June 28th:Shower via fire hose

On almost all fishing boats there are an infinite number of uses for their high pressure fire hoses, the least of which is fighting fires. They use them to hold fish onto incline belts when they are slipping down, they use them to move large amounts of fish by blasting one edge in a bin and to clean anything in sight. Today we had a couple of huge halibut and the only way that I can hold on to them (they are super slimy) is to body hug them and put them in my basket. At the end of the sample I was covered in slime guts and scales and every time I tried to wipe it off it just smeared to a new place on my rain gear. So Hung (the back line guy who helps me sort) took his fire hose and just hosed me down like dad used to threaten when I was little. I have put my rain gear in the laundry a couple of times and it never comes back completely clean but Hung's fire hose wash was the cleanest it has been in a couple of weeks.

Wildlife Viewing

A couple of cool things I have seen this week... a sea lion came up to the boat, luckily it came to the bow so I got to see it from the wheelhouse. And if it would have gone to the stern of the boat looking for fish I would have had to fill out a bunch of paperwork stating that the fishing industry interacted with a marine mammal. Later that day the deck boss came to find me in the factory to tell me there was a shark on deck (they are required by law to tell me if anything is too big to go into the factory). So I am thinking this is huge shark and I get all excited. It turned out to be a baby sleeper shark that was only about a yard long and sleeper sharks don't really have teeth. Still cool but not as awesome as I was hoping.

Dutch Harbor Earthquake

Just in case some of you were worried...I know there are a couple of you. We left Dutch Harbor the day before the earthquake hit. I am currently safely straddling the international date line far from Dutch Harbor. In case there is another one, don't worry I am an old pro at earthquakes, this would have been my 3rd earthquake. It is driving in snow that scares me to no end not Bering Sea storms and earthquakes.

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"