Don't call it a come back . . .

Sorry about the time passed since the last entry. As soon as I hit land, I had a lot of catching up with life to do.

November 8th was the last day of the fishing season. I got off the boat after 43 days on board. Said my goodbyes to a great crew and an awesome experience aboard a boat that I was apprehensive of when I first boarded. The trip could not have gone better.

I spent the night of the 8th and the 9th in Dutch Harbor. I ran into four friends from training and we ate, drank, and shared or stories of our first foray with our new career. Each one of us had similar experiences, but in different parts of the Ocean. We all had some unique experiences and pictures to show one another, and in Jason's case, incite some jealousy from the others with his pictures of Whales (Humpbacks and Killers) riding right next to the boat for over an hour.

We all entered into this job looking for something adventurous. All of us leaving or looking for, something different, yet the same. 6 of us from training in Anchorage met up again in Seattle after 2 1/2 months of the adventure and unknown that we had signed up for at the end of the Summer of 2008. Every single one of us happy to be back on land with some money loitering in our previous bleak bank statements. Each one us glad of the decisions we made to take a chance, head to Alaska to count fish for three straight months.

I enjoyed showing off Seattle to my new friends who had never been to the Northwest before. I spent three weeks in Seattle doing my debriefing. During this process, I have to go over every single number that I had entered into the database to make sure there were no typos, miscalculations, or worse, miss identified fish. This was a slow and tedious process, one that I was not prepared to have to endure. But the process allowed for me to get paid while being in Seattle, in the U-district, free of charge, with some great friends of mine for 3 weeks.

After all of the paperwork was combed through, it was off to Spokane to visit the city and friends I had left at the end of July. I weathered all that mother nature threw at Spokane. I was in Spokane for about 5 weeks. I supposed to be back up in Alaska on the 29th of December to start my new contract, but due to all havoc that 6 inches of snow can bring to SeaTac airport, flights to Anchorage were canceled. On top of that, there was/is a strike in the Pot Cod fishery. My company was setting me up to board most of the fishing vessels that fish for Cod using Pots (just like the crab boats). Once the strike hit, they didn't need me anymore, so the start of my new contract got pushed back to January 12th.

I had a week of training in Seattle. 50-60 biologists learning about the new regulations and going over different ways to take our samples and do our jobs to better help the fishery service. Pollock season starts January 20th. So everyone of us headed out to Dutch after training to get aboard Pollock trawl boats. This is where the boat fishes for Pollock using a giant net out the back. The boat brings any where between 20-80 metric tons of fish aboard in one pull. Pollock is the fish that is used in most food that is labeled "fish". Fish sticks, filet-o-fish, fish and chips, even fake krab and filler for chicken mcnuggets use Pollock. The pollock fishing fleet is the largest of the fishing fleets in Alaska. The fish is so abundant, they are more like a weed then they are a fish. Close to 48 % of the fish taken from the Bering Sea, by weight, in a year is Pollock.They are sexually mature at a very early age, and they produce a lot of fertilized eggs per breeding season. The row of the Pollock is where all the money is made. The row is sold to Japan by the Kilo and seems to be in great demand.

I am a board a catcher vessel delivers the catch to a plant to process. No processing aboard the ship. So the crew is considerably smaller then the last two boats I was on. It's just me, the Captain, and three deck hands populating this 120-200 foot vessel. So due to the nature of being a catcher vessel, the boat will only be out to sea for short trips then back into dock to offload. The trips will only last 3-5 days. A tad shorter then then the 21 and 43 day trips I endured last season.

This is the start of the next season, and the beginning to a new year. A completely new challenge working in a completely different fishery. I've seen the Bering Sea before, so I'm coming at her with a little experience under my belt. Although she'll be biting much harder this season. It's winter. "A" season. Better fishing, against stronger weather. Throw in some ice build up on the boat, ice formations in the sea, and 20 - 40 foot swells, and things get fun. We'll see if its as bad as it's been made out to be.



- Casey