1st Trip

Just got back into Dutch Harbor after my first trip! It's great to be back on land and it's a beautiful day here, my body's missing the sway of the boat and I'm a bit "land sick". All in all my first trip went well. I was on a big factory trawler boat and we were out just over a week. Fortunately, I was paired with an experienced lead observer and she helped me out a lot. There were approximately 30 crew members including deck hands, factory workers, the engineer, and the cook. The first few days the weather was mild and I got the hang of taking samples of the catch. About day four the seas got rough and I experienced my first bout of seasickness. I was pretty miserable the next couple of days throwing up, eating only saltines, and trying to sleep as much as I could (I usually felt better horizontally). I gradually felt better and the rest of the trip was enjoyable: getting to know some of the crew and honing my sampling methods. Though most of the hauls were clean (low species diversity) the last few were dirty (high diversity) and I got to identify a bunch of different fish. We're here in port until tomorrow sometime as the boat offloads and has some crew changes. I looks like I'll be with this boat until early May.