"Call me Fishmeal. Some time ago--never mind how long precisely--having graduated college and having little or no money in my bank account, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would go to Alaska and sail the Bering Sea. It is a way I have of courting suicide by ocean, and earning money too."
Now that Herman Melville is going to kick my butt around the
Pequod five times, some basics about me: Joan, 23 years old, and since July 2005, working on the US fishing fleet on the Bering Sea as a federal observer. You may have seen a few of the boats of the fleet on the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch". In short, yes, I work in those conditions on my three-month contracts, but I also work with fish, not crab, and do trawl net and longline fisheries as well as pots like those seen on TV.
As of last November, I'm also a student knitter, since it's a perfect thing to drag on the boats and keep myself occupied. Plus warm stuff is always good in Dutch Harbor...besides, knitting needles are always useful if fishermen get too fresh, I guess.
Right now I'm in Seattle ready to hop on a boat steaming north on Sunday, so I'll get a chance to see the British Columbia coastline, which I've never gotten to do before as we always get flown out to the Aleutian Islands and hop on a boat in Dutch Harbor. That should be a fun time, as well as giving me a few days without much to do before my time in the tenth circle of hell begins.
I'll post my projects and about my job and the place I work as I have internet access when I'm ashore in Dutch.
My first ever pair of socks, completed on the Bering Sea in five days between Attu and Atka Islands in the Aleutian Chain. They fit my little ol' size 7 feet pretty well! 
