Sunday August 5th
(jump earlier)
Halibut TKO
What do you get when you have a 70# halibut, a french knife and a quizzical co worker?
I go to deal the death blow for some dinner fillets, the co worker was leaning in near the tail end and Mr. halibut decides to try and jump off of the table with a WHACK right to the guys face...
Maybe that's poetic justice.
Tasted pretty good though with the ginger-wasabi beurre blanc. Co worker is still wearing an ice pack...and has sworn off fish forever  |
posted Sunday August 5th, @01:46PM
Monday July 30th
(jump earlier later)
Flight time again
Wow, how exciting...hit some good air pockets going over the Hood Canal and went vroooom down a few feet, scared the people in front of me pretty good. That was the conversation topic for the next 45 minutes from Boeing field to SeaTac, yabber yabber...glad to be sitting here at Clarion waiting on dinner.
I'll give this place a plus since it has room service and I'm a lazy bastard when it comes to going back out searching for food the night before I go back to work 
Tomorrow's flight is a 6 hour 2 stopper before I hit Cordova, just like the last time. I should be boarding the vessel tomorrow afternoon sometime, and then the fun begins.
Later... |
posted Monday July 30th, @10:48PM
Wednesday July 25th
(jump earlier later)
Quickie
Yeah, I got the call from HR and have to go back to work on the 31st. Fastest turn time I've ever had, and 2 weeks off is just enough time to almost get in trouble.
Hope I get the same float plane pilot who runs a taxi from Cordova to McPhearson passage, I want to do another barrel roll on the way in |
posted Wednesday July 25th, @08:55AM
Saturday July 21st
(jump earlier later)
Rotation
Back home for a few weeks, then I'll fly back up to PWS, sail the vessel back to Seattle, re gear for the Hake fishery and do another 2 months.
Then, I travel...probably to Cambodia, hang out in Ankor.
Word of advice-the Holiday inn Seatac blows. Don't waste your money.
Another honorable mention is that I found out what was in "Soup #5", the yummy soup I had a few times in the Philippines.
Oh boy, another gastronomical feat accomplished  |
posted Saturday July 21st, @11:34AM
Saturday June 2nd
(jump earlier later)
Pirate ship
This season, we're full of pirates. 90% newbies. The ship moves and they're seasick. Fill glasses up to the rim and wonder why it spills when we roll or pitch.
Man, is it time for vacation yet? Cambodia or Australia are looking extremely inviting just about now... |
posted Saturday June 2nd, @11:45PM
Monday January 1st
(jump earlier later)
posted Monday January 1st, @02:06PM
Monday December 18th
(jump earlier later)
Cockfights and buses
Philippines Holiday...
First time to the islands and had a great time. It really helped to know some of the people who lived there-I met up with some of the guys I work with and we were going non stop from the second day I was there to the departing trip at the airport.
Day 1-Manila. Got a place at the Holiday Inn (I'm notorious for staying at that Icon of Hotels on my arrival, don't ask me why)and got a room on the 26th floor, some kind of funky penthouse suite with nice views of the Typhoon that was coming ashore a few hours after I climbed in the rack. Also heard a bus blew up via a planted hand grenade a while after I arrived so I stuck to the surrounding areas while I was in the city.
Day 2/5-Subic Bay, White Rocks, Clark Field, Cebu
Drive crazy fast, honk horn and weave thru incoming traffic-that's the style and it's about like Thailand and Cambodia, but the roads are better. Subic was under high security due to the US Marine raping a local girl, and being handed over to the Embassy instead of doing local time in the jail. Lots of protests about that and I cannot disagree about the feelings the people had. White rocks-if you want to be in a beautiful place, go there...it's extremely resorty but very laid back.
Day 6/13-Bulacan...
Yeah! Fun at the cockfights. Lost a few thousand pesos but did my best to key in on a winning rooster. Betting is extremely animated, and guys in the arena get pretty incensed as a few of them are pros at it and make a lot of money.
OK, I tried the Balut. Had a few San Miguel's in me and the crew I was sitting with bought a dozen. Warm eggs, ok, I'm in...
Shell halfway off, sip of beer...a bite..not bad, sorta salty. Second bite and I realized I had chomped off half of a baby chicken, pin feathers and all...creamy crunchy.
The gag reflex came on so I reach for another long draw of the Pils and wash it down. My buds were laughing their asses off...Looked at the table strewn with plates of Ahi, Goat adobo, some kind of dish that had fried chicken ovary ducts and hard boiled egg yolks and of course my fav Lechon Kawali (roast/fried Pig) went with the pig for the rest of the time at the VIP room.
Bulacan is a great place with very good people. Thinking of buying a bar there, who knows...good place to stay is MacArthurs, rooms run around 1000 pesos (20 bucks) a night, better rates if you book an extended stay. |
posted Monday December 18th, @08:12PM
Sunday November 5th
(jump earlier later)
Small planes and crappy weather
I fly to Seattle for work via a small local air service near here. Yesterday was pretty trippy on the way back...
Pilot had a Co along with him. That was the first bad sign. Pilot informs the packed plane (2 passengers) that it's going to be a bumpy ride in from the Hood canal area on. OK, cool...I work in some of the worst weather so I'm used to it.
We head up, and right after going over the Hood it gets rough. Really rough. I click on the shoulder belt in between being raised out of the seat by the turbulence. Still not as bad as 40' seas but the guy in front of me gets airsick. Small plane. No air. This sucks. We finally land after circling the airport a few times, the Co looks at me and said "We made it"! Yay!
I do like a good sense of humor... |
posted Sunday November 5th, @07:03PM
Thursday November 2nd
(jump earlier later)
Back to Seattle
Vessel came in and I'm here in Seattle choking on nasty hotel coffee, trying to wake up and get my butt in gear. Discovered 5 points last night with some friends-thanks guys-I feel like crap...
Anyway, it's amazing what you get for a hotel here in the states compared to overseas. For the daily price I'm paying here I could have a 2 Br suite with all the goodies in Bangkok.
Good thing for an expense account
Booked a 2 weeker to the Philippines later this month for my roadtrip, should be a blast as I'm meeting crew who live there.
Dunno about eating the fermented duck eggs, I look at that like I did the deep fried bugs in Pattaya...
Later |
posted Thursday November 2nd, @08:46AM
Friday October 27th
(jump earlier later)
Win Box/Redux
Ok, So I put Vista on. Ran it for a while on the 17". Started to dislike the lack of support for some of the programs so took it off of my HD (have 2 on this one)
Then rebooted in XP. Nope. Vista. Try again. No go. Looked for my Win files and realized due to operator error I had installed vista over the XP...
So yesterday I reformatted the HD. Reinstalled XP thanks to the recovery disks. Fired up 1 Care and Defender. Life is good and I'm starting to understand the Windows platform a lot more. |
posted Friday October 27th, @10:12AM
Thursday October 5th
(jump earlier later)
Testing Win Boxes
Running a test on 2 Sony vaio laptops now, the 17" has ZA and Spybot installed and the 13" has OneCare and Defender installed, with no other detection programs.
Let's see which is better...
I have noticed that ZA does a lot more checking and warning on running programs, but that's probably because of how I have the firewall set.
Still not like the Macs I have which have been problem free with Virus and Spyware...sorry Bill |
posted Thursday October 5th, @09:54AM
Wednesday October 4th
(jump earlier later)
Back home
Nice to be back home, had a strange experience yesterday while getting my hair cut...the stylist asked me where I had been and told her I was fishing in the Bering.
Normal answer, weird job, the usual shite. People ask me about it all the time. They must think that I crab as my job is always compared to Discovery's Dangerous Catch series.
No, I'm a Chef. I work on a 280' Trawler. Don't do deck work as I really hate cold salt water, prefer the steam and stoves.
And I can don a gumby suit in 13 seconds, zipped. No problemo...
A lady across the shop must have overheard, she got out of her chair and walked up to me, starting to cry and saying how "you should be so lucky to be standing here". Now I was sorta shocked and asked her what was wrong and she replied between the sobs that her Husband had gone there and never came back.
I told her I was sorry about her loss, paid for the cut and got the hell out of the shop.
Things like that bring ones mortality back into focus...
Later |
posted Wednesday October 4th, @10:43AM
Tuesday September 26th
(jump earlier later)
Airport
Yeah! Sitting here in Dutch Harbor, waiting on the bush plane to take me to Anchorage. Been bumped twice since this AM, and the Grand is looking like the only sure bet for this evening. But at least I'm offf the shiip. 141 days was enough.
Now I'm on vacation until 1/1 2007.
Life is good...
later |
posted Tuesday September 26th, @03:35PM
Wednesday September 13th
(jump earlier later)
Dutch and being tired...
Man my ass is getting burned out. Glad to be off of here in about 2 weeks or so. Finally have net access here at Pac-Steve dock in Dutch, but it's not the same as sitting back with a cool beer at the casa for sure. Noticed the battery is running low on the laptop so I'll fire off a goodbye for now.
FYI-weather up past St. Matthew sucks. We were slammed by 40' seas for 2 days. |
posted Wednesday September 13th, @02:16AM
Saturday July 29th
(jump earlier later)
Gulf of Alaska
Rolling into day three of the steam and we're in the outer fringes of the Gulf of Alaska heading NW. Yesterday the weather was crap, but this AM it seems to have smoothed out a lot. Sorta gray and rainy, like a Seattle wintertime. Heard the other vessels are knocking back some good catches and it will be nice to crank up the nets again and start making some greenbacks
Engineers have tweaked the Sat, so we may have it all the way through...guess I'll find out soon.
Later... |
posted Saturday July 29th, @09:57AM
Thursday July 27th
(jump earlier later)
New crew
Sailing into the Bering with a new crew since the contracts were over for the Whiting fishery. Good mix of greenies and vets which is the norm. Sometimes we get all green and then they have to learn to "become machine" like the rest of us.
Weather this AM is 8' swells, not bad sailing but there's a fri=ont coming in from Siberia, yuck. Bow dive time in 2 days I bet and I get to watch gravity kick in! Dunno how long I'll be OL but I'll keep posting until we lose it. Hopefully I can tap into the wireless connection when we get to Dutch on Tuesday!
Later... |
posted Thursday July 27th, @10:18AM
Monday July 24th
(jump earlier later)
RIP Tig
Got the Email a few days ago that my Cat was killed by a car. This sucks... My partner in crime who always left me tributes by the door. Always woke me up at 5 AM when he came into the house from another night of romping around and jumped on the bed making my bod his pillow. Followed me like a kid everywhere I went. Quiet company but always a loving buddy...gonna miss you and I hope to hell you're chasing the moles and dogs around where you are now... |
posted Monday July 24th, @10:07AM
Monday July 17th
(jump earlier later)
3 Trips? 5 Trips? 9 Trips?
Who the heck knows. Depends on the quota when we get up there, that's the word for now. Fishing's pretty good at the moment and we stay shortwired after 30 minute sets (that's a full bag, towed behind the ship, waiting to be brought onboard and processed). Seems like the longest wait is the steam from point A to point B. Seems to take forever to fill 900 tons a trip but this season has gone pretty fast so far, over 60 days and going strong.
Now I'm thinking about Australia. Had a friend who just came back from 2 months vacation and he had a blast. Guess I'll flip a coin when I get back and see where the next fun will be |
posted Monday July 17th, @12:44AM
Thursday July 13th
(jump earlier later)
Thoughts
June 2006 Pacific Fishing magazine…by John Platt Hurwitz
“As fishermen, we take a lot of things for granted that would likely astound others. You can watch landlubbers’ faces as you relate one of these tales, and you suddenly realize that the listener doesn’t believe a word you’re saying. But you’ve probably toned it down a little because you knew it would sound unbelievable to someone who doesn’t live by his wits day and night. In addition, they find the situations you get yourself into even more bizarre.
I can remember telling non-sea people stories of breakdowns, imperfect storms, near misses, and the like. I don’t know what drives us to tell these stories. I’ve often thought it was just ego, trying to look courageous in the presence of people whose lives fit what I consider to be more ‘the norm’.
It’s really quite the opposite. Most fishermen, myself included, consider their mishaps and calamities as foolishness or stupidity. But we are comfortable sharing these experiences with each other. It’s just the business we’re in.
You could call this knowledge the ‘fellowship of the sea’. We’ve seen what happens, we’ve jus been on different boats at that time.
It took me years to finally decide what drew me to commercial fishing. I had to survive several ‘prayer sessions’ to really appreciate why we do this. All fishermen, even non –believers, know exactly what I mean by a prayer session.
That’s when things are so bad that only one more little thing has to go wrong and there is no way in hell you can live through it.
After much consideration, I concluded that fishing is largely made up of people who grew up watching wild adventure movies…’ |
posted Thursday July 13th, @12:13PM
Thursday July 6th
(jump earlier later)
One more...
One more trip to go and then we head off to the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. From what I've heard fishing is great around St. Matthew and the weather is the usual one day sun, 4 days gray and rainy. Maybe we'll have 'Net but I seriously doubt it, so I'll surf until the 404's appear and then get back OL whenever the contract ends.
Later... |
posted Thursday July 6th, @10:11AM
|
Beringse