"Swordfish like Obama"

I'm back observing...this time it's in sunny Southern California, which is a real perk. The down side is that this fishery is a lot smaller and confidentiality is an issue so I had to sign a waiver stating I wouldn't bring a personal camera on-board with me. I may be able to finagle (?) this a little later on, but so far I don't have recent pictures. Hopefully my illustrious narratives will suffice : )

I have been on 2 boats so far, each of which were quite nice. I'm working on drift gillnetters targeting swordfish. Each evening, they put a huge vertical mesh net in the water thats over a mile long. Early in the morning, the net is retrieved and the fish are pulled on board. In addition to swordfish, we catch blue, mako, and thresher sharks, ocean sunfish, albacore, and occasionally (and definately not intentionally) marine mammals. My last trip consisted of 9 fishing days and there was one dolphin in the net. My duties required me to dissect it and collect certain specimens for the scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service Science Center in La Jolla-goodies like the adrenal glands, gonads, the stomach, a biopsy/blubber sample, and the entire head. It wasn't as difficult as I feared it might be; we had good weather that day which really helped of course. Although it is rather strange to root around in the guts of an animal that's still warm (you don't get this experience with fish)...

Speaking of being elbow-deep in blood and guts, I've decided that I'm ready to tackle the idea of learning to hunt and fish (this is coming from a gal that a year ago was vegan). The deckhand of the last boat and I fished for squid at night which was a lot of fun and gave me a real sense of sufficency in a weird way. I wonder if this is what outdoorsman get so worked up about. It felt good to know I could accquire my own food, and take responsibility for purposefully ending another creature's life. Now the calamari steaks are in the freezer, and I'm just waiting for my roomie Laurie to whip up a fabulous dish with it!

As I just alluded to, I have yet again moved out of my ex-boyfriend/business partner/co-dependant lifemate/best buddy Johnnie's house in Huntington Beach. I'm living with my good friend Laurie at her home in Long Beach, along with a gal named Nuala (a standard poodle). I love Long Beach, which is far more cosmopolitan and sophisticated than Orange County, and Laurie has a wonderful beautiful home that is full of love and peace. So far, SO good!

My next big plans are for a trip to the Thailand IHF center in January. I've already got the ticket, but haven't firmed up the itenerary. I'll definately keep you all posted.

Much love, and hopefully more soon!

"Home" safe & sound

I'm wrapping up my requisite "acclimation" week on the couch in my pj's as I adjust to my terribly hard Southern California lifestyle. I arrived home Monday evening, and have watched more television since then that I have in the entire year.

I have a lot to ponder as I resume my normal routines. At Costco yesterday I wandered by the fresh (?) seafood display...halibut at $7.99/lb! Unreal! Cheaper than right off the boat! Who are these people??? The scallops looked sad and slimy and discolored. I couldn't help but wonder where they came from and how long they traveled to get to our tables.

Today I finally succumbed to a semi-normal level of self-grooming and got my first manicure and pedicure in 3 months. Heavenly. It's nice to be rough and ready and tough and all, but what girl doesn't like pretty hands and feet? Besides, I've got a busy couple weeks of pool parties and beach time.

Me, hard at work

My last week on the boat was excellent, although unfortunately for the guys, a big storm came up and the fishing got pretty bad. We anchored up in a bay, where I took this adorable picture of them all working on the dredge:

We stayed there overnight because the weather forcast predicted winds of 70 mph. Not so nice. It was pretty nasty, but more than anything just sorta boring. We did a lot of sleeping, and I eventually got a game of Scrabble out of Malcolm and Jeff (I lost miserably). It was a full moon, and I remembered the last harvest moon that Tom pointed out on the boat exactly a month before. As we pulled out of the bay 24 hours later, there was some brief discussion over the radio as to whether we should trade some scallops for salmon with a small seiner boat a few hundred yards away. I thought that was pretty cool; trading on the high seas just like the old days.

I ended up seeing the neatest thing on my last haul. What is it? Well I don't really know. Some sort of nudibranch which are the coolest little guys. I was just thrilled.

Jeff sorts the world's crappiest haul

I put a few more pictures up on the website, and also some short videos. They're pretty basic, just me saying the same thing over and over ("It's my last day on the Kilkenny. *sigh*") and showing you my little reading nook in the fos'c'le as well as my knee, boot, book, etc. I admit, I'm not the most exciting filmmaker.

I've been accepted as an observer for the California/Oregon drift gillnet fishery targeting swordfish. The training starts on the 22nd, and I'll be based out of Long Beach. There's more shoreside work required of me, but I will be on boats out of local ports ranging from San Diego to Northern Cal. I think it will be cool to live close to home where I can hopefully pick up some contract work so that I can start saving up for Thailand! God willing, I want to try and spend Christmas there with the kids and have a reunion with my good friends Juan and Laura that I met in Kenya. We'll see...

Gonna be famous!

Malcolm took this picture of Jim holding an absolutely humongous scallop:

I thought it was a great shot, so I sent it off to National Fishermen (http://www.nationalfisherman.com/index.asp) and asked them if they would use it for their monthly "Crew Shot" feature. I also asked if they'd be interested in a short article about Alaskan scallopers and they said yes! Anyone out there who would be willing to help me edit a preliminary draft is my hero-email me!!!! I'm freakin out man!

Running out of titles but still loving life on the Kilkenny

I'm staying on the boat this time instead of schlepping all my stuff back and forth to the hostel...I'm really missing the highspeed right about now...Check out the usual link for even more fantastic pictures, it takes TOO DAMN LONG to upload them here but scroll down and check out the ones I was able to put in. They're pretty cute.

Contrary to my entry below (I didn't want to change content to protect my journalistic integrity ha), it looks like I get one more trip on the Kilkenny. Fishing this last trip was good enough to do it all over again; hopefully we'll get the same lovely weather but the forecast looks more like typical Gulf of Alaska winds and seas. Oh well. I'm just glad I get some more time in with this crew, all of whom I'm really growing to like. And just really enjoying my time reading, curled up on the bow of the boat in the sunshine. I finished the Kite Runner this week, BLECH not what I expected but still an ok read I guess (I'm right at the beginning here which is wht I look happy).

Random notes I made:
-I don't really like to eat scallops, which is ironic cuz they look exactly like my favorite food of all time, giagantic marshmallows.
-There was the most aesthetically pleasing balance of cotton-candy colors during the sunset the other night. The blue and pink/purple crests on the waves matched in perfect proportion the colors in the sky. Of course, I SHOULD have taken a picture to show you what I'm talking about...
-Caught the CUTEST durn snailfish in a tow. Should have taken a picture.
-I went to a really cool little film festival in Homer right before I left last trip. A short (or series of them, rather) definately worth checking out:
http://thepatternstrilogy.com/


8/6/08
As we near the end of what may be our final trip, I feel like I haven't documented all the extraordinary experiences I've had here on the Kilkenny. Nearly every tow has brought up an new and wonderful creature for me to ooh and ahh over...

"OOOH"

"AHHH"

Today we got a very large octopus on deck...I poked at him for a bit before tossing him back in the sea. It was cool to hear his suckers attach and reattach to the deck as he squirmed his way around.
The sheer magnitude of our catch overwhelms me when I stop to think about it...the amount of biomass out there in the ocean continually reminds me of what a big big world this is, and that I am only a small part. It helps me to alleviate fear I have about issues of LACK, that there won't be ENOUGH...enough gas, enough food, enough time...God's world is huge and there is plenty for all. The ocean is a constant reminder of abundance.
Today started off rather gloomy, and I didn't want much to do with observing at all. It was super hard for me to drag myself away from the bench in the galley where I had glued my feet to the stove (our only source of heat). After being on deck for a few minutes however, the SUN came out and life was good again. I really took for granted all the nice weather on our first few trips. All day yesterday was dreary and cold with a slight drizzle. Today was a definate improvement, but still damp as we were encased in fog all day. It was an interesting sensation, to have the sun shining on my face but besurrounded in mist...very ethereal. There was hardly any visibility because of the fog, so it felt like we were on a ghost ship, with nothing but the searoiling around us, the only thing in the universe. So romantic!
I'm reading an EXCELLENT book about fishing in Alaska, highly recommended for anyone who wants a taste of what it's like. It's a novel, but the fictionalchapters are interspersed with factual essays about various aspects of Alaskan history and fishing information. It's really well written. It's called "Highliners" and it's by William B. McCloskey, Jr:
http://www.amazon.com/Highliners-Classic-Commercial-Fishermen-Alaska/dp/1585740284/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218421033&sr=1-1
I hear there's a sequel which I'm very excited to find. I also read a book on the boat called "Trawler" by a Scottish dude named Redmond O'Hanlon which was a funny if not somewhat exaggerated (and very British) read about life on a commmercial fishing vessel: http://www.amazon.com/Trawler-Redmond-OHanlon/dp/1400042755
This wholeworld is just so fascinating. I also got a book at the Homer bookstore about women who commercially fish in Alaska. Unbelievable! I am just so curiousand awestruck by people who live this lifestyle. It truly has to be the most difficult, exciting, dangerous, thrilling, satisfying, dirty, uncomfortable,amazing way to make a living. I am absolutely in love with life and feel so so blessed to be experiencing this with my eyes open.
My typical day is to wake up about 7 or 8 (I get to set my own schedule with this sampling protocol-NICE) and eat some oatmeal while I finish up mypaperwork from the day before. The crew bounds out of bed around 4 or 5 to start working-on empty stomachs. They are so tough. Not I. I sample my first haul around 9, and then come in and have a hot breakfast with everyone at 10. I have to sample a total of 5 hauls per day, and the boat does on average about 10; one every 1.5 hours or so. Now that I have the routine down, it seems extremely easy and I often have a lot of time in between sets toread or stare at the sea. I love all the solitude and time I have to just think and talk to myself; I've yet to had a day where I've been truly lonely.The district we're fishing in now has a sandy bottom, so there's no mud to deal with which is a really nice improvement and makes for a lot less clean-uptime. As far as the actual sampling, it's really basic. I wait until the crew has sorted through the pile of scallops that the dredge has brought up,and then collect the leftover scallops. Here's some shots Malcolm took of me hard at work:These are then sorted into broken and unbroken baskets, weighed, counted, and measured. I also collect any crab bycatch and measure, sex, and age them as well. Once per day I do a haul composition where I weigh everything that comes up on deck. I talked to Fish & Game about counting starfish though since there can be up to 600 lbs/haul and I was breaking my ass trying to weigh them all. Yikes. This haul compis a lot of work, but also really neat, almost every one has been different. The diversity of animals here is just staggering. And hardly any dead fish,yay! I take a lunch break around 3, and try to get a jump on paperwork. We eat dinner around 9, and I clean up the dishes and the galley before my showerless cleanup routine (which involves baby wipes and cornstarch in my hair). I usually go to bed at 10 or 11. I'm so spoiled; the crew doesn't make it in until at least midnight, a lot of times later. They try and get 4 hours of sleep at night, and then go down for 2 hour naps during the day. These guys really are heads and tails above the rest, really truly genuinely nice men. All of them are married and totally respectful and cool and interesting.There are only 3 deckhands, the captain, and myself this trip, so it's a nice tight little team. I'm off to finish up my book and hit the hay.

Vacation!

After a fairly successful week scalloping, the guys have decided that they wanted to spend some time with their families. So I've got 3 days in Homer with absolutely no agenda!

I put a few more pictures up on the same link above. Note this especially cute one Captain Malcolm took of me and my Chionecterian friend:

There are a bunch of pics of our deckhand Ryan who left to go back to Maine last night. I decided to be the designated picture-taker (I AM my mother's daughter...) and document his summer experience for him.

So this was the record for no bathing...9 days! It wasn't THAT bad since we moved out of the district with all the mud but by the end of the trip I was starting to get a bit itchy. Literally. And my craving for attention and affection was this time directed at the crabs...yes I know they don't LOOK cuddly or cute but they sort of have the same reaction a dog does when you blow in it's nose so that's kind of fun.
On this trip I saw whales nearly every day, but of course I thought that would be a boring picture so I didn't take any. One morning, Nick (a member of the crew) told me to come out on deck and see the Pacific Dolphins frolicking around the boat. It was a HUGE pod, must have been 30-50 of them in the water. Those of you who know me well know that I generally snub my nose at elitist animals such as marine mammals but even grumpy old me was moved by the sheer number of these guys. They were just laughing and playing all over the place, it reminded me of looking at a schoolyard at recess.

I still love the boat and the crew more than ever and am a bit sad that this will be our last trip most likely. After that, I might try and do a short contract on Kodiak island before heading back down to sunny southern CA, where I think I've got another observing job in the swordfish gill-seine fishery that starts at the end of September. Hopefully since that's closer to home I can pick up some more contract work and start saving money like mad. I am bound and determined to make it to Thailand (SOMEHOW, by jove!) to meet up with my friends Laura and Juan and see another IHF center. Part of me just wants to buy lottery tickets but I know there's a plan for me somewhere if it's meant to be.

Scallop queen (and so modest!)

I've got some down-time in Kodiak so here's some pics I was able to post:

http://picasaweb.google.com/passionflower24/Kilkenny

Fishing has been great. The first week we started out in an area closer to Homer called the Shelikof strait. That Sunday, we came back and sold scallops directly to the public off the boat. It was so cool; very grass-roots and authentic and neat to witness a resource being harvested, processed, and then sold direct to the consumer. There's something very fulfilling about seeing the process.
The Shelikof area closed due to crab bycatch (based on numbers I and other observers were collecting) so we had to move further out this last week, closer to Kodiak. Selling scallops here hasn't been quite as successful, but it was really nice to get a break and a shower and visit with other observers at the bunkhouse. We're headed out tonight to fish and will be back in Homer next weekend.
Au revior!

Homer-bound

Well, tomorrow is the day I head off to Homer, AK. I'll spend a couple nights at a local hostel http://www.homerhostel.com/ before boarding my boat on Sunday and heading off to the Shelikof strait to dredge for scallops. Wahoo!

Yesterday I spent all day at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, which was really really cool:

http://www.alaskanative.net/

I first showed up and caught some of the young people demonstrating traditional native games. They were non-team strength based exercises. Here, they're trying to kick a target with one foot while holding their other foot. It was pretty amazing.

Me by a Tlingit totem pole

A scaled-down Tlingit lodge house

As usual, I had a grand old time at the museum. I could spend another day there as I didn't get a chance to see everything.