Latest Update: August 28, 2001 by Ben Marcus

18:59 ALASKA TIME SUNDAY AUGUST 26, 2001 DINNER ROOM AT FISH PLANT

Giants are losing 6-3 against the Lame Ass Mets, shades of last year, in Alaska. I got back from the Bear Paw and worked for a while, then they did an Ammonia Alarm Drill, like a fire drill in grade school. We all walked out of the building and when we walked back in, we were done.

Just had chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner, now I'm watching the Giants, who need to get something going. When the game is over I'll go back to Bear Paw and check e-mail and do a little internet searching. I need to find photos of The Edge from US, that giant basketball player from Romania and one of the guys from 98 Degrees, because some of the Turks are dead ringers for those guys. I think they'll get the joke.

I don't think there will be fish tomorrow, so I am going to sit in the library all day and work. It looks like the Turks want a ride to Anchorage on September 14, and I may be able to oblige them. If the whole Surf Night Party, tidal bore thing comes off, that's the day I'll have to be there. And I need to go to Anchorage because I've still got swag coming in: Patagonia stuff, Russian/English translator, etc.

One more inning and I'm out of here. Need to get a long night's sleep. Didn't sleep until 2:00 last night and I was up for work at 9:00.

21:06 ALASKA TIME MONDAY AUGUST 27, 2001 DINING ROOM AT THE FISH PLANT

MONEY Paid for computer time at Bear Paw.

Lethal Weapon is on the TV. The Irish Guy with the Watch Cap and Glasses is keeping his own journal the old-fashioned way: He's writing it down with a pen. Neanderthal.

There is a guy from Honduras and another guy from Mexico, most likely. Team Turkey were just in on a break, but now they're back working. Those guys put in a lot of hours, but $6 American is several million Turkish whatevers. They're good guys. A few of them are leaving tomorrow, but I may be taking some of them to Anchorage on the 14th.

That was one of my chores today: Look into renting a van that will take 7 or 8 guys to Anchorage. I found two places that will charge around $99 a day, with 200 miles and .25 cents a mile after that.

That's pretty steep, and I don't know if it will work. We'll have to see. Not sure if any of this is going to happen.

Colin Brown and Mark Alfaro are very interested, and they may be enough. I don't want to deal with ñsurf starsî anymore. They aren't worth it. Marc Prefontaine at O'Neill wants to send Jason ñRatboyî Collins, but there's a one or two week delay in getting an answer from him. Screw it. Adults only. That was the original idea with Russia: Brock and Brad. These other guys are way more trouble than they are worth.

So, spent the day online at the Bear Paw and in the library, working on this and that. I sketched out an outline for the Santa Cruz article, and sent it to a few people. Structure, structure, structure. Once you get all that filled in, the rest is much easier.

I was in the Bear Paw a lot today and they started getting sour on me by the end of the day, so I paid the $17 to stay there, just to have Internet access. I helped a German guy from Newfoundland send an e-mail, which was awfully nice of me and should assure that the gates of heaven swing wide.

Ike got a better reception at the Bear Paw, charming anyone who came within 10 yards of him. That cat has got some charisma. By the end of the day, the lady at the Bear Paw was feeding him chicken.

What else today? No work processing fish. Got a little tour of the operation from the half-blind guy who has been working here a long time. He explained how tenders collect the fish from boats all over Prince William Sound. The tenders bring the fish to the dock and they are sucked up with a big hose into a hopper, then put onto a conveyor belt and sorted out by species. The hoppers are weighed then iced down and then they go into the building, where suckers like me behead and eviscerate them for $6 an hour.

They go through millions of pounds of salmon here in a season. Freezing some and shipping some fresh. The reds come in at about .78 cents a pound and leave at about $1.80 a pound. Stuff like that. I'd love to see the total figures for all of Alaska. It must be enormous. This place reminds me of Norway.

There is a Basque guy here who has traveled through Scandinavia and he agreed with me on the Norway thing. In fact, this place is like the United Nations. There's an Indonesian guy in the office and a Turkish guy. There are several Mexicans and Hondurans and such and of course all the Turkish guys.

I hang out here when I'm not running around town. I can eat all three meals and last nigh I slept upstairs because Alaska is already getting too cold to sleep in the rolling refrigerator.

There will be fish in tomorrow night at 18:00 which is fine with me. I can work all day and get everything done, instead of working all day thinking about getting things done, then being too tired at night.

So tomorrow I'll write all day and work all night. I'll probably stay until September 14, do the Tidal Bore thing maybe and then after that, who knows?

I'm still looking forward to heading south and doing everything I just did in reverse, in fall.

I should be watching that ABC Alaska sports show right now. I just ran upstairs to see if it was on, but I couldn't find it. Oh well.

What else. Team Turkey are in the room and watching TV. Not much more to say.

Guess I'll work on Santa Cruz. It would be nice to get it done quick.

12:12 ALASKA TIME TUESDAY AUGUST 28, 2001 TV ROOM AT THE FISH PLANT

Shit, I think someone stole all my DVDs. Not good. Very bad. I was downstairs watching The Battle of Midway when Team Turkey expressed an interest to watch movies upstairs on my computer. Last night I had slept in the TV room and left my TV/VCR and DVD case under a blanket with a couple of other DVDs. When I went upstairs to oblige them, my DVD case was missing. That's about 90 DVDs along with a lot of CDs. I looked all over, searched the van in vain, looked in the TV room and did everything short of calling the Coast Guard, but they didn't turn up. There's a slim chance I left them at the library, because I remember listening to a Kurt Weill CD today, and all my CDs from L to Z are in the missing case, so maybe I spaced out and left it in the library, but somehow I don't think so. Crap. There's a lot of shifty people around this Fish Plant. I shouldn't have been so trusting.

Shit.

Oh well. Hopefully it will turn up at the library tomorrow. My Final Draft disc is in there, and it is worth $150.

11:38 ALASKA TIME TUESDAYAUGUST 28, 2001 THE VALDEZ LIBRARY

MONEY
I think I just lost about $1000 worth of DVDs. Shit.

Crud. No DVDs at the library. Looks like someone kiped them. Crap. No honor among fish-cutters. Got the shotgun in the car. Hope I bump into them.

Got an e-mail from Paul Taublieb with a contact number of the head Guinness guy in England. Just sent him a semi-eloquent e-mail and now I'm going to call him.

Here's the e-mail:

Michael Feldman
Guinness World Records.
England

August 28, 2001 (My birthday)

Mr. Feldman,

From September 15 - 21 I am organizing an expedition of surfers and water rescue people to attempt to ride a natural phenomenon in Alaska called the Turnagain Arm Tidal Bore.

Turnagain Arm was named by your chap Captain Cook way back when. His crew were poking around in Alaskan nooks and crannies, looking for the Northwest Passage, when their cutter was nearly swamped by a freakish wave that came from nowhere.

Turns out they were in an Arm of Cook Inlet which has the second largest tidal change in the world. Every day, the tide changes as much as 39 feet, so when the tide comes in, it comes in as a wave.

Captain Cook and his crew survived the Tidal Bore, but others haven't. Turnagain Arm is a glacial-carved inlet with a bottom made up of very fine "glacial silt." Over the decades there have been instances of people walking out onto the exposed sandbars, getting stuck in the mud up to their waists, and drowning very badly.

Turnagain Arm is beautiful, dangerous, mysterious. I saw the Tidal Bore two weeks ago on several "Five Star" bore days, as rated by a State of Alaska tide chart located at Bird Point.

I've been around the ocean my whole life and have seen a lot of waves, but I've never seen the ocean behave like this.

The whole ocean comes sweeping past you in a wave that is about four feet high and moves about 12 MPH. It's not a big wave but it is a powerful wave that has the entire ocean behind it. The wave is rideable for more than three miles if done with support boats and it could be done for two miles continuous, right along the highway.

That is something I would like to see. A great surfer like Brock Little or Flea Virostko challenging that bore wave as it rumbles along, doing 100 different things as it hits sandbars and outgoing currents. It is a legitimate surfing challenge.

I am trying to convince several of the world's best surfers to come up from September 15 - 21 for another string of "Five Star" days. I know how these guys surf and I think they will be challenged to ride this wave boldly and with style, all the way to the end.

I also think this Turnagain Arm attempt would make good television. The place is Alaska with a Capital "A" and when the sun is out and the sky is blue, it doesn't look real.

When the wave passes through, dozens of white beluga whales come in with the flow. Looking at it all from On High at Bird Point, you have to slap yourself to realize you aren't driving. It all looks like the World's Biggest Disney Display.

I know there have been attempts in the past to set a world record for riding a Tidal Bore, but for some reason the attempts in Brazil and England weren't validated.

This would be a chance to do it right and set a standard, and I wonder if Guinness World Records would send a representative out here with some swimming shorts and a tape measure.

Let me know as soon as possible. I have contacted the Guinness TV people but have not heard anything back.

Time is running out, but this could all be set up pretty quickly. And if Guinness gets involved, that makes a lot of other things possible.

I am best contacted by e-mail as I am traveling in Alaska: TheBenM@AOL.com

Thank you for your time.

Ben Marcus

P.S. Paul Taublieb gave me your phone and e-mail.

Maybe that will work and maybe it won't.

I guess I'll spend the day in mourning: for my youth and my DVDs. Shit.

My e-mail address is on the outside of that case, so maybe if the thieves abandon it, it will turn up or I'll have some idea of what happened to it.

I was hanging with Team Turkey last night until the wee hours, talking about the Ottoman Empire and this and that and at one point I asked if Turkey still cut off the hands of thieves. They don't, and the guys laughed at my idea of modern Islam in Turkey.

Well they should, I argued. Thievery is just a shitty little thing, and, like in Lawrence of Arabia, it should be dealt with ñharshly.î

I also asked if any of the Turks prayed five times a day. ñFive times a year!î one of them joked. I like the Turks and I now call them the Young Turks.

It's noon. Time to go sit down somewhere quiet and do some work. Have to cut fish tonight starting at 18:30.

Need to find those damned DVDs. Bummer.

Oh well. Happy birthday.