To Close For Comfort...

Back for another episode in the life of MOI, eh!?

Well, really it's been sort of a boring week until yesterday... then something hit a little too close to home. I'm sure you guys are all aware of this pet food recall that was going on a little while ago. Well we got word yesterday that whatever was in that pet food was in the baby fish food from this one company we use. The company must have notified us. Sarah and I were on the chum pens feeding when Branden (her husband) drove up in the boat and told us. He also came to get Ada, their dog, who was out with us because well... the dogs love to lick this food up if you drop any of it. Not good... So there was talk of what was going to happen. We JUST got a large delivery of food from this company the day before and we have been feeding the babies for quite a while. I don't really think the issue was how it would effect the FISH, but how it would effect the environment or any birds that may eat the fish. Some of the options I heard was that maybe it wouldn't have any effect at all... or to keep feeding the fish the food and maybe treat them with something later... or to just release the fish... or to unfortunately KILL all of the baby fish.

After coming in to help Angie after one of our feedings, Scott immediately sent Sarah and I back out to get the lot numbers for as many of the palettes of food that we could. That was an interesting task because 1) you couldn't even walk inside of the house where the food was because it was so packed and 2) the food was stacked 2 palettes high (like in that picture I showed before) and 3) each palette had cardboard around it. So Sarah was up climbing on the palettes of food and trying not to bang her head on the trusses of the house. Thankfully you could see the lot numbers on the top palettes of food and there were only a few different lot numbers. WELL, to make a long story short, I found out today that WE ARE CLEAR! None of the lot numbers we had were any of the contaminated food so we can all breath again!

Anyhow, like I said before, it wasn't a very interesting week so I thought of some random stuff that I could talk about. Actually there was one cool thing. On the way back to the hatchery to drop off Adam and pick up Chris the other day, Adam spotted some porpoises swimming around. He told me to head over there and see if they wanted to play. So I headed over and slowed down to their pace and they decided to play! A few of them were swimming at the front of the boat... criss crossing in front... splashing water up a little. Just like you'd see in the movies. It was pretty cool. Sorry, no pictures or anything. And speaking of boat rides, I drove my first choppy seas boat ride by myself on Wednesday. Chris was there but I mean, I didn't have an experience boater like Adam with me. It wasn't too bad actually... there has been alot choppier of seas but ya know. I made it safely.

It was a good week in Takatz. The weather stayed nice for a few days. It's nice to not have to put on rain gear to feed and the fish like it too. The water got up to 7.2 degree Celcius, which is pretty high. It's about 45 degrees F. Our fish are growing nicely.


It was feeding time for the fish. It's hard to catch the feeding frenzy but this was the closest I could get. All those little white dots... it looks like snow or something. Well it is actually the fish grabbing the food at the top of the surface and the light catches it. If you see this on a sunny day, it looks like a bunch of flash bulbs going off. That streak of coloring is just some food drifting in the current.

We are starting to see alot of boats in Chatham Strait and even coming into Takatz Bay. When I arrived on Saturday, there was a really big boat with a few smaller boats in the bay. We weren't sure what they were doing but the smaller boats were just sort of driving around and seemed to be circling the same area alot. One of the days we went to pull up our crab pots and one of the boats came over and asked us about our pots and then Adam asked what they were doing. They ended up being from NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) and they were surveying or mapping the area or something like that.

Some days I find myself being surprised about how light it still is later in the night or even find myself waking up thinking it's close to WAKE UP time but finding it's only 5:30am! Then I have to remind myself "well it is May already!" That seems crazy to me too... May. The other day I reached the 3 month mark. :-) Anyhow, I'm not sure exactly what time the sun comes up but it's pretty early... Like I said, a few times now I've woken up at 5:30 and it was light out. But it stays light until atleast 9:30pm. Almost close to 10.

For the second week in a row, I've had a near death experience by motorized push cart! I'm actually surprised I didn't write about this last week. We have these motorized carts that you can carry stuff in and for the past two weeks, Adam has left one at the dock for me because he used it to carry stuff down to the boat. These carts pretty much have a mind of their own... and they're CRAZY! Well, thankfully, on both occasions it has been high tide which makes the ramp up at a flatter angle and easier to push it up. (If it was a very low tide, the ramp would be VERY steep.) Though I had a little trouble last week, I managed to get the cart up this ramp and onto the boardwalk. But you also have a small ramp down to the driveway, which is the scene of the accidents! Like I said, it's got a mind of it's own! And even though I try to go down the ramp slow, the cart basically MANHANDLES ME and I end up going off the side halfway down the ramp! Thankfully it's a short ramp and only one of the wheels went off the side but it's impossible to pull it back onto the ramp so I had to pull it around so that I head backwards down the ramp. Last week I went off the left side which has some rocks right there and this week maybe I overcorrected because I went off the other side! There's nothing you can do but laugh it off I guess but this week was especially embarrassing because Scott and Josh were loading something into a boat right there and saw me! I blame it on the cart AND the fact that really, the ramp does have a weird curve to it... sort of concave in certain spots. These push carts are going to be the death of me!

Well, not all that much else to report. I was looking out the window in the stairwell today, looking out into the lagoon when the dogs (Waylon and Ada) started barking and looking across the lagoon. I knew that could only mean one thing, which WAS the reason I was standing there looking out... hoping to see a bear! And there was. I ran to get my camera and went outside... I got a few shots but with the darn delay, I ended up missing him. So, sorry, still no bear pictures yet. I know, I'm slacking on the pictures this week but the only other picture I took this week was of the puzzle Adam and I started that took me 2-1/2 days to finish! And that's not very exciting!

Well, tune in next week... :-D

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To the 4 lovely ladies who recieved packages Wednesday, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! I love you! To any other mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day to you also!

Also, Aunt Sandy, thank you for the card! And Grandma Moser, I got the box. Thank you! You must have been in my mind when you sent that box because I am very low on my Finesse and last week I sent for some at the grocery store and found out they don't carry that kind! The HH is good too! :-D THANKS!