"Yeah, we're bettin' on if there's any fish in heaven." "Well, I know one thing, there's 'manna in Nazan Bay'. Here's the loot, guys" Whistles and hoots ring around the galley at the fistful of bills Mad Jack waves. "Pay-up time, guys." Mad Jack goes into the cabin, gets out the payroll ledger and the party gets quickly happier than it already is. "I think I'm going out to get a sun tan," Said Billy Goat. "I'm gonna go up on top and water my coral."

"Yeah, we got some good coral this trip, that's for sure. Some of them coral pieces on the depth finder looked like apple trees down there," says Mad Jack. "Hey, while you're watering the coral, get another 12-pack of beer. We're getting short of rations in here," yells Toasty. "You got it. Any particular flavor?" "Yeah. Twelve cold ones that say, 'beer' on the side."

"I think I can handle that," Billy Goat croaks out and hops outside into the sun and around the side of the vessel, up the ladder to the top of the cabin complex that takes up a third of the boat. He opens one of the long box lockers that hold a lot of the boat's provisions. He stands up with a carton of

beer and looks around at the scene before him. He has never seen the islands so beautiful. Five years, now, he has been coming out to this end of the island chain, usually viewing the trips without much enthusiasm. Gray mood to place. And yet sometimes the islands are like jewels. With the sun out, the little Aleut fishing hamlet of Nazan Bay, made of aluminum roofs, fairly glistens in its natural cleft between the hills at the shore's edge.

Clambering back down, he finds his crew mates have drifted outside into the clear deck between the galley and the bait shed on the stern-most third of the boat. Beers are passed and talk turns to plans for the boat during winter. "I'm thinking of Hawaii and swordfish," says Hallie, "we have to do something different. I can see this black cod fishery only getting slimmer."

"There's too many boats," Mad Jack echoes with raised hands under red brambly eyebrows. "Laying your gear is like mowing your lawn next to three neighbors mowing theirs. A hundred miles to sea and you can't fit an elbow in between other guy's strings. The quota gets filled in a month and you sit on your thumbs the rest of the time. I tell you, we have to diversify. Fishin' in Alaska is changing and you have to change faster than it does to stay afloat." "Yeah, you're right, Cap," perks up Hallie.