Well, so much for more consistency in my updates. Such is
the inherently inconsistent and tentative nature of this job. Not even entirely
sure where to start on this one, as a lot has happened since my last update.
Long story short, I was sent to Dutch Harbor further out on the Aleutian chain,
however, not for Pollock. As the beginning step of a plan in the works, I was
instead put on a pot vessel that fishes for Cod, named the Bountiful. It is the
largest pot processor in Alaska, meaning I have now worked on the smallest
factory trawler in Alaska- the Golden Fleece, and the largest factory pot
processor. Both, I am told, are among the most difficult assignments that the
program offers. I have already talked about the rigors of sampling on my last
boat- lots of heavy lifting, and dealing with a sampling area that had a
tendency to get flooded towards the end of the trip as the hold would get full.
This boat, however, presents different challenges. Being a pot boat, one of the
main things is watching out for pots, which are craned into the air to be
stacked and put on a hydraulic launcher that has the capability of putting the
pot at a 45 degree angle towards or away from the boat in order to launch it,
or dump the fish out of it. The dangers of working on these boats is shown
(albeit in a slightly to very dramatized manner) in the show “Deadliest Catch”.
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| The Bountiful (Marine Exchange) |
What made this boat difficult for me to work on, were two
things in addition to always watching my head. First was actually sampling.
There is not quite as much heavy lifting as on my last assignment, but, I have
to work at the pace of the crew when I am pulling my samples, which is at the
insane speed of 2.5 minutes per pot- meaning the time it takes to pull up a
pot, dump the fish, sort/cut the fish, deploy that pot, and pull up the next
one is just 2.5 minutes. I am responsible for tallying all the catch and
counting/weighing any bycatch, as well as a sample of the predominant catch. I
do this for randomly selected pots at randomly selected times within randomly
selected strings (groups) of pots. The other challenge that I will hopefully be
able to mitigate in this next coming trip is the scheduling. The schedule I was
on allowed for me to work less time, but have less time off, causing my sleep
to be extremely fragmented and making the volumes of paperwork and data entry
associated with this boat difficult to keep up with.
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| Up the road from the bunkhouse. |
We will only be here for a short time to offload, then will
go out for another minimum of a 2.5 week trip. This boat can hold 1 MILLION
pounds of processed fish and has enough fuel to be out at sea for longer than a
month! This amazes me. I don’t really have any pictures to share as of yet; the
day I flew into Dutch, I was deployed almost immediately. This island vacillates between majestic and depressing beauty as the sun and rain take turns making the mountains look bright and green or daunting and ominous grey. I look forward to hiking them when I get the chance. I will let you all know how my next trip goes, with hopefully a little more time to explore Unalaska Island when I am in port next.
