A Year and a Day · 6:32am Feb 5th, 2019
IRL: It was this time last year I boarded the M/V Impala, bound for Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
Two weeks of prep, cleaning out the walk in cooler and freezer that burnt out FIVE months earlier. It was like walking into a cloud of death.
A completely packed walk in freezer filled with rotten, disgusting, moldy, putrid, gag-worthy, maggot infested, teensy fly ridden MEAT, and frozen food that hadn't been under refrigeration for five long hot months.
All those plastic bags of meat, if they hadn't already burst, dripping rotten fowl juices down the wooden posts and into the wooden floor grates, into the foam insulation walls, they were inflated from all the toxic gas swelling up bags of chicken that were ready to burst.
Wearing a gas-mask, it took days of scouring with a steam pressure washer, and bleach in every direction to get the smell down to a tolerable level, even then you could smell it through leaks in the door seal.
Over two weeks, I cooked on board for a crew of five, including myself.
Ever since I got off that boat, I've taken to random jobs to get me through the year financially, including heading back to Alaska a second time that year during the summer.
We fished Area M, from False Pass to just north of Port Heiden, we were commercial gill-net fishing.
Cast away your thoughts about fishing poles, as my captain said, we kill fish in high volume. The largest set was 1,377 salmon, about 5-10 lbs each, there was so many fish, it flipped the net over half-way through, because of that, it took two hours to pull the net on board.
We got up, delivered, picked that set, then went straight back to deliver fish again. The tender was just waiting for us, happy to buy our fish.
I made enough money to last me a few more months, but I've been looking for a job to carry on doing living, and build up a reserve instead of needing to go back to Alaska.
I've been hounding Craigslist, dropping off resumes, submitting applications, but after five months, I can't stop thinking about needing work.
I've dropped a lot of habits, weed, beer, better quality food, video games, going out, because it all costs money. Money I have for now, but even I know it's only temporary.
Writing is the only thing I wont give up, because it's relaxing, and all I'm doing is posting things I've written over...going on two years now.
Life gets busy, but I'll ask for work any day of the week before I beg for money. If you're in the Northwest, PM me, seriously. I need a job.
Not one that lasts a summer, or a few weeks, but a JOB job.
