More fishing

Our company has been getting lucky with contracts lately so I had the opportunity to go out fishing on the Rebecca Lor, a small vessel docked in False Creek, across from snobby Granville Island. The first couple of days were very long. We fished from mid-afternoon until late in the evening. After that a typical day began at 5AM and went on until 1 or 2, depending on the catch.

This is the Rebecca Lor as seen from the crow's nest. The design looks pretty simple but there are lots moving parts and odd devices to move heavy things around and crush unwary biologists.

Looking north towards the mountains over all the yachts and a few fishing boats. That's the Granville bridge; it's something of a landmark.

Granville Island in the background.

Out in English Bay for our first day.

The next few pictures were taken at sunrise. We left the dock around 5:20, so by this point we had already had time to do some basic sampling. This is Stanley Park with the Lion's Gate Bridge in the background.

Sunrise over Vancouver. The banks of fog hid most of the city which made it easier to imagine that we were out further away.

There are lots of big container boats in the bay, they can make fishing a tricky business in any number of ways. When they drag anchor they create huge hills and ditches that caught our net and filled it with mud.

Another morning in English Bay. You'll notice the weather has so far been perfect.

A self-portrait. In addition to helping set the net and hauling it back in, I was to sort, identify, count and weigh all the bycatch. It got a lot easier as I learned all the species.

The bycatch.

Sarah decided to skip a day of homework to come out on the boat with us. We figured it was worth it because she is probably never going to get the chance to see something like this again. It also allowed her to take some pictures of her man in action. Here I'm getting ready to do basic water quality readings on a sample taken near the bottom.

Putting the net out. It was tricky because the doors (those wooden things that keep the net open) had to be kept straight to keep the net from spinning and tangling. Even if we did it correctly we often ran into problems. As you'd imagine, the bottom here is littered with heaps of garbage. We caught: A large truck tire far too heavy to lift, bottles, plastic bags and bottles, glass bottles (mostly beer and booze), shoes, a gas mask, tonnes (literally) of mud, a metal railing, a metal palette, logs, countless abandoned or lost crab traps and their lines and miscellaneous junk from years of logging. In all we destroyed one net and tore a few in half. On a number of occasions we also had to fix smaller holes here and there.

A small crab... I forget the species.

Changing the net... We broke a number when Sarah was on board. Coincidence?

This was one of my favorite spots. It was quiet away from the engine and a good spot to wait out the haul. I had a nap here in the sun on one occasion.

The gulls loved us. Their noise was annoying, but they did clean up a lot of fish bits that were scattered about the deck.

My ersatz photographer.

On our last day out we sailed to the end of Indian Arm a few hours out of False Creek. For this trip we had to get out of the harbour by 3Am in order to be back on time for the lab biologists. We got to the site before sunrise so we could only do the basic water sampling. It did give us the chance to have a wholly unhealthy breakfast of far too much bacon and eggs, supplemented with potato chips, all provided for by the captain. In fact, bacon, breakfast sausage, English bangers, twizzlers, chips, pizza and MSG soup were regular fare aboard.

Your fearless narrator. Mike, a deckhand took the picture.

Shark. A small dogfish, but still a shark. It was pretty cool, but it didn't try to bite me much, so I was a little disappointed.

The mountains to the north. I think I've climbed this one... Or maybe the one behind it.

Leaving Indian Arm. This work was some of the most fun I've had at work since I started there. Fishing in freshwater is good, fishing in the ocean is better. So many more species to see and surprises at every turn. We may be going out again in the near future. Hopefully.
Rémi