The Coast Guard meanwhile has begun its annual deployment of a Jayhawk helicopter and crew from Air Station Kodiak to Cold Bay for the red king crab fishery.

In January, Coast Guard officials will move that helicopter and crew to St. Paul for the opilio crab fishery, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Third Class Jon-Paul Rios.

"We want people to know we are out there," Rios said. "And we're not out there just for the crabbers. We are out there for everybody, so if something does happen, we can respond a lot faster."

That was the case on March 23, 2008, when the fishing vessel Alaska Ranger sank in the Bering Sea. Five people died when the Ranger sank 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor, but 42 others were rescued with the help of the Coast Guard and the crew of the Alaska Warrior, the Ranger's sister ship.

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 62 vessels are on the fishing grounds out of the 93 that pre-registered for this year's red king crab fishery. Each vessel has a finite quota of allowable harvest and can fish until that quota is achieved.

Before the current crab rationalization program began several years ago, all crab vessels competed in what was commonly referred to as a derby fishery, all trying to harvest the most crab before the total allowable catch was achieved and the fishery ended, often in less than a week. The competition compelled many vessel operators to fish to during storms, resulting in loss of lives at sea.

Safety at sea was given as one reason for the crab rationalization program, which remains controversial because of the way crab harvest quotas were allocated to harvesters, along with processing quota rights to processors.

The crab rationalization program is in the midst of a five-year review by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

The Coast Guard's marine safety detachment in Unalaska conducted exams aboard 41 of the 93 vessels that registered for this season. The Coast Guard said no overloading of pots was noted, but a few deficiencies -namely expired life rafts, hydrostatic releases and electronic position indicating radio beacon batteries - were found during safety checks. All deficiencies were confirmed corrected before the vessels got underway.

In addition to Coast Guard support, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game deploys observers aboard about 20 percent of the fleet for the duration of fishing operations.

Fishermen were asked to notify the Coast Guard 24 hours prior to a vessel's initial departure from port.

Good weather notwithstanding, the catch is somewhat lower this season for Bering Sea red king crab, as it is for Bering Sea snow crab, at 48 million pounds, and Bering Sea tanner crab, at 1.3. million pounds.

The bright spot is the St. Matthew Island blue king crab, closed last year because of insufficient numbers of crab. That fishery had an allocation of 1.2 million pounds this season.

Based on results of summer surveys, the red and blue king crab commercial fishery in Southeast Alaska will not open this year because state fisheries officials determined that the available harvest is again too small.

The harvest allocations, also known as total allowable catch, are calculated based on analysis by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the National Marine Fisheries Service of NMFS trawl survey data.

Harvest totals for the 2008-09 season included more than 20 million pounds of Bristol Bay red king crab, 63 million pounds of Bering Sea snow crab, 5 million pounds of Bering Sea tanner crab, and no crab in the closed St. Matthew Island fishery.

The harvests garnered fishermen $84 million for Bristol Bay red king crab, $100 million for the snow crab and $3.4 million for tanner crab.