if i meet someone who is unfamiliar with commercial fishing, or with the ocean in general, and the topic of my livelihood arises, i can usually count on being queried about three particular subjects.  you can probably guess what they are.  first of all, there's the "Deadliest Catch", and have i ever done that fishery, what do i think of the show, and so on.  well, i've never fished for king crab, nor do i have any intention of ever fishing for king crab.  that fishery takes the risk/reward scenario to the extreme.  a guy who worked on the boat right next to mine here in Oregon went up there for opilio crab this year and he'll pocket 15 or 20 grand for a couple months work.  he'll also be coming home with fingers numbering nine.  would you sell one of your fingers for 15K?  of course, accidents can happen anytime, anywhere, but the odds jump tremendously in that type of work environment, and personally, i'll pass.  but the show is interesting, primarily, i think, because the main character, the weather, is so dynamic and unpredictable.  it's certainly the best "reality" show on television.

secondly, there's "The Perfect Storm", and what did i think of the movie, and is it realistic, and so on.  well, i think it was a good movie and i like watching it.  of course, whatever really happened aboard the Andrea Gail at the end is unknown, and the movie is completely unrealistic in its portrayal of some of the events, but it's a Hollywood production so i don't get hung up on that.  i'm grateful for the exposure the film gave to the commercial industry and i'm glad that the men who lost their lives will be remembered and thought of by more people than their family and friends.  

the third question is my favorite: what is the craziest thing you've ever seen out there?  it used to amuse me that people thought that "crazier" things happened off-shore than on land, and i couldn't respond satisfactorily.  but then i thought that maybe it's just my experience has given me a different frame of reference.  i mean, from one person to the next, the respective definition of "crazy" is probably going to change.  so people are just curious about the mysterious, the unknown, no problem with that.  i started thinking about all the times i'd wished i had a camera, or laughed uncontrollably, or just been completely dumbfounded, or whatever.  i've started racking my memory to develop...The Crazy List.

-a bald eagle swooped down and snatched the skipper's little pet dog off the bow.

-a huge sea lion followed the drag net up the stern ramp of the boat and right on deck, chasing a meal.  it takes four guys with shovels several minutes to get that mean bastard off of there. 

-the drag net comes over the side just bulging, bursting with the mother lode.  the mate rips the cord and onto the deck bounce four of the most humungous tractor tires ever known to man, all chained together...and about six fish.

-other drag net contents: a television, that folding door off a schoolbus, kitchen appliances, an airplane wing, and an unexploded missile.   

-the crew of a huge oil tanker summon a little gillnet boat over to the side and drops a line.  the gillnetter hooks up a big, fat salmon and sends dinner up to the crew.

-a guy stands on the back deck of his drift boat, waving nonchalantly at passers-by as he blasts an AK-47 at sea lions eating the salmon out of his gillnet.

-a guy has trouble with ruthless fishermen poaching his pots.  early one morning he finds a dead body floating.  he fishes the body out of the water and props it up in the stern of his boat with a shotgun stuck under its arm, and fishes the whole day.  he has no more trouble with poachers.

-a 15-foot mako shark circles the boat for a few minutes.  the crew stays away from the rail and worries about what he might be considering.

-isopods are caught in deep-water crab pots, about 2,000 feet below the surface.  they look like an alien cross between a giant cockroach and an armadillo, and they smell horrendous.  a mate brings one home and, in a state of inexplicable drunkenness, stuffs it in the toilet at the bar.  the next day it's pictured on the front page of the local paper and the mate, now in a state of inexplicable ire, exclaims "hey, that's my isopod!"

-a massive wave rolls the boat to such a severe angle that a mate is literally catapulted from his work station into the sea.

-the longline slips from the hauling block and starts dragging a pot across the deck.  the mate standing at the rail can't quite jump out of the way in time and the pot smashes into him and shot-puts him into the sea.

-fish that inflate themselves to the size of basketballs as a defense mechanism, big fish with the tails of smaller fish sticking out of their mouths, ugly, monstrous, slimy, spiky, grotesque fish, and smooth, handsome, colorful, beautiful fish, poisonous fish, and a fish that might be the tastiest thing on the planet.  

-in a squall, hundreds of small, brightly colored birds seek shelter in the cabin of a fishing boat.  the mate on watch can't concentrate as they flutter all about and their tiny feet tickle his head and shoulders.

-on a trip across the Gulf of Mexico the mate gets the weird feeling that he should check the engine room again, even though he just checked it a little while earlier.  sure enough, the bell housing on the raw water pump has split and the ocean is pouring into the engine room, about to submerge the oil pan and drown the engine.  disaster is narrowly averted.

-a huge container ship runs directly at a little fishing boat, with zero regard for the fact that the fishing boat has the right of way.  the container ship does not respond to radio calls on any channel.  last-second, evasive maneuvers by the fishing vessel save the lives of its captain and crew.

-a novice fisherman runs his boat at top speed to set his net.  he tears both out-drives off his boat and beaches himself on the sandbar, which he'd mistaken for a great school of fish.

-a sixty-pound king salmon wrestles a 160-pound man over the rail and into the sea.   

this is just off the top of my head.  perhaps there will be another list at some point.  but i still think the Grand Canyon is the craziest thing i've ever seen.

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