Beers come out, soon followed by shenanigans. It first starts with roman candles. Innocent you know? But before you know it we've skipped bottle rockets altogether and escalated to them big f***ers and then onto them 'how is this even legal' f***ers. It's 11'o'clock and not even full dark yet, but here we all are lightin' off these massive explosions in the sky.
And then we find out (by accident of course) that if you throw the fireworks on top of the water they just float there and explode on top!! And then we were entertained by that.
But oh my God the BOOM these things made. First you'd get the initial boom as it was launched from the tube and the rattling metal of the table under the tube. Then, 4 seconds later, there was the shell exploding with bursting color and you could feel it shake the boat. But that wasn't the good part. After that you could follow the sounds of the blast. It went into Mite cove and it'd take 3 seconds before you'd here the echo come back at you and a full 5 seconds after that before you hear the echo come back from the other side of the straight. And then you can follow that echo forever down the straight. Seriously, for 30 plus seconds you hear this booming echo rolling down the straight and you know 10 miles down the way in Pelican they're just like 'them f***ers are shootin' off fireworks again'.
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There are a few moments in your life where you reach a completely blissful state. Each time it always comes around just a lil' differently than the last. Like you've been working all day. Seriously, all day. You were up at 7am and it's now 1am. Your shoulder feels like it's about to fall out of its socket and your wrists are danglin' at the end of your arms. You need some vitamin I for your joints. Part of you wants to shower, but that's too much work. Another part wants to eat, but again that is too much work. Then Amber throws down a beer to each of us and you realize that's actually all you wanted. And we all sit there drinking in the rain. You can finally just lean back on a tote and you look up. But it's not really a look, nor is it a glance. You're not throwing your head back either, it's more like you lift your chin up just enough so that if you stop all effort your head just collapses backwards leaving you staring up. And of course your eyes are closed as you do this and with a huge sigh you can let the tension shed out the rest of your body. It feels like you're solid sitting there on that tote. Gravity has such a strong hold on you that you're now a permanent fixture of the deck. And then you open your eyes and just see dark above. Pure blackness and then the little drops of rain fading in and out of the deck lights. And it's just blissful.
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I suppose people wonder what it is that I actually do. I'll explain it shortly. I work between two different boats and a barge. Deer Harbor II, Amber Anne, and RS40 (the barge). We are tenders. They are all in Mite cove in Southeastern Alaska and the trolling fisherman of the area come to Mite cove to meet up with us. We then take fish from the fisherman, sort them by weight and type of fish, pack them in totes of ice, and then give the fisherman back ice so they can go out and start fishing again.
We also give them groceries, water, and fuel. Then once we are full (we're significantly bigger than they) we take the fish to the processing plant in Sitka. It sounds pretty simple, but I swear it ain't. And I swear it ain't easy either. But there's more to it than just the heavy lifting, hard work, and long hours you put in. There's way more. There's the incredible people you work with. Amber, Max, and Parker were my friends way before I even went on any adventures. And they're still my friends now. Some of the more incredible people I know in my life. I mean, most of you probably know anyways, I brag about Amber as my friend and my boss all the damn time. She's all tatted up but the sweetest soul on the whole planet. She works like a haus and cooks like a five star chef. And then there's just freakin' Alaska and the pure wildness that's what Alaska really is. Honestly the weather is pretty shitty, but when it's good, oh when it's good, it's jaw dropping. Seriously. Like when you take those once a year vacations to some incredible place, it's like that here all the damn time!
Evolution of the day:
And then there's still the little adventures we take in the skiff. To go to the beach or wherever. And it all just feels so earned. It feels like you really deserve to have something this beautiful around you all the time because you work your ass off for it.
You all be happy,
Beacon
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