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north wind picked up. Before long it was blowing twenty knots and the Storm Petrel was plunging over foaming crests and diving into the troughs. Big time, I thought. Big-time water. I felt like I was on Captain Cook’s ship, or Vancouver’s.
    Visibility was poor on account of the rain and the bow spray lashing the wheelhouse windows. “Are we going to put the gear down?” I asked the captain.
    â€œWhy wouldn’t we?” he barked.
    â€œI just haven’t fished in anything like this before.”
    â€œThere’s a first time for everything. Throw onsome warm clothes before you put on your rain gear.”
    There were only a couple of trollers in sight, and they were heading for cover. No whales were to be seen, and the Storm Petrel was the only bird in sight. It was just us, hobbyhorsing alone through wind and rain and heavy seas.
    As I got dressed to go outside, I reminded myself that a man overboard in these freezing seas has no chance without a survival suit. Tor had the suits, but you can’t work in one. They’re too cumbersome. Stay focused, Robbie.
    The fishing was tough. The wind tangled the leaders as I retrieved them; it was difficult for me to keep my feet. Heading north on the drag, we’d smack into the waves and get slowed down. Tor had to give it much more throttle than normal just to maintain trolling speed. Heading south, the following seas nearly broke into the cockpit. “How much wind can you still fish?” I shouted to Torsen over the weather.
    â€œTwenty-five knots,” he shouted back. “But it isn’t much fun.”
    A couple hours later, and not a single fish, we pulled the gear. “I can’t believe I’m out in weather this rough,” I yelled.
    Tor shook his head. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
    Tor wanted to start working north and chew up some miles. After twenty miles of even rougher seas—the wind was blowing forty knots—we anchored in Aats Bay on the north end of Coronation Island. No other trollers kept us company. No wonder, after theopen sea crossing we’d made to get there.
    It kept blowing through the night. Twice, our anchor lost its grip on the bottom. Through layers of sleep, I was aware of the vibrations of the dragging anchor, but I didn’t fully wake up when the engine came to life. It was the captain’s responsibility to reposition and keep the boat off the rocks.
    By morning the blow was all but over. We trolled back and forth across Windy Bay, the cleft in the island’s cliffy windward shore, picking up only four cohos. “Coronation is either really good or really lousy,” Tor said. “It’s lousy today. Let’s keep pushing north. If the fishing slows down, we’ll hunt for treasure instead.”
    There was sea salt in his tangled beard and piracy in his voice. This Torsen seemed bigger than life, the reincarnation of some great seafarer. My mind drifted back to the plaques. “Finders keepers?” I wondered. Could that be? Or had I fallen in with a modern-day pirate?
    With the snowcapped peaks of Baranof Island looming ever closer, we crossed Christian Sound. A dozen salmon trollers were working a drag at Baranof’s southern tip, outside the tide rips swirling around Cape Ommaney. We joined them, but picked up only a few kings.
    Tor didn’t stay long to see if the fishing would improve. We pulled out and headed north along Baranof’s rugged western coast. With little success, we fished off of Snipe Bay. We spent the night of July 6 inside the bay. Come daylight we fished farther north, off of Whale Bay, but all we caught were some accidental additions to our dinner menu—red snapper and halibut—when the lures on our lowest spreads passed too close to the top of an undersea hill.
    Before we could escape to deeper water, the port pole was jerking like we’d hooked a whale. One of the cannonballs was dragging bottom; we