Real WILD Bears! Kodiak Island Alaska

I haven’t had much work since the covid shots came out. Before that, things were finally starting to pick up from the last crash in oil prices and I was getting more work. I’ve had almost nothing since I was laid off late 2015.

Then, I just had to quarantine for weeks before I could join the ship. Locked up in a hotel room. Daily covid tests with a stick so far up your nose you’d think your brain was going to start leaking out. Cold food. Nothing to do but think about how things were so screwed up or distract oneself with mindless crap on TV. Well, at least I was getting paid. I had to consider myself lucky that I had an approved by the elites (“essential”) job.

No work for 5 years due to low oil prices and another 3 now of covid crap and I’m REALLY sick of it! Not that I’ve been physically sick for even 1 day since the covid crap started, but mentally? Yeah, that crap’s been doing a pretty good job of destroying my peace of mind, my daily sense of magnanimity, my outlook on society and life in general.

Lately things have been a little better. I finally got approved to teach again at San Jacinto Maritime College. I was teaching there part time before they had to shut down due to covid. I had to re-apply since it had been so long ago. I was ready to start with a couple of tankerman classes they had lined up for me when another job I’d been hoping for finally came through.

Of course I’d rather be out on a boat anytime than doing anything ashore, so I pissed off my boss at school and jumped at the chance to actually go somewhere other than the Gulf of Mexico for a change. So. Here I am now aboard the M/V Bluefin.

I left home at 0300 Sunday Jun 4 to fly to Kodiak, AK. I wish I was able to leave a couple of days earlier and do some exploring around town before joining the vessel, but I went straight to the boat- exhausted. They let me sleep late (amazing) and gave me the rundown Monday.

The Bluefin is an old fishing boat that’s been converted for research. We are chartered to NOAA to service their buoys all over the world. For this voyage, we are working the North Pacific Ocean. I joined in Kodiak, AK and will be getting off when we reach Yokahama, Japan. It took us about a week and a half to make our way here to Dutch Harbor from Kodiak.

We checked out about a half dozen buoys on the way. Also had to shelter for weather for a couple of days in Shearwater Bay (S side of Kodiak Island)- that’s where the bears were. One of the crew onboard- AB John- had a drone. He takes some amazing pictures (check out his Instagram). He sent his drone over to get some shots of the bears- they were too far away to see much more than big fur balls from the ship (that’s it in the background). Sadly, his drone ran out of juice on the way back to the ship and sank.

I was expecting the weather to be better- more like summer. It is the middle of June already. It’s nice that it doesn’t get dark til almost midnight, but so many days have been overcast, rainy, windy and rough. I’m really impressed with how well they’re able to work those buoys.

The Bluefin is technically a Dynamic Positioning vessel since it has a DP system onboard, but it’s not classed and they “never” use it. I rarely even notice them using the bow thruster. They tell me they usually only take an hour or so to work a buoy, but a couple of times so far we’ve spent 2-3 hours hanging on.

Yes, they literally hang on to the mooring of the buoy while the technicians are checking everything out. We can’t put any strain on the line, so have to maneuver the vessel so that we stay in position very close to where we picked up the buoy and put it on deck. So far, I haven’t had the chance to work a buoy. I’m on watch from 2330-0730 (fantastic watch schedules on here!), so I’ve mostly just been driving the boat. A couple of times they were still working the buoy but the mate wanted to finish the job rather than have me take over (when I’ve never run this boat before).

So we finished up our last one before our planned crew change in Dutch Harbor just in time to avoid another strong weather system. We arrived late afternoon on the 17th. The weather was beautiful. Sun shining and warm for a change- but I was sleeping. Saturday morning was cold and rainy again but I didn’t want to miss a chance to go ashore. I went to the grocery store with the cook and stocked up my stash of snacks- for some reason the owner doesn’t like to supply the boat with that kind of stuff (cereal, chips, sweets, etc) so we all bring our own favorites.

After shopping, we went for lunch at the Grand Aluetian Hotel. They had a really nice buffet. breakfast/lunch with all the usual- plus. Made to order omelettes, prime rib, ham, biscuits and sausage gravy, chicken breasts, baked halibut, pancakes, blueberry muffins, danish, bagels with cream cheese and lox, macaroni salad, potato salad, nice green salad with all the fixin’s, fruit tray (canteloupe, melon, pineapple, grapes, strawberries), smoked salmon, and a fantastic dessert table full of delicious sweets (chocolate layer cake, pecan pie, lemon meringue pie, cheesecake, brownie bites, petit fours, pudding, lemon bars, and more).

I went back again and again, pretty much stuffed myself. Needed those sweets like I need a hole in my head, but damn they were good! I spent about $50, but it was worth it (cost $49 plus tip). They have a seafood buffet on Wednesdays. Everyone says it’s amazing and “not to be missed”. That one costs $65 but I don’t think we’ll still be here by Wednesday.

Yesterday I got to go with the cook again. We went to the store again to check on some last minute grocery items. I found a couple of interesting books on Alaska and fishing (hopefully will review them here after I read them).

We drove around a bit, searching for a good lookout to get a few nice photos. We found the cultural museum (where I discovered my camera battery was dead)- it was closed- and the military museum– it was closed too. We spotted the ‘famous’ Russian onion domed church from afar, but it looked pretty far way so we skipped it. We found a real interesting old house of a former radio station and the ruins of an underground hospital. We never found a great lookout, conscious of other crew also wanting to get ashore and needing the van we were driving around in. We decided to check out the famous “rat bar” and then head back to the boat.

The Norwegian Rat is the best bar in Dutch (at least the only one we found). It sits right on the bay and has fantastic views of the beach and the boats sailing by. They have a huge fire pit outside and I can imagine how sweet that must be when it gets dark in the early afternoon. They had a pretty decent menu, it was hard to decide what I wanted. All kinds of burgers and sandwiches, chicken wings, spinach/artichoke dip, nachos, chili, gumbo, steaks, pizzas, etc. I finally decided on a pizza (pepperoni, mushroom and onion) and Derrick had chili (home-made) and nachos. The pizza was great and cheers from Derrick on the chili too.

Seems I’ll miss out on a lot of the things I was hoping to do here. The military (WWII) museum is closed for repairs and the Cultural museum was not open until Tuesday (today) from 11-16. I’m not sure if I’ll make it over to town again today. Still, I’m glad to be here at all and looking forward to Yokahama.

Tanked!

mobile barge available for training purposes

Whew! I’m glad that’s over! I’m tanked! I’ve spent the last week teaching tankerman up at San Jacinto Maritime in La Porte. And a few days studying hard myself so that I could teach it (I haven’t worked on a tankship since 2002).

San Jacinto is about an hour and a half drive for me. I’ve been getting up at 0430 in the morning. Trying to get out of the house by 0530, so I can be sure to arrive by the time class starts at 0730.

I am NOT a morning person!

Getting by on less than 4 hours of sleep per night is not good for me (or anybody else).

So. I’m glad it’s over. I know there are lots of people who drive like that or even more every day for years. I don’t know how they manage and I’m SO thankful that I’ve never had to do it myself (until now).

The class went well and all my students passed with flying colors. I actually think I studied more than they did. 😉 They all got their course certificates they can turn in to the Coast Guard with their sea time letters. Hopefully, they will be able to get the promotions they were after.

SanJac doesn’t have me scheduled for any more classes (at the moment- that could change at any time). Maersk didn’t have anything last month at all. We’re waiting to see the schedule for July and hoping for at least 1-2 courses there. I still have no word of any real work coming up. It looks like I’ll have a chance to catch up on my sleep next week.

I should be able to post more often too. 🙂

Teaching Tankerman Tomorrow

It’s late Sunday night. As usual, I’ve been busy and so put off getting ready for class til this evening. I’ve got to get up around 0430 so I can leave the house by 0530, in order to be sure to make it to class on time at 0730.

I have to drive all the way up to La Porte. I’m teaching at San Jacinto Maritime college. I never know what the traffic will be like in Houston, so I always try to leave early. Hopefully, I’ll arrive in time to have a cup of coffee, go over my notes and chill out for a few minutes.

I’ve been going over the materials tonight and there is a lot to go over. I used to be a tanker man. I worked on tankers for about 13 years. I haven’t been doing much of that sort of thing lately tho, so it’s taking a little effort to remember a lot of that stuff. Most of what we’ll go over in class is stuff we’ll probably never use on the job anyway. It’s mostly rules and regulations and how to find the information you need if/when you need it.

A lot of it’s really good information if you’re new to the industry. Not so much if you’ve been doing it for a while. I have no idea what kind of experience my students have, or even how many of them there will be in class tomorrow. I haven’t been able to figure out how to log on to my email there yet. I’m hoping I can get some help with that tomorrow. 🙂

This class lasts for a week. I don’t have anything else lined up after that. I’m hoping either SanJac or Maersk will come up with something by the end of the week. Even better, C-Mar will send me offshore again!