August 18th

I was supposed to write a post when I get back on mainland for the whole fishing business but I have to do an update so I won't forget. I am now on my second trip out. First lasted 11 days and this will probably be the same. We are anchored in a small cove with few other boats because the sea has been little rough past couple of days. 2 nights ago before my captain decided to come here picking up the net was like working while riding a rollercoaster.

Today was a birthday of one of the deckhands of another boat here. 18 he turned. Young fellas. We went to the beach and had a little BBQ on a campfire. Very nice spending few hours off the boat. There was a crocodile slide on the beach. So at least 1 of them lives here. No swimming in the sea. Also many bullsharks and hammerheads around. Can find some tigersharks also in the area. Plenty of reasons to stay out of the water.

If some one had told me few months ago that I would be manhandling sharks big enough to swallow my arm I would have laughed at them. But when you grab a hammerhead by its ”hammer” it gas no chance to bite you.

And big bullsharks we don't get on board. Just shoot them with a shotgun to get them from eating through the nets.

Stingrays I don't touch. Not the big ones at least. Apparently the sting is very painful and can take you to a hospital.

Sawfish get caught up on the nets also. That is a no pick up species, but the only way to get them of the net is to saw off the ”saw”. Sawing a saw off a sawfish.

Maybe I should describe a normal 24 hours on the boat so you get a little picture on what I am actually doing:

6am.-7am. And onwards: Waky Waky! Time to have a cup of tea.

Reel the net back in from the last shot of the night. All 600 meters of it. Hope for Mackerel and nothing else. In case of sharks cut off the dorsal-, back- and the lower part of the tail fin to be frozen while we drive to anchor point. In case of edible size (black tips or small hammerheads) sharks cut off rest of the tail fin. The captain hasn't sold a fin in 3 years but keeps them anyway in case they start selling again. If there is only few sharks I get to cut the head off and gut them.

After anchoring pull all the frozen fish out of the trays in the snap freezer and bag them. Move to freezer room (-30 degrees celsius).

Breakfast time!

After breakfast cut, quarter and pack the mackerel in to metal trays averaging 11kgs each. Put in the snap freezer. I am in charge of quartering and packing. If I have a slow day my beloved captain will surely let me know about it. He is a kind of person that doesn't apparently believe in positive feedback. I guess 35+ years in fishing does that.

Around midday to 2pm. : Processing if the fish should be done by now. All left to do is clean all the boxes, baskets, knives and cutting boards used in the process. And scrub the surroundings of the working area on the deck. Free time until Tea (dinner). Down to my bed I go to watch movies on my laptop.

5pm. Tea time! Second meal of the day. Usually after this is time to pull the anchor and shoot the net out for the first time.

Around midnight: Lets see what we got, shall we? Reel the net in, take out the fish (which is hopefully mackerel and not big hammerheads) and put them in the brine tanks. If there is less than 30 trays of fish, shoot the net out again.

3am-4am: Time to check what the second shot of the night gets us. If still not enough, shoot the net out again. These shots with 10-20 trays of fish in it only take around 1 hour to pick up. Unless I am again ”fucking around wasting time”. Luckily I am starting to get a hang of how to put the net on the reel evenly so I don't get told off from that too often. Only when I am too slow picking out the fish.

7am: Waky Waky! And it all starts over again.

Timetables are subject to change. Sometimes we keep the net in the water for a longer time on one go and do only 2 shots, sometimes skip the first shot, and IF we get enough fish on the first or second shot, we pull to the anchorage and start cutting the fish straight away. In the night.

So yes, my Australian adventure has surely started.

The fishing season ends 6.9. Remains to be seen if my captain kicks me off the boat before that or if I jump ship fed up taking shit. But I think he is like that by nature. And I am polite enough person not to go all out on 64 year old guy who somehow reminds me of my grandfather. I bite it and scream and curse at him in my mind.

ps. There is absolutely nothing I can spend money here. I pay 20$ a day for food (taken out of salary) while on board. And when we go shopping I can choose what ever snacks I want. And the food he cooks is good.