Fisherman Presumed Drowned In Alaska

When he called home, Carl Van Valkenberg talked of adventure on the high seas: watching sharks and sea lions glide alongside his boat, playing practical jokes with other crewmen, and riding wild waves in the treacherous Shelikoff Strait off Kodiak, Alaska.

Van Valkenberg, 42, a fisherman and former University of Washington football player, knew the dangers of his trade, but rough water and inclement weather were part of the challenge that had drawn him to the sea for the past 17 years.

His last challenge with nature ended tragically when Van Valkenberg's 50-foot boat, the Evanick, capsized Saturday morning in high wind and 10-foot waves in the strait. Van Valkenberg and three crewmen are missing and presumed dead.

"Half of me is gone," his wife, Leslie Van Valkenberg, 37, said yesterday at the family's home just north of Bothell. She is expecting their first child in October.

Van Valkenberg and his crewmen, Robert Ritchie of Cobb, Calif., Harry Mondessette of Anchorage and Shawn Gibson of Kodiak, were heading to Togiak to catch herring when the Evanick sent out an emergency beacon alert around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, said Petty Officer J.P. McGowan of the Coast Guard in Kodiak. A helicopter located the overturned vessel about 90 minutes later, but the water and weather were too treacherous for divers to begin searching the boat until yesterday, McGowan said.

A diver yesterday afternoon found four survival suits and a

life-raft boat still attached to the boat, McGowan said.

McGowan said the men would survive only about four hours in the 39-degree water unless they found some other flotation device.

Leslie Van Valkenberg last spoke to her husband Thursday, she said. They talked about bills, teenage issues - Leslie has a 16-year-old daughter, Dyonna, and Carl has a 16-year-old son, Nick, from previous marriages - and what to name the unborn baby. The last thing he told her was, "I love you."

Although he thrived on adventure, most of his days were routine, she said. "To him, it was put the net out, bring the net in."

The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Van Valkenberg played for Inglemoor High School, then lettered as an offensive lineman for the UW in 1974-1976 and was named the team's outstanding lineman his senior season.

The next season, Van Valkenberg joined the Seahawks as a free agent, but suffered a torn ligament at training camp and spent the season on the injured list. His football career ended the following year when he failed to make the Seahawks' final roster.

McGowan said that in the past decade, about a dozen boats have capsized or experienced major trouble in the 190-mile Shelikoff Strait, resulting in a half-dozen deaths.

When the sea begins to thrash, "There's nowhere to hide," McGowan said.

Case Van Zwaluwenburg, Leslie Van Valkenberg's father and a retired member of the Coast Guard's aviation station in Kodiak, speculated that the crew may have experienced trouble on the boat, such as losing power, or that the Evanick may have been hit by a rogue wave.

A memorial service will be held May 9 in Seattle atthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Shoreline stake center, 102 N. 132nd Street, in Seattle. Another service will be held for all the crewmen May 15 in Kodiak.

As the wife of a fisherman, Leslie Van Valkenberg had a hard time getting used to her husband's two-week to two-month absences when they first married in 1989.

"The only challenge I thought (there would be) was the time apart," she said. "I never considered the permanent time apart."

Putsata Reang's phone message number is 206-515-5629. Her e-mail address is: prea-new@seatimes.com