My first rotation was in Ucluelet. I got the call, rushed there in a mad panic, only to find it was blowing 45 (that's fast), and none of the boats were going out. On the plus side, I got to do some storm watching, which is spectacular here, as there is nothing but ocean between here and Japan. Even this far from the water I found I got covered in salt. It was neat though.
My first two trips were short, just a night or two for hake trips. Despite BC's unending love of salmon, hake is the number one catch here. The fish just isn't all that photogenic, and is usually reserved for conversion into surimi, which is "fish puree or slurry". Gross. Apparently it's enjoyed in Asian cultures (thanks Wikipedia). This boat was super fancy, with all the latest gadgets, and they managed to pull in a good amount of fish (more than enough to fill a few living rooms).
This is some of the stuff that came up. Mostly that's dogfish (the sharks), with some hake in the basket in the back. I had to record as much of this as possible.
A sunset in Queen Charlotte Sound, between Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlottes'. A showed this shot to one of the fishermen, who said "Ha, you got the f***ing hook right in the middle". Although some of them are pretty knowledgeable in certain things, they can often lack tact, often with amusing effect.
This is the net being drawn onto the stern. The catch is then dumped on deck and sorted into the holds.
Most of the boats had at least a few scuppers open. Water did come on deck, which could be annoying, but it also kept things cleaner during catch processing, and it was a convenient way to wash scale, muck, slime, blood, etc off of boots and raingear.
This picture, totally out of order thanks to blogger, was taken on the way out of the Ucluelet harbour.
I did have other duties on board, which included measuring, sexing, and removing the otoliths, a bone from the fish's ear (in short) which is used for aging.
It could be tedious work.
On a few of the days, especially if the wind kicked up some chop, pods of dolphins appeared out of nowhere, and they could be seen cavorting in all directions as far as the eye could see. Despite their abundance, pictures were nearly impossible to take: some idiots at Canon decided viewfinders aren't necessary in this digital age. Without them, it's impossible to take a picture of a moving target from a moving platform (on a windy day).
Between trips, I ran into Colin, an old friend from Nanaimo, who works on geoduck (pronounced gooey duck - they're large clams) boat as a deckhand. This is a highly valued product ($12/lb to the fishermen). Diver's go down and actually pull them out of the bottom. I didn't put a picture here, but geoducks have a notoriously amusing phallic appearance, I'd encourage you to look them up for a laugh.
The gear is high tech. These aren't your run-of-the-mill weekend scuba divers. Air is pumped down, they have a communication link, and the ability to switch to oxygen to prevent the bends. Pretty neat.
This is a king crab. Or dinner, however you want to see it.
Hake.
My bunk. Accommodations varied, usually a room is shared with another crew member, but here I had my own room right in the bow, with a DVD player and a choice of pirated movies. Nice way to kill time between tows.
A Pacific halibut. These are discarded (amongst much controversy), preferably alive. Mostly I put this picture up because you can see some blood coming from this guy's brow. A few minutes earlier he had been struck by a hook. He stopped working for half a heartbeat, and got back to it. For those of use following the World Cup, it really contrasts to the little boo-boo's that soccer players cry about. This guy was also having a bad trip: the next day he got "spined" by some fish. We all had a good laugh (they're not baking cupcakes out there), and he later showed me the glove had been filled with blood. No sympathy from the skipper or the rest of the crew though.
This is me pretending to work during a photo-op.
Pacific Ocean perch. There are at least five commonly marketed red rockfish species in BC (and many more species that show up from time to time), but they're often just (insultingly) referred to as rockfish, or worse: snapper. Consumers are either retarded, or don't realize there are differences between species. The fishermen never even eat this species, usually preferring yelloweye.
This was the ocean on Saturday. It was blowing 30, and the boat was moving all over the place. I think it's a blast, but it's not too much fun if you suffer from sea-sickness.Anyhow, there are too many stories to tell here, but it was pretty cool.
R
