Rogue waves, seasickness, bone-chilling cold. Helmut Opolka experienced it all as a commercial fisherman off Alaska. He is one of the lucky ones. He survived. A memorial wall at Fishermen’s Terminal in Seattle includes more than 500 names of local fishermen who have perished at sea. The moorage on Salmon Bay serves more than 600 vessels, including crabbing boats from the Discovery Channel series Deadliest Catch. That’s where I found Opolka. Retired from commercial fishing, he was doing boat maintenance as I approached with my Nikon F5 film camera. He called to me from the ship’s deck with a warm smile. A photography buff, he peppered me with questions about cameras. Then he climbed down, reached inside the cab of his pickup truck and pulled out two 8x10 color prints in plastic sleeves – shots he’d taken years ago of a remote inlet from the bow of a fishing boat. Dramatic images. Then I peppered him with questions about life at sea. Did he ever encounter freak waves, the kind that swallow ships? Sort of. The crew would spot a dark mass forming on the horizon and brace for impact. The rolling swell would lift the boat but do no damage. While fishing in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, Opolka stopped at Attu Island, a World War II battlefield. He found artillery shells on the beach. Americans destroyed the Japanese force in bloody, close-quarter fighting. Opolka lived and worked in places I’ll likely never visit – storm-churned seas, barren islands, frozen harbors. For a few minutes, talking with a stranger at Fishermen’s Terminal, I felt like I was there.