Ketchikan has vacuum-shrunk-and-sealed to the size of a small hamster wheel, fishbowl of gossip and once you spawn, EVERYBODY GON’ KNOW ‘BOUT IT.

I, personally, do not speak from experience on that situation. I have not been spawning. After all, I have a lot of life ahead.

I’ve been here five months: I say a phrase and feel the echo, watch my words bunk up with the northeast wind like a bad bacteria. But it wasn’t until one particular day that I saw Ketchikan for what it is: a bell jar. Until you lift the glass, your energy and words will orbit this island like a bad rash or, heaven help us, norovirus. There’s no where for the words to go except circles, circles, circles, collecting speed with every repeat.

On my day off my fisherman friend texted me: let’s meet at 10:30.

I arrive, we descend the ramp. He tells me that one of his guests is hiding in the boat-room-term-I-don’t-recall. I pay for my fishing license, $20, and we get on the boat. It’s a beautiful day: sun bearing down, wind blowing. I meet Derek and Annie (I altered their names because of the aforementioned bell jar). Derek lives here, she is visiting. It’s not until later I learn they just met in a bar earlier in the week. She comes out of hiding in the boat-room-term-I-don’t-recall and we set sail! (no sails were used, or harmed, in this story).

We are off and I’m absorbing my reality. I’m never, ever prepared for the landscape of this place. Every time I look at it, I’m like huh? So I’m slowly uploading it all: the sun, the waves, Alaska. The boat is taking each wave in stride but we are bumpin’. I ask Annie about her story. She is a PA, she worked in Ketchikan a few summers ago for a shore excursion company I don’t remember.

Fishermen Friend looks at his phone, curses, we turn around. He got a text that his boat is due for an oil change. It’s sketchy. He told his boss an hour before that we were leaving so it doesn’t make sense he’s just finding this out.

We decide to stow Derek and Annie near the fuel dock before going back to the actual dock because we think they might be the problem. We go back for the oil change, reembark and pick up the two back at Mountain Point on the way out.

Take Two. It’s through this roundabout ridiculousness that we realize that Annie has pissed off the owner of the boat. This morning when he saw her at the dock, he got all grumpy and weird and then made Fisherman turn around for the oil change after we had already left. Whatttt?

We had a WHALE of a TIME. There was an actual whale in the distance who was going HAM on some flips and jumps and leaps and praising God! We watched him for the better part of an hour while we fished. We caught 4 halibut. As we rode back, we saw more whales! Ah! Derek kept saying “Dinner AND a show!” and it made me laugh a lot.

We return from the trip but first we drop Derek and Annie so as not to piss off the boat owner.

I’m still not sure what happened at the bar the night before, but something happened between Boat Owner and Annie. We will never know what it was: mysteries of the deep.

We get back and scale the fish. I watch. Beyoncé don’t scale no fish.

Then Fisherman Friend points out that his ex-girlfriend is kayaking around the corner. She leads kayaking tours. They have to work on the same dock! And he informed me on the trip, between hiding and picking up the other two, that his best friend is dating her now!

And I thought- Now this town.. THIS. TOWN. IS. TINY. Let me Salute the Sky and Not Linger Too Long. And Not Spawn Til I Die!