November Duce

November 2nd

I'm tired. Every day is the same. How long I work and at what time changes, but the work is the same, counting fish. What's for lunch and dinner changes, but food is running out and Rueben is having to get creative, or just give out fried foods. Chicken or fish and rice, no matter how good it is, you can only have so many days in a row. The boat didn't expect to still be fishing. They though they would be home by Halloween, and we still another week maybe yet.

The sun isn't rising until 10:30, and then it sets by 4:00. All though, each are pretty epic on the clear days. But even those, getting lost in a daze opportunities, are becoming mundane. I've run through all the books I've brought with me. I took some music from the mate a month ago, and I've gone through all of that. I was saved by finding a book hiding in a nook in my stateroom. That was two days ago, and I'm almost through with it.

This is day 38 . . . day 38 . . .

Two days ago, on Halloween, two of the deck hands made makeshift halloween costumes. Something I had thought about doing, but lost motivation after finding little materials to construct my idea of a fish cop. One made a mask out of card board and the other wrapped himself in toilet paper. They then went trick or treating (or as my Vietnamese friend says it, "crick and greet" at least thats what I thought he was saying until I told him the real phrase) to the cooks room, for he was the only one on board with any candy left. And then it was back to work.

These guys have been out here now for over 3 months, and some are staying for another 3 weeks after the season ends. Then they all come back for the next season that starts right after Christmas, for another 6 to 10 weeks. Then they are off 'til August. But a mix of weird hunger cravings, homesickness, caffein and nicotine withdrawals, and cabin fever has some of the crew stirring and acting a little senile. The older horses are just tired and draggin'.

When the sun is out though, the boat gets hit with a shot of adrenaline. In an instant, the work picks up, fish seem to start biting, and factory ipod seems to being playing all the right songs to sing a long to. Then the sun sets and the air becomes bitter cold with a breeze. Like someone flushed the toilet while you were in the middle of applying your shampoo in the shower, only the hot water doesn't return and you stay wet until the shift is over.

Just as this Groundhog day of a life that we live is getting to me, the cook brings out white cake with white frosting and sprinkles. Oh was it good. Life is delicious on a boat.

The moral of this story, never underestimate the power of cake.

- Casey

The Grind

Week 4 with 3 left. It's starting to feel like it'll never end. The guys on this boat have been out here for 3 months now. 3 months straight away from family. More and more of the guys are starting to spend more money on the satellite phone in the wheel house to call home. I was asked yesterday by three different individuals if I had a girl back home. I could tell in each of their eyes that they weren't just making conversation, they needed to talk. It was obvious in the demeanor and tone in their voice as they asked. They ask only because the one back home is weighting too much on their mind. So of course I said no, and ask them about who it was that was back home. These men were expecting to be home by late October and home for Halloween, but here it is, Oct. 26, and three weeks of the grind still in front of them. They just needed a quick minute or two to talk to someone about how beautiful their woman is back home. How trust worthy this one is. How they wont make the same mistakes with this girl in their life. I barley know these men, but at these times of loneliness and racked with boardem, they divulge the most tender parts of their past to anyone who'll listen. Of course I oblige.

Emotions are going to play a vital roll in the weeks ahead while the hours and days seem to go on forever with no end in sight. The boat didn't expect to be out at sea near as long as it is going to be so some things are going to be getting scarce. Food is starting to run out. Last night was the final Taco night for the rest of the trip. No more milk or liquid coffee creamer. It may be just Cod, rice and bread for the final week. The more pressing issue is the slimming supply of cigarets. Yesterday, the 2/3rd's of the boat that smokes started to realize that the boat is almost out. Maybe a week left of cigarettes. That will be two weeks with emotion filled seaman ready to go home weeks ago, with nicotine withdrawals, tired of fish and rice for dinner. Tempers are sure to flare.

It looks like my commitment may end sooner than I expected. This boat maybe part of the last fleet of boats out fishing. That means I'll be back in Seattle close to November 15 - 20. Of course I wont post this until I get there. Unlike these guys, I'm wanting the fishing to extend as long as possible so that I don't get stuck heading out on another boat on a quick week long trip or something. I like this boat and the guys aboard. I want to end my first contract with these guys. So we'll see what happens.

I'll see you when I see you

Casey

One Hand for the Boat

Physically I'm not made to live on a boat. True there are taller people, and there are heavier people aboard the boat, but I feel like a giant among the small living quarters. The door ways to all rooms hit me at eye brow level, the shower head hits me square in the chest, and the bed stretches exactly from my heel to point of my head. The factory that I walk through every day has pipes and beams draping at 6 feet high along with pipes and chutes that I need to step and jump over on my way to my sampling port hole. The weather picked up a little yesterday, not much, just enough to make a person sway a little more, and concentrate harder on each step. So yesterday I was carrying a basket full of fish to be put in the discard chute out to sea, when I smacked my head, and it dropped me straight to the floor. I bang my head, arm, and legs all day walking through that factory, none of them had been as bad as that one though. I'm close to wearing a hard hat. I'm not the only one tall enough to take advantage of the height of the beams, but I seem to hit my head harder then the rest. There is motto while on a boat, always keep one hand free for the boat. Words to take stock in. Words I forget and remember daily.

- Casey

The Naturalist

I really like working with this crew. I've been able to joke around and they don't see me as a fish cop anymore. Everyone has their job to do, I don't interfere with theirs, and they all seem to understand mine pretty well. I'm not here to enforce laws, that's the coast guards duty. I'm not here to interpret the laws, I'm not versed well enough to do that. I'm here to take down catch data and take some specimen samples of the catch. I realized a couple days ago that I am doing essentially the same thing all the early naturalists did when they boarded fishing and cargo vessels heading into the ocean. They were aboard as a guest paid by the Queen and King to find and discover new plants, animals, or drugs across the global in the name of King and Country. There was a lot of money to be made in bringing back a flower, or fruit producing plant that was not grown in Europe but could be cultivated. These science nerds rode aboard the vessels, with all their literature, paperwork, drawings, specimen samples dispersed all over their stateroom, much like I've got going on. A job separate from the rest of the crew, and essentially treated like the government aboard the ship. They could be on these voyages for years at a time. Darwin's infamous trip to the Galapagos was one of these parliamentary sponsored trips that his uncle set up for him when he was collegiate aged to keep him out of trouble. The doctor in the movie Captain and Commander was naturalist as well if you remember.

I've taken this kind of personality while on board, while interacting with the crew. Any of you who asked me a science question only to be board out of you mind with my 30 minute ramble of a response, knows that I can get really excited about explaining how things work when I know a little bit about it. You also know that I am excited to tell it to anyone who wants to listen, (or even pretends to listen). Well I have a captive audience most days as I'm watching and tallying the fish as they come aboard. So needless to say, I've been in my "Bill Nye the Science Guy" mode with this crew. It's been a lot of fun. It's only been 8 days, so I haven't rambled enough to bore them with it yet, it'll probably happen soon. Besides, I'll run out of material soon enough. The fishermen who have been out here doing this for a long time, have really taught me more about the fish specifically then did any of my trainers. The fish habitat, how they migrate, where they live, what temperature of water is best, how the full moon plays a role in the catch, when they breed, how often they breed, how old they get, how the smallest change in barometric pressure affects the size of the catch. Absorbing their knowledge and experience as their eyes tell the story of many with vigor, I can't help but get caught up in it.

When I started this, I couldn't tell you the difference between a trout and a salmon, or be able to pick them out of line up. I was what is known in the Science world, as a pipette jockey; working with microorganisms, and lab educated. It's been a lot of fun being able to switch from one discipline of biology to the other. This has given me a greater perspective of the biological world I've only been able to gaze at on the Discover and Science channel. I think for the next adventure and change of perspective, I should choose a warmer climate, and maybe on dry land? Novel idea, don't you think?

- Casey

Day 7

Day 7

I'm starting to lose my wonderment of the ravine called The Bering Sea. It's become the backdrop to life out at sea. It doesn't become a notable participant of life at sea until it wants to be noticed. I'm starting to see fish everywhere. I see them in my dreams, I see it for dinner, I see fish in the grain of the wood in the top bunk above my head as I try to sleep. I've been on the boat for 5 days, and life is already starting to become mundane. Days run into one another with no relative since of the end of one and the beginning of the next. When you live and work in a 24 hour factory, with no shut down time, I get the feeling that I'm missing something I am supposed to be watching if I sleep for too long. My mind is always preoccupied with something that is or could be going on that I'm missing because I'm asleep that my boss will wonder why I was sleeping instead of paying attention to this or that. I enjoy paranoia latent dreams in which I awake from wide eyed and with a rush of adrenaline. This wears off in about 30 minutes but is replaced with coffee.

Hours turn into days, days into weeks, weeks into months and those months pile up turning our years forward one peg at a time. At sea it feels as if this process momentarily put on hold. There is no element to judge the change of one day to the next (besides the amount of fish caught) except the rise and fall of the Sun. We all work shifts in which that doesn't determine the start or end of our individual day. Most days there is no sun, only light escaping the ominous overcast of layers of clouds.

This anxiousness of returning to a world that has been changing day to day is creeping in. How am I going to catch up to this change by the time I get back. Like I said before, everything is relative towards life out on a boat for months at a time. But at some point we all get off the boat and return home. We'll return to a world that has changed from Summer to Fall, and Fall will be transitioning into Winter. It's a lot like what I would expect the day in and day out repetitious nature of being in the military to be, obviously without the gun fire and imminent threat of death. There is constant conversation about how their money is already spent in their mind, who'll they'll see, what their wife (usually ex-wife) or girlfriend looks like, what they plan on doing before signing up for their next tour. These men have decided to put life at home on hold for 3 to 7 months of the year in order to make the plump take home wage that spurs them to sign the contract.

I couldn't do what they do, knowing that my family is going on with a normal day. Around half of the year is spent away from your family at one time. I guess it's no different for a traveling salesman, but his time is spent gone in short chunks verses multiple months at one time. The captain was telling me that after one four month trip, his son had grown 6 inches and he missed his boys driver test and his first high school dance in those 4 months. They all have the same sadness in their eyes as they speak of home. Most of the conversations are the same, they start with words of pride about who they are providing for back home, the house, the toys, all the time off, and the life they have when they get home. Then the conversation shifts towards the little things and big things they are missing while living the life of a fisherman. Their eyes fill with reverence when they start referring to home, but their words are spoken with a melancholy tone. Yet the conversations always end explaining to me, and reiterating to themselves, they make more money here then they could at in the jobs they could get at home.

- Casey

Start of Boat #2

9-27-08

Day one on boat number deuce.

Today was the first day of fishing. The crew was fighting cabin fever after being stuck in town for the last week from a multitude of problems with this old vessel. This girl is older then the last boat I was on. She was used in the WWI and WWII as a fueling vessel. I've found out most of these fishing boats are hold overs and turn-arounds from war time marvels of the industrial age in this country. She was turned into a fishing boat 25 years ago, and there isn't much new to her since then. This crew is much more experienced then the last group of cats. They are much more crass, tattooed, and consist of the personalties that I expected to work with. This type of fishing is much easier for me to do my job, but also consists of more concentration combined with less physical work. It's essential having a couple of funny crew members around to bust balls with that can break up the staleness of continuous counting for hours. I think I'll fit in well here. Then again it is day one of probably 30 . . .

The cook here is Latino from San Diego. It'll be 30 days of mexican food. Luckily for the crew members they had the for sight to put me in my own stateroom. He is a funny guy, and I'm too gullible, he will be making fun of me for awhile until I can figure out if he is messing with me.

It was such a beautiful day out today. The clearest sky I've seen since leaving Spokane. So beautiful. The boat was riding right towards an Island range with Mt. Pavlof staring at us down the bow of the boat. I got some good pictures of it. I have a port hole on the starboard side of the boat to watch and do my counting, and the Island was on my horizon for most of the day. Found it hard to work and not stare. Thats the type of views I expected to see coming out here. Incredible. I don't own a camera to do it justice, its sad. But there is going to be a great sun set, and maybe a clear night for the stars. This boat also prints of the Washington Post and the NYC Times every morning. This little port hole into the world that is passing us by as we are out here hunting fish may keep my anxiety of having the election, bail out, and collapse of the treasury pass me by. I get to drink coffee and read the news every day. That is such a welcoming thought.


- Casey

Day 5

Day 5

After two boats, I've come to the realization that the cook can only be an allay, I am never going to want to be on the cooks bad side. Ruben is this boats cook. Mexican born, living now in San Diego. We chatted for a good hour today, well he spoke his broken english, searching for words that he knew and I would understand, and I spoke in broken english searching for words he knew and would understand. I don't have the patients to do that for too long, no matter how nice the guy is. But for dinner tonight, pizza. I may have dropped a hit that the food I missed the most from the main land was pizza. Hand made pizza too, not frozen pizzas. I haven't found the ice cream yet, but give me a week.

Hail to the Victors. I love that we get the news on this boat. I was able to see that the might Big Blue came from behind to beat Wisconsin on Saturday. It'll be a rough year, an other reason I decided to leave TV behind and work out here during the fall. I couldn't bare to watch Rich Rod change the tradition of Michigan football. I give him three years there before his head will be called for.