Into the AK

It is the morning of the 30th of August, and these are my last hours in Anchorage. A cab is coming to pick me up at 9:30 to take me to the airport. I have my boat assignment, and by 8pm Pacific, I'll be on a boat.

I'm the first one of the group to leave. Everyone else got their first boats also, but some of them aren't leaving until Tuesday. And even then, their boat doesn't get into to port of a couple of days after that. I wish I had some extra time and money in Anchorage to go see more of the outlining areas to this city, but that is the nature of this job. I am pretty much on call 24-7 for the next 90 days.

I am not flying into Dutch Harbor any more. Plans changed and I'm getting on a boat at St. Paul Island in the middle of the Bering Sea. When I say in the middle of the Bering Sea, I don't mean that it's part of the Aleutian Islands. This island is out by it's self with St. George Island about a day and a half by fishing boat north of Dutch Harbor and the Aleutian Islands. This island is only inhabited because the the Russian fur trade. The Russians kidnapped a lot of natives from Alaska and put them on this island to kill Alaskan Fur Seals and ship them back to Russia. This island is a big breeding ground for the Alaskan Fur Seal. After the US put a stop to the slaughtering of the fur seals, no one bothered to take the natives home from the island. So they remained there and set up home and now they just considered it their little island. There are only around 500 people who live on St. Paul, 130 of which are students. The island is flat with no trees what so ever. Where Dutch Harbor has a lot of great hiking trails and beautiful scenery, and is a major fishing port, St. Paul is full of natives who got left on a island full of Fur Seals that they can't hurt with no mountains, no trees, and whipping winds.

Needless to say, this island is not a huge desstination point for the tourists of Alaska. I am expecting there to be some where in the neighborhood of 1 to 10 people to be on my 4 hour flight. The airport in St. Paul is right next to the port. I will walk off my little prop airplane right over to the dock with my army surplus duffel bag, backpack, and NMFS issued sampling gear. I am going to stick out like a sore thumb. There I'll be, sitting at the dock with my feet dangling in the water, waving my hand wildly, with my ear to ear welcoming grin, thrown across my face as the boat comes into to port to pick up their biologist, (I officaly can use the title biologist now, it feels awesome).

The boat I'll be on is an old crab boat, about 30 feet larger than the Northwestern, the one seen on the Deadliest Catch. They'll be using the same crab pots you see on that show, only I'll be on their while they're fishing Pacific Cod. It's going to be little compared the 300 foot floating factories most of the other people in my company are getting deployed to. I am happy I'm not get on one of those boats. On those you are just standing in front of a conveyor belt in the heated, dry factory, during a 12 hour work period, pulling off anything that isn't Pollock, (which isn't much). I get to be on the deck the entire time with the crew, sampling at sea. I'll have my own little station away from them so I don't get in their way. The catch is usually pretty clean, so I wont have to sort through a bunch of fish other than Pacific Cod, but there is a good chance that I am going to have to sort through a bunch of crab. They are not allowed to keep the crab until crab season. This is an old boat that doesn't fish for anything but crab unless they need the cash. The crew doesn't make near the money they do catching fish instead of crab, so I'm not expecting a jubilant crew to work with.

I am really excited, and extremely nervous as the minutes tick down until the cabby gets here. I wont be able to have access to internet for a while, maybe a month or more. The boat will be out for around 2 weeks at a time maybe longer, maybe shorter, and if we unload at St. Paul, then I won't have access their either, and then it's right back on the same boat for another 2 weeks or so depending. So this will be my last message for awhile. I would like to say I apprecate all the support and comments from all of you that have been reading this. It makes me feel less isolated from the from the people that I care most about. This blog gives me a chance to tell long winded stories about mundane things, or about the little things that get me excited like the planet walk. Please keep leaving me comments and writing me emails while I am away at sea. I wont get to read them for awhile, but it will make me feel like the world didn't forget about me for the last month to two months. I am humbled by the amount of truly good people have surrounded me in my life. I didn't fully realize this until I chose to make the journey into the AK, how many there were and how well you all support and care about me. I have gained a lot from this experience already, but I want you all to know that I miss being in Spokane surrounded by the people who made smile and made all the little things in life joyous. I do not know when I will make it back there next, but when I do, I will make sure that it is known to all.

I sit here in Anchorage, blessed and honored to have been apart of all the lives of the people I have come across. You have given me the confidence in my self to know that I am strong enough to take on a challenge such as being on a boat full of crazy old fishermen. Strong enough to know that I'll be able to keep my integrity in any situation that presents its self, because I am secure with who I am. And I attribute that to all the people I have surrounded myself with and who have presented themselves to me over the last 25 years. I look forward to hearing about your lives when I get back to dry land so please feel free to write to me about anything and everything.

Always leave one hand free for the boat.

Here I go, into the AK.



- Casey

PS. I will sleep cuddled up with my emergency suit mom. You can sleep well.

Planet walk

I went for a walk one day after class with my Ipod and ran into this downtown Anchorage. A giant Sun. Naturally my curiosity spiked and I had to see what the heck this was. Next to this sun is a Kiosk of information on the solar system. Ameditly I thought to myself, "This is my kind of town." It only gets better, or nerdier depending on the size of your inner science nerd, there is something called a light year walk through downtown Anchorage and around the bay. Here's how it works, if you walk at a normal pace you will reach each planet in the amount of minutes it takes for the light of the sun to reach the planet. Exciting, I know. Also, the planets are constructed in their relative size to that of the Sun and each other. Did I mention this is my kind of city. I made my way to Mars which is at the end of the downtown area and leads you to a trail around Turnagain Arm which is the bay on the outside part of the city. I had already been out for awhile, and I walked down the trail for a bit, but had to turn around to get back to do some homework. The trail takes you all the way around the bay to a look out point right where Pluto would be, 11 miles away from downtown. One of the many paved trails around the outside of the city. There is more paved trails within the county limits of Anchorage than any other county in the USA. This little innovation to get tourists to see more of the trails, makes my inner science nerd smile.



- Casey

Wondering Where the Lions Are

... Had another dream about lions at the door. They were not as fighting as they were before, some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me ...




It's been a stress filled week with tests to pass, but I've been walking around with a gigantic smile on my face. This city, this state, has a feel to it that I can't put my finger on, but it makes me feel happy. I haven't been able to hike really at all. I've been too busy, or the plans just didn't line up right. That's alright. There is going to be plenty of things left for me to explore when I get up here in December before my next deployment to Dutch. I've been talking with a couple of the other cats I'm training with to see if we can get up here a week or a couple of days early so that we can take the train in the winter.

We wondered into the tourist center one day as we walked past it on the way home from dinner. We spent the next 45 minutes or so talking and plotting adventures with both of the ladies that work the desk there. They stayed like 20 minutes after closing to tell us places off the beaten path of the tourist adventures and told stories that made our mouths water and our adventurous bones quiver. Things like guided glacier climbing and camping, snow shoeing to the glaciers, and the main attraction being the train that goes from Anchorage to Sweard to the South, and Anchorage to Fairbanks to the north. One of the ladies told us that it is completely different in the winter. The train travels through the mountains, and you travel into parts of the AK that you could never get to with a car. She also told us that is also the only train in the US that is still a whistle train, which means that at any point on the tracks and at every train station, the train is flagged down and will stop to let people on. She took the train north one weekend in the winter and there were campers who were flagging down the train in the middle of nowhere. Some of them had been lost, while others planed out ahead of time they were going to hike in one direction and camp until they reached the train tracks and hop on. I don't think I'm down with that, but from everything I've heard, its worth four times as much as they charge.

So far this experience has giving me nothing but great and exciting opportunities. I've met more fun loving and like minded people then I have met in a long time. It leaves me wondering where the lions are? When am I going to see the rub? What's the catch? I'll probably see the lions once I get to Dutch Harbor. But the more and more we train, and get to learn about all the other opportunities that come with this job, I'm going to be in a postion to see things that will have always wanted to, but probably never would without this job. I'm not sure if I'm really going to see this as a job. Maybe it'll be more like a ride-a-long you can do with a police officer, only I'm doing it with fishing boats in the Bearing, while doing collecting samples for research on the side. There will be times when the work is really difficult, and times when it is simpler. There will be times when the sea is rough, and times when it is calm. But the time out on the boat will never be same as it would have been stuck in a lab 8 to 10 hours a day with no widows and the only light being the neon ones above me. Where getting to wear a lab coat as a uniform was the only perk. I may have left the lions back in Spokane.

- Casey

PS. The top picture is of the city of anchorage on an overcast day from flat top, and the other one is the green covered mountains that surround the city to the water

Survivor: SaltWater vs. AOI

I live in a bunk house in Downtown Anchorage with the 8 people I am training with, but there are other bunk houses in this complex. There are 3 other bunk houses which are all occupied by observers and observers in training employed by another company, SaltWater. The are nice people, but they aren't as close as the 8 of us, and looking around the class of all the other companies, I'm really glad that I got put with these kids. It kind of feels like we are in compition with the SaltWater company because we live right next to each other. There is some mingleing with them, but all of us would rather hangout with our group. Come the weekend, everyone hangs out, but during the week its AOI vs. SaltWater.

This last week was extremely busy and nerve recking. In this training, we each have to pass each test with an 80% or better or we have to get a ticket home. This happened to 3 of the 26 in the class, all SaltWater kids, making each one of us realize that it could happen to us as well, and got us to start buckling down more. I've been up the last three nights until 1 doing reading and homework. I feel confident in my ability to do the job once I get out there on sea. The hardest part of the training is learning how to fill out all the paperwork to the specifications that we need to. This will become second nature in some time, but it needs to be immaculate as soon as I deploy. We are being drilled on how to fill these sheets out so that all the number crunchers on land who have never been on the boats, know what it is we are giving them.

Today a professor from the University of Alaska Fairbanks came into class and gave a three hour lecture on how to identify all the marine mammals found here in Alaska's seas. I was on the edge of my seat for all three hours getting excited about all the critters that I've seen on the discovery channel or Plant Earth. My mind was wondering for the three hours about the chance I have to get see them up close. She was showing us all these pictures taken by observers and data taken by the observers on the boats about where different whales, sea lions, dolphins, polar bears, seals, and birds we'll see out at sea. She showed us video of a sperm whale eating the fish caught on a long fishing line that is trailing behind the boat. There is a good chance we'll get to see three different types of seals, three different types of Albatrosses, Beluga whales, lots of killer whales, along with dolphins and porpoises. We are going to be expected identify all interactions with all the marine mammals with the boat in order to help give better information to the regulating agencies about the interaction of the Alaska fishing industry and their competition with these marine mammals with their food source. But more importantly, there is not a lot of research done on the mammals in the arctic compared to those in tropical, warm areas for obvious reasons of scientist rather living in the tropics then in the arctic. So our job is to try and add some info to the what has been collected.

There were some observers who came in the bunk house last night that have been working for AOI for a couple of years. It was great to talk to them to get a better idea of what we are getting our selfs into. The three of them were coming into Anchorage to get their fall deployment. They all had taken the last 3 months of summer off and were coming back to work through the winter. They were showing pictures they had taken off all the seals, whales, and cool things on the boats they had seen in their time out there. Hopefully I get so lucky. The guy that came in told us that most of the observers out there are female, its like a 60/40 ratio, so the fishermen are a little upset when they see a guy jumping on the boat to be the observer rather than a female. They told us not to worry about the fishermen getting upset about having to have us on the boat, they haven't really ran into jerks. I kind of figured this would be the case, but it was nice to hear some confirmation on this feeling.

After talking to the priers all night, I got re-motivated about what it is that I'm getting prepared to do. All this training is important and this opportunity is one of a kind. I'm still loving this city of Anchorage, and it's upsetting me that I am not getting a chance to explore out side the city. The city is just a city like any other smaller city. What makes this city is what is outside the city. I need to climb some of these mountains before I ship to Dutch in 7 days. Next week is going to be much more laid back, but the final test is Thursday. That test is the same in that we need to get an 80%, or all of this training is for nothing. No one is leaving from AOI, no man left behind.

- Casey

The Vacation is Almost Over

All the newbie Observers and I have been locked up in our small little bunk house since Monday with readings and homework. Taking only an hour for dinner some where local and within walking distance, and then back to the bunkhouse for reading and homework sheets. I had to get out. So Wednesday night I quickly started with my homework right after class, and got it done before 9:00 for the first time since I'd been here. I talked one of my new friends in the house to come with me to an ale house that had a local band playing last night. Local beer, old people dancing to cover songs and songs that sound like cover songs, and meeting new people from around the world who came here for all different reasons. And then I remembered my buddy from Lewiston, Joey D "remix" was going to be in town sometime this week driving threw on his way to Montana. To my luck, Joey D was sitting around in his hotel room in Anchorage needing a beer. Joey D, Mark, and Myself started our journey to relaxing with a local, cold brew and meeting some people sitting next to the bar. For those of you who know Joey D, you know how the night went; great one liners from out of now where, and questions of whether of not I think the band will let him play the tambourine. I miss the kid a ton. He was one his way from Kodak Island to Kalisbell, Montana. I wish him and his wife Jordan the best.

This city is so beautiful. Actually, the city is just a city with a lot of public drunkenness at all times of the day. There are more homeless and wondering people then I expected. I was told on the plane to be prepared to see that, but its true. What makes this city so breath taking is the surrounding areas of the city. It takes 15 to 20 minutes by car from downtown to get out side the city and to a peak that overlooks the entire city of Anchorage with a view of Mt. McKinley, and the two inlets that surround the city, Turnagain Arm and Kink Arm. At most points in Turnagain Arm, the water is only 30 feet of so deep. At low tide you can almost walk across it. There are so many hiking trails and endless mountains to climb. You could be here for a month with nothing to do but scale the outside of Anchorage and surrounding cities, and still find things to come back to do.

I didn't go, but 5 of the other new hires went on a train ride from Anchorage to Seward which is 2 and half hours by car, but 4 glorious hours by train. They told me that the viewing cars were pretty much all windows and you were riding the train through mountain sides to a glacier park. They took of their shoes and had to walk across part of the glacier to get to the other side of the trail. The pictures they brought back have some of the most amazing blues and whites inside the snow caps and glaciers. There are multiple hiking trails that take you the tops of all sorts of cliffs and mountain ranges and glacier sites. All of them want to go back next weekend just to go on some of the trails they couldn't last Saturday. There is also this canoe trip that is available during the Beluga whale season where you canoe along side the whales through these glacial caverns. I am going to have to find a way to do that at some point during my break between contracts and time spent in Dutch Harbor or the Bearing Sea. It's the ability to do something so grand as canoe with Beluga whales that makes this place magical for a science nerd.

It hit me the other day that in less then two weeks I'm going to be flying out to Dutch Harbor and not leaving there until late November. All these great friends I've now met, I'm going to have to say good-bye to because there is no knowing if I'll see them in Dutch or back in Anchorage or Seattle for our debriefing right before Thanksgiving. For the past week, this has kind of felt like a vacation with some school thrown in. Now it's finally starting to feel like a job and suddenly I am reminded why they have to pay this much money to get someone to come to this great city. 2 and a half months of near solitude are in the near future. I was ready for it before, I'll be ready for it again. Only I didn't expect to meet the people I did here in Anchorage. I didn't expect that I would leave something behind here before going the job I flew here for. From the local people who treated me so kindly, and the few that I would call a friend, to my new room mates who are all different but make our 2 bedroom beat up bunk house feel like home.

I'm excited to see what life is going to be like on the Bearing Sea in a little boat and bigger boats. I am also going to miss the fun I've had here with some great people who I've made some tight bonds with. I'm going to get the adventure I signed up for though. Fall is coming, and that means wind. Pacific Cod season is around the corner and the end of Pollock (what Krab and McDonald's fish fillets are made out of) is coming up.

Sorry I haven't posted any pictures up yet. I haven't gone out on any hikes had a camera that could capture what it is that you see here. you need a lens that gets a 180 degree view. There are no views within the eye sight of a camera. By this weekend I'll have some up though. Thank you for the comments, it humbles me to think that there are people back home that are thinking of me and wanting to read what I am up to. I appreciate it.

- Casey

Grandma Beenie's Wisdom

I'm here in Anchorage, and it's been beautiful. I will try and update this a little more frequently, the last 3 days have been extremely hectic. The company put me up in hotel in the Northgate area of Seattle. All 8 of the other new observers that I am training with were put up there also. My room mate was a 27 year old,little blond haired Texan, Marine Biologist from Texas A&M Galveston. Within 3 minutes of meeting him, we were on our way to a local brewery down the street from the hotel. The kid has been working as a scuba instructor for the last three years off the coast of Spain and in the Florida keys. Quickly we bonded the best way I know how, over random sampling of local beer and shots of tequila. This gave me quick hope for the next three weeks. If all the other room mates and biologists end up being, well biologists, at least I'll have this cat that I know will be solid.

In the morning at the hotel I walked across the street, got some Starbucks, then just stood on the balcony out in front of my room taking in the last morning in the lower 48. This older woman walked by, gave each other passing howdies, then she stopped to take in a morning cigarette and we got to talking. She went by the name Grandma Beenie. She was a really sweet old woman who was in Seattle for the wedding of her niece. I told her of the trip I was about to embark on, and she started to tell me of some of the adventures she had taken with her husband before they married, and then with or because of her sons. She would not tell me why, but one of her sons was held up in an Amsterdam prison during a summer long backpacking trip across Europe, and she went to bail him out. Once he was out and cleared to leave the country, she decided to spend the next three weeks of his trip with him. You should have seen the eyes of this little old Grandma Beenie when she spoke of going in to clubs with her son in eastern Europe. After we exchanged more stories and before we parted I asked for some wisdom to help with my travels and dive into a new career. She dramatically took her last puff, put out her third cigarette and laid this on me; don't confuse change with progress. When that sweet old lady turned to me and stared me dead in my eye and told me that, it stopped me right in my tracks. Grandma Beenie gave me what I asked for, I was just surprised the wisdom that came from her mouth. What I lucky encounter. I spent the next 30 minutes outside on the stoop with Beenie while my room mate slept, this was the best part of my three days in Seattle.

I met the rest of the 8 new Observers that would spend the next 3 weeks in a two bedroom bunk house. Just next to our bunk is 8 more new Observers from another company, taking the same class as we are. All of us making sure that we are going to try and get as much interaction with like people before we spend the next 3 months out at sea knee deep in fish. It's great being around this many science nerds all with a need for excitement and with an adventitious bone in their body. All came here for different reasons, but close to the same.

I learned that I was wrong about the kind of boats I'll be on. All the fishing boats that fish in Alaska have Observers on board or have the potential to have one on board, even the crab boats seen on Deadliest Catch. The boats I'll be on are only catching Ground fish. Mainly I'll be on boats 80 to 160 feet, but some times maybe upwards to 600 feet long. Each day I get excited about the idea of being here in Alaska looking out at the beautiful green plush mountains that stretchs across from the west side to the east side. Some times its hard to stay focused in class. I catch myself staring out the window thinking about what the city and Alaska gulf would look like from a top Mt. McKinnley. Then I snap out of it and get back to learning about how the bureaucracy of the Alaskan fishing industry works, and what my place is in it. As the day drags on, more and more of the kids who are blessed enough to sit next to a window, get caught up in the same day dreaming I am fighting every hour. I watch them as they quickly realize they've missed the last two minutes of notes and glance over at their neighbors page to try and catch up. Today in class, we saw a slide show of the two main harbors that we will be working out of. My company will be mainly out of Dutch Harbor. The first photo was of the flight into the airport at Dutch Harbor. A tiny island at in the middle of the Aleutian islands surrounded by Glaciers, clear blue water that stretches for days, and nestled in by huge mountains which tower over the very edge of the city which is stretched from sea to mountain base. Every one's eyes grew wide and once again everyone realized quickly why it was that we had all flown from different parts of the globe, holding our Biology degree in hand, and begging to be let on these fishing boats knowing the inherent dangers and risks. Of course we could find some pond to look after and manage that wildlife, or fall into some desk job, but experiencing life amongst whales, seals, huge sturgeon, halibut, polar bears, and glaciers . . . nothing compares to that opportunity. Because of my conversation with Grandma Beenie, along with this realization, I am confident that I am making progress rather than mistaking it for nothing more than a change.

- Casey

P.S. , sorry mom, but it looks like the beard and curls are on their way back.

Coming Attractions

Here is the time line and the low down on where and when I am going on the first leg of this journey into the AK.

I will leave from Seattle on the morning of Sunday Aug 10 on a plane bound for the AK. I will land in Anchorage later that Sunday where the company will put and all the other Observers up in a place to stay for the next 3 weeks. We will start our training in how to decipher the different species of ocean life that we will encounter while on any of the boats. Each boat will be fishing for something different then other boats, so what it is that I will be surveying for and studying will change depending on the type of boat that I have latched on to.

There I will learn exactly how intense this job really will be. I have an idea of what to expect, then again I have no idea of what to expect. Every week I will need to pass a test in order to prove that I know enough not to look like an idiot, or screw up the research while on the boat. Come Aug. 30th or Sept. 1st I will be shipped to my first boat. Not until that day will I know what port I'm going to, or what kind of boat I will be on. From that point on, I'm kind of on my own.

I will be with the same boat as long as they are out at sea getting their catch. This could last from any where between 3-4 days to 5 weeks. This depends on the size of the boat, the catch, and how quickly they make that catch. No I will not be on any of the Deadliest Catch vessels. Though that would an awesome experience, those boats are just bigger then any of the possible boats I'll be on. The vessels will range from 40 - 100 feet in size.

I will live with, eat with, and work around the crew on board. This is what I am most apprehensive of about. I am in a position where some of the boats really do not want me aboard. The other boats won't mind, but would rather I wasn't there. I will be the science nerd hopping on board with grizzled sailors. My survival on board will hinge on whether or not I can show the man on board that I know what I am doing, I'm not going to screw up or slow down what they are doing, and that I'm not just a nerdy science kid hopping on a boat in the bearing sea because I thought it might be neat, (even if that's exactly what I am). The actual work, and the data entry will be physically hard go long into the night most of the time, but with training I will be fine. The science and research is not what scares me. Finding a niche with the crew, and mentally conquering being by my self for the next 10 or 11 weeks in a cold, wet, dark environment is the scariest part. But I am very excited about testing my self in that way.

To some of you, this may have seemed like an out of the blue, out of no where way to escape. Don't look at it that way, I never have. This job and experience is the start of my new journey, one that I was reluctant to take during college, and directly following. I have a feeling this is going to be exactly what I need to kick start me on my path.

Yogi Berra has said, and my father has reiterated it to me one multiple occasions, "If you reach a fork in the road, take it." And that is exactly what I am trying to do.