It’s been three years since I’ve harvested a deer. I only had one real chance, but couldn’t get a shot. I blame some of the paucity of deer on fewer bucks where I hunt, but mostly on a hip that was bad and getting worse. I couldn’t get very far from the beach.

My hip was first diagnosed with bursitis, and I did various physical therapy for it. The first Physical Therapist I had told me losing weight would help alot, but I didn’t take that to heart.

Fast forward to fall 2024, and I decided to see Dr. Dan, my chiropractor, to see if he could provide any relief. He sent me straight away for an xray, so he wouldn’t make anything that’s bad, worse. A doctor at the hospital gave the verdict: arthritic deterioration of my left hip and lower back.

Well, now it was time to look for a hip replacement. I started asking around. First, I learned of the advancement in hip replacement. They used to go in from the back of the body (posterior). Now, some doctors are trained to do it from the front (anterior). Anterior replacements reportedly have a lot shorter recovery time. So let’s find a doc that does that.

My niece’s best friend growing up is now a Physical Therapist, and  I soon realized PTs are great references, because they see the handiwork of all the doctors. She gave me a name. Three other people who did not know each other, or her, gave me the same name. I went to see our general practitioner (and family friend) in December for a referral. Earliest I could get in to see the orthopedic doctor – in Seattle at Virginia Mason where he’s located – was March.

Awhile later, the PT gave me another name. A doctor she’d heard good things about that did anterior replacements was coming down to Juneau from Anchorage monthly to serve Southeast Alaska. He’d worked down here previously in some capacity, as he did Jeff’s knee replacement. The doc had his resume’  online. He grew up in Anchorage, had done some fellowships, etc. He’d worked in Cambodia for an 8 week stint, which I liked both for the humanitarian aspect, and for working somewhere where hygiene may take extra attention to prevent infection (one of my biggest worries). And, he could do the surgery here, which was really something I wanted. I called the next day, and had an appointment for the end of January.

was his first patient that day. They said to show up 15 minutes early for my 8 am appointment, as I needed to do paperwork. I arrived at 740 am. The door was locked and the lights in the front of the building were dark. About 10 minutes later, I saw a kid walk in the door. I figured he might be a high schooler whose parent worked there and came there before he went on to school at 9 am.  When I went to the door, he saw me and opened the door. He asked if I was a patient, or if I worked there. Patient, I said. “Hi, I’m your doctor!”. Too funny. He then scampered around his secretary’s desk area for my needed paperwork. I liked him already. He didn’t feel too important to find the paperwork for me. When the staff arrived about 8 am, the nurse took my paperwork, then took my temperature and took me to a scale for my weight. Dang. That scale seemed heavy. I’d never weighed THAT much. I did have my winter coat and cutoff Xtra Tuff boots on, I guess.

The doctor then came in to talk to me about my condition and my options. I was a candidate for replacement: did I want it?  Yes, I said. You know it’s a remote possibility that a lot of bad stuff, including death, can occur with a replacement, he advised me. You still want it?  Yup, I said. He then went over the procedure with his handy model, the process of a preoperative appointment in mid March, and the surgery at the end of March. He was patient with my questions and took all the time we needed. Not in a rush to get on to the next patient. I liked that. Just like our GP. His last comment was a little ominous. First, he asked how tall I was. Six two, I said. He looked at me a little dubiously. Then I thought: I haven’t had my height measured since high school. And, I’ve heard people can shrink when they get old. And I thought, you ARE getting old. Then he said your BMI needs to be below 40 or I won’t do the surgery, and that’s a hard and fast rule with me. Essentially: get some lard off that ass. (When I got measured at my GP’s office a few weeks later, I found I was now just five feet eleven and three quarters. Not even six feet tall anymore!)

Over the next month and a half, I don’t remember being this focused on something in a long while. I needed to lose weight. And I knew how to do it. Exercise and diet. Duh.

The day I left the doctor’s office, I cut out sugar and high carb favorites like bagels, potatoes, and apple fritters. My diet was now salad for dinner, made from our subscription of greens from Juneau Greens, tomatoes and cucumbers from Costco, and venison or fish from the freezer on top. Life got easier for Sara, too. She’d been using one of the weight loss drugs for going on a year, maybe, and had lost 30 lbs. It was easy for her to lose weight when I was in Craig last spring to fall, but got harder when I got home and was back buying foods I liked. Now, we were both on the same page.

I had been cross country skiing regularly, but not going near as far as I used to  on a failing hip. Now I was on a mission. Screw the bad hip. I started skiing with a purpose, a little further every day or two. I wanted more of a workout than just skiing to sweat more. What to do with a bad hip. Firewood, I thought. I started dropping dead trees in the woods behind the house, bucking them up, and splitting them. I just split and split. I’d worry about what to do with it all later.

The weight started melting off. Then the snow melted off, too. So I turned to swimming. I’ve never swam for exercise, just for enjoyment. The recent trip to Kauai got me into the water snorkeling, and that was a sort of head start. I started off being able to swim 8 pool lengths. And I really liked it. I could go at my own pace, and slow down if needed. I increased the number of lengths I swam as the days went on, and experimented with different swimming strokes till I found a balance I liked between crawl, breast stroke and side stroke – each stroke using a different leg kick to keep my hip moving in all directions. In a week or so, I was up to 20 pool lengths.

I became obsessed with my weight status, measuring it each morning, and sometimes after skiing or  swimming or splitting wood to measure each activity’s effect.

When I returned to the doctor’s office for my preoperative meeting, I knew I’d be weighed again. And I was ready for it. I got on the scale with stocking feet, a tee shirt and light pants on this time. I was down 30 lbs. And it wasn’t even hard. I felt great. I realized when someone asked about my sciatica issue that it had vanished without me even noticing it – from the swimming.

When I quit swimming a couple days before the surgery, my legs were tight the next few mornings from missing the exercise. I was going to miss swimming for the next month or so, until my incision healed. I quit wood splitting at about the same time so as not to chance a last minute injury which could postpone the surgery, and covered my piles of wood with some metal roofing to keep it from rotting in place (it can do that here). I would miss the wood splitting, too, til I healed up.

On operation day, Bob picked me up about 20 minutes before my appointment to get to the hospital at the noon appointment time. The hospital called as I was getting in the truck. There was an emergency that they needed the surgery room for. Come in an hour later, they said. Luckily, Bob had some errands to do, so we did those, and I still got to the hospital plenty early. I got checked in, and the nurse got me into my gurney and a hospital gown. She said it was going to be awhile, so relax.

Just before 3 pm, the nurse got the IV in. The anesthesiologist came in and said I could get a general or a spinal anesthesia. Then the doctor came in, said the same thing, and that he preferred a spinal. I knew I would rather have a general, but now was conflicted. When the anesthesiologist returned and said if I wanted a local, then that was fine, I was still conflicted. When he then said of the two surgeries the doctor had already done today, one was a general and one as a spinal, I went with the general.

Awhile later, down the hall we went, and into the surgery. I sort of knew that this was more an auto shop repair, and not a delicate procedure, and I tried not too look at all the stainless steel tools in the room. The anesthesiologist added something to my IV, and my hand got uncomfortable – a stinging burn, I think. When he said he was going to put me out, the stinging burn intensified………………….and then I woke up.

I woke up about 710 pm. I seemed pretty coherent. I had a new hip. I had a little pain in my leg. By 730 pm, the pain was mostly gone. I figured it was pain medicine. My nurses got to nursing me. One nurse I figured out was the best friend of one our best friend’s son’s wife, and her husband was a best friend of another best friend’s son who had been hunting at our cabin. The other nurse somehow knew of a player for the St. Louis Cardinals from her hometown area of Hawaii who, turns out, is playing on the same team as the player the son in law of Chris and Sheila from Mississippi coached in high school. I love our little berg.

The nurses kept me in drinks and put things in my IV from time to time. The Hawaiian asked me if I’d peed. No, I said. I tried for about a half hour into a jug in bed. No dice. She said let’s try this standing up. So I stood between both of the nurses at my bedside (the nurses were there so I wouldn’t fall) with the jug held under my hospital gown for about 5 minutes, and I said I just am not used to peeing with a pretty woman on either side of me. The Hawaiian said let’s try a catheter. I said let’s try me just sitting on the toilet. They helped me for my first walk into the adjoining bathroom, and as I tried to figure out how to sit down with the new leg, the Hawaiian said just kick that leg out, and sure enough, down I went. The girls cleared out of the bathroom, and I sat there for a good twenty minutes, with the nurses checking on me now and then. Finally, the dam broke, and I peed.  The girls came back and got me into bed. The Hawaiian checked the toilet to be sure I went, then said I bet I was glad she didn’t have to use the catheter that she now wheeled out of the room. I assured her I was.  I stayed awake watching television till about 4 am, and finally drifted off to sleep, with virtually no pain in my leg. Maybe that would come on Day 1 post-op.

I was awaken a little after 8 am by the morning crew. I recognized one of my new nurses, but it took me awhile to place her. Then I had it: she was in a photo of my salmon trolling mentor Joe, in the hold of his boat, offloading a nice catch of king salmon. Another nurse helping out came by for something, and we got talking, and she was the sister of a commercial fisherman I knew. Her dad fished, too. When I said I was watching the college basketball tournament, that lit her up even more, as she was interested in who was winning so she could see how her bracket was doing. I thought again how lucky I was to be able to have this surgery in Juneau.

About 9 am, a guy came buy and gave me a device. I was to suck on the tube to move the gizmo up to the arrow 10 times an hour to keep my lungs clear and discourage pneumonia.

About 10 am, the physical therapist came in. We took a walk around the ward, then she took me to a room with prop steps. I went up and down the steps. She said I was approved for discharge.

I hoped to be discharged by noon, but noon stretched to 2 pm. I called the doctor’s office. He had to discharge me, they said, and he was busy with office visits. No worries, I thought. As long as I didn’t have to stay another night. 4 pm and my phone was about to die. That was not good. I needed the phone to relay my status to Bob, my ride. The basketball bracket nurse took it to the nurses’ desk to get me a charge. As the clock wound past 5, the fish crew nurse said you’re ready to get discharged, and asked me a pile of questions on how I was feeling, etc. I texted Bob that I would be ready to go. Then the doctor came by. He looked like he’d had a full day, with a demeanor like he’d had an adrenaline-filled few days in his wood shop, doing something he was good at. He said my surgery was textbook, and showed me a photo of the xray of my new hip. Still little pain, I said. You’re good to go, he said.

The fish crew nurse said she’d give me a wheelchair ride to the front door. When we arrived, it was Kurt, not Bob, picking me up. I bet Bob had a gig tonight, I thought. Yup, Kurt said. I’m your ride. I easily negotiated getting into his small truck.  Still little pain in the leg.

When we got home, I used the walker to hobble into the house. Sara arrived soon after. I negotiated the way to my bedroom, and got in to bed.

The next day- Day 2 post surgery- and still little pain in the leg. I was issued a pile of opiate drugs that I was only to use as necessary, along with over the counter aspirin and pain relievers that I was to use as my primary pain and swelling control. I graduated from the walker to the cane, as the walker was harder to use around the house, and the cane provided ample control.

The doctor had issued me a 20 page document outlining the process for hip (and knee) replacement. Now I was in the post operation section. The document said to take it easy the first week and don’t overdo it. Walk as I can in 3 to 5 minute trips. I walked around the inside of the house several times. Then I walked down to the mailbox to check the mail. Oooh. It’s a little effort to walk back up the little incline to the back door. You did just get a new hip. It will be a while.

When I awoke on day 3, I could feel more healing overnight. I was up by 6 am. Took my first walk to Katie’s mailbox next door to add just a little distance. I’d made three trips by 10 am. By noon, I’d ditched the cane. I could walk without it. Andrew came by with West African peppe soup. Then Emmanuel a few hours later. Then Nevette and Peter. In between, I saw Cornell University, where Roxanne’s son Sullivan plays, lose a heartbreaker in overtime to Boston U, who moved on to the Frozen Four. We told Nevette and Peter we’d probably be able for dinner with Bob and Laura as my recovery was miraculous thus far. I took my non-prescription pain medications because that was advised (and included for reducing inflammation, and that’s a good thing), along with regularly icing the incision area. Had I not been advised to do so, I would not have taken the meds, because I wasn’t in much pain.

Seriously, what a time we are living in. At least those of us in the Developed world. There will always be a tinge of guilt getting something like this done, knowing villagers in West Africa still don’t have universal clean drinking water. Not that my not having the surgery could fix this, but the thought is there, nonetheless.  Another permanent side effect of Peace Corps.

My hip is at the end of its useful life. I can see why people used to die at my age as a matter of course. My hip hurts. I don’t want to move. I think when you stop moving, that’s how the dying starts. I’m living in a golden age of sorts. I’ve got insurance and access to miraculous prosthesis replacement. A new hip is scheduled for March, as long as I lose some of the weight I’ve gained with the bum hip. I have to admit, I  feel guilty about such privileges often. To my fellow Americans who don’t have insurance or means for the surgery. And to my friends in other countries, where clean water would be a big improvement to their lives, and the health care we enjoy only something they can dream of for their great grandkids.

I know, surgery or not, I’ve got to keep moving. Motion is the lotion. Move it or lose it. I get it. So I started swimming when we got back from Hawaii (another privilege!). Then the snow came. I tried cross country skiing – my favorite sport- but didn’t make it a mile the first day. Crap, was the hip sore afterward. And me out of shape. The hip feels like that tendon linking the ball to the hip socket that you have to cut to get the hind quarter of a deer to let loose is not there anymore. The hip ball sort of flops around in the socket. Sometimes it’s not so much that it’s painful as it just doesn’t work very well. And other times, it’s like that, and hurts too.

But with sunny days and daytime temperatures in the 20’s or low 30’s, I keep going. I’ve gradually increased skiing to over a mile, which still isn’t very far, but better than nothing. The doctor and Teri told me to get the hip muscles in as good a shape as I can before surgery so recovery will be easier. I’m also filling up the wood locker at home. That involves more movement in one place splitting and stacking, so I get a good workout but don’t work the hip so hard. And it’s my other favorite exercise alongside cross country skiing.

When I got to the lake today, who did I see coming off the lake but my good friend Bob and his wife Sylvia. Shit, did Bob look good. He’s had some kind of bad, bad cancer he’s been fighting. And winning. Last time I saw him he was a little wobbly on one of his legs from cancer treatment, and going to physical therapy when we met, to gain some strength back. Today, he was beaming on his first day skiing, and said they’d be back tomorrow!  Seeing him made my whole day. My whole month. Bob has always been a spiritual guy since I’ve known him, and I could see he’s been taking everything one day at a time and that his outlook is what may be giving him the strength with his illness.

We said our goodbyes. I told them to let me know if they need anything. I get them fish and game as I can, since Bob can’t get out for it. What he and his wife can do, however, is garden, and he keeps us in zucchini, which we surely enjoy as a special treat as he does the seafood and venison.

I stepped into my skis and started off across the lake towards the glacier in the distance. I was soon out of the shade and into the sunshine. This is why I live here, I thought.  As I skied, I also thought of another friend battling bad, bad cancer. Bob’s probably 15 years or so older than me. But this friend is my age. Actually, a tad younger than me.  Both of them were in good physical shape when they got diagnosed. Better shape than me, for sure.  This friend is not the same kind of spiritual as Bob is, but is in his own way. His one day at a time, thankful for his present being, is similar to Bob. He looked pretty good when I dropped him off some shrimp from our trip last week. Both of them are winning at the present moment.

All the thinking and the sunshine made the skiing alot easier today. I wasn’t thinking about my hip or anything else till I was on the homestretch back to start point at the shoreline. Then I had to take a few breathers. Crap, I’m out of shape. But thankful for living in this place and having two good people I’m lucky to call friends still keeping on keeping on.

Kurt and I watched the weather to make an 8 hour run in the Jeanne Kay to do some winter boat camping. We were after shrimp and crab, and would do a little king salmon trolling on the way home. Nick and Amanda showed me how to work a shrimp trawl last summer, and it’s now one of my favorite ways to fish.

We watched the weather, especially since there’s little help close by that far from town this time of year. The barge lines and a few trappers are about the only winter boaters. The forecast called for 15 knots day one, then 10 knots days 2 and 3 of our planned trip. There were places to hide if the weather came up. Temperatures were around freezing and perfect for keeping seafood.

We left town about 7 am with a crescent moonlight. I wanted to get down to our destination before dark so we could set our pot gear and get anchored before dark.

We turned into the destination bay late in the day. I was surprised to see another boat when we turned the corner. A bigger aluminum boat with sodium lights glaring from the bow roof was anchored in a cove. I saw a man walking the beach with purpose. I was puzzled why he was anchored on the side of the channel facing the wind, then understood from experience: he was trapping. I saw him return up the beach with a cart of something – probably bait. Wow. This is some pretty remote trapping, I thought. I guessed he was after marten, wolverine and wolf. He anchored near us that night, and we saw him going from cove to cove checking his traps the next day. I wish I could have talked to him about how he was doing in this trapper’s dreamland.

We set the shrimp pots first. It was my first time setting shrimp pots. Nick gave me some general advice on where to set. Then Kurt picked a point, and we set there, using some floating line I borrowed from Chris. I only have 3 shrimp pots, and we longlined them. I grabbed a bucket of shrimp bait left at the harbor free pile last year, and I finally got to use it. I set the string out while Kurt ran the boat.

Next we set some dungeness and king crab pots up the bay. We anchored right at dark, and settled in for the night. Kurt is always the meals guy on our trips. He brought what has become a standard dinner of bison burgers, with a topping of balsamic vinegar and onion condiment he got from Coleen’s shop. Great combo.

We were up and moving at daylight on day 2. We checked all the pots first, so if we weren’t doing anything in their locations, we could move them. We started with the shrimp pots. I ran the little electric hauler Dougie gave me when he moved fulltime to Bethel, where he’d never use it. It sits on a standard Scottie downrigger mount, and although it looks kind of flimsy, it actually works fine for our scale of fishing. The puller is not going to pull a commercial king crab pot, and won’t like pulling a commercial dungeness crab pot, but it pulls our lighter “sport” gear just fine.

Up and up comes the line we borrowed from Chris. After a minute or three, we get the first 50 fathoms up, and here comes the first anchor. I take it off, and soon the first pot shows coming up from the depths. Astonishingly, we have some spot prawns in it!  The biggest I’ve ever seen. About 8 to 9 inches long!

They might not look all that big in the photo, but here’s one of them alongside the crab measuring device. The gap above the prawn is the 7 inch king crab ruler.

The next 2 pots were about the same. Not a lot in numbers, but holy cow, big shrimps!

Next we checked the crab pots. We caught quite a few tanner and king crab, but only one king crab was a keeper (a male minimum 7 inches across the body shell), and a tanner or two (male minimum 5.5 inches across the body shell). Again, my Pulitzer prize photography makes the crab look small as it’s in the bottom of a line barrel, but that’s them.

We reset pots to try for more legal sized crab, then got the shrimp trawl out and got trawling. Kurt wasn’t all that enthused about trawling – he was more about the crabbing – but he’s always game and a good skipper or deckhand whenever you need him. I got the net out of the action packer tote. The first time I tried shrimp trawling my own net with Nick and Amanda (with Charlie and Amy aboard), we snagged the net on the bottom and lost it. Amanda had a friend (who we later figured out was a mutual friend as often happens in a small city) who had a trawl he wanted to sell, and which I bought. The trawl net was from Memphis Net and Twine (where everyone I know gets their trawl nets), and their smallest net configuration, I think. The “doors” that keep the net open were much smaller than the doors on the net that I lost. And that made the new net much easier for a beginner to work, and I like it better than the net I lost.

I got reacquainted with the trawl net and its configuration. The doors on either side of the trawl net have a line that leads back to a junction – a double ended swivel eye hook- where both caribeners at the end of the door lines are attached. A ~ 10 lb cannon ball is attached at this junction as well. The tow line is tied to the other end of the double ended swivel eye hook.

When I got ready to set the net, Kurt told me to get my life jacket on. Capital idea!  Then I explained to Kurt what we’d be doing, got him lined up at the helm, then started barking out instructions for forward or neutral as I set out the net from the swim step. In the absolute wilderness, I should mention. With mountains all around. That’s why they’ll bury me here.

I payed out the two door lines, then the tow line. I asked Nick how much tow line you pay out in relation to the depth you’re fishing, and the answer was 3 or 4 to 1 – leaning towards 4 to 1. So I when I started paying out line, I regularly asked Kurt what our depth was. When I payed out enough tow line for the depth we were fishing,, I snubbed the tow line to the cleat. I asked him what our speed was. 1.7 knots, he said. That seemed faster than I remember with Joe, so I payed out a bunch more tow line. Speed, I asked?  Still 1.7 knots. Well, I thought, we’ll just keep going at this length of tow line at this depth, and see how it goes.

A half hour later, I had Kurt turn the boat around so it was heading towards the net, and that made hauling back the tow line alot easier on me and the hauler. When we got to the net, Kurt put the engine in neutral, and came to the back deck to see what we’d caught. I hauled up the net to the swim step. When I had about 2/3 of the net on the step, I saw we’d caught some sticks and some crab. Thinking that was it, I hauled the rest of the net over the step. OOOOHH!  A cod end full of shrimp!  We are shrimpers, I said!

I learned from my last trip with Joe to have a bucket ready to dump the catch into, and then reset the net and continue fishing while you sort the catch. I cut a 30 gallon pepper barrel I got somewhere in half, and drilled drain holes in the bottom and sides of it. We tossed the crab from the top of the net overboard, then lifted the cod end of the trawl net into the barrel, untied the cod end line, and dumped the catch into the barrel. Then Kurt lined up the boat to trawl new water on the opposite side of the channel, and I reset the net.

I sorted through the catch, which, while mostly shrimp, also contained small fish, small crab, and sea urchins. I sorted through the catch and returned everything that wasn’t shrimp. We caught mostly pink shrimp, with a few of the larger coon stripe shrimp. I went inside and got a cup of coffee to warm up, and soon it was time for the second haul.

After towing for about 20 minutes, we snagged on something, which stopped the boat. It’s not like you can notice you’ve stopped. You just see your speed go to 0.0 knots. Kurt turned the boat back to the net while I hauled the tow line in. When we got close to the end of the tow line, the line was tight, then it gave slack. I knew we’d freed the net.

We weren’t expecting as much on this haul since we’d had to haul in early. When we got the net up, we saw we’d done just fine. With lots more coon stripe and some spot prawns than the first tow. We got the catch into the barrel and reset the net, then I sorted the catch.

After sorting the catch, I headed inside the wheelhouse for more coffee. It was getting dark – 330 pm ish,  We wanted to check the crab pots, and move them if they were in non-productive ground. Kurt turned back to the net, and I started hauling the tow line. Nick told me that there was a “habitat change” in this location. Now I knew what he meant. The top of the net was full of rocks and some kind of sponge or coral. The cod end held a nice catch of pink, coon stripe and spot shrimp. It took us awhile to get out the rocks and other debris. Then we dumped the cod end into the barrel. Kurt headed the boat to the crab pots across the bay in the waning daylight.

We checked the pots, and no keeper king crab or tanner crab. We moved to new locations. Then we anchored in 20 feet of water, sat down in the galley, and relaxed. That was a full day. Sunrise to after sunset. A good 8 hours of fishing. Kurt served up another dinner of bison burgers, and nobody complained. Man, that’s good stuff. I figured out how to use my new In Reach. I texted Sara and others we were all anchored, and the results of our day. What an age we’re living in.

We were up at dawn on day 3. I checked the coolant and the oil, started the Yanmar,  and pulled the anchor with the. We pulled and stacked all the crab pots, catching a tanner crab. We pulled the shrimp pots, and got about half as many as the day before. The prawns were just as huge as day 2. Then we steamed for home.

Kurt was at the helm while I got to figuring out what to do with all the pink shrimp. We decided to cook them whole. I put water on to boil. When the water was steaming, I dumped in a load of pinks. Within a minute or two, shrimp started to float to the top. I dumped the pot of steaming shrimp into a colander suspended in a large bowl. I then put moved the colander full of shrimp to the sink, and returned the water to the pot on stove. I took the steaming shrimp to the back deck, put the shrimp in a bowl, and ran sea water into the bowl to cool the shrimp and halt it cooking.

I repeated this procedure the rest of the way home. I finished cooking the pink shrimp about an hour from the harbor. In the meanwhile, we also trolled for king salmon. We didn’t see a strike, but when Kurt pulled up the rods to quit fishing, we had a shaker on one of the lines.

As nightfall came, Kurt asked if I had bow lights so he could better watch for logs while cruising to Auke Bay. I did, I said. I put both bow lights on. I rarely use the lights, so this was a good opportunity to adjust them. With Kurt at the helm, I got out to the bow and adjusted the lights so they were pointed in the optimum direction.

We arrived in Auke Bay, tied up, and loaded the catch in my folding cart to take to the car. We’d move gear off the boat tomorrow. Kurt lost his truck and house keys somewhere, but he had a spare house key he could use at his residence, so I dropped him off and we’d look for the keys tomorrow. I made him take half the prawns and coon stripes and the king crab, as he tried to refuse it all. Such is the customary dance amongst Alaska best friends.

I picked Kurt up the following morning. We had had such a good trip I was confident we’d find his keys. When we got to the boat, Kurt looked aft while I looked forward. First I found his boot traction grippers. Then there they were. Right behind the fire extinguisher in the forecastle. His keys!  We were on a roll.

We hauled back barrels of line to the truck, and I got home in time to start processing the shrimp while watching the NFL semifinals.

I processed the raw coon stripe and spot prawns, but what to do with the cooked whole pink shrimp. I first removed the heads, then peeled out the meat from the tails. That worked on the larger pinks, but the smaller tails it was really hard to mush out the meats. Wow, was it a slog. I started to peel only the tails of the larger pink shrimp, and sort the tails of small shrimp to another pile to figure out what to do with them later.

All the while, I watched my Bills lose to the Chiefs. The Bills played their hearts out. They should have lost last week to the Ravens, but won. They should have won this week to the Chiefs, but lost. I remember being in my mud brick-walled, thatch-roofed house in Sierra Leone in 1988 (?), listening on Armed Forces Radio by shortwave radio, at 330 or so in the morning, to the Bills lose their first Super Bowl to the Giants on the wide-right field goal try. Then three more losing Super Bowl appearances in a row. Followed by decades of suckage. It’s good to have them back to respectability. I sure miss Paul. I’d have been calling him after the game, lamenting how close my team came to going to the show.

In the meantime, I thought about how I’d seen shrimp used in Ecuador, where they pulled out the meats, then used a blender to grind up the shells for a broth to make ceviche. I asked Sara about processing the shrimp into a paste or ceviche or something. She said what about cooking the tails with the shell on in tempura batter like they make popcorn shrimp?  Well, that was genius.

She got the tempura batter together, and the hot oil going. She battered the pink shrimp tails, dropped them in the hot oil, and I tended the fare. When they were browned on both sides, I scooped them from the oil, let them cool in a colander lined with paper towel, and we each tried them. Good!  That was an attitude changer for me. Separating the heads from tails was easy, but removing the shell from the tail was a pain in the ass, and many times, it just squashed in my fingers. Now we had an answer.

As the evening wore on, we got to divvying up the bounty with our friends. During these conversations, Sara said she wanted to try what I’d seen in Ecuador, and make some soup. I put a few quarts of the whole cooked pink shrimp in the blender, added some water, and Sara whirled it into a puree. She added mushrooms and some other stuff, and had me taste. Shrimp bisque. And really good. Now we have two dishes to make with pink shrimp that are less painful than peeling the tails.

I got shrimp and crab divided up for Sara’s staff and our friends. I vacuum packed what was left for our freezer. I told Sara I sometimes lament that I’ve given away more than I’ve kept for ourselves until I open the freezer to put our share in there and look at all the bounty that’s already in the freezer and how will we ever eat it all.

So, a memorable banner trip winter camping and lots of lessons learned.