Last Saturday my husband left for the Fairweather Grounds. A patch of ocean over eroded volcanic cones 50 miles off shore. It is a remote place in a remote place. There is no shelter from storms or anywhere to anchor at night. (You just turn your boat off and drift. Just thinking about this is unsettling.) I am single parenting our two toddlers and working at my regular job. And our satellite phone doesn’t work when he is out there.

This is a stupid sim card boundary thing but still. Typically, he calls me at night for about 2 minutes when he is out fishing. It is a small, bright light in a day full of kids who throw food and refuse to put on their socks. With him out there, on Fairweather, I don’t even have that to look forward to.

When he is out, I am rarely more than 6 inches from my phone. I sometimes delay taking  a shower because I’m afraid of missing his call. I spend the entire evening willing my phone to ring or to get a new email. Messages are short; usually number of fish, basic weather, and I love you. My whole marriage distilled into one sentence.

Yesterday, the Coast Guard had to rescue two fishermen from a boat that lost steering. In 12-25 foot seas and 35 knot gale. Thankfully, husband was anchored up in Lituya Bay–the closest, safest bay to the Fairweather grounds. As an Earth Science nerd, I can’t help but think about the landslide in the 60’s that caused a tsunami that washed a bathtub ring of trees out from the bay.

Oh, it’s called “Fairweather” because you can only fish it in fair weather. Or maybe it’s named after Mount Fairweather, a sloping behemoth in the Saint Elias Range that you see from the Fairweather grounds. Mount Fairweather was named by Cook because it was a nice day when he saw it. I mean, this total lack of creativity is probably why Alaska has about 759 “Salmon Rivers.”

But now it’s almost 10 at night. I haven’t heard from him so I will assume that he is fishing, making up for a lost day and a half at anchor. Maybe there will be a message in the morning.