A Serious Man

I’ll try to summarize the day as best I can, but as this post is going to be completely half assed, half thought, and half spellchecked, I doubt it’ll make much sense. But damn it, I’m going to try to make it come together.

Delta Flight DL74 departed at 8:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, and arrived in the Netherlands at 10:05 Central Europe time with me on it. As always for me, no sleep occurred, a small amount of alcohol was consumed, and because of this I feel like a crazy person. And me, being a genuinely observant person bordering on being an asshole, I saw some things that made me curious, confounded, and then of course, really frustrated. In the midst of my over tiredness, enjoying the Coen Brother’s hysterical take on the middle class 60s Jew, the main character said something that just clicked.

“The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can’t ever really know… what’s going on. So it shouldn’t bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for this on the mid-term.”

Basically, nothing makes sense, it’s never going to make sense, we should forget about it making sense, but it’s going to drive us crazy anyway. Does that make sense? No? Well I don’t really care, I know where I’m trying to go with this so I don’t really care, but I guess that attitude proves the point anyway. Let me shed some light with my examples.

First, I am driven absolutely crazy by the short, fat, incredibly hairy man waddling through the airport in gym shorts, cut off t-shirt, and sandals…not flip flops, but those rubber Adidas sandals with the strap…you know, the ones kids my age used to wear with white socks. Oh yeah, forgot, he had the white socks on too. This guy was an animal in every sense of the word, I mean, just a fucking animal. First of all, why in God’s name would someone want to flaunt looking like this? Dennis Prager, God bless him, not an hour before I saw this spectacle said something along the lines of “You may not care what you look like, but we sure do.” It is the definition of a selfish, narcissistic ass. Someone has to sit next to that, and deal with that complete disregard for the system…I have no patience for people like this, and they drive me absolutely up the wall. He should have to travel with the luggage, like an animal…and space is opening up down there, because the dogs are now sitting coach…

My next instance of not being able to figure it out is the bane of my traveling. Closely followed by roller bags, the biggest airport atrocity today is standing on the escalator. Standing. Like its a ride. I’ll let it slide with old people, children (for them it is a ride), and you know what, as a weary traveler, I get the momentary reprieve. But the fact that 98 percent of the population do this blows my mind, and adding insult to injury, you people stand in my way of a good hustle. Hug the railing, because I swear to god I’m going to start sprinting past you….the moving walkway is two-laned, and you know what, by that logic,  SO IS THE ESCALATOR!! Common God Damn sense and courtesy for the ladies and gentlemen of the world, but for the animals, no. It’s a ride, and I’m going to stand with hand in hand with my giant fucking roller bag so no one can get by. Again, “not being able to figure anything out shouldn’t bother you, but you have to deal with it anyway.” Is this becoming more clear? Am I making sense? No? Alright, one more stab.

A sweet European couple tried to board the plane in front of me. The lady, mid 50s, had a big purse, a rolling duffel, and very tiny, clasped purse. Minuscule, I could stick this thing in my back pocket if I had to. Nevertheless, that’s three items, only two are allowed on the plane. I myself had a run in with this recently, and was told that I could strap two items together, and go through security with “two items”. I was tired, and it was a solution, so I didn’t question at the time. Watching it now however, the same thing occurred, and as a silent observer, I was able to question. The lady was told that she could not board the plane with the three items separated. She could, however, put the straps of the purse around the handle of the rolling duffle and wheel it in, which would make “two” items…two items…two OH WHAT THE FUCK!!! WHY! WHAT DOES THIS ACCOMPLISH??? Does this make more room on the plane!? Does the combining of the two bags somehow give the plane better lift during takeoff? I would argue that any time that might be saved by walking down the aisle with two bags is negated by taking it apart when stowing it and then lost by the 30 seconds of “you can’t do it that way, it needs to be done this way!” Asinine. What a waste of time, completely pointless, and just nonsensical.

I can’t figure this out, and it bothers the shit out of me, and I don’t understand why this bothers no one else but me. Oh, wait, I forgot I’m kind of an asshole…but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.

Anyway, Amsterdam is beautiful, so more on that later.

Powder, Steeps, Trees, and Avi’s

Well, Day 2 of the Backcountry Excursion has come and gone, and I am left with the sweet, fond, oddly sexual memories of the past 8 hours….oh, and the realization that tomorrow I get to do it all over again!

Started the day with a hearty Canadian breakfast from our phenomenal resident Chef/Tail Guide, pancakes with, you guessed it, Maple Syrup. Every country that frowns upon this Amber Gold needs their heads realigned (Looking at you Australia). Our energy up, we quickly get our gear on and head out for a crash course in Avalanche Safety, which usually is a God Damn waste of time, but today, well you’ll just have to wait and see….

After we were brought up to speed, we jumped into our CAT driven by a guy who, oddly enough, reminds me of Stumpy from Out Cold. From there, a long, anxious haul to the top of the mountain where we, unloaded, strapped on our weapon of choice, and dipped our ourselves into some of the freshest powder over….and over… and, well, just see for yourself…

Visability would change all day, and the Alpine section was, for the most part, a complete whiteout, but the storm subsided enough to get a few decent photo ops.

One of the only blue skies we saw all day, at the bottom of an epic alpine section. Just look at those freshies…

At Whistler Blackcomb, the popularity of the resort has erased many of the classic names given to the runs, opting for much more family friendly, politically correct affiliations to the mountain. Out in the backcountry, however, they are a bit more liberal with their lingo, opting for names such as G-Spot, Orgasm, and Novocaine. This run is called Dickface, aptly named for this tree on the top of the run.

Unfortunately on a backcountry trip, unless you have someone who uses photography as a hobby, you miss out on a lot of shots. In a sea of go pros, I was the only one who actually had a real camera, so I designated myself to try and get as many action shots as I could, whenever my “powder craze” was at it’s minimal.
Now, I wrote a few weeks ago in my Avalanche Training that I would eventually run into a scenario where I would actually have to deal with an avalanche. Well today, I wasn’t too far away. Second to last run of the day we came across a sweet powder line with a few little rollers, and headed down one at a time, just soaking it in. I went second, took a nice little line to the left, and tracked a path all the way down to the flats. As I turned around, I saw one of the Whistler Instructors breaking over one of the rollers. As soon as he came over the crest and headed down, the pressure on the top of the ridge released, sending a slide right after Chris. Chris is a unreal skier, so he was able to ride out pretty easily, and so was Jack, another skier caught near the slide. The slide itself was closer to a 2 on the scale, so it had the potential for a shallow bury if anyone was caught in it. Surprisingly, it was a very lighthearted moment for all the people on the trip, and Chris road away with his poles in the area, singing the Rocky Theme Song as he road out towards us. A pretty serious event, and all around was handled very well by everyone, especially since this is a very rare occurrence on a trip like this. I have to say, one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while….check out the photos, you can see the slide in the upper left corner.

Here is Jack riding out of the slide. Too bad I couldn’t capture these guys in the moment, but like I said, tough to get the camera out when the powder is so crisp.

All in all, day two was a screaming success, and tomorrow is going to be a most epic conclusion. Stay tuned.

Week 6 and 7: Avalanches, Morons, and Olympic Hockey

Damn it, did it again. One of these days I’ll get my shit together with this whole writing thing, but until then I’m going to have to cram 2 weeks into 1000 words.

Avalanche Training

I’m sure my title is a bit confusing, so I’ll clarify…I did not get caught in an avalanche. I suppose that if I continue on the path I have created for myself, I will probably be writing about myself and a future avalanche, but for now I have nothing. What I have been doing however, should hopefully save my life and/or someone else’s life if said avalanche does occur, so I got that going for me…which is nice. At the beginning of week six I partook in an Avalanche Safety Training course, and learned the basics of how to identify Avalanche Terrain, what to do if you are caught in an avalanche, and how to properly search, locate and rescue someone buried underneath and avalanche. It snowed about a meter on the second day of the course, so after we got “lost” for an hour or two in the morning, we rejoined our group for lots of digging in the snow and by the end of the day had our certificates. They literally mean nothing, but hey, so does that diploma I have buried in my basement somewhere…only difference is this one was way cheaper. The one thing I learned? Never go out into the backcountry with morons, because if you get buried, than your screwed. In all seriousness, it was a rather enlightening few days, and of course I am absolutely excited to further immerse myself more and more into these types of situations with people I can trust to learn from.

A little fun during Avalanche Training….

Morons

Speaking of morons, I got to witness a riveting scene involving an asshole father, what I perceived to be his small children, and I am assuming his wife. Up on the top of the Blackcomb Glacier chair is a lovely little hike over into the back bowls called Spanky’s Ladder. It is a frequently patrolled avalanche area and, of course, a double black. On our last run of the day we decided to head up there as the visibility was decent and the snow was still ever so plush. Now, as you can imagine this little run isn’t for any sort of beginning skier, so you may be wondering why this guy was taking up his family when he should have been finding them a way back to the lodge. Now, the climb into Spanky’s is on a narrow ledge, with a pretty decent incline on the side. The wife lost her head, had taken her skies off and decided to try and slide down on her keister. What’s more, her daughter, sans skies, had decided to follow her. So now we have two people, without a proper mode of egress, on a 50 degree slope, screaming at each other….to make matters even more entertaining for this guy, the gentleman decides to tell his wife to shut up, which of course gets her Irish going, and a torrent of profanities unleash. Naturally, the guy decides to counter by throwing the skies in his hands down at his wife, a set of 3 in all, spearing the surface around her. Awesome. In the words of Bill Burr, “Fuck it, she picked him.” One of us did manage to help out one of the younger boys by keeping him on the path, and having him walk the traverse line instead of joining his mother and sister, so some good came of it at least. The last thing we heard as we made our way past them was the 7 year old screaming, “That’s what I’m fucking doing you moron!!!” She said that to her mother. Yeah, I can’t wait to get married….

Speaking of bad parenting, great example of what not to do during Apres….of course, my Old Man left me and my sister in the car for a hour and a half in 75 degree heat, and I turned out fine. This is in a bar, by the way.

Trek America

Now I suppose some people are wondering how the hell I’m spending all this time crushing powder runs and dealing with poor role models without any form of income. Well, savings, but even as we speak my bank account is looking rather forlorn. I had planned on this trip draining my fishing funds rather quickly, so naturally I had to have a plan, right? Well, the night I watched the Bruins get absolutely hammered by the Red Wings, I ran into my buddy who was also getting hammered at the Joe, although probably enjoying it much more than big Z (He’s a Bruin, look it up). I met this kid two years ago while traveling to New Zealand, and at the time he was working for a company called Trek America, an American based Tour company that specializes in cross country trips around the United States. I decided to put this option in my back pocket, as at the time I was still in full on travel mode, but once I was back in the States I decided that it was time to pursue this particular endeavor. So, after nailing a crucial phone interview, I headed to San Francisco to go through the final process, and am pleased to say that on April 7th I will be heading down to beautiful Santa Rosa California to start my job as a Team Leader for Peak Adventure Travel. I’ll be on the road for 6 months, showing off this great country and adding another crucial step in the master plan. For the first time in my life, I actually might have found a job that will keep me coming back, and that is a pretty exciting prospect

San Francisco skyline, preinterview. It snowed two feet while I was gone for 3 days….figures.

Olympics

Ah, yes…the Olympics….how shall I put this? Well, after a stunning start against Slovakia, I watched our boys put forth a heroic effort against Russia, stomp out Slovania, and move in decisive fasion into the the semi’s after cruising past the Czech Republic. Finally, the moment I have been dreaming of ever since watching that God Damn Golden goal in my ex’s sisters basement had arrived. I had strategically positioned myself in Canada for this glorious retribution for both our boys and girls of USA hockey, so confident that this year would be the year that we would overcome our neighbors to the north and take the only thing they really care about, other than there shitty healthcare system (wait, I think we did take that one…). More to the point, there I sat stunned as I watched the ladies blow a 2 goal lead, forced into an overtime where I witnessed the most egregious act of poor officiating I have ever seen. A slash to the goaltender!? When has tapping at the covered puck before the whistle ever been called a penalty? At what moment does a girl tripping over her own two feet constitute a crosscheck? Well, after allowing Canada breath, the hockey God’s decided that it once again wasn’t meant to be, and a powerplay goal set up a disastrous omen for the men’s. Our offensive juggernaut was shut down completely by the most fantastic defensive play I’ve ever seen, and then put down by the Finns. I’ve seen Patrick Kane make Tuukka Rask look silly on countless occasions; ironically the one time I am praying he buries it he doesn’t. And now here I am, in Canada, one of the only Americans who even cares about hockey, having to deal with the backlash. Bummer….

Summary

There is a lot to be thankful for this week. One, that I am currently experiencing some of the best snow I’ve ever been in. Two, that I am not married. Three, that I am currently employed in a job I actually will not only enjoy, but thrive in. And finally….well, at least I’m not Russian, because that would really suck. Happy powder days!

Week 4: Doctor Nick

When I first moved out to New Zealand, I was 23 years old. After 4 years of college and nearly two years of working out of an office, I really had forgotten what it was like to be a kid. I mean, in college I was a moron up until the middle of my junior year, but for the most part I had stopped being a kid in the “I’m going to run around in the middle of the yard for the f*ck of it” kind of way. I was a hockey player, I was a skateboarder, and I was a snowboarder, and one by one those things slowly got buried underneath the avalanche that is real life. So, when I got to New Zealand in the summer, realizing that for the first time in 4 years was I not only going to lace up the skates for another season, but was also going to spend my first real winter in a ski town, I decided to go for the trifecta. I decided that it was time to officially unretire all three endeavors, and without hesitation purchased a skateboard, something I had not done since high school. I was finally a kid again….

….and then I fell. Hard. And the realization occurred to me that I don’t bounce like I used to. I also realized that I hadn’t been on a skateboard in 5 years, and furthermore had really just been sitting on the couch the last 4….thankfully, because of New Zealand’s phenomenal Accident Compensation Corporation, a trip to the doctor and some Physiotherapy only cost me about 25 bucks. For a pretty anti-government care guy, I was very impressed. It seemed that in New Zealand at least, I could remain being a kid without much worry.

Fast forward to last Monday, and once again my inner child raised his unrealistic head, and decided to ignore the fact that I really hadn’t flown through the air since I was 17. I once again went from sitting to sprinting, and took a tumble directly onto my collarbone, which if you’ve been paying attention, has been this years favorite injury. Instantly, I knew something was askew, and although it hurt like hell, I decided to wait it out. I was nervous though, because while it wasn’t the worst pain in the world, I had seen Chris break his, and he rode out of it too. In fact he almost didn’t go to the ER, and come to find out he had a break that needed surgery. I knew mine wasn’t that severe, but it definitely gave me an uneasy feeling that manageable pain might not necessarily mean anything. After much coaxing from both roommates (one of whom was residing in a hospital bed in the UK), and a painful night sleep, I decided that while I took the next day off, I’d go to the ER and get it checked out. Hell, I paid good money for travel insurance, why not use it right?

Well, here is where things get interesting. Canada, as you know, has a free health system (It’s not free, but every moron back home thinks it is, so I might as well just join the band) so the market for privatized healthcare is slim. So naturally, I went with travel insurance, making sure that my coverage included snowboarding (most don’t, oddly enough) and taking out enough insurance to take care of any minor hospital bills, I felt secure. Now, before I sound like a jackass, let me explain how health insurance works in the states (well, good health insurance). I rock up to the doctors office that is in my network, I get my shit taken care of, I flash them my insurance card, they bill my insurance company, I pay a 20 dollar co-pay, then I go sell telecom (this was my experience in a real-person job). Having never actually used travel insurance I’d purchased (no snow in Australia) I assumed this is how things worked everywhere.

Unfortunately for this guy, that is not how things work. No, see, the hospitals in Canada don’t take insurance. The hospitals will bill you, and then you will have to make the claim to get the money…I assumed this was how things like homeowner’s insurance worked, some car insurance, but in my very one dimensional experience of health care, this is how it most definitely didn’t work. You see, I have some money for my deductible, but as most of my money is tied up in the Australian Government at the moment, I was definitely not prepared for a 1500 dollar hospital bill. Oh, and by the way, back home with no insurance I probably could have worked out a nice little cash deal with the doctor before Obamacare was instituted, but since their is no private network here, that’s not happening. It’s the price on the sheet, no negotiation. After a call to my insurance company, they tell me I am covered, and that they are happy to receive a call from the doctor to clear me. I tell them that the doctor will not make a call to them, but said they would accept a call from my insurance company, which, you guessed it, they don’t do. The insurance company also tells me that I can show them my card, and they can bill the insurance directly, so deal done, right? Wrong. Canada health clinics won’t bill insurance companies outside of Canada, because, and I quote, “We can never get payments from insurance companies.” Awesome, so because you guys haven’t figured out your Accounts Receivables, I get screwed? Sure, a couple x rays and some physio is manageable, but my coverage is up to $50,000, what if I rack up half of that, would you like me to mortgage the house I don’t own to cover that while the insurance companies sort it out with me? Do I have the black card? No, I’m fucked, I have to go on a payment plan and do my little dance all because you don’t want the extra paperwork.

So, while I sit and ponder this conundrum I am left with two choices. I can either A) just bend over and take it, get on a payment plan, find out that I have at worst a fractured collarbone that doesn’t need surgery, and regardless of any of this still take my snowboarding course because I spent my life savings on it and I need to finish what I started or B) I can suck it up, ice it, google it, and  take my snowboarding course because I spent my life savings on it and I need to finish what I started. Well, you can’t cast a broken collarbone, and knowing I broke it ( if it’s even broken) isn’t going to change anything, so fuck it, let’s wait a few days and turn it over to Dr. Nick.

Now, Dr. Nick may not have a real medical degree, Dr. Nick decided to underachieve and get a business management degree with a music minor. But Dr. Nick is still highly intelligent, and after two days of rest Dr. Nick’s prognosis is leaning further and further towards a ligament issue (thank god)….now Dr. Nick is aware that if he does fall on it again, the bone isn’t going to pop through the skin, so that’s all good. That being said, Dr. Nick needs to find out what exactly the lump on his shoulder is, if it isn’t a broken bone. Finally, after a bit more research, BOOM, a self diagnosis of a Grade II AC Sprain/Tear, commonly known as a separated shoulder. Apparently, all those glasses of milk in my youth came in handy, and my ligaments gave out before the collarbone did….full recovery time about 3 to 4 weeks, but I don’t have time for that crap, so just don’t fall on it again and we’ll be fine.

So, it seems like it all worked out. I saved myself a hefty medical bill, I didn’t fracture my collarbone, and I really only missed one day of classes. I’ll be taking my level 1 exam on Monday, and after that I will be halfway done with this course and on my way to bigger and better things….it’s all coming together. Let’s just hope that somewhere in there I can find a way to make some money, because I think they pay instructors in beer and food stamps, and I’m guessing hospitals don’t accept those either….

Week 3: Finishing Touches

Well, after the third week of training, we are finally done tweaking our riding and are ready for a week of preparation before our level 1 CASI exam. As weeks one and two were led by Ross and Yuki, week three saw a bit of a change as the examiner for the November guys took over our group, not only delving into our riding a bit more, but giving us a very structured lesson plan, giving us more of an idea of the teaching methods that we will be putting into practice during week 4. The 2 biggest benefits of the sudden change of instructors are being able to see 3 very different styles of riding, and also getting a fresh set of eyes on what you are doing right, and what you can improve on. During the first day of riding, Paul immediately spotted that something was wrong with my binding setup and lack of knee bend,  made apparent by the awful chattering my board was doing while carving heelside. Now, imagine you have been riding with a certain stance for 13 years. Even then, when you only really board one week out of the year, you miss certain amounts of information that can really help you as a rider. For me, my heelback on the binding ( the part that your ankle rests against ) was sitting straight with no angle. Upon seeing this, Paul, instead of tweaking it a setting or two to ease me into it, cranked that son of a bitch about 4 settings in, probably a good 35 degree difference. It felt like he jammed a piece of wood underneath my heals, but that heelside turn I was having trouble with??? Yeah, that got fixed fast….my right foot had fallen asleep in the process, but comfort is overrated.

Enjoying one of the last days of some fresh snow at the top of Coulier Extreme. I’ll be on top of this guy all day once we get some snow.

After that little tweak to my setup, we jumped into something that I hadn’t really done since I was 16, and that was to make a little trip into the terrain park. That was the age that I stopped bouncing after being hurled through the air, so naturally realizing that I was probably going to kill myself, I gave that up in search of the elusive powder runs. Well, seeing as how there is no powder, and according to the weather forecast won’t be for quite some time, seems like now is a good a time as any to get back into it. I’ve spent the last few days getting a little more solid, getting comfortable with spinning in the air again, and just trying to go back to the days where I would spend 7 hours at Cannonsburg Ski Resort, just hitting jumps all day until the last lift closed. I don’t think that’ll happen, but I have to admit that it feels great really be enjoying life again….

Week 3 was also the last day of my good friend Chris Dennis, as he had a date with misfortune, slamming his 6 foot 4 inch frame onto a sheet of ice at some dangerous speeds, ultimately separating his collarbone by a good inch. We spent the last night out to dinner with about 10 other group members, and in a haze of lager and some pretty intense painkillers, he said his goodbyes. An unfortunate thing really, but he said something that stuck with me, and I’ll paraphrase. ” The way I look at it, I just spent a 2 week holiday at a resort I’ve always wanted to go to. That’s the longest ski trip I’ve ever been on, and now I can say I’ve boarded Whistler.” I guess it’s all how you look at things. Hopefully he recovers quick and can make it to his next destination, South America, with that goofy grin on his face.

Safe travels good buddy!

That’s all for now, but I’ll give a bit of a lead in for next week, things might have taken an unexpected turn at the beginning of week 4. Let’s see how this plays out.

The Cenator Chronicles Part IV: The Bitter and the Sweet

It’s a funny feeling, bittersweet. Being torn towards Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness as well as feeling a hopeful, unwavering promise towards the future. I supposed being on a boat for nearly a month has brought it out on me, but the two feelings seem to stay with me daily. On the one hand, I am greatly enjoying the time spent out at sea, the cool breeze ruffling my hair as I lap up the Australian sun’s intense rays. You see things out here that are so incredibly awe-inspiring and beautiful, and you think to yourself how unbelievably lucky you are to watch a pod of dolphins swim playfully in the boats wake, to see the distant water plumes of humpback whales, or even witnesses a seagull perched on top of a turtles’ back as it surfaces for air, the turtles’ head tilted in our direction as we steam by. These things are seemingly everyday occurrences for those that work the sea, but for a guy who grew up thinking he was going to work in an office his entire life, this truly is something that I will never forget.

On the other hand, all this time spent out at sea can get the better of you, and with nothing to do but spend hours and hours inside your own head, the bad feelings will inevitably start to surface. Me, I’m a worrier. I can’t help it, it’s engrained in my DNA. The overwhelming sense of foreboding I get when I think I’m going to miss my flight is tantamount to how most people feel about their own mortality, so when I spend hours upon hours contemplating what I am going to do with my life, it’s heavy. Lord knows I have options, and the plan I have formulated in my head is what I know in my heart what I want to do with the rest of my life, but I constantly am bombarded with a bad case of the “what ifs”….what if I don’t make enough money out here and can’t do what I want to do when I go home?….what if I can’t find the work I’m looking for in the field I want?…what if the girl I’ve fallen head over heals for is lost while I continue my quest, and does she feel the same way?….what if? After 12 hours of sorting through fish on a conveyor, exhausted, plagued by the aches and pains only continuous repetitive motion can evoke, praying for the end to come, these thoughts intensify, bubbling to the surface, crushing the very embryo of positive energy that engendered this trip upon me in the first place.

After 24 days at sea, with the constant yin and yang of these two feelings battling it out, it all comes to a head on a sunny day in Darwin, fresh off our first unload, the first few hours of free time on land I’ve had in nearly a month. Sitting on the patio of The Fox, sipping on my first beer in God knows how long, a mediocre Pale Ale that should be ashamed of it’s lack of ferocious bite, I am contented with the Bittersweet. I let it wash over me like the waves lapping at the hull as I sleep, It calms me, and it soothes me, and I think to myself as the two sides fit harmoniously together, “What will be will be.”

It’s time for me to surrender the controls for a bit…..I might lose my mind if I don’t.

The Cenator Chronicles Part I: The Agony of Seasickness

Ah, the age old question of asked by everyone from skippers, deckhands, and even your mother: “Do you get seasick?” For the most part, I have dealt with seasickness very well on the two occasions I was struck down in the Spencer Gulf. Even the worst of it happened in the middle of the night, so by the time everyone was ready to go to work I was fit as a fiddle, albeit a little shaky. The disease is pretty different for everyone, and for me it occurs in the first day or two, when the steam out to the fishing spot is a bit rough, and you haven’t quite acclimated to the constant rocking motion of the boat. So when the first day on the Cenator passed without incident, I immediately thought that either I had advanced to the point of a real fisherman, or day two was going to be incredibly uncomfortable. Unfortunately for me, day two was a bit more than uncomfortable.

It starts, like all sickness starts, with the warning signs. I was up at 8 in the morning, and by nine o’clock, I was having to lay down in intermittent 5 minute spurts so I could regroup and focus on the task at hand: cooking dinners. Not the best job on a rough stomach, but there is only one way to get shit done, so I had to persevere. Now, seasickness isn’t just an unsettled stomach, cured with a 5 minute trip to the bathroom to purge yourself like some self-conscious 15 year old, or like Nick Ekstrom right after the team stretch. I have in the past likened it to a vicious mix of beer, cocktails, and spirits that leaves you face down in a spinning porcelain vortex of poor decisions and past regrets, only amplified. And at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the monster within surfaced with unprecedented ferocity. Exaggeration. No, not really. I stumbled from the wheelhouse on to the back deck, and keeled over, smacking the back of my head on the cold, hard surface that heads do not enjoy being introduced to. I awoke from my blackout, head throbbing, and continued to the bathroom, where I unleashed God’s fury and completely evacuated my light lunch. From there, a continuation of waking up on the floor, thankfully without incident – God help me if I blacked out over the side of the rail – and turning my stomach inside out. Finally, my agony ceases when Zak, an over eager, hard working 18 year old Australian deckie (very rare in any country) witnesses my third collapse and alerts everyone that something is a tad askew. I spend the next few hours lying in bed, convincing my self that my pupil dilation means I am concussion free, and drifting in and out of sleep, stupor, and one final dizzying blackout.

Anger and embarrassment courses through me, and toughing it out like I was just knocked silly after receiving a buddy pass at center ice from a defenseman who just had to wait until I curled up the middle to feed it to me, gathered myself and attempted to make myself useful. A few pats on the back from the crew, and I pray the worst of it is over. Being the most inexperienced member, I now feel it is absolutely essential to prove to them that I belong out here, and once the seasickness fades into the night, I am sure that I will.

I would like to dedicate this post to my mother, who I must assure that I am completely fine and recommend she make herself a delicious margarita and enjoy and the kid free household while she can.

Trawling for King Prawn Part II

Well, here we are, back at this again with a little update and quite possibly, some exciting news….for me anyway. The time in Australia is starting to come to a close, 4 more months and I’ll be back in Michigan before making the trek out west. However, before I start looking too far ahead, a process already in full swing, I would like to take a look back to the two weeks in May that ended my stint as a Prawn fisherman in the fishing capital of Australia. After two weeks tooling around Adelaide and the surrounding area of beaches and vineyards, I hopped back on the intrepid Roslyn Ann and began another voyage into the Spencer Gulf in search of the illustrious King Prawn, this time as a seasoned deckhand. I knew what to expect on this trip, and jumping back onto the boat with the boys seemed like second nature.

Dolphin surfing the wake on the bow

Now the thing about the fishing industry, especially the Prawning Industry, is that everything is not created fair or equal. It is a very competitive industry, and 9 times out of 10 a new deckhand is going to come back with a variety of complaints; they were overworked, abused, under appreciated, and underpaid. Every time I told people I wanted to give Prawning a shot, they would always roll there eyes and tell me all the horror stories of people not getting paid, sleeping an hour a day, and generally getting completely screwed. Despite all this, I was down at the docks for a week straight talking to anyone that acknowledged me. When I finally landed a gig, it was for the 5th man, a position that did in fact, get way underpaid, considering the other deckhands were on a percentage of the catch. Regardless of this, I knew what I was getting into, and as that was the only way I was getting on a boat, I decided to focus on the fact that even though I wasn’t making the big bucks, I was going to be making double what I earned on land….besides, I get to go out on a boat, how in the hell could I turn that down?

Great shot on a night off right before the sun disappears

Like I said, the crew can make or break the trip, and after the first catch and getting paid straight after I got off the boat, I realized what I had was something pretty rare. I had a captain who knew how to direct his temper, I had a first mate who kept me honest, I had a seasoned deckhand who I have grown to greatly admire and respect, and I had a kid from the complete opposite side of the tracks to give and take advice from. What I took away from the actual experience was unforgettable, but the crew I worked with? That is something that will forever be irreplaceable.

When I first met Nath, it was in the hull of the Roslyn Ann at around two o’clock in the afternoon. He seemed like a real friendly guy, and honestly seemed truley sorry that they had just hired someone that day, and were fully booked. Despite this, I walked away with an unexplained feeling that I was going to get a call from him in the next few days….regardless, I was still surprised when I did. Nath’s story is pretty similar to mine actually. He worked in marketing for a corporation for about 3 years after college before he jumped onto a Prawn vessel owned by his old man for no real reason other than he wasn’t happy. 20 or so years later, he is still at it, running the Roslyn as a seasoned skipper. Ask anyone around, and they will tell you that Nath knows his shit. Time after time we would be fishing far away from the 40 other boats in the fleet, and if they saw Nath hit a spot more than twice on the radar, by morning we were far from alone. This success, coupled with his refusal to berate the crew on a bad night, gives him my respect immediately. We were never short of moments where you could hear Nate high above, screaming my favorite four letter word to form sentences, but his ability to compartmentalize his failures and not take out his frustrations on the crew are what make him a great skipper. After hearing stories of a few other skippers’ tempers, most notably a heavy set Croatian on a competing vessel who is rumored to have killed a neighbors dog, I feel very blessed.

Our favorite skipper enjoying the trip back to Port Lincoln

The skipper can’t do everything however, and that is where a good first mate comes into play. Meet Warren, Nath’s trusty right hand man, and also his older brother. I once commented on how Nath is so good at not berating the crew in front of Warren, and his response was, “What the hell are you talking about, he takes it out on me!” Warren, outside of work, is a very lovable, affable human being who will chat your ear off regarding any of his many hobbies. For Warren, his hobbies and his family are what put a smile on his face, and he is at his best when he can share those experiences with you. During work hours, Warren is a ruthless Czar, hell bent on making you the best damn prawn sorter on the Spencer Gulf. That being said, you can’t have a successful crew without someone being a stickler for the rules, and Warren plays his role perfectly. To a new person like myself, it takes a bit of getting used to, but after a few weeks of getting to know the man you start to accept it as an inevitable part of the job, and also how to deal with it. We may have exchanged a few glares every now and again, but it’s impossible to stay mad at that boyish grin.

Warren rocking out to a little Meat Loaf on his brand new Fender Stingray

I may have been the new guy, prone to a bit of Warren’s rath, but believe me, I got none of it compared to Kaine. Roughly around my age and built like the proverbial brick shithouse, Kaine, with one look, will unequivocally beat the shit out of you. I liked Kaine almost immediately for many reasons. Without getting into too much detail, Kaine was brought up pretty much the exact opposite of me. We had many discussions on our upbringing the four weeks we knew each other, and despite the differences, we both ended up being a couple of hardworking guys with bigger aspirations then just rolling through life. The honesty in him is what I think makes him such a good person to have a conversation with, and when he tells me what he wants out of life, you believe in him, because you know that bullshit is something that he’s never used….he doesn’t have to bullshit, because he knows he is tougher than every son of a bitch he meets. You have to respect someone like that. Kaine is keen to take the reigns of the Prawn ship, and I believe that he can be the man to do it….I like to think that when I run into him in a few years, he’ll have what he wants out of life. To quote Martin Sheen, “He’s a worker, he’ll rise fast.” You can all fill in the Walberg retort if you must….

Kaine getting ready to do some serious work

Now, if Kaine (or myself, for that matter) needs someone to take a look at as the model of success, someone to use for guidance, he needs to look no further than right beside him. Meet Geoff, a 61 year old surfer, shaper, deckhand and real estate mogul. Warren may be the man in control, but Geoff is the guy that keeps it under control. When I look at people who are successful by popular standards, i.e. they have money, I always notice something grossly unappealing about the way they look. I have met many successful people, and they all carry the same, unhappy, ungrateful, miserable look on their face. Not Geoff. When you look at Geoff, you wouldn’t think that this guy has it all….he drives a white-paneled van and can be spotted wearing a beat up t-shirt underneath a pair of paint stained overalls. So why the FUCK does he look so God Damn happy. That’s easy. It’s because he is so God Damn happy. It’s the look that you have on your face when you just roll with life’s punches and enjoy the gifts that God has given you. When Geoff was 20, he was a surf bum, and 40 years later I swear he still is, albeit a responsible one. His passion for surfing has helped him live a stable life, complete with his own surf company that is still located in a shed next to his house. Not only is he content, but he is also very well off, spending his time investing in properties, something he does because it doesn’t take too much effort, allowing him to head to Sheringa in between Prawn trips to catch a few barrels. Essentially, Geoff is the type of human being I aspire to be. Never will you meet a kinder, more compassionate and friendly person, and despite the fact that his attitude stems from his DNA, it has certainly held up all these years because he decided a long time ago that money wasn’t the key to happiness. People like Geoff are few and far between, and if I turn into just a fraction of the kind of person he is, I’ll be a very lucky man.

Geoff cooking up his famous breakfast at the end of the day….what a guy.

I think it is very rare, almost once in a lifetime, when you get a group of people together that all have something extraordinary to bring to the table. For me, this is the third time it has happened in two years…..either my luck is running out, or I am starting to do a good job emulating Geoff.

All in all, this was unequivocally (have I used that word already?) one of the best experiences I have ever been apart of, and I can only hope my knew crew is going to live up to these gentlemen. That’s right, on Tuesday, after months of waiting, I ship off on the Cenator for a 4 months as cook/deckhand. Trust me, I’m counting my blessings. And now some pictures!!! Be well and enjoy the show.

Hey, it gets lonely out at sea…

Some sort of shark with the deadliest beak I’ve ever seen

Couple of dudes on a boat

Hopper full of everything but prawns….can’t always be a winner

Entertainment on a slow night

Geoff and Kaine getting it done

Doesn’t quite do it justice

Baracuda

Cuttlefish…..giant cuttlefish. Me and Warren use this opportunity to quote South Park

Boss

Dog Shark

Oh, you little bastard, how I despise you

Baby Octopus

Geoff and Warren doing some net work

One of the bigger rays. Also, awesome news, I can now say that I have been sliced by a ray…lucky I didn’t lose a finger

Adapting

Well 2 weeks on a boat followed by 10 days of roughing it in the outback have certainly set me back on this thing, but let’s try and get this train rolling again with a little update. Port Lincoln, that tiny little fishing town on the South Coast, is finally in my rear view mirror, and not a moment too soon. Actually, 5 months in a town with very little to do other than save money is a loooong time, but I digress. My current location on this fine June evening is 15 minutes outside of Darwin, in a little suburb called Casaurina, situated in the Northern Territory, about 3500 km from Port Lincoln. After April, the south of Australia gets a bit wintery….not like, “Get out the hockey skates, it’s time for some pond hockey ‘wintery’,” but more like, “it’s going to hover at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit and drizzle for 3 months ‘wintery’.” Yeah, that’s a horseshit winter if I’ve ever seen one. So, the move up to Darwin, where it stays 90 degrees and sunny during the dry season, seemed like the right plan.

Now, my original plan was to head up to this little mecca by the sea (which you can’t really swim in because, you know, crocs and jellies get first priority) and find some solid fishing work in no time. But, as it happens in life, sometimes the plan doesn’t really work out so well. And wouldn’t you know it, the fishing work up here is….stagnant. That’s not to say I won’t find something eventually, the seasons have to kick off sometime, but for now my plan of finding a job in a weeks time has turned into 3 weeks to a month. Wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, but unfortunately I may have miscalculated my financial situation a tad, so now I find myself in Darwin with no immediate work, dipping into my Whistler savings like the US Government dips into Social Security. Not good. The good news is that after traveling a year and a half, you tend to roll with those punches and adapt to the situation, which I seem to have done. After sitting in Darwin for a week watching my savings dwindle away on accommodation, food, and the occasional beverage, I decided to try something that I had heard of, but never actually attempted. The term is “wwoofing”, and it is typically someone who goes to work on a farm for accommodation and food as their payment. The benefit for the backpacker is that during times of no work, they can buy themselves a couple weeks while they wait for a job to open up.

Some landscaping….turning this house into a God Damn sustainable neighborhood farm…look at me, becoming quite the little moderate on my travels.

So after a week of burning through my hard earned dollars, I jumped online and got in touch with a guy about 15 minutes outside of the city who was looking for some help around his place. His name is Dan, and he is a 28 year old engineer who has recently purchased a house and needs a little help doing the renovations inside and out. Typically, the people who look for workers are usually families, so a lot of wwoofing experiences tend to be pretty quiet, polite visits on farms tending to the owner’s livelihood. So Dan kind of breaks the mold a little bit, as he seems to have a penchant for beer and women, coupled with a very laid back attitude on what needs to be done, but more importantly, how things need to get done. For instance, there is a thin strip cut into the tile about 3 inches in width running parallel from one of the walls in his living room. Apparently, their used to be a wall nestled in the tile. When I asked about that, he said that one day when him and a buddy were having a few beers, Dan looked at the wall and said, “That wall is definitely ruining this room, and I’m pretty sure it’s not load bearing. Well, suffice to say, that wall is no longer standing, and the room is a lot less claustrophobic because of their inebriated sledgehammering.

Cutting down trees….all day.

So we got to work on the house, and my first task was quite a similar endeavor, although it involved a tree instead of a wall. Same basic principles applied though, and after a few beers and a “What the fuck is that tree doing there” attitude, Dan jumped on the roof with a  chainsaw while I attached a rope to the tree and pulled….hard. She came down straight at me, and my appraisal of exit strategies had the tree been long enough to crush me were unnecessary, as it fell a few feet away from me. Successful day, I think.

Did I mention the chickens? Oh yeah, he has chickens, and one loud mouth rooster that goes off at 5 o clock in the God Damn morning because the neighbors sprinklers disturb him. Brutal. But the chickens lay some solid eggs…Roosters don’t lay eggs, do they Little Jerry? We’ve signed the rooster up for a cock fight….

Now the last few weeks have been full of little projects around the house, including building a veggie garden, rocking out a pretty impressive landscaping job in the front yard, and doing a fair bit of painting along the outside of the house. I have been able to do this in my spare time, as I have found some landscaping work that will be pretty full time I hope, at least until the pearling/prawning jobs come into play. For now though, I’m going to continue to pay dirt cheap rent, live in a tent in the backyard, and pray for God to have mercy on my soul, giving me the oceanic tale I so crave.

This little son of a bitch chewed up my glasses….we have recently become best friends, and he is coming home to live in America with me when I’m done.

Little veggie garden I built in my spare time….really didn’t take that long either.

Also, elephant in the room, this post is dangerously close to missing two whole months on this thing, so I will hopefully find more time for these little updates. Who knows, maybe if I continue to peck away at this keyboard I might just find people reading this garbage. I have a few tales on deck though, such as my adventures with the Great White Sharks and my final trip out to sea, so I’ll try and add those as well.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing and just hope this massive spiral has a soft landing….although with the recent loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, my depression grows. 17 seconds….honestly, when something that thrilling happens, why in the hell would anyone watch the NBA finals? I’m rambling.

Keep on keepin’ on!

Astonishing Tales of the Sea

There are many different  reasons for traveling. Some people travel to “find themselves”, other people travel to escape reality, and some people just want to spend a year getting drunk and sleeping with people from different countries. Now, keeping in mind that all of these reasons are acceptable and valid, my reason for traveling stems from the fact that, at 22 years old, you should not be stuck in a dead end, miserable corporate gig that sucks the life out of you. My journey started by quiting my lackluster job as a sales professional to become a minimum wage laborer on a small vineyard in New Zealand who lived in a tent….that’s right, a bright orange Eureka 2 person for 3 months. Well, at least I got my midlife crisis out of the way. Anyway, I have realized that not only is my traveling based on the experiences I have, but the work I do as well. I don’t want to head back to the states with stories of kicking drunk assholes out of my establishment and tending bar (although I have plenty of those stories, and they are fantastic), but experiences that are a bit harder to come by. This is what lead me to chase the new and fleeting dream of working on a fishing boat out at sea, so when I am forty and watching reruns of Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel, I can say, “Yeah, I did that shit.” In retrospect, I think all that gets classified under “finding yourself”, which kind of bums me out….

The view that I want, and the view I finally got.

Arriving in Port Lincoln in January, I thought that I would be on a boat in 2 weeks and heading off to my next adventure sometime in March, but sadly, I miscalculated the difficulties of finding work on a boat with absolutely no experience in a town where knowing someone is the key to the unlocked doors of the fishing industry. So, I grabbed a job at the local Marina Hotel as a bartender and waited. Surely working down at the Marina will grant me the audience of intrepid fisherman that I seek, and I’ll be on a boat by February. Well, that didn’t work, and as my part time job was barely paying the bills, I decided to take a second job working in a factory sorting through dead sardines from China to feed to the Tuna thinking that this, surely, would get my foot in the door and land me on a Tuna boat. Although the four week long Tuna tow boat trips are over with, I can at the very least land myself on a feed boat with my company and slick my thirst  for the deep blue sea. Well, nearing the end of March and realizing that I was getting no where waiting for my opportunity to come, I decided that I needed some drastic action. April was soon approaching, and on April 4th the Prawn fishermen were heading out to sea on their biggest trip of the year, followed by another one in May, and I’ll be damned if I am not on one of the God Damn boats. So I printed out some CV’s (that’s a resume for all you silly Americans with your much easier to understand version of the English language), put together an awesome cover letter with a few choice words and a brilliant color photo of my gorgeous face, and headed on down to the docks to knock on every galley door until I got what I was looking for. And wouldn’t you know it, a few days after I decided to get off my ass and do something about it, I got a call from a skipper I chatted to a few days prior telling me his fifth man had dropped out, and would I be interested in being the fifth man on their crew for the April and May trip. My elation during that call will be compared to the birth of my child in the future….and so I set off on the Roslyn Ann because I told the skipper I’m a hard, dedicated worker who doesn’t get sea sick!

The aforementioned vessel, and my home for the next two weeks.

Ok, so apparently I get a little sea sick….I was told this was going to happen. I was constantly, consistently, annoyingly bombarded by this fact from virtually every single person I talked to telling me that I, Nick Fabbri, am going to get sea sick. Personally, I believe that this is the reason I did get sea sick, and if everyone would have just kept their God Damn mouth shut and just held the bag I would have been fine. The intrepid Roslyn Ann set out to sea on the 4th of April, 2013, at approximately 8:37 PM, and by about 11 o’clock I felt like I had just finished a night based on whiskey, IPA’s, and some very sticky herb. My head was spinning so God Damn bad it was reminiscent of the time I was in Jason John’s cabin stoned of my head and shoveling Cheeto’s into my mouth while the house did somersaults in front of me. The only difference was that this time I wasn’t laughing my balls off. The sea is rough, and the constant motion of going up and down will, after 3 hours, finally throw you. Fortunately, the remedy for me was a simple sea sick pill, a good lie down and few hours in the morning of just holding it together, and the waves simply become a part of you.

My garbage camera trying to do the waves justice. My new camera will make the second trip more of a visual experience for my 5 followers.

Life out at sea is very simple. You sleep, you eat, you work, and when you have nothing to do a good book really passes the time, and in the 21st century, so does a good movie or 3 seasons of How I Met Your Mother on a laptop. A day in the life would go a little something like this:  I would be awoken from my slumber around 5 O’clock in the afternoon by the sound of the anchor being hoisted back up from the ocean floor, and after a few good yawns and stretches, immediately dawn my Thinsulate one piece snow suit and gloves to head down into the freezer to stack last nights catch to make room for the next batch of prawns. After spending a good half and hour stacking boxes in minus 40 degree temperatures, enduring constant jokes and comments from the crew about how this must remind me of home in Michigan, (although in reality it’s more like my time in Minnesota, but the difference is lost on them) I head back up and start making boxes for the next night’s catch. We then wait for Geoff, our 61 year old chef, seasoned deckhand, surfer, and millionaire to call out dinner, when we feast on either steak or chicken, with potatoes and veggies on the side, a very solid meal for the 12 hours of work we are about to do. A quarter to seven we head out onto the deck and drop the nets, set up the conveyor belt, and wait until seven, when our skipper Nate drops the nets and the fun begins. Each shot lasts between 40 minutes to an hour, and when its a busy night this allows for enough time to sort the Prawns, box them up, and get them down to the freezer room before it’s time to pull the nets up again. However, the really busy nights of catching 3 ton are pretty rare, so rare in fact that on this particular trip we never even hit 3 ton. So, a majority of my nights are spent working about 15 to 30 minutes at a time, then sitting around for 30 minutes waiting for the next shot to be pulled up. It is here that we fill up our time with stories, philosophies on life, a good book, attempting to connect to the Internet when we are close enough to shore, and arguments on why I think it is absolutely retarded that Australians need separate licenses for driving automatic and manual cars. This goes on for 11 hours, until the sun comes up at 6 in the morning and the fishing hours abruptly stop for all 40 boats in the fleet. We then sort our last shot, and begin to clean the deck until it is spotless, which takes about another hour. In the middle of cleaning our fearless veteran Geoff sneaks off to cook us a standard English breakfast of eggs, beans, and bacon (or if we are lucky fresh whiting, flathead, prawns and calamari caught the night before) and we wind down the day by filling our stomachs with deliciousness and watching the morning news. Then, it’s time for the rest of the crew to mend the nets (a skill that takes much time to learn) while I do the dishes and clean the kitchen. By 8:30 it’s time to crawl into bed and get a much needed 8 hours before it’s time to start over the next day. Life is simple, and life is good.

An incredible sunrise over the Spencer Gulf.

Now unfortunately for me, my God awful camera crapped out on me 5 days into the trip, so all my amazing stories of wrestling stingrays, surviving 30 knot winds, and the finer points of Prawning will have to wait until after my second trip out to sea, along with friendly descriptions of my daring and adventurous comrades. However, before my camera went into an irreversible coma it was able to capture something very special. Unfortunately I can’t get any video of what I saw up on WordPress, so hopefully I can find a picture that does it some justice. While we troll for Prawn, the Roslyn Ann usually has a pod of dolphins that swim with us, as we are a very acceptable source of food for them. It is absolutely an incredible sight to witness 50 or so dolphins swimming around the boat, and I must say they are some of the smartest and most playful creatures I have ever encountered. When the nets go down, the dolphins disappear below the surface and follow behind the nets, scooping up anything that is stirred up by the nets but not caught. As the nets are raised, you can see all the dolphins surfacing back up, and it’s a wonder that they never get caught in the nets the way they dip and dive all around the boat. While the nets are up, they then swim on the right side of the boat because they know that as soon as we pick up a catch, all of our bi-catch will slide back into the ocean of the starboard side. Really intelligent animals. I spent a lot of time on the back of the boat, watching them fool around with the propeller, which is the Dolphin equivalent of playing chicken. You will watch them swim up to the back of the boat, right by the propeller, and as soon as they get close the force pushes them back and they kind of surf the wake of the boat. Unfortunately, like with all extreme sports, there are occasional casualties, usually a younger, more inexperienced dolphin won’t “stick the landing”. Hoping not to see something so traumatic, as I really have become quite fond of them. Must be the dog person in me.

Enjoying the free buffet.

Hoping that my new camera can actually do this some justice in the future.

I hope to have a few more stories and some much better pictures of trip two, along with my stingray encounters and (fingers crossed) maybe even a shark story is in the works. Now it’s time to get used to this whole dry land situation, I still wake up in the mornings swaying with the tide.