The struggle of finally calling it quits on academia, the decision to return home and the need for the money for it. A trip across the US to Seattle and the frustration of trying to land a deckhands job on a boat there. The day my luck changed when finally I landed a berth on an Alaskan purse-seiner.
OHIO-SEATTLE: I must have had a touch of the crazy going on in my head. I was done-finished with my academics in Ohio and figured I needed money to go back home. Rumor had it that there was good money to be earned as a deckhand on Alaskan fishing boats. So I got on to a Greyhound bus, travelled through some endless, pristine countryside reaching Seattle some three days later. One saving grace was that smoking was permitted in those days on long distance buses.
SEATTLE: On the shores of Puget Sound, with evergreen forests all around and Mount Rainier in the distance, Seattle was beautiful country and filled my soul. I didn't get to see much of the city during this first trip since I had to find work and couldn't afford to waste any time doing it. I did spend some time in old books shops and such and remember vaguely thinking I should find Robert Fulghum, who supposedly lived there.
THE DOCKS: I headed for the Fisherman's Terminal, where commercial fishing boats berthed off-season. I spent the next 23 increasingly trying days tramping around the docks, stopping at every boat and asking my now tired question - Hey! Do you need a deckhand? The answers were usually a shrugged and offhanded, Nope!. I began to feel that a foreign looking chap like me without any prior experience, didn't have much of a chance.
A CHANCE: Absolutely down in the dumps, on my last day in Seattle and just when I decided to head for Bellingham in the hope of a berth from there, I took a chance at an outlying pier with a few older boats and chanced across Lenny lazing around on a deck-chair. Lenny was in a genial and talkative mood and I popped my usual question. Without batting an eyelid, he asks me if I had any "Grass" on me. I say no. He says get some and maybe there's a job.
THE WAIT: Long story short, I hightailed it back to town, begged-borrowed some (third-rate stuff in a zip-lock bag) from a black guy i had befriended, picked up my backpack and came back. Lenny, surprised that I was back, accepted the stash but began to back-peddle on the job offer. He tried dissuading me by saying that the only available job was for a deckhand cum cook, suggesting that I might not be willing or able to cook (true!) and to maybe come back later and meet the Skipper. I wasn't going anywhere. I heaved my pack over onto the boat and told him that I would wait.
THE GALLEY: Waiting and wandering around, I noticed that the galley (kitchen-dining) was a mess and really filthy with dirty furniture, greasy cooking range, empty beer cans, overflowing ash trays and unwashed plates in the sink. Bored and looking for something to do, I asked Lenny if I could clean up in there a bit. He shrugs. A couple of hours later the galley was spotless, even shining (my first introduction to WD40) and everything in place. For a bit, I didn't think of my problems. And I kept waiting.
THE SKIPPER: Dan Krajewski, of Norwegian and native American heritage finally comes by. Lenny, pointing at me, has a word with him. A formidable looking man, Dan looks at me, doesn't say a word and steps on to the boat. The afternoon spent diligently cleaning the galley had turned the tide; I got the job and the Katharine-S became my home for the months ahead. The one thing Skipper did was to ask me to turn all the coffee cups I had hung up top, the other way around for good luck.
