My Day 22 – A shrimp catching we shall go!

Subject:  My Day 22 – A shrimp catching we shall go!

Like the saying; “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.  But man is not only content with food alone so, where’s the Alaskan beer; the wine, the women, and song to go alone with all the adventure and all that shrimp that’s still not yet caught?  Are we on the chase because of what our primal brains told us to do because it feels good to hunt shrimp or drive a jeep to Alaska?  Maybe I’m on to something.  We are simply on - the Chase.  The Chase; the Pursuit; the Hunt for that fish, shrimp, and earlier on for me it was the search for something rather tame like “hot springs”. 

Our little Arctic Jeep Expedition trip did get some of us in our jeeps to the furthest most northern part road of North America.  It will never be the same to just hop on that plane, get there, or visit your local Supermarket seafood section or that wild variety of fresh or frozen shrimp; albeit for hundreds and hundreds of dollars less per pound or gallon of gas. 

Thanks to the virtual world and all the free time I am now enjoying – NOT driving hundreds and hundreds of miles per day I now see that maybe (we) have suppressed that primal instinct of ours, maybe just a wee bit too much. 

Today we haul up shrimp; not just any shrimp but the (Whittier, Alaska) ones; the ones in the waters of Prince William sound.  Hey, wait a minute, now didn’t a certain vessel by the name of Exxon Valdez spill its oil crude somewhere around these parts?  I think maybe I’m not supposed to talk about that so as not to open up old wounds – so I won’t, because that type of thing just won’t happen again – right?    

Several days ago the crew of the now christened little ship Aquaholic (Petr’s boat) layed out about 1,000 feet of line and five shrimp pots affixed somewhere on that same line; each one fitted out with its very own container of cat food, dead fish guts and some other secret smelly shrimp liking and catching concoction.  The longer they get to sit at the bottom of the 1,000 foot bottom the better says Petr. So, we let them sit for say three days!  Pulling these pots up can be some serious physical labor so, to aid with that Petr has installed a four cycle lawnmower type engine with a pulley on the end to pull them shrimp pots up. 

This entire process sort of pleased our chase, pursuit, hunter necessary element of life for a while – and then we went after halibut. Is the chase really unnecessary you might add.  I clearly think not.  Men must feel that need to believe that they have truly worked hard to get what they go after like for example crossing wind swept wave oceans like Prince William Sound to drop those shrimp pots.  Now that my flash frozen and vacuum packed halibut sits in that freezer a few dozen feet from where I am now staying will it really be all that different from that seafood supermarket variety I wonder. 

Remember that today is the last day of some of your life.  ~Author Unknown ... so go out and have a great day and I will soon see you on the marine highway! 

Trawlercat