Marooned!

I have news! I am finished on my boat! I have been reassigned to the plant in Akutan as the second observer. Now I stay on land and take salmon genetics for all the boats that offload here. I work nights so this has been an adjustment! I try to keep busy to stay awake, writing for the blog, reading (conditions are never too crappy to read on land!), editing data, and using the internet (the novelty probably won't ever wear off). The highlight of my week has been discovering that pandora radio works up here, (shhhh don't tell the plant)! Adnrew Bird radio is where it's at.

Despite still being in Alaska and not heading home just yet, I am very pleased to start my new chapter as a shore side observer. I got to sleep on a real mattress in MY OWN ROOM THAT WASN’T MOVING last night ... Well today, last day? I don’t know, this days and nights thing is getting really confusing. Regardless, I am looking forward to having a set schedule for a while, going for a run/walk, depending on road conditions, and going to the "gym" before "breakfast" every day. The cafeteria doesn't have the best tasting food, but they have salad most days and apples a lot of the time, so I get to eat healthy! I heard they even serve tacos occasionally, but I’m not holding my breath for good Mexican food just yet. There are always a few options here, as opposed to boat life! I had plain yogurt and granola for dinner this morning!! It was awesome. I’ve never been so excited to see plain yogurt before in my whole life.

I won't lie, I'm also excited that I don’t have to do dishes, laundry or any other chores while I'm here, the plant pretty much covers that. What am I going to do when I go back to real life and I have to do my own laundry and PAY for food?!? People here are really nice to the observers, probably because the plant doesn't function without us, and everyone at the plant has been brainwashed NOT to harass the observers. (Fun Fact: Observers are protected by the marine mammal protection act! Not lying, can’t make this up.) I think I'll be here till the plant closes for the season, which should be soon if rumors are correct, but its fishing so I wouldn't carve that in stone any time soon. So for now, I am marooned on this tiny rock of an island, observing shore side.

This is a shot from about halfway up the mountain lookng over Akutan and the bay.

Sunset On The Bering

My favorite time of day is just before the sun sets on the water. From the deck I can see the golden light that dips below the grey clouds and touches the navy waters to turn them turquoise. The golden-crested swells roll relentlessly as the vessel topples over each one. They play an endless game of hide and seek with the horizon. The sparse rays of dwindling sunlight shine over the moving swells, onto the rails, and through each droplet of water clinging to the net.

Sunset at sea could be anywhere. Without land, boats, or birds I can imagine I’m home, only just out of sight of Catalina, or that I’m visiting far away foreign waters in Asia or Antarctica, or even, that I’m on another planet entirely, with alien creatures lying in wait below the surface. It is familiar and not, it’s exciting and boring, frightening and comforting. It is a blank slate upon which you can only project your own emotions.

In this ever-expanding desert of water, I find comfort in knowing and experiencing an untamed wilderness.


Took this photo out the back of the wheelhouse window a few weeks ago.



Easter on the Crab Dock

Last night I went to sleep just as we were coming into the bay around 3am. I fell asleep looking forward to checking my mail, (FYI getting mail is now kinda the highlight of my life, I've fallen so far from my roots as Land Ali) and hanging out with people that are not the same three people I see every waking moment of everyday on this boat! After mail I'll fax some data, grab a snack and a cup of coffee with the plant observer before heading off to the stair master for a workout! (Land Ali shakes her head in disappointment and walks out the door to hop on her bike for a solid 50 mile ride.)

So I wake up the next morning, and take the stairs up to the wheelhouse to check the weather. Only I don't see the Akutan dock, there is no containers, no happy little community gym or even any dock workers in sight! We are not at the plant dock, oh no, I realize we have been banished to the far side of the the bay and chained to the crab dock. No way to walk to the office, no stair master, no beloved mail ... all I have is a view across the bay of my intended destination ... so close yet so far.

Yes the crab dock is a definite step down from Akutraz (the island prison as the observers call it), which I didn't know was even possible. Boredom has no limits in commercial fishery observation. I mean, we might as well be anchored in the middle of the sea. There's nothing to do off the boat and theres not even the distraction of data collection or bird watching on the boat - well besides the Dutch Harbor pigeons (aka the ever-present dirty scavenger bald eagles).

But, as I continue to find here in Alaska, with every cloud there is a silver lining! Sometimes when the conditions are right, and by "conditions" I mean we're headed to dutch harbor soon, and by "right" I mean we happen to be carrying a bunch of eggs that are about to go rotten, you can have an Easter Egg hunt on the crab dock!

This idea came up one morning, (morning is a relative term here, I think it was closer to 4-5 in the afternoon) when one of my deckhands walked into the galley and said, "You ever seen the foxes?"

Foxes? ... Like real ones?

Yep! They're the largest indigenous mammal on the island. They're pretty cool little guys, somewhere in size between a medium dog and a coyote. They look exactly as you'd expect, red fur, big bushy tails with a white spot on the end and cunning little furry faces. How they originally got here I have no idea, maybe their ancestors were fantastic swimmers?

Shortly before sunset we climbed off our boat with a couple dozen nearly rotten eggs and wandered through the crab pots. We hid our rotten "Easter Eggs" among the driftwood and along the rocky shore where we could see from the wheelhouse. Some of the Dutch Harbor pigeons took advantage of our hospitality but when night came it was the foxes who were calling the shots. They crept down to the shore and, one by one, found and ate every egg as we watched from our boat. I felt like a national geographic host, camped out at night on a remote post to see a rare species ... Ok so they're not that rare, the foxes are more or less as common as raccoons at home, but I didn't care, I got to see them for the first time!

Happy Easter from Alaska!

Yeah, kinda like this... ok no not really. I wish.

Itys-Bitsy Teenie-Weenie Pink Polka Dotted Boots

So everyone on the Aleutian Islands wears the same boots, the EXTACT SAME BOOTS. The boots are rubber, ugly brown with ugly tan trim, called extra tuffs. They clash with every color and look dirty fresh out of the box.

I can understand the practicality of the boots themselves. They’re completely waterproof and pretty bomb proof. I can walk through 4 inches of water, mud, fish slime, or worse without any fear of a leak or tear. What I can’t understand is why they only come in ONE color! Why can’t we have variations or fun patterns like those cheap rain boots at department stores right before the one rain a year in CA?! If I could get a pair of plaid green boots, or ones with little goldfish swimming all over them I’d be sold.

My biggest problem with the boots is that when entering a public building such as the library, gym or church everyone must take off their boots in the entryway. So when I come back to put on my boots and leave I can never figure out which pair of ugly brown boots, among the 10 pairs of identical ugly brown boots, are mine! I actually wore one of my deckhand’s boots out to the office one day. “Didn’t you notice they were two sizes larger than usual?!?!” he asked, between spurts of uncontrollable laughter.

So I’ve come up with a solution, and no, it’s not to simply mark one side of the boots with my initials with a permanent marker, because one, that’s boring, two, it’ll probably rub off, and three, we don’t have bright pink permanent marker. My solution is to paint my boots! Of course the only paint available is the paint I personally have on hand, coral pink nail polish. So bright pink polka-dotted boots it is! (Its ok, you can sing the song in your head now … They were Itys-Bitsy Teenie-Weenie pink polka-dot boots, that she wore for the first time toda-a-ay!)

Step One: I washed my boots with soap and water to get all of the mud, slime, and as much of the Pollock scales off them as possible.

Step Two: Tested a small portion of nail polish on one boot to make sure it doesn’t eat into the rubber and royally screw my only pair of waterproof work boots.

Step Three: Attempt to paint circular polka dots all over the boots with my little nail polish brush. Who said knowing the finer points of nail polish application was not a critical job skill?!

Step Four: Pray that the boots dry before I need to wear them to go work ankle deep in fish muck. Step

Five: Never mistake my boots for anyone else’s ever again!

Problem Solved