Smooth seas never made a skillful sailor

Ahoy! After looking at my last post date, it's apparent I haven't been keeping up on here as much as I hoped I would. Truth be told, I haven't had the time nor the brain capacity at the end of the day to formulate a single sentence to describe this place and give it the emphasis it deserves.  The last several weeks have been a complete whirl wind! To start things off, I'll fill you in on a few key moments.
A week into having our full crew on the boat consisted mostly of sanding, painting, lots and lots of painting, re-corking the cork line, getting the web on board and typical fish hold work. Well, one of the original crew members (who keep in mind, showed up with a life size care bear in a life size zip lock bag and would put it back in the zip lock every. Single. Morning. And she is 38 years old (no judgement)) was let go for multiple reasons. Need I explain more? I didn't think so :) After feeling relieved and finally having a few restful night sleeps post that experience, the work continued and onward we went. Captain, the other 2 gals and myself managed just fine and filled our days with basically anything we could do to get out of the harbor and do what we all came here to do. Fish! At this point we were still in St. Paul's Harbor which became home after awhile. I didn't think I'd ever feel that way when I first arrived here but I did, I do and I miss it. While there, I met some of the nicest, hard working and genuine people this far. One in particular that takes the cake but more on that later ;)
A couple weeks ago, my crew and I completed the Coast Gaurd Marine Drill Imstructor Course which consisted of 12 hours in a class room setting the first day and 4 hours the next day of in the water training. During this course we were paired in teams of 4 where we met Captain George, Skipper of the F/V Elizabeth F, a giant crabbing boat that will soon be making it's way to the Bering Sea. I mastered a pretty perfect impression of this guy that you'll have to see to believe. Too funny. Anyways, we were taught how to preform May Day calls, how to handle on board flooding, man overboard, fire drills and the dreaded capsizing drills. At one point, the instructor quickly grabbed a bucket full of small peices of wooden planks, line, duct tape, and nerf balls, lead us to a water pipe, turned on the water at full boar and told us to fix all the leaks with the items provided. Umm yeah. So needless to say, we did it but we just may have gotten a shower out of it, too ;) The next day, we were tested on getting in our giant red survival (gumby) suits in less than 60 seconds, jumping in the water, inflating a life raft, climbing on top of said raft to flip it over while in the water and then climbing up inside. Our crew did it all "flawlessly" as we were told by our instructor and it felt pretty damn good. Plus, we all feel a bit more confident and safer god forbid anything were to happen. My good friend here and I are going to float down the Buskin River in those bad boys before the summers over. Stay tuned on that ;)
Moving on...
About a week ago, we were faced with some pretty upsetting events that definitely made us all question whether or not this is the right place for us. Unfortunately, one of the girls made the decision to leave and within 48 hours was on her flight back home to California. Yes, if you've been counting, that means there's only 2 still standing. Nina and I... Oi vey!
Our close friends set sail June 4th for the big opener the following day while we remained in Port waiting for our new alternator. It was a sad day and our beloved Mother Nature felt the same because it rained for days afterward. We couldn't walk anywhere without being asked why we weren't out there yet and quite honestly after the hundredth time explaining our crew shortage and engine issues, all I could do was shake my head and throw my arms in the air which seemed to be far too familiar for everyone here. Restlessness is an understatement.
So, here we are in Dog Bay where we are filling our days with glorious hikes, late night beach fires, conversations I never thought I'd be having and of course copious amounts of Alaskan Amber. Our captain says we'll be setting sail tomorrow... Here's to hoping he's right.