I got to Takatz on Saturday night (the 7th) just in time to call Valerie and wish her a Happy 21st Booze-Day... *cough cough* I mean Birthday! ;-) Talked to her, Melissa and a friend, which was fun. ;-) he he Then the next day was Easter. It rained all day and was pretty gross so it wasn't all that eventful. Feeding in the rain isn't very much fun because 1) since we only feed once every hour and a half or so, we had to keep putting on and taking off our rain gear... and 2) since the fish are tiny now, the fish food is very fine and makes a nice PASTE on anything that is wet. MMMM... yummy! Just hope you don't have rain AND wind at the same time or you might discover a new face cleanser! eww
HAPPY EASTER? And where did that big huge mountain go!? HA HA Yeah, as you can see, it was very foggy/cloudy... this is the view from my window.
Anyhow, Monday was nice again so Adam and I went out to pull up the Shrimp pots that he and Dean put out for the first time the other day. So we get to the pots which were in a different finger part of the bay. And I asked Adam if they were as deep as the crab pots (one was about 60 feet and the other was 160!) And he said deeper... like 4 times deeper. It took me a second and then I was like "whoa! Wait... they are like 500 feet down!" Adam - "umm about 580!" OH YEAH, by the way, we have to pull the pots up BY HAND! HA We ended up pulling it around with the boat... long explanation but eventually it came up. I was surprised to see the size of these shrimp but 1) apparently they were the medium sized ones... and 2) we actually got a bunch of smaller ones compared to times before.
As you can see below, they look quite large! Well after experiencing my first time of cleaning shrimp, I learned that really they are 1/2 head and 1/2 tail meat, which is the part you eat. By the way, you just kind of bend them and twist their heads off. Sorry if that creeps anyone out!
Basket 'O Shrimp!
This was one of the biggest ones we caught.... about as big as my hand. But remember, these are just the "medium" sized ones! As you can see, only about 1/2 of it's body is the meat that you actually eat...
That's essentially what the shrimp pot looks like. There were 2 of them on the long line that was in the water... basically stacked on top of each other.
*End of the proverbial Commercial and onto the story*
Well later that day, it was time for Adam to head to the hatchery and Dean to come out to Takatz. So like usual, we donned our NASA spacesuits (I'm going to have to get a picture of them one of these days... they are suits to keep us warm and I think keep us afloat if we go over the edge of the boat, like snowsuits. Dean's is all orange and looks just like a NASA suit!) Well since I'm learning the ways of the boat, I drove. Let's just say I had my first WHITE KNUCKLE BOAT RIDE! Dean said the seas were probably 3-5 feet, which is kind of pathetic! But since I've only been driving a boat for about a week, I was completely frazzled when Adam and I made it back to the hatchery. It's like driving on a Michigan winter day after you've been driving for A WEEK! Pathetic part is that Chatham Strait can get much worse than that and most likely WILL. EKK... makes me nervous.
SOOO... Dean and I had to make our way back to Takatz but I was glad to let Dean drive. Even though I need experience in that kind of seas, I think one trip was enough for me for one day! I just wanted to HOLD ON and let the experienced one drive us back. So that's what I did. Well on the way back, he points out into the water and said there were porpoises or something out there... he could just see the fin. And I saw them too but actually I thought it was just waves making whitecaps over a rock or something. So I kept watching, hoping to catch a glimpse of what it was, when right then, a KILLER WHALE came out of the water!
Well later that day, it was time for Adam to head to the hatchery and Dean to come out to Takatz. So like usual, we donned our NASA spacesuits (I'm going to have to get a picture of them one of these days... they are suits to keep us warm and I think keep us afloat if we go over the edge of the boat, like snowsuits. Dean's is all orange and looks just like a NASA suit!) Well since I'm learning the ways of the boat, I drove. Let's just say I had my first WHITE KNUCKLE BOAT RIDE! Dean said the seas were probably 3-5 feet, which is kind of pathetic! But since I've only been driving a boat for about a week, I was completely frazzled when Adam and I made it back to the hatchery. It's like driving on a Michigan winter day after you've been driving for A WEEK! Pathetic part is that Chatham Strait can get much worse than that and most likely WILL. EKK... makes me nervous.
SOOO... Dean and I had to make our way back to Takatz but I was glad to let Dean drive. Even though I need experience in that kind of seas, I think one trip was enough for me for one day! I just wanted to HOLD ON and let the experienced one drive us back. So that's what I did. Well on the way back, he points out into the water and said there were porpoises or something out there... he could just see the fin. And I saw them too but actually I thought it was just waves making whitecaps over a rock or something. So I kept watching, hoping to catch a glimpse of what it was, when right then, a KILLER WHALE came out of the water!
A KILLER WHALE!!!!!
I couldn't believe it! A KILLER WHALE! I only saw that one come out of the water but you could see there was a whole pod of them... maybe 6 or more. I mean, he didn't SEA WORLD jump out of the water, but he came up so I could see about a 1/3 of his body.
I couldn't believe it! A KILLER WHALE! I only saw that one come out of the water but you could see there was a whole pod of them... maybe 6 or more. I mean, he didn't SEA WORLD jump out of the water, but he came up so I could see about a 1/3 of his body.
Maybe like that much or so... no I obviously didn't take THIS picture.
Well I turned to Dean and said "OH MY GOD IT IS A KILLER WHALE!" really excitedly! Probably the kind of excitement that would be in your voice if you saw your favorite celebrity walking down the street! It completely made my WHOLE trip to Alaska worthwhile... definitely one of the coolest things I have EVER seen in my whole life! Like a 100 feet away.... a real killer whale. AWESOME! I had to call people and tell em!
Well that's my story... the past two days were really nice at Takatz, especially today. We've been trying to mort some of the pens which includes a loooong 2 inch piece of pvc and air from a scuba tank which somehow sucks the nasty dead stuff off the bottom of the net pens. A pleasant smell I tell ya! The most we have gotten so far has been about 22,500 dead fish roughly... We obviously can't count all that so we're estimating. I tried to count better how many pallets of food are there and I came up with about 90-95 pallets. That's alooooot of food. More and more avalanches can be heard everyday, which keeps us entertained. And it's ALMOST warm enough to keep us from having to turn on the oven/heater thing at night. First night, we left it on with the door opened a crack but we were both hot and the door kept creaking with the wind so that got closed at about 4:30am! So the second night we left it off and it got a bit chilly! One of those colds where you are alright as long as you don't move any skin out of your blankets! Thankfully Adam wakes up before me... I wasn't going to MOVE until I knew he had the thing lit and it had been running for a while! :-) That's why boys are handy! he he he
ANYHOW... so back at the hatchery. The seas were great and calm today so I drove at peace!
OH, Mom told me to talk about this a little..... I've talked mostly about the chum salmon but there was questions about the others. I basically only work with the chum but we do also raise chinook and coho salmon, but they are smaller projects. While we have about 90 million or so chum, there are only about a few million coho and maybe less chinook. I'm not exactly sure of the numbers. I sometimes still get confused about which fish are the chinook and which are the coho! I know the round ponds out front, which I mort and feed sometimes, are coho that will get released this year. There are some chinook of the same size out in some saltwater pens. There's another set of pens out there that, honestly, I'm not even sure what they are! HA But yes, we raise those 3.
Also, I know when I was talking on speaker phone to the family on Easter Sunday, a question arose about crab pots. They weren't sure what a crab pot really looked like... well these are the two pots that we use.
This is the pot that we put in the 160 ft. deep water. I'm not sure if there is a specific reason it goes for that depth though... You put some bait inside... a dead fish... and they crawl inside.
This is the other pot. I guess it's hard to really see it but it's about a foot wide. Put some bait inside and the crab climb in through the little gates on the sides (you can see them if you look close). They can climb in, but they can't get back out.
If you guys have any other questions, PLEASE email or comment or something! I know alot of this stuff may sound confusing or weird so let me know!! Or if you DO want me to talk about something, I will. :-D
SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - I'm going to go with Melissa today.... Thanks for letting me talk to someone on Saturday. HE HE HE Even though I said that I didn't really want to cause I wasn't sure WHAT to say... THANKS. It went better than I thought. *girly giggle* Alright, no one is allowed to comment on what I just mentioned! HA HA
1 comment:
Hi Rebecca,
I enjoy your web page.
Easter moring our little coffee group went to the Wallfe house for breakfast. Holy Sat was at 12am and that did not get out until 2:30 am. Next wa 7am there about the sam amount of people as every sunday. 10 am was standing room only. Church is very pertty with easter lilys and yellow tulips. as you walk into church there are 2 life size angels with flowers.
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