Crabby Mama + late night call from Sean, from Dutch Harbor = Happy Mama.

The Jennifer A just finished up with their third trip, and are tied safely at the dock in Dutch Harbor.  The unloading of the crab began early this morning.  Everyone is working pretty hard to get unloaded, soooo, they can all go watch the Seahawks game.  Glad they have their priorities straight!

This trip, was definitely a Bering Sea winter crab trip.  (Lisa, if you are reading this, PLEASE skip down to the next paragraph.)  There was wind, (up to 50 mph) there was serious wave action (seas and waves building up to 12 feet) and there was rain.  The good news was, the wind was warmish, so there was no freezing spray…no ice building up on the boat!  The weather was going to start building and become even nastier, so while the JenA did not have a full load of crab, Kjell, our skipper made the call to head to Dutch.  Sean said it was a good move, because as they were heading to Dutch, the weather did come up.  On the way in, the wind was blowing and the seas were building, they ended up in "the ditch" pretty much the whole ride in.  What's "the ditch" you ask?  Well, it's kind of like sitting in a ditch, with the waves, the big waves, slapping up against you on each side, making the ride very rocky and rolly.  Bleck!

The crabbing is going pretty fast, for us.  We have 2 trips left, and we will have filled our quota.  I think I've mentioned this before, but every year we are issued crab quota that tells us how many pounds of crab we can catch.  This amount is determined by the overall crab quota…our quota is a certain percentage of the overall quota.  This season, we are fishing our quota, and fishing the quotas that were issued to 3 other quota holders. Sometimes, we will trade our king crab quota, for opilio quota.  Meaning, we let some one else fish our king crab, and in return we get to fish their opilio quota.  This trading is called leasing.  There are rates negotiated for leasing, as determined by the the two negotiating the lease, and staying within industry standards.  For instance, a lease rate of 50-50 means 50% of the money from the delivery goes to the owner of the quota, and the other 50% goes to the boat fishing the quota.  

Why wouldn't you just always fish your own quota?  Because some times, based on the quota you are issued, it's not cost efficient to fish your quota.  The cost of gearing up, and actually fishing, are more than you will make fishing your quota.  So, you trade around.  It works out well.  Ok, enough of that…it makes me feel like I should go start crunching numbers on the calculator!  

Pat LOVED all the negotiating and wheeling and dealing that went with talking to people about leasing their quota, or for them to lease ours.  I can totally picture him still, in his walking days, talking on his cell phone, with his ear piece in, pacing around the kitchen, hands in his jean pockets, with a half smile on his face, and every once in a while raise his eyebrows at me…with either a big smile, or an eye roll!  I knew things were going good when he walked out to the living room, and sat down on the couch to make the deal.  It was the same thing in his wheelchair days.  He would drive around, back and forth between the living room and kitchen…chatting away, smile or an eye roll, and when then closing the deal in the living room, looking out the window, that faced the Cascade mountains.  On the nice sunny days, those wheelchair deals were made driving around the deck, chatting away, doing what he loved…not letting his ALS slow him down or define him.

Speaking of ALS, in October I was honored to be asked to serve on the Board of Directors for ALS Therapy Development Institute. (ALS TDI)  In the last weeks of Pat's life, I told him that I was going to keep doing my ALS Advocacy, and he blinked yes in agreement.  I am thrilled to be a part of ALS TDI's innovative approach to finding a treatment for ALS, by being able to serve on their board.  Pat's legacy will not be dying from ALS, but instead, inspiring me to keep working to find a treatment…that will be his legacy.  

I am really excited to be part of a new program at ALS TDI, and I know it's something Pat would have totally supported.  ALS TDI is developing ALS stem cell lines, made from the skin cells of those people who are actually living with ALS.  The hope is that once these lines are developed, the scientists will be able to test drugs on these stem cells, and see how the disease reacts.  This is much more cost efficient way to test drugs.  Plus, by finding similarities in different ALS stem cells, it will help to speed the process up.  If there is one thing ALS needs, is speed…speed in finding a treatment.

If you are interested in learning more, you can click here: IPS
(And warning, the freeze frame of me is not so flattering…but the video was produced well!)  Thanks for looking.

I've added some more pictures of the JenA crew unloading crab.  It's from last year, but the process is the same!  Sean was going to try and get new pictures today!  Thanks for reading…and Go Seahawks!

Ok, my bad....I should have posted the first part of this update last week, but where the heck does the time go?!

Last Friday, Brenna and I were out doing a little retail therapy, and my cell phone rings.  The name showing, "F/V Brenna A!"
It was Sean calling from the beautiful Priblof Island of St. Paul!  The connection was a clear as a bell,  and Sean says, "Hi Mom, we are in offloading."  It was great to talk to him.  They had survived their first week of setting the crab pots, checking  them, emptying them, and throwing those lovely little dollar bills, oops, I mean Opilio crab, in the the fish tanks. He was kind of sore, lots of muscles being used heaving everything around, but it was a good kind of pain!

I asked him how everything going, especially the weather.  He said everything was going great, and that the weather had been "fine."  I said, "What do you mean by fine?"  He replied back, "Well, it's been great.  We've had really calm seas, no rain, no snow, and in fact, the Bering Sea has been as flat and glassy as a pond, the sun has even been out."  I paused, and said, "ok, I can handle it, really how has it been?"  Again he said, "flat and glassy calm Mom"  I wanted to jump up and down and scream "Yippee!" but being in a crowded shoe section at Macy's I though better of it so as not to embarrass my daughter.
So, Sean's first week crab fishing in the Bering Sea in the middle of winter, was great.  So Crabby Mama was Happy Mama!

I asked him about life on the boat and how it was going as far a being the new guy on the crab deck.  He said everything was great.  He's learning lots and the crew was getting their rhythm and pace set.  He said the one thing that they do on the Jennifer A, is rotate the different positions on the deck, so no one person is doing the say job over and over.  I think that's pretty cool and actually pretty smart...that way, if someone needs a break, and can't be out on deck, anyone can step into that position.  Plus, it helps cut down on some of the repetitiveness, which can help cut down on injuries.  Again, Happy Mama!

They get up every day around 5am, have breakfast and then are out on the deck by 5:30am.  He said they fish until about 11pm, have something to eat and then crash in their bunks.  From about 11:30pm until 5am, while they are sleeping, the boat is "drifting."  Drifting means just that.  It's just drifting around the Bering Sea.  No one is steering it.  The are about a billion various alarms set, so if something gets to close or something happens in the engine room, very LOUD alarms go off.  It's all good!

The crab fishing has been pretty good.  The boat is averaging about 300 crab per pot, which is pretty good.  It took them a couple days to find the crab and get on them, but once they did, it was full pots away!  Yep.  Happy Mama!

They pulled into St. Paul to offload and started around 5:30am.  When I talked to Sean at a 11:30am Seattle time they were just pulling away from the dock, having finished with their unloading.  Soooo, how do you unload a big ole tank full of live crab? Well, you send the unloading crew from Trident Seafoods down into the fish hold, and have them start unloading, by hand. This involves about 10 guys, pretty much standing in the tank, on top of the crab, and they unloading crew starts grabbing the live crab, into a big net called a broiler bag.  Once the brailer bag is full, they are raised up by a crane and go inside the plant to be processed.  There is a scale on the bag so the weight of each bag can be recorded.  

Because the crab have to be kept have to be kept alive from the time they are caught, until the time they are delivered, they are held in a fish tank that is kept full of fresh sea water.  The crab tanks on our boat are about the size of a two car garage.  When the tanks are full, they are stuffed to the brim with crab.  Sea water is pumped in through a series of pipes so as to keep the crab alive.  Crab need to be kept alive from the time they are caught from the time they are delivered.  From the time the first crab is caught until the time the last crab is delivered, that time span can be up to a week, or 10 day.  The processors buying the crab try to minimize that time, by setting up a schedule and have boats deliver on a regular basis. The trick is to try and get the crab out of the pots and into the crab tank as fast as possible.  If not, and the weather is cold, they turn into "hockey pucks," a crab with no legs.  Inside the crab tanks is circulating sea water.  The water is flushed from the ocean to the tank continuously so the crab can stay alive in their new home, on the way to your home

Once the crab leave the boat they head into the processing plant.  There they are butchered, (cut in half) cooked, and then frozen.  Once completely frozen they are boxed up and shipped off to become part of your dining pleasure.  

So here is your fun fact for the day...my friend Joel asked how deep of water do we set the crab pots.  The Jennifer A fishes in an average water depth of about 350 feet of water.  If you look at the map and see alllll that blue water, isn't it amazing that in some parts of the ocean, that far away from land, you can be in such shallow water?!  It always amazed me when Pat and I were on the boat, (years ago!) and we were traveling up to Bristol bay...you could be 1-2 miles offshore and only have 60 feet of water under you.  While I was always amazed, Pat was even more amazed with my amazement...he'd be like, "the bottom of the ocean is like the land, you have hills, valleys, mountains, high spots and low spots.  I was like, "I know that, but we are out in the middle of the huge Bering Sea...there should be more than 60 feet of water under us!"  Obviously, it still amazes me to this day!  Like I said, fun fact...or maybe not!

Just got a text from Sean, and they have offloaded their second load in St. Paul and are headed back out to the grounds.  The crab are still crawling into the pots, and their crab per pot average was a little higher this time and had some pots that had 500-600 crab in it!  The weather this trip out was a little, "sloppy."  It wasn't to bad he said, wind gusts up to about 40 mph, and kinda rolly and lumpy most of the time...but he assured me it wasn't the kind of lumping that knocks you down or makes the crab pots swing like crazy.  Whew, thanks Bud...I think...let's just call me kinda Crabby Mama!

More pictures below, again from last year as Sean wasn't able to send any pictures from this year yet.  Hopefully you can get an idea of the tanks full of crab, and the offloading process.

More later, thanks for reading along!

Hi there,
Just a quick update for now.

The Jennifer A has been fishing now for about 48 hours and crab are starting to crawl into the pots!  The weather has been good, so they've been able to set pots, and unload them with out to much rough water.  There has been some freezing spray but nothing scary!

The picture in the middle, below, shows where the boat has slowed down to drop pots...Sometimes their path can make some unique designs!

I've made a couple changes to the blog.  On the this page, I've included a map of Alaska.  The boat is fishing crab somewhere in that big blue area, which is the Bering Sea, near the Priblof Islands, St. George, and St. Paul.  Typically, fisherman are very quiet about where they are fishing, so if they are "on the crab" other boats won't find out and come join them.  But Pat assures me I'm giving nothing away by saying the Jennifer A is fishing somewhere near the Priblofs.

I've also added a "subscribe" button on both this page, and the home page of the blog.  Just type in your email address, and every time I add a new update, you will receive an email that lets you know an new update is ready to read.  (I hope anyway, I hope I set it up right!)

"Just left town.  I'll call going by Sand Point.  Should be in Dutch by Friday night or Saturday morning Love you."  Text message from Sean at 5:57pm, November 20th.

As a mother, I would prefer a phone call, but in this point and this technological age, I'll take any kind a message from my kids!

The boys and the boat left Homer at 5pm on Wednesday night.  They were planning to leave early morning, but as sometimes happens, a seal on the main engine was leaking.  Homer is a small town located at the near the southern end of the Kenai peninsula.  It has a population of about 5,000 people.  It is surrounded by majestic mountains that when the sun sets, you think, "wow, now that is purple mountains majesty!"  Homer's most unique feature is a 5 mile sand spit that just out into Kachemak Bay.  The spit is well know for arty shops, some good food, and viewing eagles and other wildlife, commercial fisherman and cannery workers included! 

When Pat and I first started St. George Marine, we spent a summer working out of Homer.  We would travel to Prince William Sound.  It would take about 24 hours.  We were tendering salmon up there.  Tendering salmon involves traveling to the fishing grounds and unloading the fishing boats.  They would catch the salmon and then we would transfer them to our fish hold (that was full of refrigerated sea water) and take all the fish into town.  The fisherman have a limited time to fish and they can't spend time running back and forth to Homer.  Pat always explained tendering salmon as being a FedEx driver!  I especially enjoyed working out of Homer, because on our way to Prince William Sound, we would pass Gore Point.  Gore Point was named after John Gore (a great great great great relative) who sailed with Captain James Cook, looking for the elusive NorthWest passage.  I got a kick out of going past it, but the weather was always bad and the waters really rough...I'm sure it has nothing to do with anything right?!

Back to the leaking seal!  Because Homer is a small town, sometimes the part you need isn't available in the three engine shops located in town.  That's when you call Anchorage and hope the part is in stock there.  Luck would have it that the part was available and the shop would send it out on the first plane to Homer.  (Alaska Airlines flies into Homer, and many parts and packages are flown out via a Gold streak service.  That means, we'll get the part quickly, for an added charge.  But hey, waiting time is money and when you are set to leave town, and then sidelined by waiting for parts, you want it now, so you can go!)  Of course the part  missed the 9:30am flight and the next flight wasn't until 3:30pm.  As soon as the part arrived, it was changed out, all systems checked again, and then they were off, finally.  

Travel time to Dutch Harbor is about 3 days.  We anticipated that the Jennifer A and crew would arrive in Dutch late Friday night...too late for Sean to call his mom and tell her that all was well...but we receive a great call on Thanksgiving from Sean.  They were passing a fishing area called Sand Point and they found some cell service.  I'm always amazed when I talk to Sean and he is out in the middle of the ocean and he sounds like he is calling from the down in the garage at home.  It was good to hear his voice and he said the travel was going pretty good.  Although they did have some bumpy weather and freezing spray...Crabby Mama did not like that.  

The boat arrived in Dutch early Saturday morning.  When we called Sean, later in the day, they were busy getting crab pots organized, and figuring out which ones needed need new line, or "shots" in crab lingo.  Of course we called again today, and they were loading crab pots on to the deck of the Jennifer A.  The crab pots we fish with are 6.5 feet, by 6.5 feet and weigh about 700 pounds each.  We'll be fishing with a little over 150 pots this year.  The Jennifer A is able to carry all her pots on deck, and loading them is an art!  

One feature on the Jennifer A is a Satellite Tracking System.  In 2005, National Marine Fisheries required that the satellite tracking system be on each vessel in the crab fishery.  This is to ensure that boats are fishing where they are supposed to be and not in closed waters, taking crab illegally.  At first I grumbled about "big brother" at it's finest.  But now, as Crabby Mama, I love it.  We can log on to a secure website and actually track the Jennifer A in real time.  So at anytime, when the boat is in the Bering Sea this winter, we can log on, and see where they are fishing, what the weather is like and how long they have been out.  It's pretty cool.  There are some pictures that show the boat when it was running to Dutch Harbor.  

On a personal note, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We spent ours up on Camano Island, with the Dwyer side of the family.  This is the holiday that all the Dwyer brothers get together to celebrate.  Pat is number 5 out of 6 boys!  This year we had 5 brothers...the only brother not able to make it was Paul in Hong Kong.  But he was here for a month ins September so we all got to visit with him, and Andi, his wife, then.  

For those of you who don't know, Pat was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease 7 years ago.  He is in a wheelchair full time, and needs assistance for every aspect of daily living.  His breathing is supported by a non invasive ventilator, and his speech is becoming more slurred as the muscles in his face become affected by ALS.  He has made the decision not to go on an invasive ventilator, so we have transitioned into Hospice care.  It was great having the brothers around all weekend and doing nothing except watching football, and setting fires.  (We took a bunch of trees down here on Camano Island, and Brenna was set on burning all the branches and debris that couldn't be cut up for firewood.  The pyro Dywers' come by it naturally as Pat's mom, loved to burn anything and everything at their place on Camano Island.)  The fires brought back stories of when the Dwyer brothers were younger, and it was good.  Of course this time, the Dwyer boys had the added benefit of loading the burn pile with the excavator!  There was a bit of a learning curve for them, but soon, the debris pile was gone and the fire was hot and high.  We missed Sean, but he is off on his own adventure and we respect his choice....kind of!

I think that's about all for now.  Check out the pictures and I'll do another post when we have more pictures.  Thanks for reading along.