Drum corps more than you know!

WARNING - This will be long and rambly probably... bear with me! There's alot of info to say.

I've come to the realization over the past few days how similar this whole thing is to drum corps... though you wouldn't really think that since well... it doesn't sound anything alike!

Today was one of those days... comparable to one of those physically and mentally testing days of drum corps when you question why they chose you to be in the group. I wasn't really going to talk about this... about how I really felt today but here goes.

We have been "ponding" chum salmon for the past two days. The day before we started, we went over the process and I sorta got it but I knew it'd be like one of those "have to see it to understand" deals because I wasn't even sure of some of the pieces of equipment he was talking about. Come yesterday, the start of ponding, he put me and Sarah in charge of cleaning the pieces of the incubators after they were done with them. So yesterday was a good day... we worked hard cleaning at a super fast speed while Scott, Dean, and Deena were working on dumping the fish.

Today, while I started out cleaning again, I knew we would end up switching to get experience on the other jobs. OK bear with me for a minute while I give you a brief idea of how we "ponded." The incubators look like this... (BTW, these pics aren't from our facility... I spent forever looking for a picture online since I can't go in with a camera and take a picture! Same with the picture at the end.)



Look at the stack on the very right of the picture. There are 5 individual incubator in each stack. (Just a bit of info, there are about 200,000 fish in EACH incubator = about 1 million per stack.) The one next to it on the left has 2 incubators stacked up. What looks like icicles hanging, is water draining thru some screens (which hold the fish in). The PVC pipes hang down from one incubator to the next because the water just drains from the top down. (If you have more questions or don't get it, ask.)

So we would move that stack to the ponding equipment, pick up the top incubator with a type of crane, move it onto this metal platform which then needed to be tilted up so you dump the fish out the side into a trough of water. With me so far? That was one job... on the other side, there is a person with a hose. Inside the incubator, there are the fish but also these pieces of plastic shaped like saddles (substrate) to simulate gravel like in a river. On the side of the trough is a type of ramp with bars where the saddles can run down into a bag, but the fish will slip thru these little bars. The water will then carry the fish down a tube that will dump them outside in a raceway. MAKE SENSE!? I know, it's alot... hard to imagine. Well the person with the hose has to make sure the saddles wash down that ramp or else the fish won't go down either because they'll be piled up in that trough.

Alright, back to the day... this hose person was my first job. And I just felt like I was sucking at it! Stuff was getting backed up... which meant the fish weren't going anywhere. Eventually I got in the groove after a few incubators but everything was so fast paced and it felt like it took a while. By the time I actually got it, we were done with that group. We would pond 7 incubators into one raceway, then switch the pipe to the OTHER raceway and pond 8 incubators. Then after lunch, we would pond 8 in that first raceway and then switch to 7 again. The point of this is that it's a shock to the fish and they want to burrow down. Basically, if there are TOO many fish in the raceway, they will dogpile and suffocate the fish underneath! So we had to kinda ease them into it I guess.

So I finally get into doing that job and I get put in the job of dumping the incubator. It didn't look that hard when everyone else was doing it so ok. Sarah showed me how to do the first one. Then I was on my own. Got the incubator attached to the crane, move the water source down to the next incubator (the water just runs down to the next one.), get up on the platform, unhook the incubator from the crane, blah blah. Time to hoist this thing. There is a bar you push down and it lifts the platform a bit but then you need to do it with your body. I push the bar and it doesn't move... Put ALL my body weight on it and it finally goes. (this incubator is like a 4 foot x 4 foot box... filled with 200,000 tiny fish and lots of water.) Some of the water drains by pushing the bar but then going to hoist the platform + incubator, you have to get under it and use your shoulder.

I felt like a power lifter! A very weak power lifter! I consider myself quite strong for a girl my size... thanks to drum corps. My legs are pretty strong too, but this was seriously, the most physically demanding thing I have ever done! Like trying to lift a car up with your body weight! I just felt embarrassed. Like everyone was going "ohhh... the weakling...poor thing" cause everyone else did it. I had 7 incubators to do! How was I going to do this!? Finally after lifting it up (Dean actually lifted the second one. Sarah did the first remember.) So the fish are out... now you have to lift this 4 x 4 foot box of metal up onto the corner to rinse it out more. That was tough too... Anyhow, to make a super long story short, I managed but I walked out of there very discouraged in myself. Finally I got it but it was still really hard. Dean said I did it perfect on the LAST one... dumped the fish at a good speed and stuff *shakes my head*

SO, today was comparable to one of those "breaking" days in drum corps. Just from those few hours of hosing and lifting, I walked out of that dark cold incubator room feeling like I had just spent 12 hours doing the hardest, most physical part of a corps show in the hot summer sun... and not feeling like you did very good work at all. Cause really I WAS sweating!! Despite the fact I was covered in water and it was probably 30 degrees in that room. I felt like Scott was going to walk up to me and go "umm yeah Rebecca, I don't think this is going to work out so we packed your bags for you and there's a floatplane waiting for you at the dock." Obviously, he didn't say that. And really he didn't say anything at all... I was doing alright at the end but personally I didn't feel very good about it. I know, it just takes practice and now that I know what I'm doing, it probably will get easier.

It was just a mentally AND physically tough day... I'm alright. Sorry about this extremely LOOONG blog. Hope you stuck with it!

P.S. OH, a plane got in on Thursday to deliver food and MY LUGGAGE!! But we keep getting more snow. We got like 5 inches last night.

P.P.S. The fish are about 1 to 1-1/2 inches long... So far, we've ponded 12 million-ish.


WEATHER - Obviously, I'm not too sure since I was in the dark incubator room most of the day but I'm pretty sure it snowed all day. Not sure about the temp... Sitka say it's 30 right now. I need one of those window thermometers for my bedroom.