I was able to climb a sea stack and get above this little horned puffin. I love puffins
An arctic fox
Just because I'm a licensed teacher now, here's the local school district office. It was a strange island. The locals invited us to the bar (declined, as the boat was leaving) which shares the same building as the police station and the jail, which is a pretty logical pairing if you think about it.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
I spent my first night on a moving boat after spending a couple in the harbor. Big difference. So far no seasickness though, but as I understand it the waves don’t get much calmer than this. The water is glassy looking outside this morning. It almost looks like it’s made of mercury through the argent fog.
We’ll be steaming north for a couple of days to reach the Turbot fishing grounds that the Captain knows about. Apparently, this is a new, secret spot that only he and a buddy know about from a tip from a NOAA guy. I found it interesting that even captains of 175 foot boats have secret fishing holes. The couple day’s steam will be nice, as it will allow me to get my bearings around here and get used to a constantly moving boat. When you are on board a fishing vessel, everything, your world, your universe is in constant motion. The cupboards creak and the whole place vibrates from the kinetic energy put out by the engine.
While downstairs eating breakfast, the deck boss went into the crew quarters and said loudly, “I am your mamma!” Then he came over to me and said, “Yep, the kids have a lot of toys to clean up this morning.” Hopefully that includes my observer station, because it doesn’t even exist yet. There’s supposed to be a table going in at some point. As long as I have it by the time we start fishing, it’s required by law that they have it for me.
I miss Rachel; I miss my family and friends. It almost hurts sometimes. I’ll get by just fine, and it will go fast because it is busy. Hell, it should prove to be pretty interesting, all of the weird species I’m going to see. I even saw a few whales in the distance on the way out yesterday. But I still wish I was with my girl. It’s not like living in Corvallis. The enormity of the ocean makes a fishing boat a pretty isolating place. This is especially true for the observer I think. Sure the crew has been nice to me so far, but I’m still an outsider. I play to different rules, have a different boss, and in some cases their goals are not the same as mine. It’s gotta be just a little weird to have a guy standing nearby you with a clipboard, writing furiously. I’m going to try and play off of the things we have in common: healthy fish stocks, a love of the job, and whatever cool stories we might find interesting.
One more thing, before I go. I watched them dump garbage overboard just a moment ago. It bugs me, but it is perfectly legal as long as they don’t dump plastic overboard. Guess that’s just how things go.
That evening
Got my observer station mostly set up. There’s still a lot that I don’t know, but I have a feeling that most it will be “on the job training.” The deck boss reassured me today that they would get me the fish I need to do my job. The guys are all pretty cool, if not stoic. There is one dude who cracks me up how he relates with others, he does not listen. At all. I once asked him a question in the middle of his monologue. He looked surprised for a brief moment but then he kept going right where he left off. But at least his stories are interesting so I don’t mind at all. Sometimes I have to wander off and do my job though. I like how he pronounces Wolves, “Woovs” and Bears “Burs.”
Dinner was lasagna. I ate with most of the other guys while watching the worst action movie I have ever seen, which usually would be a redundant statement. Badass Karate dude is protecting a girl with a pizza slice from her slain father (never did figure out why they were fighting over a pizza slice), complete with break dance fighting and bad hair. Awesome.
Big rollers tonight, so after I did my exercises, I popped a Dramamine just in case. Laying down usually seems to help when I get a little light headed, or sometimes I head outside. G’night.
August 4, 2010
Waves were pretty rough this morning, and I felt a little low on energy so I popped a bonine and now I feel fine. I compare wave height by picking a spot on my small window and watching how far above and below the horizon it wanders as the ship passes over the waves. I have a feeling this will be one of those weird things I do to amuse myself when not feeling well. At other times I sit and wonder what people are doing back home. I hope Rachel’s ok.
On the way out of harbor I saw a few whales and even a couple of flukes, but I was unable to ascertain what species. I’m really hoping to see some up a little closer. The guys have fishing goals for the pounds of fish they want to get, I have my sights on seeing some whales and porpoises. I just noticed a few puffs in the distance. The good thing about being on a long liner is I have to spend a LOT of time out on deck watching what comes in on the line, or set as it is known. This will hopefully give me some good whale watching while there is nothing coming in.
My favorite animals so far are the puffins. They often surface near the boat and are startled and start paddling away as fast as they can. Their beaks are huge in comparison to their bodies so it looks somewhat comical when they move their head from side to side to make sure you aren’t chasing them. When too close, they do this funny movement where they paddle with their wings on top of the water to get away. Picture a bird doing the breast stroke. I love puffins.
We start fishing today. Let’s hope this goes well.
August 5, 2010
Well a lot has happened in the last few hours. We’re getting whaled on out here. And I don’t mean that the waves are brutal or that I got in a fistfight. We set our gear last night and went to retrieve it this morning. It was my first haul, and the observer program lets us take a practice haul to get the hang of things before we start recording real data. I got up just before sunrise (I’ll admit I was a little nervous, I want to do a good job) and went to the wheel house to find the captain and the mate earnestly looking around in the predawn light. It almost looked like they were looking for U-boats, but they were in fact looking for the buoy attached to the longline (they call them “the bags”). When they found it, the captain swung the boat close and the rollerman (the guy who helps fish aboard as the line is reeled in) snagged it with a grappling hook. The first 100 hooks or so were completely empty. Then we started seeing some turbot, as well as a significant number of Skates and Grenadier (the latter have a long pointed tail, weird fish… but then again so are skates). I observed this up on the weather deck, which yup you guessed it, is open to the elements. All of a sudden, the captain exclaimed over the intercom, “Whales!” He swung the boat in reverse and the crew threw the line back in the water. True enough, there were at least 3 killer whales, and I could tell they were feeding on the turbot as they came up. One was a big bull, and there were a couple of smaller ones as well. That pretty much has put an end to our fishing trip.
We’ve been drifting ever since. The guys are going to try again tomorrow, but if they come again who knows what will happen. I was talking to the engineer, and he said they are pretty sneaky. The whales will make sure to not be around when you are setting gear but when you bring it in they will be there in minutes. They can easily outrun the boat and when they hear the hydraulics start running, it sounds just like a dinner bell to them. They love Greenland Turbot, but when we start fishing for Cod on the 15th, the whales won’t bug us.
I guess I should be happy I’m still getting paid, but hanging out on a moving boat with nothing to do isn’t the first way I’d spend my free time. Before I left, I remember complaining that running more than 5 miles on pavement hurts my flat feet. I’d KILL to be able to run anywhere now. A boat sometimes isn’t the best place for a borderline ADD kid like me. Situps and pushups only get you so far.
Last night I saw some Dahl’s Porpoises. I recorded it as a Marine Mammal sighting (yay, another form to fill out… but it was something to do). Those suckers are fast! Really all you see is a quick rooster tail splash (Their heads are pronounced and this makes water shoot forwards as they surface). At first it seems like someone is chucking big rocks out into the water, but sooner or later you catch one before it surfaces and see the distinctive white side. Pretty cool.
One more thing. I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of this moving around on boats thing. When I go to the bathroom across the hall, I usually wait for the boat to rock away from me, so that I’m faced downhill in a sense. Then, all I have to do is fall into the bathroom. I do the reverse on the way back. If you start walking when it’s uphill and then the boat rolls unexpectedly, all of a sudden you are going 10 miles an hour. You have to do some clever maneuvering to get yourself out of that bind. Fortunately, I haven’t completely eaten shit in front of the crew yet.
August 10, 2010
The big waves we’ve had the past few days put me out of commission for the most part. I’ve spent the better part of it with motion sickness. My job basically is split into 2 parts, tallying what comes aboard up on the weather deck (I love this part, I can see the horizon and I’m outside) and inside in the factory. For the latter, it is cool seeing what has come aboard, but it’s in the bow of the ship and the motion there is nonstop. It made me feel awful. I won’t lie, for a while there, I contemplated quitting. I never partook in any esophageal reverse peristalsis, but man it was all I could do to just do my job and head to bed. I’ve let the paperwork stack up because laying down and closing my eyes was the only thing that felt good. On top of all this, I miss Rachel. A lot. I miss normal conversations and ground that stays put. I was in a funk.
Fortunately an albatross sighting helped me get out of it. I thought I saw an endangered short tailed albatross yesterday, and that got me excited enough to read up on it. After close analysis I decided it was something else. Sometimes the thrill of discovery can be heartening in the worst of times.
I miss riding bicycles and walking more than 100 feet in any one direction. I think this is a good experience for me in a couple of ways. I found out that wide open spaces are the only place for me. The ocean has the illusion of being boundless, but for us puny humans and our blubber-less skin a boat is effectively a prison. The 35 degree water of the Bering sea would make a step off of this sanctuary/penitentiary a costly one. You can die in minutes out here, but here we are eating pancakes and listening to Afroman at 4:30 in the morning like nobody’s business. Weird huh? Another thing I found out is that I don’t want to sail to the Galapagos like Rachel and I talked about. Sorry babe, but if a 175 foot tin can moves this much I don’t want to find out what a 35 footer does. Maybe we can just fly there.
Off for one more sampling in a few minutes. Talk to you guys later.
August 15, 2010
Personalities
We just got a new skipper, who will be running the show. The original one is still here but he’s taking a back seat to the older, more experienced dude. The new guy is a tough, elderly Norwegian dude. About half of what the man says (roughly) includes the phrase, “This Fahking guy…” It amuses me because our Mexican cook says this all the time as well. “This fahking guy always leaves his plate,” “This fahking guy never cleans up his papers,” and the ubiquitous “Just look at this fahking guy.” With the cook I get this all the time, as he is one of my favorite people to mess with. I told him it’s in an observer’s contract to annoy the cook, and he told me that it’s his job to spit in my food. This is always followed by a full two seconds of deadpan, and then “Sheeeeeeeeet!” and raucous laughter. Gets me every time.
It’s kind of weird being the observer on a boat. You’re in this weird position of power that requires people to acknowledge you. Take the new skipper for instance. He’s this tough, crusty old Scandinavian dude whom I picture doing a shot of gasoline before he sleeps on his bed of nails at night. When we were docked at St. Paul Island a couple of days ago, we were waiting for a couple of crew members to get back so we could depart. The captain was getting anxious and was swearing a lot about “These fahking guys.” I realized that I had a few precious moments on land before taking off (before heading back to purgatory) so I hopped over the side and started stretching my legs. From the wheelhouse, the Captain shouted down to me “Hey Fahkead, you work here?!” I turned around and replied, “Yeah. I’m the observer.” He instantly looked embarrassed like he’d said something he shouldn’t have. “Oh, well just don’t go too far.” It’s weird, on a boat like this I’d almost expect to get my chops busted every once in a while, but as the observer the crew is legally required to not harass me. I feel I have a pretty amicable relationship with all the guys, but you just get the feeling they feel like they’re walking on egg shells around me sometimes.
Some other personalities.
Chief engineer: The guy who’s laugh you can hear a mile away or in a crowd of 50 people
Deck Boss: Think David Sedaris’s brother if you’ve ever read or listened to him
Rollerman#1: Sounds like a Mexican football announcer. He’s hilarious
The original captain and the mate and I get along just fine. Most of our conversations revolve around Super steve, which is a breakfast sausage dressed up in a cape with toothpick appendages and hung up in the middle of the wheel house. He’ll appear in other places like the bathroom (or head, as they call it here) or the Galley, but he usually lurks in wheelhouse. He’s turned into somewhat of a mascot for the trip somehow. I find it just a little disturbing that breakfast sausages don’t go bad, as it’s been a couple of weeks now and it looks like it just came off the steam table.
We start fishing for Pacific Cod well… now actually. The guys are setting (dropping baited hooks out the back of the boat) and we’ll probably start picking them up this evening. I just started getting good at Turbot fishing, so hopefully some of my mad dissection skills will come in handy for that. Cheers!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Bird bird bird bird is the word
During the last haul a Northern Fulmar hit the rigging. It was stunned for a moment and as the observer it’s actually one of our duties to assess bird injuries. It flew off after a moment though.
A Northern fulmar is like a gull, except smaller and it has a tube on the top of its beak, thus the term tubenoses for this type of bird. This helps the animal excrete salts, which allows them to stay at sea almost their whole adult life. I can’t really say anything glowing about them, since they all appear to hate each other. It is here, in the fight for resources, that we see the “violent battleground” that nature is, as Charles Darwin put it. They bump, jostle, bite and bat for position near the boat so when a skate liver or piece of herring falls out they are the first to get it. You wouldn’t believe the size of some of the things they choke down. Sometimes a bird will have most of the morsel down its gullet and others will yank it back out again.
I watch this battle when no fish are coming up, which has been a lot recently (Pacific Cod, or P Cod as they call it, has been in the toilet the past couple of years). The fulmars always have the numbers to back up most incursions. They get the lion’s share of the byecatch. But there are other strategies to be had. I like the sooty shearwaters. They look kind of like a small, dark gull but they have a secret weapon that the fulmars do not. They can dive underwater, actually they fly underwater. It drives the fulmars nuts to see a tidbit that is too deep for them to grab. Occasionally, you’ll see a dark shape swim near the boat and get any bait that fell over. It’s beautiful to watch really.
The black and red legged kittiwakes are the fighter jets of the Bering sea. They are much stronger fliers than the fulmars and will hover or glide above waiting for the right moment to steal a fulmar’s dish. They are striking birds, and I saw my first red legged variety yesterday.
Sooner or later, the albatrosses arrive. The fulmars usually scatter when they come; the albatrosses are massive. They have to power to break apart many of the fish that the Fulmars do not, but they’re a lot more concerned about being near the boat than the fulmars are. They usually hang in the back and break apart fish heads or bodies. Stately birds they are, and they almost seem to enjoy breaking up fights that the fulmars invariably get into. Every once in a while a fulmar will get snippy with an albatross. If the fulmar is too slow, he or she gets “the clamp,” or bit over the head and then shook. Most know better than to mess with an albatross.
We observers are always supposed to be on the lookout for the endangered short tailed albatross. It’d be pretty cool to see one, as there are somewhere around 1000 left. Hauling soon, gotta go.
Wednesday August 18, 2010
Worked another 24 hour shift but I can’t sleep for some reason. Urg.
The way our schedule is set up is random. The crew can’t know when I am going to be there or they might bias their haul somehow or keep one of the prohibited species like salmon, halibut or crab. Not that these guys would, and it’s truly not worth the fine, but there are a few unscrupulous types out there I guess. The random break table to the rescue. It gives me time off in case the work load is too crazy. I get a random 6 hour block off at some point each day. Working all the time would be doable, I guess, but my brain gets too fuzzy for me to do any paperwork. Sleep is the only thing that will help get that done. I gotta hand it to the guys. They do 16 hours on and then eight off. This means that they start working at 8, 4 or midnight on an alternating schedule. That’d be pretty brutal. I guess my schedule is no cakewalk either, but at least when we are steaming to a new fishing ground I get that time off too. They crew is usually working that whole time. You can just see some of them looking at me jealously when I stumble off to bed, but there have also been times where I work a whole shift of theirs, through the night and I see them during their next shift.
Change of subject. In general, fishermen eat pretty well. The galley has all sorts of stuff prepared, and it wouldn’t be that bad if you were a veggie. There’s almost always a hot meal available. I thought this was great at first, but it’s kind of starting to wear on me. Instead of the available omelets and pancakes this morning, I ate a bowl of grape nuts and it tasted great. In college, I always wanted a hot meal, but now there are times where I would kill for a freaking sandwich. Maybe that’s why the Atkins diet works so well for some people. After a while it’s “Dammit. Steak again.”
Some other nuisances.
I don’t particularly like cigarette smoke, but I can tolerate it. I don’t particularly like the smell of raw fish guts, but I can tolerate it. When these two smells combine forces I hate it for some reason. Fisherman, for whatever reason (perhaps the gravel in the gut and the spit in their eyes) appear to be the last firm holdout of smokers left in the states. I know there are plenty of smokers left in the world, but every one except one guy here chain smokes like a fiend. I guess it’d be an easy thing to do since there isn’t a whole lot of room for vices on fishing boats. It’s a great place to go if you want to get sober, thus the term “Sea-hab” for some of the guys.
Last gripe. I usually try to keep an open mind about music. People always seemed puzzled by my “everything” answer to “what kind of music do you like?” On a side note, why is that such a common question? Does it truly provide insight into someone’s life or is it more like the weather, it’s something you can talk about? Anyways, a lot of the younger guys like that Auto-tune stuff. It’s getting old. Music should not sound like robots having sex. The factory is a loud place, so I wear ear plugs every day, but they help keep the boom boom music out of my head too.
Shit, when did I become the stubborn old fart? Off to hibernate.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Nighttime is almost as cool of a time to sample as is the daytime. Weird things happen to the brain. The world becomes surreal. When you’re short on sleep like I am right now (1 hour in the last 30, but it was a good hour) the universe is a different place. You notice different things, or imagine them anyways. You know when you’re listening to your MP3 player and you can’t tell if the noises in the background of that weird song you’re listening to is in your head, from the ear phones, or from something else just beyond the periphery? It happens more often. A mild case of paranoia sets in. I’m up on deck alone for hours sometimes.
I helped out with some sleep deprivation studies for one of my courses in New Zealand. Missing 24 hours of sleep is akin to, no actually, it’s worse than being legally drunk. Your blood pressure drops like crazy, your reaction time goes to hell, your grip strength goes to heck, and your ability to perform simple tasks goes to Hades. It’s a good thing I’m just up on the weather deck away from anything dangerous. But it’s the mental aspect that I truly find interesting.
The wind was whipping the fog around a couple of hours ago, and in a moment of unfocused daze, I could swear there were trippy patterns in the layers of moisture. It was kind of like when you press your hands against your eyes and you start to see all sorts of weird colors. It was a strange moment. On calm nights, the jellyfish come to the surface, looking ghostly as they drift by. It’s beautiful. But part of you is yearning to run back to lights, people, and friendly banter. But I still have another 45 minutes to go on this magazine before I can head down to the factory. And there’s something fascinating about it as well. There’s a little bit of madness in all of us, but we really don’t come face to face with it very often.
Later that day.
Once I got a bit of sleep it’s fascinating to read what I wrote a few hours ago. I’m on break now and I get another one in 8 hours. Score. The world is again a bright and cheerful place.
We’re further south now, near St. Paul island again. The fishing has been terrible. I guess it’s fine for me because I get paid regardless, but I feel bad for the guys. Some of them have daily guarantees, but others are almost completely reliant on how much fish we catch. If it’s a good year this is all fine and dandy, but if it’s a bad year like this one is looking like, it puts the guys in a funk. I counted 922 starfish on one magazine (a longline is divided into segments called magazines or mags) during the last haul.
Wednesday August 25, 2010
A typical 24 hour day
It’s midnight. The night shift is just beginning and the Norwegian fish master has informed me that we will be hauling in a half hour. I make a special point to head downstairs and eat a good meal. There’s something about the early morning hauls that make me feel woozy, and the food helps. I chat with a couple of crew members while eating some decent Mexican food. The cook always finds something that I chose not to eat and describes how he slaved over it. “I slaved over those potatoes.” It reminds me of my Dad, who always says something like this. Bemused, I tell him he didn’t say hi to me in the hallway the other day, and that it hurt my feelings.
The guys start rushing downstairs and getting in last minute cigarettes, even though they smoke downstairs in the factory too. I run up to my room and start pre-filling out all my deck forms with all non-fish related information so I don’t have to do it later. Then, I lurch my way down to the factory, through the narrow corridor between the gear (coiled hooks and line), past the roller station (where the fish come aboard), duck under a couple of belts and up into the bow of the ship. Sometimes in the bow, you can barely stay on your feet. I hear waves crashing into it but the movement isn’t too bad. Hastily, I throw on my Grundens, my belt and knife, and put on my wool glove liners and gloves. I tell the bleeder (Cod need to be bled before they can be processed so this guy hangs next to the roller station with a big knife and, well… you get the rest) to save me 20 cod when the magazine has gone by because he always forgets. I go around the corner to roller station. Conan the Barbarian is there; at least that’s what I call him because when he is the roller man he makes noises like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The name is catching on with the crew. The roller man’s job is to ensure that fish get into the boat and over the roller (think a giant metal rolling pin). If he wasn’t there many fish would fall off the longline before they made it into the boat. I tell him “we’ll do bycatch the next 2 mags.” He says “Si si si.” The rollerman is always busy.
I climb the ladder up to the deck, no easy task with a clipboard in your hand on a moving vessel. It’s a little windy tonight, but the waves are calm and the jellyfish are out again. Fish start coming aboard after they pull in the anchor. I start clicking away and tallying fish. During the dull moments I daydream or watch for birds and whales. Lots of fish are coming up right now, which is nice because it always makes the haul go faster. I am a little underdressed, as I start feeling cold. Finally comes the tap the rollerman makes with his gaff that indicates a mag has gone by, you can also tell by the knot in the rope if you’re watching closely. Back into the factory. I weigh my fish quickly and head back up on deck. I repeat this a couple more times and then rush off to bed.
The next haul is an off haul. Sweeeeet. I sleep from about 5:00am until 11:30am. Norwegian fish master (I want there to be cymbals or a gong that crashes after I call him that) again wakes me and tells me we are going to haul. I go through the motions and end up on deck yet again. It’s a brain surgery haul. My favorite kind. Every few hauls, I randomly select a couple of Cod, weigh it and measure its length. Then I sex it by cutting into its abdomen with my scalpel and finding its gonads. If it’s male, I look for pink top ramen noodles. If it’s female I’ll find 2 large paired lobes, like 2 fingers held in a peace sign or the old school victory if you’re not a hippy.
Top ramen, male, 2.4 kg and 61 cm. Female, she’s a biggun at 75 cm and 3.5 kg. Now the fun part. I take my serrated blade and saw into the fish’s head above their preopercle, or in front of their gills. From here you can utilize one of two methods. You can saw off the top of their head to where you made your cut. With these big beefy Cod, I don’t find that works so well so I simply grab their snout and break open their skull. If you made your cut correctly you’ll end up in the back part of the Cod’s brain. There should be two little bony ovals there, the otoliths. Now this next part is like that board game Operation that many of us played as kids. If you touch the Cod’s brain accidently with your forceps the fish will jump, which scared the bejeezus out of me the first time. I carefully removed the otoliths, clean them, and record my data. I have just enough time to rush back up on deck before my next tally session.
It’s a gorgeous day, one of the few times I’ve seen the sun in the past month or so. I love it up on deck; it’s the best part of the job. I make a special point when no fish are coming up to look for marine mammals. Cod, cod, cod, halibut, flathead sole, cod, cod, skate, cod, skate, cod cod cod cod cod cod, Pollock. I space out a little bit and think about Rachel. I miss her. A tanner crab comes over the rail. I notice that it has barnacles on it. I wonder how the barnacles stay on the crab when it molts. While pondering this, I miss a fish as it goes by, I could see it out of the corner of my eye. I curse myself and focus for the rest of the haul.
I chat with the chief engineer for a little while over dinner. Then I head up to the wheel house to see what’s shaking. I do a little bit of work on the computer and then hunker down for a couple of hours in the galley doing my paperwork. It never seems to end. Before long I my eyes get unfocused and I know it’s time to go out and get some fresh air. Outside, I see a couple of whale exhalations in the distance, but it’s too far to make out anything more than that. Lately, there’s been a fur seal that’s been showing up in the evenings, but I don’t see her on this particular occasion. We’re setting gear, and I can hear the autobaiter launching bait out of the stern in the background. This means we’re hauling soon. Crap. I head back to my room and nap for 15 minutes. The mate informs me that we’re hauling in a half an hour. It’s 11:59…………………………..
Thursday August 26, 2010
I’m bummed. A couple of days ago I found out that we needed to head back to St. Paul and drop off one guy and pick up another two. Now, under ordinary circumstances no sane person would be stoked to go to St. Paul (then again, I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it) but it meant I could get on land and make a couple of phone calls. I was really looking forward to calling Rachel. I wanted to hear her voice, and I know she’s had a hard few days recently in nursing school. I guess it’s just the nature of the job, but we were there for barely 5 minutes. The guys had just enough time to chuck their bags on board, yell at the guy who was leaving, and then we were off. I had figured we’d have at least a little time. Oh well. I’ll get to make some phone calls when we get to Dutch Harbor, but who knows when that will be. Another thing is I was also looking forward to was the chance to get on dry land, but it is what it is. At least the fishing has been fantastic, and this means heading home sooner.
I like this job, but the communication with friends and loved ones leaves something to be desired. In a way, the lack of communication is nice, as I don’t have to hear what the Hilton sisters are up to or listen to the talking heads babble on Fox news and CNN. But man, I crave human contact from the outside world. I hope Rachel’s ok. I’d love to chat it up with my family members or friends back in Oregon.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
As of today, I’ve been assigned to this boat for a whole month. It’s been a grind, and it has also had its interesting times. We had a great haul in the wee hours of this morning. All kinds of strange fish came up, as well as some sea pens, sea whips, sponges, bryozoans and some other stuff. Several fish were very new to me. The crew called them wolf eels, but I keyed them out to be prowfish. Often, the fisherman term for fish is different from the one I use. There’s a rock fish I call short spine thornyheads (no really, that’s their name) but the crew calls ‘em idiots, or idiotfish. They do look kind of silly. Probably the cutest fish are the lumpsuckers. They’re almost perfectly round and about the size of a hacky sack. And I’ll admit it, we played hacky sack with one. Lumpsuckers have a pelvic fin that is fused through evolution into a disk on their stomach. They use this disk to create suction so they can stick to rocks. My dream is to find a live one and stick it on some guy’s back and see how long it takes him to notice. There were also several types of rockfish in that haul, and it took me forever to key them out. Sometimes it’s a matter of if there is a #5 spine on the head or a slight shade of color on the pectoral fin. It’s great, I feel like a detective sometimes.
Norwegian fish master said he had this one bad observer who didn’t ever go out on deck ever, he just asked the crew what kind of stuff they found and wrote that down. Apparently the guy is one of the higher ups now. Anyways, Norwegian fish master(NFM) said they eventually started making up bizarre fish names, and told the guy things like Atka mackerel are up here (They’re not supposed to be up here, usually, as it turns out). It was a good story, but in the haul yesterday an Atka Mackeral turned up. They’re beautiful fish. I found it amusing that one turned up the day after NFM told me this.
Last night/this morning when all the weird fish were coming up was fun. There is a guy working here who, no matter what kind of fish, at any time of day, will hold the fish in front of his groin and pretend it is his wiener. He does this at least 5 or 6 times a day. Well he did it yesterday with one of the prowfish and I thought, “you are one snap away from pruning your family tree.” Their jaws are huge. Anyways, everyone was laughing, the music was booming. At that moment I had an epiphany. What a crazy place this is. The factory is this bizarre maze of hooks, belts and moving machinery. Water is flowing everywhere and there is constant noise, yelling, motion and clutter. On top of that, I’m out here surrounded a hoard of eccentric people (myself included I suppose). It seems so normal now, but I know years from now I’ll think back and go, “Damn, I did go out on a boat in the Bering sea for a couple of months those guys.”
September 5, 2010
Funny stories (either witnessed 1st hand or heard in Alaska)
I was up on deck a few days ago. The rollerman (I’ll use the pseudonym Peaches for this guy) was having a bad day. Nothing was going his way and I could hear him cursing on occasion. Apparently he had been yelled at by the deck boss that evening for something. On top of that, his game was off. It happens to every rollerman (remember, this is the guy that gaffs fish as they come on the boat) sooner or later. Peaches swore loudly every time he dropped a fish, and many of his swings were off the mark. Hitting a moving target on a rolling boat is not the easiest thing to do. To borrow the expression, you could actually miss the fish you are shooting at in the barrel.
There were lots of Fulmars that day. I’ve had plenty of time to observe these birds. This is where the story gets PG 13, maybe R, so earmuffs kiddies. When a northern Fulmar has to relieve itself, the feces do not just pass slowly out of the bird’s cloaca. It is ejected as if from the barrel of a gun. They launch the stuff. They almost always do their business in the water, and they rarely fly over the boat as they tend to fly into things when they do that. Thus, I have never been shat on. For some reason, the stars aligned perfectly on this day. Peaches happened to look up with his mouth open at the wrong time and a perfectly pitched fulmar dropping went right in. He hacked, coughed and then damn near heaved. Then he hurled his gaff out into the water and said, “Well. I’m done.” And then he just walked off. I won’t lie; I was beside myself with laughter. The crew has reminded peaches of this every now and again. He thinks it’s pretty funny.
Story #2
I keep hearing rumors about this big, apparently angry Samoan guy who lives in Dutch harbor. The first story I heard involved him hurling pool balls at the police in one of the bars. Apparently, Jimmy Buffet went and played here because it is known as the rowdiest bar in America. Here’s another about the Samoan guy.
Four guys drink ‘til dawn after an offload. More than rowdy, they are kicked out of the place by a bouncer. They leave the bar bristling and looking for some trouble. But they are in Dutch harbor in the winter, and there are few people out and about. They see this guy sitting in a car, so from a distance they start yelling at him, cursing, taunting, and actin’ all unfriendly like. The man in the car ignores them for a while, but after a while he gets fed up and flips the bird at them. This sends the drunk fellers into a frenzy and they start running towards the car. Angry Samoan guy gets out of the car and the men can clearly see his impressive size. The man is huge, with arms like pythons and legs like tree trunks. The drunk guys see this and start to have second thoughts and think that they are probably needed elsewhere. They try to turn tail and run, but it is winter in Dutch and the ground is a sheet of ice. So instead of flipping 180’s the guys keep sliding towards the behemoth. My buddy is watching this from a window and said it was hilarious. The men all slid single file towards their impending doom. Long story short, Big Samoan dude takes all four of them out, and the police are actually pretty lenient towards him as it was the drunks who started it.
Story #3 (short one)
New guys on boats are called Greenhorns. They receive endless amounts of grief from the deck boss and the other crew members. The new guy on our boat gets yelled at quite a bit, but he’s slowly breaking in with the crew and not screwing up so much. There are lots a practical jokes on these guys too. Occasionally on crab boats, the captain or mate will tell the Greenhorn that they have to do a radar check. They’ll tell the new guy to wrap his entire body in Tin foil and then go stand out on deck and hold their arms out so they can “make sure the Radar is working.” The captain will usually direct the new guy to stand on one leg or on his head to see how long it takes him to catch on. There are many laughs to be had at the expense of the Greenhorns.
Our greenhorn was doing something odd this morning: he was popping the Otoliths out of the Pollock when he had time. Now, most of the guys don’t take the interest I do in these sorts of things so I asked him why he was taking the otoliths. He replied that the deck boss told him that you can get 50 cents a pop for the things in Dutch harbor. He may be right, but I have the nagging suspicion that the deck boss is pulling his leg and he’ll end up with a bag of bloody bones to throw away later.
September 9th, 2010
I just had my first Cod tongues for dinner a moment ago. Norwegian Fish Master and the cook collaborated on it, to great success. They taste kind of like oysters. According to NFM, there is a rule in Norway that adults can’t make money selling Cod tongues, so it falls to the youngsters. The kids can make bank doing this. Anyways, it was pretty tasty. An octopus was pulled up on one of the hauls while I was sleeping a few days ago. I was bummed I missed it, as I haven’t seen one since my family and I rescued one by stuffing it in my jacket when I was a kid. The cook, being the creative type, had it taken upstairs where he cut it up and fried it. It too was pretty tasty, albeit a bit chewy. During the beginning of the cruise he made some of the best Saviche (sp?) I’ve ever had out of one of the short spine thorny heads we pulled up.
Because you’re stuck on a boat in the Bering Sea, to survive you have to manufacture some excitement every now and then. This is no problem for me because I’m fascinated by the bizarre. I took a video of some cool looking barnacles that came up yesterday, took 45 minutes to photograph a long nose skate (It was way out of its range, at least according to the guide I have) and when the crew asks me what I want them to save I reply, “the weird shit.” Most of the crew members could care less, but there are always a few who are curious about something. There are animals called sea whips that get snagged by hooks as the line drags across the ocean floor. The mate calls them water wienies. I can’t even remember what phylum they are in, but what blew me away is that when you bend them they glow in the dark. Unfortunately a boat always has about 4 million lights on at any given time but if you put the thing in a shadow you can see the ghostly ephemeral glow.
Supposedly, we’re headed back to Dutch Harbor soon, but I’ve been hearing that for days. It’ll probably be at least a few more days, perhaps a week. I’ll likely have only 48 hours or so before the boat heads back out again but I’ll use the time wisely. I can’t wait to talk to Rachel.
We saw some whales two days ago. Several were orcas. We were fishing at a spot known as the mushroom (I hypothesize that the topographic map of the sea floor looks like a mushroom, but I really don’t know why they call it that). The skipper told me that they always see orcas in this area for some reason. They swam pretty close on a few occasions, possibly they were checking out the gear to see if anything tasty was hooked. I also had a few Fin whale sightings and another I think was a Sei whale (they’re a bit smaller). One of my life’s goals is to see a Humpback, my favorite whale as a kid. I’m not likely to see on this trip, but it could happen.
It’s the sound of the whale blow that really sticks in my mind. I remember the first pair I ever saw while sea kayaking in Alaska last summer. You can hear it over the ship’s engines when the orcas are close. It sounds so powerful and amazing.
While up on deck tallying this morning, something odd happened. I was sitting in one of my spots watching the line. All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw a shorebird (sandpiper type bird) walking around on deck. Often times at night I’ll see them flying around, disoriented by the ship’s lights. Lord only knows where they are going. Sometimes we are 100 miles away from land and I see them fluttering through the night. Anyways, this little dude didn’t see me (I’m bright orange in my Grundens, he must have thought I was a buoy) and he walked right under my boot that I had resting on the rail and actually nibbled on it for a second. It appeared as if it was looking for any bait left out on deck. It walked around for a bit and then flew off. Cute.
I just heard the engine rev up to a little higher RPM. That means we stopped setting and will be hauling soon. After a month out here you get in tune with these things…
September 14, 2010
Ok we are officially getting close to heading back to Dutch harbor. I feel like I’ve been saying that for a while now, but the crew are starting to fill the bait locker. This is a much smaller freezer for the bait; you might as well go home filled to the brim. The boat is riding a little lower. In seven minutes, I will have been at sea for 47 days, and we likely have at least one more day after that. We are still a day’s steam from Dutch Harbor.
I’m getting a lot better at the job but there is still a lot to learn. Some of the things I royally screwed up were the identification of a couple types of skates, and the halibut injury assessment. I won’t get into the details on those, but things are going a lot better now. For each haul I have to come up with a sample design, and since we haul long lines of varying lengths my sample design keeps on changing. The next haul is composed of 23 magazines. Damn prime numbers, I’ll have to do some creative number crunching to figure out how to sample randomly.
Fun Facts:
We’ll set a longline tomorrow that has over 30,000 hooks and is 18 miles long.
I’ve been at sea for 47 days. I know I know, repeat. But isn’t that crazy?
My beard and neck beard is at its longest length ever. Getting hairier by the day
I think I’ve finally figured out how to rock out on a Ukulele. It isn’t easy on an instrument made for singing somewhere over the rainbow.
A clipboard used in these conditions can go from new to rusty in 47 days
The birds live up here year round. In 50 foot seas and 80 mile per hour winds. Badasses
Life without the internet ain’t so bad, you should try it sometime. I miss beer and fresh vegetables though. Oh yeah, you too Rachel *wink*
Wednesday, September 22
Well, the first trip is over with; now onto the second trip. I was secretly hoping that my employer would send me home after the first trip. Not because I hate the job but because it would have been convenient to get home early, see Rachel and get ready to move to NZ. On top of that, the internet was down in Dutch Harbor. I plan on posting my journal to the blog, and if you made it this far, well… congrats. Anyhow, I pretty much couldn’t get anything done except make a bunch of phone calls home to the sweetie. This trip doesn’t seem to be going any faster, so it looks like I’ll be out here for another 40 days.
During the offload, I basically ran around looking for wireless internet until I realized it was out on the entire island of Unalaska. The crew busted their butt while I did this. It took them 19 hours to offload this boat (this is a pretty big boat for a longliner).
Now, we’re back out in the Bering Sea trying to grind another one out. We picked up a few new guys. The engineer is a Polish guy who recognized that my last name is Polish. I can’t say that’s ever happened before. The new captain looks like Mark Twain. I’ve been tempted to call him Mr. Clemens, but I’ll wait until I know him a little better.
Other than that things remain the same. I’m pretty shut off from all vices except for food. I have no computer games, no TV, no internet, no phone (I was told I’d have to pay something like 100$ to make any more personal calls), no climbing gear and bikes, no beer. Nothing. I thought this might be a neat experience, to shut all that off for a little while and just talk, read and play the Ukulele. I won’t lie; I’d kill to have a couple of computer games right now. On a boat, especially a longliner where one spends a lot of time up on deck doing nothing except tallying, you have so much time to think that your life becomes a giant causality loop. I get Déjà vu all the time. Did I weight those fish already? Didn’t I see that bird yesterday? Didn’t the Chief and I already have this conversation? Good decisions require sufficient thought, but with this amount of time on your hands you start second guessing everything. This gets a little frustrating sometimes. It’s better often to just go with your gut and don’t look back. I’m realizing that’s the reason time killers exist: to keep you from thinking too much, or to over think problems. See, there I go again, I thought about this too much.
September 23, 2010
Now is the winter of our discount tent
I was looking at some pictures of Ian, Molly and I climbing in summer of 2009. I sighed whimsically and said to myself, “Man, I can’t wait for summer.” Then I realized summer was 2 days ago. Summer in the Bering Sea is more like early spring on the Oregon coast. Occasionally it’s a nice day and I get to strip down to a paltry 3 layers.
I’ve been somewhat cursed in my life summer-wise. I left for New Zealand at the end of an Oregon winter. In New Zealand it was nice for a month and then it became winter. I then departed in the NZ spring and weathered out another winter in Oregon. When I worked at Mt. Rainier National Park, it happened to be the year they got 93 feet of snow, or a foot shy of the record. We didn’t see the ground that summer, just snow and an avalanche lily or two popping up through the drifts. I witnessed a flurry in July in Colorado. Here in the Bering Sea, I’d guess the temps rarely get above the mid 50’s, or 10’s if you’re thinking centigrade. It’s not so much the temps as it is the ever present stiff breeze that chills to the bone.
Man, I can’t wait for summer.
October 1, 2010
It’s about 6 in the morning. We’re going to haul in an hour or so, thus I’m trying to forgo sleep until my break later today. It’s another 24 hour shift for me. But it’s ok, because sooner or later the pendulum swings the other way and I’ll get a couple of 6 hour breaks in close proximity.
It started snowing on me yesterday while I was out on deck. The weather’s gotten distinctly colder. The wind now has that bite too it that promises bone chilling temperatures are soon to come. I think I’m getting out of here at the right time. On the other hand, Autumn has been a lot sunnier than Summer was. There’s less fog and patchier clouds. I busted out the secret weapon I’ve been saving for this time: my neck warmer, which will come in pretty handy. If temps get really bad I have the ultimate weapon of war, the mustang suit. For equipment observers can check out one of these bad boys. It’s a bright orange jumpsuit made out of bombproof cordura nylon and insulation. The one I was issued has obviously been through hell and back.
They say all sorts of people come to Alaska, and I’ve certainly seen that here on this boat. Many of the guys have had, or are having trouble with the law so a fishing boat is a great place to go hide out for a while. They’re all good dudes more or less, but when alcohol becomes involved I know a few of these guys get pretty rowdy.
There are all sorts of people here for other reasons too. I’ve witnessed about the broadest political spectrum I’ve ever seen right here amongst the people on this boat. I hate to pigeon hole anybody, but with everyone you can get a sense of their political tendencies. The media back home tends to focus on the people with the most extreme viewpoints, but man, they have nothing on some of these guys. One guy (I can’t, and won’t name names) is very concerned about “Commies.” He uses this phrase all the time, and is very worried that Obama is going to turn the Nation into France. I have doubts I could change his mind so I don’t get into it with him. There are extreme viewpoints on the other side as well. I got into it with a guy because he said NPR is, get this, too “conservative” and “controlled by corporate interests.” He likes Ralph Nader. A LOT. The bulk of the guys here probably could care less as long as Strip Clubs remain legal.
Funny Story # I don’t know
R rated. Maybe X. Avoid reading if easily offended.
According to a couple of different sources, during Black Cod season in the Gulf of Alaska (further south), when skates enter their mating season the Male skates that are caught as bye-catch come up “loaded.” I have not seen this firsthand, but I have it on good authority that if you rub a Male skate’s belly during this time of year the skate will ejaculate like crazy. One of the sources said sometimes it gets pretty bad down in the factory, with guys trying to “shoot” other guys as well as ambush fellow workers by hiding around corners with a loaded skate. Ewwww.
October 2, 2010
The top 5 topics of conversation on this boat:
Fishing and number of fish caught
The other boat I worked on was better because _______
“Get back to F’ing work” and other versions of this
Child support
"Hot ass bitches”
Wednesday October 6, 2010
To .Tomorrow I’ll only have three weeks left to enjoy my cruise in the Bering Sea. Time’s starting to fly by now, and sooner or later I’ll be in New Zealand with Rachel. It’s been a long time coming. I’ve had some cool experiences and made some decent money, but I’m starting to grow a little weary of being on the boat. I’m certainly not disgruntled yet, but after 60+ days at sea some things start to become a drag, if they weren’t already. There are the obvious things like the lack of a normal social life and relationships, namely the girlfriend and the folks I call my friends.
There are other aspects of life on a boat worth mentioning. A boat is a quirky place. For instance, to use the toilet, or head as they call it here, I basically do a lunge and hold it while I do my business, that way I don’t pee all over the wall when the boat rocks unexpectedly. To take a shower, I point the showerhead at the wall for about 15 seconds to warm it up, that way it isn’t shockingly cold when I lean against it. There is no way to stay on your feet in the shower without bracing against something.
On the subject of bathrooms, the toilet in the bathroom across the hall is, as far as I know, the only toilet known to mankind that can be clogged by water. But I surmise that with gravity pointing all sorts of crazy directions that plumbing might not work the way it is normally supposed to. In the bathroom closet, for reasons unknown, there is a large bottle of horse shampoo. Here’s another weird quirk. For some reason, the last observer to use my room had a towel with a garishly embroidered sides and little tassels with plastic diamonds on it. Since I brought only my pack towel with me, I use this to shower with. A couple of crew members saw it the other day and thought it was pretty funny. I asked them to call me Baron Von observer, but it never caught on, they still call me Willy.
In said bathroom, for the longest time there was this odd sound I couldn’t place, until I realized it was a loose screw in the lighting cover rolling around. Anything that isn’t secured can make weird sounds. If a cabinet door is open in someone’s room, you hear it all too clearly. Usually someone will go shut it. In one of the staterooms that wasn’t being used for a while, I could swear there were ball bearings in the ceiling (which would be a pretty funny prank to pull actually). There’s always noise. There’s always motion and things falling off of shelves.
In the Galley, one must always hold onto your cup, otherwise it will go Galley west (Sorry… I had to, I love puns). In stormy seas, sometimes pot lids, tongs and all kinds of stuff are literally flying around down there. The burners on the stove have special sides on them to prevent capsizing of cookware, and anything that isn’t screwed to a surface has some kind of latch or bungee tied around it. Word has it the juice machine has injured more than one person when it flew off its foundation.
To move around a boat requires an odd shuffling motion with frequent stumbles and pushes off of stable objects. You know when you stumble and catch yourself but still need another step to regain your balance? It’s that moment before that second step that you constantly find yourself in on a boat. You’re never positive that your foot is going to land where you think it is going too. What a great metaphor for life, at least for me these days.
October 8, 2010
Mine mine mine miiine
I try not to hate any animal for being what they are (except ticks and mosquitoes, they are the only animals I feel ok with torturing a little before I kill them). In fact, I usually like the more disreputable types; the buzzards, jays and hyenas of the world. Hell, even leeches are pretty cool looking. But I just saw a seagull eat one of those cute little shorebirds that I see flittering through the night and it definitely lowered my opinion of them, of seagulls that is. They’re not down to Michael Bolton level just yet, but they just don’t have a whole lot of personality. And they eat shorebirds. It is kind of funny when they insist on landing on the same perch as another bird, even though there is rail 40 feet on either side that would be perfectly fine.
October 11, 2010
We had another boat drop us off some equipment and supplies yesterday. It was kind of cool, actually watching the other boat rip through the high seas we had yesterday. I was wondering how they would get the cargo from point A to point B. If the boats got pretty close together it would have been dangerous in that kind of weather. The other boat, which was actually captained by the first captain of this vessel (We’ve had a few now) stuffed the gear into water proof bags and inside a cargo net and just chucked it overboard. We followed right behind them and picked up the gear. After a couple of exchanged insults over the radio each boat went on its merry way. What was so important that we had to rendezvous with another boat? Well our roller station needed a few parts, but I think what most concerned the guys was the shortage of coffee filters on this vessel. I have a hard time imagining that anything would get done without Christian crank on this boat. The guys usually have several cups in them. For myself, I actually never drink it because I want to be able to catch a couple hours sleep when I get the chance in between hauls.
There’s always some kind of baked goods made by the cook in the Galley. There is an individual that has been slicing off the top third of several pieces of cake and eating it, presumably to get a higher icing to cake ratio. Late last night I caught the captain in the act. I won’t say anything, as there is always too much food to go around anyways.
What happens to the leftovers? They get thrown overboard like everything else that isn’t made of plastic. I had to get on a guy’s case for almost throwing is pop tart wrapper overboard. It’s actually one of my duties to police this. At first the throwing of food overboard kind of disturbed me, but then I realized that it might be beneficial in a way. Fishing extracts nutrients from the water and the leftover food might put at least some back in the system. The plastic is a big deal, as there is a giant gyre of spinning plastic miles wide somewhere south of us in the north pacific. It takes forever for the stuff to break down.
We had a pretty good look at a couple of fin whales yesterday in the Wheelhouse. Beautiful animals. They are such an amazing combination of sleekness, efficiency and size. I watched them for quite a while.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Yesterday was a special day. It started out in a pretty un-special, for the lack of a better word, with me moping about feeling sorry for myself. It was just one of those moments you find yourself in when you’ve been trapped on a boat in the Bering sea with no end in sight moments. Y’know… one of those I miss Rachel and friends and family and my climbing muscles are deteriorating into nothingness and there’s no beer or mountain biking and what am I doing with my life moments. I only have somewhere around 2 to 3 weeks left but sometimes time seems to stretch out into infinity here. Suffice it to say I was having a bad day. And then everything showed up the next haul.
I had a pretty good time shooting the shit with the guys up in the bow talking about how great women are and then I jumped into my mustang suit. I’ve started wearing it on the super cold days, which is most days. It looks kind of like a cross between something an astronaut wears and a prison jumpsuit. It’s got a pipe fixed next to my mouth that I can inflate for floatation. I don’t know why I didn’t start using it earlier. I can’t believe how warm it is. When I wear my Grundens up on deck the total comes to about 6 layers of clothing and I am usually freezing by the time I get done tallying. I have yet to feel even cool in the mustang suit. Sure, wearing it feels like you’re wearing one of those inflatable sumo suits they have at fairs, but it is more than worth it. I am wearing so much insulation I would wager Mike Tyson could punch me in the gut and I’d hardly feel it.
Anyways, I head up onto deck and there, amidst a beautiful sun shiny day, is Old Clubfin. Old Clubfin is a killer whale I recognized from last trip; I’d seen him a few times now. He is seriously the most farked up whale I have ever seen. His dorsal fin is twisted and has two rounded points on top. The thing I noticed today is that his fluke is all messed up as well. It is seriously mangled and is twisted in such a way on one side that it is 45 degrees from where it should be. It’s a miracle that he can even swim. Apparently he’s been around for a while. The cook thinks he got hit by a prop but the distance between the mutilations makes me suspect it’s some kind of disease.
As I watched Old clubfin, I instinctively averted my eyes because it’s rude to stare. A moment later I found this pretty funny because Old Club fin is a whale and could probably care less. I just hope it doesn’t prevent him from getting some hot cow action, a cow being a female orca. I just wanted to make that clear because I do not condone interspecies relationships.
Old Clubfin was there with his friends I had seen before, another big bull, a small cow and a little guy or gal. There were at least 10 Dahl’s porpoises swimming around at frenetic speeds. There was even a fur seal there. I had seen Orcas and porpoises surfacing in the distance before and I thought that maybe the whales were chasing the porpoises. I know killer whales frequently eat harbor porpoises but it was clear that these two groups were just hanging out together. There was no way a porpoise would swim in front of a whale the way I saw it yesterday. Here’s my theory. Killer whales are known to come in two behavioral types, the seal eaters and the fish eaters. Apparently stellar sea lions on the coast will swim next to the fish eaters, but when they hear the songs of the roving packs of seal eaters they start freaking out and jumping out of the water. The pod of whales I was observing must be fish eaters, and they were not messing with the porpoises or fur seal. In fact, I could swear the porpoises and the young whale were playing. I could see the young gun’s fluke enter the water at all sorts of weird angles and the porpoises made loops around the little guy. I have never seen a Dahl’s porpoise swim at less than 15 knots. They surface in the blink of an eye, and you watch their white sides screaming through the water you can see what a clip they are moving at. Killer whales are no slouches either. They can move at over 30 knots if they feel like it.
I have other reasons to believe this pod consists of fish eaters. The small one made several passes next to the boat, right at the gear line. It was a pretty special moment, seeing this magnificent animal up so close. The rollerman didn’t even notice, but I think I’d react with awe every time this happened. Anyways, it was obvious he or she was checking out what kinds of fish were on the line. This is anecdotal, but almost no Halibut came up on the line, which is unusual. This made me think that the whales were picking off all the flatfish as they came up. According to the captain they never eat the cod, but for some reason they love flatfish like Greenland Turbot, Arrowtooth flounder and Pacific Halibut.
We pulled up a lot of cool organisms during those couple of hauls too. I saw my first yellowfin sole. It was a cute one, about the size of a pancake. We were fishing this big rock pile in this area known as the mushroom. We pulled up several hundred Irish Lords, as well as some neat corals, sponges, searchers (they have beautiful eyes), a couple of rockfishes, a rock sole, a couple of flathead soles, and an animal I don’t even know what phylum it belongs to. The latter was pink with a round top. It had rough scale like plates on its dorsal surface and what looked like a sucker on the bottom. It had a mouth and an anus on top, and did not look like a chiton. Bizarre.
That’s all for now. So long and thanks for all the fish.
I was hoping to get up to Denali National Park this weekend, but with the crappy weather and $100's of dollars of transportation and lodging fees (The park service tends to frown on dirtbags like me who try to do things cheaply) I decided to bag it. Inclement weather is really not a problem, but if it prevents me from seeing Alaska's big 20,000 footer, I wasn't sure it was worth the money. I'll get up there eventually. I overheard several fanatical salmon sports fishermen whispering about it possibly being a "100,000 fish day," whatever that means (Sounds big). I thought about picking up a rod and a license and hitching south, but that too can get spendy. But with no cooler and no camping gear, I wasn't sure how that was going to work. In a couple of weeks I'll be hip deep in fish (literally. No really I'm serious) so I figured that wasn't the best idea either.
I found a place here in town that rents mt. bikes, and a dude I met spoke highly of the rides in Chugach state park. So tomorrow I'm going to head out and ride some singletrack. I also managed to find the local rock gym in town and climb with some locals. It was your typical affair: good bouldering with that stinky shoe smell and a couple mangy dogs that hang out in front. It's funny to me how often you see someone's mutt sleeping on couches in climbing gyms.
Cranking in the gym, it occurred to me how important it is for me to find the local gym, crag or mountain club. That's where I usually can find the type of people I usually hang out with. The biology people I hang out with are cool I suppose, but most of them aren't the real outdoorsy types. Also, they're mostly fisheries oriented, so my "What's your favorite enzyme?" conversation starter doesn't get as many laughs.
So it took a week or so, but I was able to find things to do beside study and drink (Alaskans like to drink). This state has some pretty cool places, but man, you really need a car to get to most of them, and even that won't work sometimes.
In a couple of weeks, I'll likely be off to Kodiak Island or Dutch Harbor. I'll be bringing shoes and a chalk bag, just in case, though the climbing prospects don't seem to be too bright. I've been teaching myself to play the ukulele, so with a bit more practice I might not get punched by any fishermen on the boats I will be stationed on.
That's all for now, Happy Summer everyone!
