I'm working as a Fish Culturist at Hidden Falls Salmon Hatchery in a remote spot near Sitka, Alaska! AM I CRAZY!? I'm starting to think so...

Friday, April 6, 2007

To Takatz and back

Man, it's been almost a week since my last blog. I apologize to my faithful readers! All.... 5 of you!? I was away for 4 of those days anyhow....

Sunday morning I left for Takatz on the boat with one of the fish transfers. After the transfer, Dean switched out with me and I stayed with Adam, where he showed me "the ropes." They ended up finishing all of the fish transfers that day too. Anyhow, as soon as the boat left, Adam turned to me and said "we have 45 minutes until the next feeding... you can go inside and get settled." That first day was a tad busier than the next 3 just because of the transfers but the next 3 days went something like this....

8 am - take bags of food out to the pens and give them their first feeding of the day...
8:30 am - first feeding complete... go inside and do nothing...
10 am - 2nd feeding...
10:10 am - second feeding complete... go inside and do nothing...
11:30 am - 3rd feeding...
11:40 am - third feeding complete... start thinking about lunch...

And that pattern continued... 7 feedings a day... 1 pm, 2:15 pm, 3:30 pm, 4:45 pm... done for the day.

Right now since the fish are small and not eating that much, there is ALOT of downtime! It only takes about 10 minutes to feed (with both people working on their 7 pens on one side) By the way, before I said there were 16 pens, 8 on each side. I lied... there's only 14 pens. The chum pens here at the hatchery have 16 pens. The second day I was there, we had to compete with some iced over water... it wasn't completely frozen over but there were chunks of ice. So Adam hopped in the boat and played around so that he could create waves and try to break it up. Still there was a bunch of ice so it made feeding a little harder because the food doesn't SINK... so we took a long rope and dragged it along the water so try to get the food down. The ice eventually melted. The days I was down there the weather was really great! Though it was cold in the morning, when the sun finally came overhead, it warmed things up.

ANYHOW, I've read alot... listened to alot of Sirius sattelite radio... played a few games of Skip-Bo... watched a few movies... You tend to head to bed a bit early also!

Now the INTERESTING things about the site...

*** No running water... We are getting water from a jug... like a 5 gallon container with a spigot (sp?) Then we refill it with water we have in some buckets. Adam said they collect rain water to use but it hasn't been raining lately (It is right now though!) so we've been getting buckets of water from the hatchery. We also found a little stream that we could use if water gets low that is just across the bay. Anyhow, water supply IS limited so that means no showers... I had to go 4 days, but Adam went probably 8 or 9 before he could get back. It wasn't SO bad but my hair wasn't very pleasant! :-D

The toilet is run on saltwater so it sucks up the water from outside. It's a pain though because it fills up pretty slow.

With the limited water supply, that means we don't really wash the dishes too often. When it was time to eat lunch my first day, I asked which plate was clean and Adam was like "Wellll.... we haven't done dishes (they had been there for like a week)..." So we resort to wiping it with a paper towel and maybe using a little water if it needs it. Anyone who had OCD wouldn't definately NOT survive in this place! he he he

*** Power... the power is from a generator, but we don't have the generator on during the day. The lights are on battery power though... but we never need them during the day really anyhow, except for the bathroom light. So if we want to watch movies on our laptops, we have to use the laptop battery (until it dies...). We usually watch movies at night though and we turn on the generator.

*** Heat... the heat source is a stove that uses diesel. It works pretty good unless it is windy. And when it is windy (like the first day I was there and the few days before I got there) sometimes the wind tends to put the flame out by blowing in the exhaust tube. That then blows the fumes inside and it's not too pleasant! It wasn't SO bad but that first day, you could smell the fumes. Adam warned me that it could be a cold night cause if the wind was too bad, 1) it might just blow the fire out! and 2) the fumes could just be bad so he might just turn it off anyhow. So I got prepared and put on alot of clothes and blankets but ended up kicking it all off cause I was hot! Everything ended up being fine.

*** Avalanches... this is the COOL part! Though we haven't actually SEEN any yet, you can always hear avalanches from the surrounding mountains! Sounds just like thunder. I'm waiting for the day that all of the snow on the big mountain comes down because the sun's been out and it's been warm, but Dean said that it was probably REALLY icy and hard from it melting during the day and then freezing again at night, which is true. So maybe that will be the LAST snow to go. But in the meantime, it's pretty interesting to just HEAR them.

*** Boats... well I am learning how to drive the boat. I can't remember if it was the first or second day but Adam taught me how. I'm still trying to get used to it and still fret that I'm going to crash the boat when I come in to park but it hasn't been TOO bad yet. One of the days even, Adam and I had just come back from somewhere (I'll mention where in a second) and I parked the boat SO good and he goes "Geez... you take the boat out while I was sleeping!?" :-D I've driven the boat to the hatchery a few times (which is about a 15-20 minute boat ride on a good day) for the person exchange (as in me going into the hatch and Adam returning to Takatz)

*** CRABBBBBBB... Takatz Bay is loaded with Crab. A few different kind... we have a few crab pots set in the bay and that's where my first boat driving experience was to. Lemme tell ya! Pulling up a heavy crab pot that is 160 feet down will wear ya out! One person can't do it on their own. The other pot is 60 feet down maybe? Anyhow, we caught a ton of crab in the one pot but they were all pretty small so we tossed them back.

Anyhow, I can't really think of anything else to say. I do like Takatz even though it SOUNDS bad! It's kind of fun... it reminds me of camping. I have a few pictures for you now...

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Standing on the back deck, this is the view. Nice right!? Anyhow, the bags that you see at each pen... that is 20 kilos of food (44 pounds). Though they are eating a bit more now, at the time each pen was eating 20 kilos of food a day. (By the way, it was afternoon and we had already fed out a bag between the pens.)

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This is the view when I look to my side. Behind that mountain is where we keep hearing all of the avalanches.

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FOOD FOOD FOOD! Lots of fish food! I should have estimated how many pallets of food are in there. Maybe like 80 or more... not too sure. Each has 30 bags of food I think....?

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BABIES!

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Valerie... since I probably won't post tomorrow. HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY!! I wish I was there to celebrate with ya but we'll make up for that when I return! ;-)

Alright, I am going to go frost the Easter cupcakes that I made for everyone! I am off tomorrow too but will probably be heading back to Takatz around 5 tomorrow (Saturday) unless the wind is too bad. Right now it's currently raining it there's no tomorrow!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really interesting stuff there, kid! Sounds like you are getting used to roughing it. Knew you could handle it. DAD

Anonymous said...

What!? No "Shout out of the Day" for your loving sister, who talked to you online all day Friday!? Anyway... it was REALLY great to talk to you on the phone Saturday AND Sunday! You sound great!!! I'll hold off on your next package for a few weeks if that sounds ok to you!

Love ya!
Melissa

Anonymous said...

Suuup. Thanks for the birthday shout out!! =) Made my day! Also, I just got your card and booze money ;) in the mail today and I was SO FRIGGIN EXCITED! The first thing I saw was your name in the corner and I freaked out! lol I'm sure David thinks I'm a crazy woman cuz he was with me when I got it and I was laughing out loud but to myself while reading it! =) What was crazy tho was that the postage date on the envelope said March 28th and I just got it today! Then again, I hardly ever check the mail cuz I never have any so it might have been sitting in there a day or two since Kim is really the only one to check mail.

Aaaanyhow, It was really good to hear from you Saturday and Sunday! I miss ya a lot and Alaska sounds sweet like usual! =) Love you and miss you like crazy!

<3 V