Trying to Find the Fish

We were suppose to start fishing today but we can't find any fish right now so my 12 hours shift is filled with books, podcasts, movies, and studying for the GRE (Graduate School Entrance Exam). I downloaded 50 hours of "Stuff You Should Know" (The best podcast ever created) and "This American Life" thinking that this could last me the summer. I think I am already 30 hours into them so the end of the summer might be a bit rough. I have started a conservation policy I call the "listen when you are seasick, read when the seas are flat" policy. I think I have already read 5 books this month.

The boat has a huge database of movies that play in the galley (cafeteria). Since the factory is not processing I found myself eating breakfast at 3am with 50 Vietnamese and Guatemalan factory workers while watching "Remember the Titans". This led me to the awkward task of getting out of the galley past all of them without letting them see that I was crying (it get me every time I see it).

Well I have to go watch haulback, they are pulling up the net and I have to monitor for whales and sea lions. There are never any but I have to say that I looked.

Leaving Dutch Harbor

We had some delays so we were in town an extra day but now we are headed back out to sea, it will take about 20 hours to get to the fishing grounds. I left my camera at headquarters yesterday but luckily one of the crew members had to go into town so she swung by and picked it up. Life is like that out here, on shore yesterday Joel and I were walking out to his boat, which was like 1.5 miles each way and on the way back into town a lady stopped her pick up asked us where we needed to go and so I hopped into the bed of a strangers pickup and got a ride into town. This was my first ever hitch hiking experience, I like to imagine this was what living in a small town in the 50's was like. There have been several experiences in Alaska that are like going back several decades.

Around Dutch Harbor

A walk about town:

Oh how far I have fallen

I think this one is pretty self explanatory. One is from Summer 2010 the other is Summer 2011. As one of my close friends put it "Alaska is ruining my masterpiece"

DUTCH HARBOR, AK

So most of you think that I would be happy to see land after 2 weeks at sea. You would be right, except when I got back to Dutch I was what I guess you would call "landsick" after being seasick for 3 of the past 14 days. As I am sitting here writing this at headquarters the whole room is doing a subtle swaying motion and I am actually getting kinda nauseous. So luckily I have stashed Dramamine in every conceivable place and found some in my bag. Here are some pictures. I will put some up and write the captions later, some I will add to previous posts so go back a couple of pages if you want to see them all.

June 19th: On Fashion

These are my Xtra Tuffs


It has come to my attention that a couple of my readers may not be from the Pacific Northwest 1) Welcome 2) I will give a little bit of background so this makes sense.

In Washington and Oregon it is never hot, rarely cold and almost always a little bit damp. So most people wear sandals year round, if your feet are wet, they dry quickly but if you are wearing socks and shoes you are stuck with wet feet for hours. In the winter it can get a bit chilly so it is acceptable to wear socks with your sandals if your feet are a little bit chilly. You might take some crap for it but for the most part it goes unnoticed. I grew up in Washington so I think this is perfectly normal. I went to college in Massachusetts, were I learned that what I think of as perfectly normal may not always seem that way to other people.

So how this relates to life on the Bering Sea...
There are two distinct areas on the boat. The house where you have to wear sandals of some sort and deck/factory where you have to wear your Xtra Tuffs. (Pictures to come, they are about the ugliest boot you have ever seen). Since you are switching back and for between the two you normally have wool socks on with your house sandals. I happen to have come down to dinner one night without my socks on, just sandals and the head cook came out and told me that I HAVE TO wear socks with my sandals when I am in the galley area.

So to all my college friends who tried to teach me about 'normal' fashion, by health code law, my socks and sandals are a prefered method of footwear. I guess that makes me the normal one!

June 17th: On G forces

My room on the boat, I have the top bunk and the lead observer has the bottom


In normal life one does not think about G forces much, unless you are a physicist, a jet pilot, or race car driver. I have learned the hard way how little changes in G forces make a large difference on a boat. After many days of flat calm seas the wind has picked up to 30 knots and the sea height is now around 10 feet with some bigger swells popping up every once in a while. That feeling you get when you drop really fast in a roller coaster, yeah try having that every 5 seconds.

So on to how daily tasks are effected by changing G-forces...I was sitting on the toilet and I tried to stand up just like I have been doing for 20 years and all of a sudden I couldn't stand. It happened to be right as the boat was going down and there was more force on my body than my muscles had anticipated for this common task and so I did not go anywhere. Finding this odd and not thinking ahead very well, I tried to stand up again, which happened to be right when the boat was on an up swell. This resulted in me being launched from the seat and i almost flew into the shower stall. So I have determined that pre planning is not only essential when it comes to laundry but also to timing my standing attempts, and I am sure there is more to come.