Blogging Off-road

Hello from Dutch Harbor,
 I have not forgotten you or this blog! Unfortunately I have learned that when you travel to crazy places like the Bering Sea internet is NOT a given, and I have not been able to post on the blog because of this small hang up. I only have internet on a shared computer in the plant office, so I can't sit there hogging the computer writing on the blog. I have continued to write posts on my own computer, and will put them up as soon as I have sufficient opportunity & internet speed. On the plus side, I'll be able to post appropriate photos along with the post at the same time! So this story will continue, you'll just have to experience it a few months behind me. From now I guess you could say I'm taking a step off the virtual beaten path and blogging off-road!
 Since my recent annexation to intnet-less BFE, I've been keeping a list of things about boat life that should probably bother me, but don't. I figure it's a good way to portray everyday life while remembering to appreciate how not completely horrible boat-life is all the time! It certainly has its ups (watching orcas from the office window!) and downs (having the fish freeze solid to the deck while I'm trying to sample aka work).

Without further adeau:
Things that should probably bother me about living on the Bering Sea, but really don't:

• The cold (surprisingly)
•  Constant motion (think about showering in a tiny little bathroom on 10ft seas, and I STILL haven't been seasick!)
•  Never knowing where I'm going to be in 10 or 15 hours, let alone tomorrow or next weekend 
• Odd-ball hours (Yesterday I waited for my offload all night, ate "breakfast" at 4:30 am, and then went back to my boat to sleep from 5-9 am and woke up to eat "lunch" and edit some data) 
• There are no windows in the "house" part of the boat
•  When its dark, its PITCH BLACK DARKNESS on the boat, in "town" and on the water 
• Its light until 10pm but dawn isn't till 9am My "room" is a tiny bunk in a stateroom 
• I share with the rest of the crew. (I mean tiny, I cant even stretch out my arms above my head while laying down, and I'm Short! ... But I can sit up so that's a plus)
•  Food at the seafood plant is tasteless, at least its a change-up from greasy boat food, sometimes they even serve "tacos"
•  I'm pretty sure everything smells like fish .. but i can't really tell, cause everything smells like fish 

Small things that actually drive me crazy in boat life:

• There is NO crunchy peanut butter 
• All the good seed/wheat/healthy bread is always gone 
• I've been listening to the same 400 songs on my ipod since February
•  I have yet to see whales from my boat/on the sea (but I did see a laysan albatross one day!) 

The only things I really miss are:

•  Riding my bike Solid mexican food - Margaritas and Street tacos are all I want in life 
• A nice glass of CA red wine 
• Waking up to sunshine through the window And of course all my friends in CA :)

So yeah that's a little update, I've just been sampling, working and hanging out on my boat. We're on land about 40% of the time and out to sea the rest. Its not that bad, I read probably two books a week. Let me know if you have any book suggestions! I'll post again when I can, but I'll continue writing while I'm out here so you get the full story eventually!

This is what Dutch Harbor right now: (Not my photo, couldn't load my photos at this time, they'll be up as soon as I can manage it)

The Do's & Don'ts of Observer Life

Seattle WA ... Yep still here.
27F

So its way too cold for this Southern Californian to venture out any further than the kitchen for tea today; instead, I think I'll spend the afternoon catching you all up on life in Seattle. I have settled into what they call "observer life" quite nicely. Technically I'm a professional - but only in the strictest definition of someone who gets paid to do something, not at all in the showers-goes-to-the-office-wears-business-attire-home-by-five professional sense.

Side Note: One of my favorite marine biologists, Dr. Milton Love, has the best website ever, and I quote, "Dedicated to Good Science and Self Aggrandizement." One of the pages on said website is titled "So You Want To Be A Marine Biologist" It actually gives some very solid advice on the subject. My favorite part is that one of the reasons to be a marine biologist he says is that you can act and dress, pretty much, however you want:

"Marine biologists are almost entirely free of any of those silly restrictions that blight the professional landscape of our fellow proletarians. This is because no one really cares about what we do or what we say. You want to come to work dressed in scabrous khaki shorts and a torn black Sandman shirt? Fine. You want to grow a scruffy beard, get a tattoo of a gooseneck barnacle on your arm or burp at inopportune moments? No problem, just do good work." 

With that said, I give you the Do's and Don'ts of "Observer Life"

Do get a pair of comfy sweatpants you could foreseeably take on the apocalypse in (aka really soft, warm sweats you'd be content to spend the rest of your life in). Bonus points if they have your home state or university on them, mine are stamped with SoCal Surf Club.

Don't go anywhere without your phone while waiting for a boat. The second you put your phone down and leave the apartment your travel manager will call you with an assignment and tickets to a plane that takes off in three hours.

Do take up some sort of addictive habit to kill time. Most choose tobacco of some form, caffeine, or the ever preset lure of bars and night life. I have found that a raging reading addiction can be nearly just as expensive as the rest of these and doesn't upset my stomach like coffee.

Don't go grocery shopping for any more than a couple days in advance. It's a fun game to play, betting your food supply against when you'll fly out. If you buy a week's worth of groceries you're sure to get an assignment for tomorrow, but if you hold off shopping, and eat the lentils/crappy leftovers and other assortments of free items on the shelf you'll be waiting for weeks. Hmm, I guess this is kind of a DO item if you want a boat.

Do leave the apartment! You think you're stir crazy now, just wait till you don't have the option of leaving. Take advantage, learn the neighborhoods, and find some good thai food ... or whatever kind of food you like that they don't have in Dutch Harbor (there's lots).

Don't expect to hold on to any amount of money while waiting in Seattle. When you have literally nothing to be doing its easy to just let cash slip through your fingers, going to lunch, for coffee, the movies or just wandering around the mall, ANYTHING to kill time. I wont even mention attempting to cover your bar tab.

Do attempt to stay active! Its 27 degrees today, colder than the Aleutian Islands. I've given up running or cycling outside and I'm now on a free trial at the local gym (also another addictive habit to kill time). I'm wondering how long I can continue the free trial until they actually make me start paying to go to spin class.

Don't go to spin class every day for a week and expect to walk down stairs like a normal human being.

Do find silly things to brighten your day. Yesterday I went to the dollar store and bought a giant, bright red, fuzzy heart to hang in the bunk house for Valentine's Day. I wonder if it will still be hanging there when I come back in May.

Don't take naps. If you take a nap in the middle of the day you wont be tired by bedtime and you end up staying up late and either going out with everyone else to the clubs or becoming a vampire. Either way your circadian rhythm is one of your last connections to normal society, try to hold onto it as long as possible. (Note: This doesn't apply to life on boats.)

Do stay positive, active and busy -and one day your ship will come in ... literally.

Passing Time: Observer Oddities

Location: Seattle, WA (yep, still here)
Temp: 44 F

Everyday I wake up and I have two things to do, ride my bike and read my book. I usually have no clue what time it is, let alone what day of the week it is. I completely forgot about the MLK Jr. holiday, what ever day that was (no offense). The Seattle clouds make it feel like its always morning, until it gets dark, then its night.

There are about ten of us here in fishery purgatory between three apartments, plus another seven or eight in the four day briefing class this week (getting cleared to go out, or more likely sit in waiting with the rest of us). We're all waiting, waiting for storms to pass, for boats to come in, for tickets to Alaska. Everyone handles it differently, some people cook elaborate meals, or baked goods, some watch movies on end, others go out to the bars, and some just sit on their computers all day long. I ride my bike and read. But it starting to get old, riding alone every day.

Gossip about free food travels quickly through the three apartments. Today I was just waking up and pouring a glass of orange juice when another observer came in from the unit next door, "Stealing a bagel. Morning." I didn't even know we had bagels up for grabs in my apartment. Bagel Stealer then informed me that the downstairs apartment has some unclaimed cream cheese that would go great with this bagel. So I toasted my own stolen bagel, put on my slippers, and wandered into the downstairs apartment for something to top my free breakfast with.

As I was finishing breakfast, I heard someone calling from the next door apartment, "Deck Meeting!" Deck meeting, you know, when everyone goes out on the deck of your ship to talk about the important operations of the day, fishing plans, industry info, offload schedules ... oh wait, I'm on land, in the middle of Seattle, decidedly not fishing. So I wandered out onto our apartment's "deck" to see a few other observers, sipping coffee in their sweatpants and slippers.

"Ok, what are we doing today?" - I think I'm the only one that found it even remotely odd that we're having a "deck meeting" across three different apartment porches, spanning two different levels, in our pajamas. Everyone agreed we have pretty much nothing to do today, coffee got cold, and one by one we wandered back into our apartments. Yep, so that happened.

I guess I should go ride my bike now. I need to leave the apartment for at least a few hours today before settling in to finish my current book.

Life in the Bunk House

Location: Seattle, WA
Outside Temp: 42 F

Well, it's happening, I'm really here in Seattle! Training is pretty cool. It's still normal life, a little like a cross between a college class and a job interview. The class is focused on four basic topics: sampling procedures (aka how to actually do my job), filling out paperwork (putting numbers in little boxes), fish identification (playing with dead fish in ethanol) and safety (60 seconds to pull on your full immersion suit and jump into Lake Washington). It's a little like having your favorite class, everyday ... All . Day . Long.

But for fish nerds like myself, its pretty enjoyable! The training is at a secure NOAA facility, so they gave us all official badges with our pictures on them. Confession: I'm terrified to forget mine at home and have to wear the lame visitor's sticker one day. Our badges are connected to little retracting key holders, which when you've been in class for eight hours, are the most fun toy ever. They even have the Fisheries Management mascot printed on them ... An angler fish!

Angler fish retractor toy attached to my ID

Outside of class is when my life really gets interesting. I am staying in a moderately sized apartment, that, from the outside, looks generally unremarkable, aside from the foul weather gear and scientific equipment stacked in the garage. It can house up to 8 people, but comfortably 4-5. Unlike the other trainees, I am not staying in a trainee bunk house, but with prior observers who are traveling to and from assignments, briefings etc. Pretty much everyone is in a constant state of jet (or more often boat) lag. There are no normal sleeping, or meal times. Every day I wake up and check the bedroom whiteboards to see if anyone new has shown up and claimed a bed. People walk in from adjacent apartments just to check up on who's living in the unit next door for that day.

In the kitchen we have an entire cabinet shelf of free items left behind by observers that got called out suddenly. Most of the common items left behind include pasta sauce, beans, cereal, coffee etc. Its pretty much accepted that unless labeled or specifically noted, anything in the fridge is fair game as well (Be sure to confirm it is unspoiled before consuming!). It is good practice, upon arriving, to raid the free shelves, and if you're lucky you can eat for free for a couple days.

Sunsets ... at 4:30 PM

My bunk house at the moment is almost empty. I have my own room, and bathroom, for now. I also have a great living room with a patio and floor to ceiling windows looking over the hills to the west. It makes for beautiful sunsets ... at 4:30 in the afternoon. But the best part about my apartment is outside in the front, there is a small standing light-post. And for the holidays our housing manager decorated it with christmas lights. So when I come home, I always know my house, its the one with the lit barber pole. If she ever takes down our christmas lights I'm not going to know where I live!

My Christmas-Lighted Home Sign