Up close and personal

Spawning... Day 2

Tired again... more pain but less SMELL! Scott posted some information about yesterday on the bulletin board. We took something like 7.6 million eggs yesterday... if we keep up at that pace, there would be 17 more days of spawning. That's not TOO bad. Today, it didn't seem like we were really going AS fast but we had only a few hundred thousand less eggs.

This morning, Tim and I worked the table again. I made sure to wear my bandana today... :-) Keep the hair out of my face is the new goal! Scott and Adam were taking eggs so again we were flying! I've realized... actually I realized this yesterday but forgot to write it... this is proof that it takes a SPECIAL kind of person to do this job. If you are the least bit squeemish (sp?) about stuff, you wouldn't last! I mean, first of all, those fish are BIG... they are slimy... you have to whack em! I wasn't sure if I'd really be all that decent at that part... whack a fish!? Come on... nope, I highly enjoy it actually! HA HA So you get past the "whack the big slimy fish" part and then you have to deal with the fact that there are like 40 fish on the table... you whack a female and eggs pop out! You don't even have to whack a male for... yeah. So you have 40 fish partially flopping around... slapping their tales on the wet table splattering stuff up at your face and in your EYES that you KNOW is not just water! That's pretty gross if you really think about it. Then if you are squeemish about blood... ughh forget it! You're done! The hands of the egg takers are COVERED in blood. Yeah... it's a dirty job... someone call up Mike Rowe!

So anyhow, this morning I was up at the table. Part way through the morning, my finger started to hurt for who knows what reason... When I came in at lunch, I realized it was kinda swollen... my left pointer finger. I can understand my left thumb being bruised (cause it is)... that's from gripping the tails of the fish. But my pointer finger? I don't know... the only thing I can come up with is that maybe I whacked my finger with a bat... but you'd remember something like that right?? Cause I don't. It's swollen and bruised... I don't know...

We've been getting some random people coming to the back and watching us for a little bit... seiners... fisherman... tourists. Well today we got a big group of tourists... with a bunch of little kids! I was back whacking fish thinking "Oh yeah I'm sure this is gonna be GREAT for a bunch of little kids to see! Here I am beating fish with a bat... Scott and Adam are up in front cutting open the stomachs of fish... I can hear it now! "Mommy... what is the fish squirting out?"" I guess they looked interested but who knows... I was in the back laughing to myself.

After lunch, I got up close and personal with the fertilized eggs. :-) I was in charge of running the buckets of eggs to incubation. Man, I felt the pressure! You are in a hurry... you can't let them sit too long. But you have to pour them into the egg washer slow otherwise you will loose some. Then you hurry back so you can wash up your buckets and take some more. It is kind of neat to see the incubators though. We are filling up those R48s full with eggs... those are the big blue vats basically. So we fit like... 65-ish buckets of eggs into each. Each bucket contains eggs from 20 fish. That's something like 40,000 eggs in each bucket I think... I thought that's what Scott said but who knows. That's a few million eggs (2.5 mil-ish?) in each incubator. Crazy... that's not that fun of a job but it's cool to see the R48s FULL with salmon colored eggs.

Anyhow... so to me, this feels like "all-days" from drum corps, but a bit easier I guess! You work super hard... you hurt at the end of the day... and you know you still have a few more WEEKS of it... but it's all for a good reason. I should do a "bruise count" because I can think of atleast 8 right off the top of my head! I did that in drum corps too sometimes! ha

Well... yep that's about it I guess... Wow two postings in a ROW! WOW... ha ha Hey feel free to email me or comment more... geez! Gotta go eat dinner... I'm STARVING! Oh, shower first! ha ha Atleast I don't smell as bad as I did yesterday! Man, I had to scrub my arms TWICE in the shower... then I got out and STILL smelled like fish. I had to mask the smell with some lotion. My bracelet still smells... I'm sure it's never going to go away either!