Hake - May / June '09

Hake was great! So... the rumors of internet and cell coverage didn't really pan out - oh well. The boat I was assigned to was freshly remodeled and making it's first trip since over a year of sitting in dry dock. Because the boat had a number of problems to work out with all of the new equipment we didn't really fish much for the first few weeks and it felt a bit like a cruise. It was by far the nicest fishing vessel I've been on. Probably the most impressive part of the boat was the state of the art wheelhouse. With a $10K-plus captain's chair (equipped with touch screen monitors on each arm rest) and ~ 15 different flat panel monitors it felt like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. The crew was quite international and at any given meal you could hear conversations in four or five different languages. Most of the top ranking officers on board were from Norway, and other crew were from across the globe including West Africa, Japan, Poland, Vietnam, Mexico, Philippines, Iceland, and Boston (Gorton's Fish representative). Sampling was very straight forward as many of the hauls were over 99% hake. In the bycatch we did have, I was able to identify a number of unique and brilliantly colored species of rockfish. It was an enjoyable 3 weeks.

Well, I'm back on land for a while now - moving to Seattle and beginning an EMT training course through the summer. This may be it for my observing career... we'll see.