In the air

I got released from my last boat earlier this week and have been waiting around dutch harbor. I'm about to board a plane to go to anchorage for my next assignment. Just wanted to give you guys a heads up. Mainly my folks.

-Patrick

No mail

Don't send mail to any adress but the one i'm about to list.

Patrick Morales
733 N Street
Anchorage, Ak 99501

The News From Lake Woebegon

Well another week has passed and it was an exciting one for this bird watcher. I got to cross off a few new species off my "life list". Yep. One of which was a Laysan Albatross. I was pretty stoked.

There were also seals and a few humpback whales. I saw all of this within a three hour time period. Our fishing had gotten so slow that it had become more advantageous for us to sit in one spot for 12 hours to wait for it to get dark and then start fishing rather than burning up fuel to go between the day and the night spot.

I just realized that I haven't really mentioned anything about the crew on The Viking. I've decided to do a list for easy reference.

Pat- Pat if born on the east coast would most likely be described as a redneck but since he is from washington I'm at a loss for fitting him to a relevant stereotype. None the less his interests are hunting, fishing, and logging. Yes-Logging. He's what I found out the state of washington refers to as a Lumber Barron. Which is anybody who possesses a certain acreage of hardwood. He's pretty nice for the most part, kind of an asshole but in that endearing sort of way. It's hard to tell whether he actually likes me or just puts up with me since I have to be there. Eitherway the man knows how to cook and as a result I eat well on this boat. Really well. In fact i've eaten better on this boat than I have over the past 4 years of college. Here's a quote from Pat.

"Shit steve it might get really expensive to do your killin' if you have to start going out of state"
- Pat in reference to fellow crew member not owning land in washington.


Bill- Bill is one of two captains that alternate time on the boat. They usually trade months. Bill is a man of few words and with that said i'll say no more. He'd like it that way

"..."
- Bill on... anything

Sam- Sam and I got on a similar sleep schedule. Is was on purpose because he's the one who operates the boat at night when most are asleep. Sam's really nice and was gracious to explain the ships electronics and gear. He told me some really crazy stories about fishing in Alaska. One of the most interesting ones was back in the days of Joint Venture when people from outside the united states were allowed to fish they would sometimes caravan to the fishing grounds. By caravan i mean they would drive three boats that were all tied together and the boat in the middle would be piloting the other two. Crazy. Speaking of crazy. Sam might have a little crazy streak. He's the nicest guy you'll ever meet but I get the feeling that if you pushed him or crossed him really bad he might kill you. Most of the time we just talked about sports which was nice because I've missed that connection to the real world.

"Go Seahawks"
-Sam... on the seahawks


Dean- Now we're to my favorite member of the crew. Dean has probably assumed the role of father figure on the boat and I feel it's something he's relished as well. He has three daughters and most observers are female so I think he's enjoyed having me around to sort of pal around with. Dean is the ships engineer and he's into motorcycles and his wife sent him his dvds which contained a few motorcycle documentaries. My parents might be familiar with "On Any Sunday" and "On Any Sunday 2" both of which Steve Mcqueen makes an appearance. We also watched Faster a documentary on Moto GP. Dean also showed me how to weld which I have to say I don't necessarily see his daughters being interested in but who knows?

Dean sort of looks like what I'd imagine wyatt earp looking like. He's got dark hair laced with lines of grey and he has a big thick moustache. If you put the guy in cowboy duds and gave him a set of revolvers he'd look pretty damn authentic.

There she blows

Ever since my last offload I've gotten on this really bizarre sleep schedule where I'm usually not able to go to bed till like 4 or 5 in the morning. When you're at sea on a fishing boat though you come to realize that time frames like the normal 9-5 are insignificant and more accurately nonexistant. To aid with my bizarre habits of sleeping and to make a general attempt at keeping my body from atrophy I've been going out on the deck and doing a little workout that consists of various sets of pushups and pullups crunches and lifting some heavy pieces of metal that they have in the deck locker. Well late one evening around 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning I'm doing some pushups and I stop for a second to look at the ocean. It's pitch black and i'm mainly staring at the spray from the waves that are coliding with the boat. The deck is always pretty loud due to huge diesel engine that lies below so there's a constant hum. But that night, two nights ago, I heard a high pitch vibration. I didn't know what it was but I knew it sounded like it came from an animal and almost sounded like a dolphin. I stopped and stared off into space like people do when they're really trying to listen for something and as it happened the void that I was staring into was filled by a large black dorsal fin that rose above horizon of the boat and then disapeared. I ran to the edge of the boat to stare into the water after shouting various expletives in astonishment. There were two overhead lights that shone on the deck and spilled out onto the sea as well giving the water just outside the boat a really light blue color. I stared intently when all of the sudden two large black and white figures errupted from the water's surface. A male and female killer whale within 6 feet of me swimming beside the boat. I ran inside to grab my camera and started to take video. For the next 10 minutes I sat by the edge of the boat staring over the rail and in that 10 minutes they submerged and emerged probably 6 or 7 times. It was one of the coolest things that I've ever seen in my life and that expirience alone has made this trip amazing.

As for the video? Well i watched it and it's pretty dark and if you weren't there at the actual occurence then you probably wouldn't be able to see the whales in the video. And if you could see them you'd probably be to distracted by the guy in the background who was shouting explitives in astonishment and how totaly cool it was.

I'm still alive

I'm sorry that I haven't updated this in a long time but it's really difficult to get to a computer long enough to type anything. My past few times in port have resulted in me having to go straight to offload which means that I go straight to staring at dead fish for 6 hours. The sweet thing is that the new plant that we're offloading to doesn't require me to actually stand so I get to read for those 6 hours!

Things are going well though. I've got nothing all too exciting to report. One of the crewmen is going to show me how to weld on the next trip out to sea which I'm looking forward to. I've been reading a lot but I don't have a lot of music so any mix cds that people might feel inclined to send would be great.

I hope those that I haven't talked to are doing well and if so feel inclined should shoot me an email or post a response. Thanks. Sorry this is so choppy. I'm in a hurry.

-Patrick

ps. and i'll continue living

Well I'm switching boats now

So we left yesterday to go on another trip and we stopped about 10 or so miles outside of dutch harbor to do a quick tow so that the boat could get coverage for that day. Things were going fine until the boat sort of tremored. I was putting my rain gear on when i looked up at the deck boss who said "Oh shit... I think we're snagged"

It was true. Apparently we had become hooked on a sunken ship from WWII. We knew this because the coordinates of the wreckage have been known by everybody... but our boat. So the crew spent the next 10 hours trying to retrieve the net. It ended up being an 80,000 mistake. They lost the net which is connected to the codend (apparently there's a difference). They got to keep the codend (80,000) the transducer (35,000) and 3 of 4 eggs (10k each).

Gordon the engineer enlisted me to video tape the entire thing with his sony handy cam. I don't know how he's going to feel about the results because half way through I realized that this was recording audio as well. So there's about 40 minutes of me making remarks about the excursion like "progress history!" and "son of a bitch that sucks". Any way we ended up heading back into town and I was released the next day because it would be a week or so before they'd start fishing again. Bummer.

My photo bucket

Here is the link to my photobucket album.

I couldn't upload all my pictures because it was really foggy and the internet is really slow anyhow and is way worse with zero visibility. I know that sounded ridiculous but it's true. This is as much of the 1.45 gigs of pictures I could get before I had to get on the boat last week.

http://s316.photobucket.com/albums/mm343/thecubanrocker/

Response to questions

I was going to respond in the comments section but there's some information in here that my folks might want to read. If you want to read the questions these answers come from click on the comments section from the previous post.

In response to mid-day.milly:

There are no wenches

...yet.

Mark:

You are right. I get paid way too much for an easy job. Please don't tell my employer.

Seth:

When i'm done with samples i put them in the RSW tanks (refrigerated salt water) which are basically man holes in the deck

I post this when i come back from sea once a week. The dates are a lie. I just put the date i wrote them at sea. I didn't post it till later on though.

I'm usually on the boat for about a week at a time. This could change though if i get on a new boat.

Tubes?

We do cook. The stove has this stort of bar system that act like big coasters for pans and stuff. We cook all our meals though while at sea and the food is actually really good (on this boat).

You're actually right about the fire thing. That's the most hazardous occurrence on a boat and something you're far more likely to run in to versus sinking. Of course one could lead to the other.

And it's funny, while we're on the subject, this past week we actually had a fire scare. One of the leads on either the circuit breaker or the compressor got really hot so hot that it was smoking and they were having to check it every thirty minutes to make sure it wasn't on fire. So that made for a fun boat ride back. I slept through most of it.

What I actually do

I've been thinking that I should detail the exact process that I undergo while at sea. Because a lot of people have no idea what is is that I do and prior to today I wasn't completely sure ;)

So, conveniently, I'm asleep when most tows come in. I am to be alerted 15 minutes before every retrieval. I should back up though and explain the fishing process, complete with jargon and lingo.


Let's start with the codend. Previously I would have refered to this item as a large net, but like so many other fields fishing has its own vernacular. The codend is released from the aft or rear of the vessel. The codendt that we have can hold up to 100 metric tons of fish. This is released along with the doors which are these large 15 foot long pieces of metal that spread the net out horizontally. The codend is lowered further until it reaches fishing depth which is somewhere around 55 fathoms.


After the gear or trawl or codend, all of these terms being interchangeable, is set thehy drive the boat around following or attempting to find schools of fish. This process is still somewhat of a mystery to me and is akin to a magic trick. Net go down empty, net come up full. Ta da!


The part I do know about is how they know when the net is full. There are little devices that are located around the net known as eggs. These "eggs" are located within for layers of the codend. They're a pressure sensitive device that emit a radio signal that the boat receives when the pressure on the eggs has reached a certain maximum. Once the section of the net is full of fish the egg trips and changes frequencies alerting the boat that that section of the codend is now full. Once all 4 eggs have been tripped the codend is now full.


After the 4 eggs have been tripped is when I enter the picture. They wake me up and I rub my eyes, stumble around, visit the head(bathroom), and start putting on my rain gear. Rain gear consists of a bright orange bib, jacket and brown galoshes called xtra tuffs. This last item is so essential that they are the only brand allowed on boats. Insurance companies will not insure boats unless everyone uses them. Anyhow, I then mosey outside and watch Gordon (The Dutchmen), Chris (the Everyman), and Tiffany (the woman and deckboss- who I might add is tough as nails) bring the codend up which looks like a large wet sock full of marbles. I have to then come up with a sample frame. If the bag is full I know that they will unzip it 4 times in order to dump the fish into the refrigerated salt water tanks (RSW tanks) under the deck. So I choose 3# between 1 and 4 using a random number table. When they unzip, I lift a little door on the side of the trawl alley (the area where the codend resides) and let roughly 150 kg of fish spill out. I then shovel these into a large tote and repeat the process twice. Next, I weigh and count my samples, sorting the fish as well. The point of this is to determine what species other than the target species are being caught. Using this data, the National Marine Fisheries service (NiMFS) can determine when to open and close fisheries. Since we are fishing for pollock there is very little bycatch (bycatch- any species that is not the target species).

Somewhere in the bearing sea...

I'm 2 days in on my first boat, on my first contract, and I've yet to see fish. I don't even really know where to start. The crew? Seasickness? The bizarre interpretation of time?
It's an odd adjustment, living on a boat, that I'm still getting used to. It has been increasingly better as the trip has gone on, but I still feel as though I am waiting for some clarity to bestow itself upon me. Being here has been like a mild 2 day hangover. I just want to continually go back to sleep.


The crew is very nice and either the best or the worst crew to begin on. They're the best, because it is an easy transition into life on a boats. It might be the worst because there is no where but down from here. This crew is one of the nicest to observers and I'm currently doing pollock which is the easiest to do while at sea. So I might get nicer boat but it's probably not likely that my next experience will be as nice. The flip side to all this is that every other boat I board will probably be easier to adjust to in terms of seasickness. This boat tends to roll a lot.
Seasickness. I think that I have adjusted well to the sea. Perhaps it is the Cuban side of me that is coming out. Another subtle portion of my heritage that will go unnoticed by everyone but me. Still I must admit that I did throw up once. I'm ashamed to admit it because I made it past the first night where we all feasted on frozen pizzas. No, the fat, lactose, and oil did not do me in. I was bested the next day by the David of all foods- Cheerios.


So the next morning I woke up with some gentle hunger pangs. I stood up and walked to the galley to attempt to remedy my situation and after much consideration I decided that cheerios would be the best bastion of peace to my stomach. I ingested one small bowl of cheerios with 2% milk. I was so careful to eat slowly, as if to tip toe around the small boy and his sling. Suddenly the boat began to yaw and I had to use the bathroom but not for seasick reasons. It was at the moment that I lay cheek to throne when the boat took a slightly large roll that I felt intensely queezy. My hands became clammy as did my face and cold sweat began to collect on my forehead. The hundreds of cheerios that resided in me had awoken and were demanding their freedom and like 100 Davids began to twirl their slings. There I teetered, a philistine, filled to the belly with hubris at how I thought I'd beaten seasickness. I quickly started to down copious quantities of water thinking that if this did at least not quell what was raging inside of me that it would at the best prevent the dreaded dry heaves. This only angered them more and I knew that hope was lost. The David's in my stomach knew this as well and threw their stones and brought me down upon me knees to worship their one true god.

It was on the third exodus that they decided to let me go. I returned to my rack, with my tail between my legs to sleep the rest off.


pretentious sea sickness story over.

Deployment part 2

So we board the plane and i sit next to large a Samoan man who most likely has the same ultimate destination I do- a fishing boat. We weren't really sitting next to each other, as we were on separate aisles, but you get the point. We exchange nods more or less but beyond that the pleasantries sort of end. I settle in and then the plane begins to taxi towards it's appropriate runway.

The ride was incredibly bumpy which doesn't seem to bother me for some reason. I realized during the ride that planes and especially the ride on planes might be one of the few things that I can completely put my faith into. For the same reason that other people get anxious or nervous about traveling by air, I'm sort of comforted. I think that when I'm in a plane knowing that I have no control over the situation forces me to accept any outcome. And knowing you have no control, I guess, means that you have to accept it. What I'm trying to say is- Mom, you are right.

We wind up landing while I'm asleep and I wake up to the large Samoan man shaking things out of an overhead bin. Myself and the remainder of the passengers saunter off the plane and walk to the terminal, which can hardly be described as such. If I were to give an accurate description of the "airport" that we flew into I'd probably have to direct you to the back of a walmart or target. Picture the loading docks for semis, the cardboard boxes and crates, and the overall look of grime. Even though I'm painting this horrible picture, I still walked off the plane and to the terminal with a huge grin on my face. The view was gorgeous. The terminal was surrounded by mountains which were separated from me by the coldest and bluest waters of the bay. I was lucky enough that when we got off the plane a small patch of sunlight had broken through the haze of clouds just to shine on the mountain that was next to the airport. All of this in conjunction with the oddly sweet smell that comes with this area of the world, sort of made me want to cry. And during this moment, I felt the smallest notion of contempt, because I was met with two very opposite emotions as well. I understood, at this time, why people have kids and that I would like to share this with some of my own one day. But I felt equally that humanity should stop reproducing in order to save places like this. And I still wonder which notion is more selfish than the other.

"I got a pocket full of zig zags"

This is Zig Zag. He might be the coolest dog I've ever met.

Deployment part 1

Before you read this post you should search for a map of Alaska. When you find this map you need to look along the Aleutian Islands which are the line of islands that jut out to the left of Alaska. These islands are host to 57 volcanoes and the area thought to be where humanity crossed into the Americas. This is also home to the island of Unalaska. Here is where Dutch Harbor is located, which more specifically, is where I'm located. Even though it has yet to come across this way to me, it has been described in such a way that would accurately describe the Pirate Cove Tortuga. I've heard stories of rough characters and people that should be steered clear of. All I've seen are mountains and hills littered with snow (one of which i got to hike today), grocery store, and hotel bar. I worry that other than hiking and reading I may not have much to do because apparently all people do up here is drink and subsist.

I haven't posted in a while though so maybe (if you're interested) I should tell you how I got here. Yesterday at about 12:30 we took a taxi to the airport and checked in with our bags. My bags consisted of an xxl REI duffle bag, my blue baskets (essential sampling gear), my immersion suit (keeps me alive if the ship goes down), and my backpack as a carry on. I started to walk towards a really well guarded FAA encampment of TSA Specialists that were between me and a concourse when one of the people that were heading to Dutch Harbor with me yelled my name. Her name is Jessica and she'll be explained further later on. She informed me that I wasn't heading towards our gate and to follow her. I followed, confused by the fact that I saw no other entrance to the main concourse. Well that's because there wasn't. We walked downstairs to gate L which required no security check and had no TSA specialists in site. This is because apparently the Aleutian islands are of little consequence to terrorists. All the seats at the gate were taken so I plopped down on the floor with a guy named Mark, who was in my class, and the Jessica girl I've mentioned previously.

Jessica gets her own paragraph, not because she is someone of interest in a positive sense, just because I feel that the necessary lambasting that will ensue needs to be separated in order for quick retreival in the future. She is a useless person in my opinion which you may think is harsh but she steps on every one of my nerves, so much so, that I feel no shame in saying this. The description will star with her choice of dress. There's nothing wrong with the way she dresses or there wouldn't be if it didn't fit the rest of her motif. She tends to wear hot pink a lot with matching hot pink head bands. Her typical wardrobe consists of usually a long pink sweater leggings and extra tuffs (our boots for the ship). This outfit is usually "jazzed" up by some other flagrantly bad piece of flare that horribly mis-matches her outfits (scarves etc). You're all thinking "But Patrick, all you've described is how she looks." and "Don't judge a book by it's cover" and all that stuff which I agree with that's why I'm going to tell you what it's like talking to her.

First, she dominates a conversation, which still doesn't mean much because I don't fight very hard to dominate them most of the time, but this girl dominates them and then fills them with 70 percent laughter and self applauding. As we were sitting down on the floor she went through about 7 different stories about her friend who is getting married and how she is doomed to be a brides maid and never a bride. At this point i placated her much to my amusement by saying "I don't understand why". She of course loved this and due to the fact that she was so wrapped up in things she had to say failed to sea the dead look of sarcasm on my face. She quickly went into another topic and directed her verbal abuse at Mark, who is from New York and really doesn't care.

At this point, feeling I have humored her enough, and knowing she would be busy, pull a book from my backpack to read. As if she sensed that a book was in her presence she immediately turned, and before her turn was complete began to ask, "What are you reading?" I looked at my book which was freshly removed from my bag and replied "The Elegant Universe" She asked what it was about and so without launching into an hour long discussion on the conflict between quantum physics and Einsteins theory of reletivity and a potential theory to combine the two, I explained by saying "It's about physics." After this I said "As pretentious as that sounds" she replied "hahahahahahahahahahahaha [seriously] As long as you realize" Now it should be said that she and I both were in a big group of people that went out to eat at a restraunt in Anchorage the night we all finished class. We sat next to eachother and talked about our respective degrees and where we went to school. She informed me that she was a biology major I think with a focus in neurobiology or something and she worked in a lab that dealt with eyes. I don't really remember because I wasn't paying attention. The point was that I had talked to this girl previously. Anyhow, we start talking about books and what are our favorites and it is the most pretentious discussion and we're both trying to outdo the other's literary merit but it's still fairly innocent and unobvious. We keep talking and we continue to talk about writers and styles and I sheepishly admit that I would like to write one day (secrets out) and listed a specific author that I admire. She emits a huge "ME TOO!" and "I really want to write one day and I'm really good at it." This girl five minutes ago said she can't read books that you wouldn't let a five year old read not because she can't read them just because she can't stand graphic content. So when she said "I'm really good at it" (which still makes me shutter) I sort of imagined her writing hello kitty stories with proper comma placement, necessary amounts of parenthesis, you know, perfectly scripted grammar- the opposite of this blog. So after that series of comments I just gave up and zoned out as she told me that the only book by chuck palahniuk was fight club and she wouldn't read choke because she heard it was gross, and blah blah. I'm not going to continue because this blog could go on for days.

The Best Day So Far

this was the exchange

Patrick: Hey let me get a picture
Puck: I really don't like pictures
Patrick: Oh ok...

*click*

I'm gradiated

It's 12:57 in the morning anchorage time. I have unofficially passed the class that allows me to be a fisheries observer. Not only have I passed, but my first assignment might start this weekend. This would mean that blogs would be quite limited (not that they haven't already) to every week if I'm lucky. Where will I go? I won't know till tomorrow.

Today's Lesson

Quoted directly from today's video:

"When floating in the bearing sea it's important to try to keep your body out of the water as much as possible. You can keep more of your body out of water by grabbing something to float on such as:

-a buoy

-a piece of debris from the boat

- a log or branch

or...

...a floating dead friend."

Please send gifts.

Actual documentation

Here he is people. In the flesh. Fu-Manchu or as he is more commonly known as- Puck. Seriously.

It's been a long week

So I've been meaning to post every night this week and I've even sat down a few times to do so but every time I have I've been interrupted by something or lost focus. Not that I think anyone is hanging on their seats in anxious anticipation but I'm sorry it's taken so long to write another post. The week was good and bad. I passed my midterm for the class which after I finished felt like I had just been gambling. What you may not know about this excursion is that it is entirely a gamble of sorts. I only get hired and reimbursed if I pass this course so taking that test was literally a rush. And when I say that I'm dead serious. I got done and walked out and felt like I had just shoved all in (with a good hand of course ;) We got our grades back an hour later and we had all passed and the feeling of winning came and all was well. Later on that evening we decided to all go have drinks to celebrate which turned out to be a horrible idea, not because of what actually occurred while drinking, but the fact that we had to be in class at eight the next morning seemed to have been lost on us. So we went out and we all imbibed various spirits until we'd reached a jovial maxim that some might have labeled as ridiculous. Perhaps those people would be write in describing it as such because at one point we were talked into going to karaoke, which led to us getting talked into doing a song (5 guys), which led to us being tricked by prior observers. Long story short 5 dudes ended up singing "wanna be" by the spice girls when they had every intention of singing Gilligan's Island. It was all well in good because Jeff (a guy in my apt.) took the helm and sang every word while the rest of us filled our natural roles as Yes and what man (that was me... "what? what? what? yeah ok), random shake dancer (imagine a mix between baby got back and a Garth Brooks video), and creepy white guy who is desperately trying to read the screen. The last character works for a different company and is in our training class but fits the "MO" incredibly well, mainly because we didn't invite him, he just sort of showed up, like a mysterious fog or something. Anyhow our song ended and we were applauded by the 10 people in the bar and we decided to leave shortly after.

The next morning was of course miserable. I woke up really late and had to go to class without eating but ended up sprinting across the street to the federal building cafeteria during our ten minute break. I got an omelet made which i frantically paid for and put between two slices of bread after which I inhaled like the engine of a harrier jet. The rest of the day was just an uphill battle with fatigue and the various blood vessels that were constricting and pulsing as punishment for my transgressions the night prior. And as if the fates felt that my sea of hangover was not enough they decided to throw me into lab for the afternoon where I would be annoyed by Fu-Manchu the rest of the day.

Fu-Manchu has been making rounds on every one in class this past week. No one is safe from his inability to interact with other human beings in a polite and orderly manner. Here's a classic example:

Two people are working on a single fish, attempting to identify it. They are taking their time, carefully observing the features, comparing them to pictures, and reading through the dichotomous key (a form that allows you to identify organisms). Fu-Manchu is blazing through specimens with gale force. He is a tornado and specimens and people are but mere trailer parks on his path to completion. He immediately jockeys himself between the two young scientists, places his hands on the specimen and walks to the other side of the table without even breathing a word. Oh Fu-Manchu, Where are you? We've got some work to do now.

There's that example, but then there are countless times where you will be discussing a matter with one of the instructors, and from across the room, as if blind to the fact that the instructor may be preoccupied, will yell for him, repeatedly, until answered.

Who is fu-manchu you ask? Well here is a picture of a most recent sighting.

My Weekend Off

So friday concluded my first week of training and the start of a much needed weekend. Training (which is just class) has been really exhuasting since we've been going every day from 8am to 5pm. After class I walked around most of downtown anchorage and out to the bay. It was really nice to see more of the city then just the apts and the classroom. This weekend was apparently the kick off for a salmon festival so there were a lot of food vendors downtown and an americana band. When I got back to the apt most people were doing the homework from that day so they could all go to a kegger that we got invited to. For some reason I wasn't very motivated to do either so I walked to Barnes and Nobles to attemnpt to study but mainly to find a quiet atmosphere. Also we had made plans to wake up the next morning and go hiking the next morning. I figured I can drink int he lower 48 anytime but hiking in Alaska should be taken advantage of as much as possible. On saturday as was expected everyone who went out the night before didn't want to get up. The fellow georgian who hadn't gone out the night prior woke me up early and we left at about 9:30 after we'd rented the car. Our plan was to drive down to Seward where the Exit Glacer was and hike around and bird watch. The fact that we was a birder as well made the trip infinitely more awesome because we both would want to stop and look around at the same times. So we drove down to Seward which is on the Kenai (pronounced Keen-eye) peninsula. On the way we stopped many times to take pictures of mountains and birds but eventually we arrived at the trail head. We walked all the way to the glacier and took pictures and walked back. Whenever we were done we decided to get something to eat. We walked into 2 bars trying to find one that served food and finally on the third try we found one. It was a lounge that felt like it had been lost in the 70's and somehow came back into being in the present. The pictures are below. The bartender was russian and didn't really like us that much but he told us they had burgers so for the next 30 minutes he was our savior. What we failed to realize is the burger was 9 bucks and for cheese and bacon (which he heartily offered) it was an extra 4 bucks on top. Adding to this was an alaska draft costing 6 bucks coming to a grand total of 20 dollars for a bacon cheeseburger and a beer. So after feeling the pain of being raped by beef cheese and beer we retreated to our car but not before snagging on picture of the time capsule we had just dined in.

Pictures

People are giving peace a chance. Even in Alaska

Bros... even in Alaska

Better shot of Sleeping Lady

Bluegrass Band at lunch

A History Lesson Part 1

One would think that since we bought Alaska from Russia (somewhere around the turn of the century) we would have been fishing off its coast since that time. Our initial intentions for Alaska were to mine gold though and as a result we left the seas near alaska alone. That is untill we noticed a large amount of activity from foreign vessels, particularly Russia and Japan. The vessels found frequenting the bearing sea were of course fishing boqat5s. But the the govt diddn't believe that there would be any money to be made from fishing so they naturally believed that they were spies. So this was when the marine observer profession started. The first marine observer, a guy named Max, was put on a russian fishing boat to see what was going on on these boats. This was around 1973. What they found was that people were actually fishing and fishing a lot.



So as a result they put more people out initially as an attempt to see what kind of bycatch they were getting. Bycatch is anything caught outside of the target species. For the japanese this was anything that wasn't Walleye Pollock. Walleye Pollock is the most heavilly used fish in Japan. This fish is used in filets, sushi, and is most often ground down to a paste of mostly protein that they use for a variety of uses (most for ingestion). These fisheries remained foreign harvested untill 1976 when the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management act was pased in 1976. it was this act that allowed the US to declare management authority over fish resources within 200 nautical miles of the Alaskan coast. This area is referred to as the Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ. This area corresponds with the coastal shelf which "happens" to be where the most productive fishing is.

Next episode "How we got the Japs to teach us to fish and then screwed them"

Documentation of O-Face

This was me doing an impression of chris thile's o-face.

Rediscovering the "Oh" Face

Today I found a child size guitar in the Rec room that's below our apartment. It has decent strings on it and is kind of fun to play on because the room itself is just cinder block so there's a lot of reverb when you're in there by yourself. Also I feel like I'm playing a mandolin or ukulele because of the size which lends itself to pretty ridiculous faces for some reason. With that said I feel like I now understand why Chris Thile may make the faces he does when playing. If you 1. don't know who chris thile is; go look him up or nickel creek up 2. have never seen him play live look him up on youtube and prepare for a ridiculous amount of "o" face. With that said I have a theory about oh face relative to the size of your instrument (that's what she said). I think the smaller the instrument the larger the "o" face.



So why am I talking about the "o" face so much when I'm in Alaska and should be talking about bears, mooses, and mountains. For the record, the oh face is exactly what it might sound like (cue mental image of people mid coitus) except in this context it is the face that musicians make when they are really rocking out. Today while I was in the rec room playing that little kid's guitar, going to town on its tiny little frets, mid musical coitus and "o" face in full form a girl from one of the apartments walked in on me while I was playing "turning Japanese". It was pretty embarrassing but luckily I don't think she realized what she had just seen and picked up a bike and walked out. So embarrassment was narrowly avoided.

Pictures

My living room and some of my roommates



this is the sleeping lady which starts the alaskan range




This is another mountain range that lies to the right of our apt.

The First Day of Class

I have never been so scared in my entire life...

They did a really good job of scaring the shit out of us today. What with the time we won't be getting paid while waiting for commitments, and the stories of people getting caught in long lines and dragged down to the bottom of the ocean, or the indigenous people of yakutan chasing you out of bars. Aside from this though I got really excited as well and wanted to get out on the boats. What lies in my way though is a 3 week training course that is semester long marine ichtyology (fish) course jam packed into 2 weeks with one week of sea training lopped on top.

The instructors were nice though. We have two named Mike Vechtor and Mike Todd. The fact that the second instructor had two first names gave me a little chuckle but the most interesting character in the class has yet to be discussed

Fu- Manchu

There's a guy in my class that from here on out will only be referred to as Fu-Manchu. He is Asian and as you might expect he has a Fu-Manchu which in and of itself is hilarious and/or disgusting but the fact that he is Asian and fulfilling his own racial stereotype only adds to the splendor of the portrait. He is also "that guy" in the sense that he is the consummate over-achiever and will only serve to annoy the entire class I imagine throughout the course. He asks a lot of questions and attempts to make jokes. I mean ATTEMPTS because most are met with failure. Luckily for him he sits at the front of class and his embarrassment (or his accomplishment as he may not realize he's retarded) is only shared by the poor souls that share his row and the instructor. If you're unaware what a Fu-Manchu is, and I'm sure most of you are, I've included a photo of a stereotypical Fu-Manchu (seen at the top). If i were to vote him for a superlative it would be "Most Likely to Be Dumped Overboard" or "Most Likely to Play a lot of Pokemon" Anyhow, this is a character to keep in mind because I have a feeling he will be referred to quite often.

Relations

The most interesting thing that I learned today had to do with the conflict of interest policy. As most of you could understand it is a violation to own any ship or vessel that conducts commercial fishing and also a conflict of interest to accept any form of payment from people on the ship (i.e. bribes, dinner, etc). What is also entailed in this are sexual relations with any members of the crew. Once again this is easily understood and not out of the ordinary. Our instructor then went on to say that some of these boat operators attempt to get us to drink and take us out to dinner in an attempt to discredit us. Because by accepting these "gifts" our data is considered compromised. Some of these crews go so far as to hire women to have on the boat to tempt you into having sex with them. My instructor said that some of these women are almost forceful with their advances and don't take no for an answer. Some of the captains assign you "buddies" which are women who are supposed to follow you around the boat and try to "seduce" you. I'm sure it sounds awesome to some reading this but you'll lose your job of course... and probably get syphilis.

The Rest of the Day

The rest of the day was spent studying and doing homework. There's talk we may go to Denali this weekend and do some hiking. I miss everyone and please comment if you guys read this. I'll love to hear from you.

A Story

I wrote a drabble for submission to a podcast that you all should check out if you haven't already.

http://web.mac.com/normsherman/iWeb/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html


A drabble is a story that is exactly 100 words long. I wrote mine today thinking about walking out of the gate of the North Terminal of the Anchorage airport.

Mistaken Identity

The polar bear was serene, fierce, but most importantly it was dead. The stuffed bears were located throughout the interior and exterior of the Anchorage airport. It was the first thing I saw when I stepped off the plane and through the gate. I continued to walk around the terminal intrigued by the various poses they were in. I walked outside to see a bear fixed near the tree line. It stood tall with a curious look on its face as I reached to feel its muzzle, which right before its jaws closed around my hand, I realized was warm.

The Apartment (and my address)

So after sleeping a few hours in the terminal I woke up and decided to find my way to the apartments. I took a taxi to my apartment on the way there I got to see Mt. McKinley which guards the city in the distance. I had been really nervous and scared the night before about what I'm getting into but seeing the mountains for some reason really comforted me. I was met with a sort of childlike jubilation at the realization that I was in Alaska, something that hadn't occurred to me.
I got to my apartment at about 7:30 in the morning and arrived to an unlocked door. I walked in with no idea what to expect. To my left was a small kitchen about the size of the 5x10 storage facility I put my stuff in before coming. There's a wide open living room and then 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. I have 2 bedrooms and 6 other roommates. And now we're going to denny's so I gotta run.


My address
Patrick Morales
C/O Saltwater Offices
733 N St.
Anchorage, AK 99501

Take Care.

The Terminal

In the Airport

I've never seen the movie that shares the title of my blog but I have seen previews for it and I relate to it right now. I have just arrived in Anchorage, AK and in the flurry of chaos that was my last few days in Georgia I completely forgot to contact the people up here to ask them what I need to do in terms of lodging when I got here. As a result I am just going to stay up until a reasonable time to call. I would have liked to have planned better for this part of my trip but I was too busy moving out of my apt. As mentioned earlier there was a flurry of chaos.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with why I am even here I'll take some time to explain. After acquiring a biology degree I was informed that as punishment for my accomplishments I would be forced to make a regular payment to group of creditors in charge of my student loans. For sake of clarity and mainly so my parents don't get pissed I mean that I have to pay for my student loans (harsh cruel fact). Anyhow, I ran across a job listing for marine observers. A marine observer is a person who goes out on a commercial fishing vessel and documents various information on the catch and practices of those vessels. I'm sort of the eyes and ears of the National Marine and Fish Service. The job is supposedly very stressful and strenuous. The fisherman aren't exactly inviting of the people that are going to turn them in for stuff. But as a result it pays pretty well and more importantly looks really good on a resume and will allow me to take other season jobs eventually in fields that I'm more interested in.

How long I will be gone

I will undergo a month of training and then enlist in a 90 day contract. During that 90 day contract I will go out to sea for different lengths of time. While at sea I will be unable to be reached except by means of telepathy and advanced smoke signaling. On occasion messages have been able to be sent via Bat Signal but with the upcoming release of the Dark Knight this method will probably be difficult to use.


I'll keep posting but I think I'm going to pass out on this bench for a bit.