a bit for that absurd behavior to settle with some people. Anyway, some of the sweetest decor I've ever seen hung around the place, featuring a pine carving of a full-size naked chick in hip boots holding a salmon.  And I forgot my camera.  Anyway, a fun, funky-hip, local band jammed all night to a packed house. Even the horseshoe pits out back saw good action. A lot of patrons rocked the XtraTuff fishing boots and a blanket or two. I felt overdressed by virtue of my clothes being clean. Interesting characters bounced all around the joint. The whole attitude of the place felt comfortable and familiar. Then I realized, I was in Key West, just with mittens.