My 1st day on the ships the Factory manager Sergei took me to the back deck where there were huge bins for dumping fish. The left 1 was full to brimming with cod. He asked me if I would tell an estimate of what percentage was cod or soul or bycatch like snails seaweed starfish crabs salmon whatever else might come including a 100lb plaice a 300lb walrus and a 147lb Korean who had fallen off his Ship. I said I had no idea. I was trying not to throw up from the smell because I’d gotten too close and scent had overpowered me. He frowned and said Novi? which meant new as in my 1st day so he would now have to teach me the job instead of having a rep with experience. After a year I was able to estimate the amt and the compo by the smell. So I learned to do that and words like mire and vina special ship board terms for raising the crane with the fish to lower it over the bin and then down into the factory. There was a panel you could open to let the fish spill out on deck and through a hole into the factory below. It was a very complex system of belts and chutes with parts for cutting boxing and freezing. I had to learn all those terms fast so I could understand what was going on and represent the catcher boat so that they didn’t get cheated on purpose or by negligence because I wanted to hang out on the bridge with my friends and not do my job. The captain of the CB always wanted me to poke or pick my nose he joked once in the factory to make sure the cutters were doing a Jcut around the head. The boxed it in33 kilos and sent it down a chute to the freezer room after 1st going through a flash freezer флэш морозильник. They all had to be stamped for what kind of fish it was. I don’t think people liked me coming down there if they thought I would get them in trouble. If the weights were consistently light the CB cap would complain to the head red on the pig boat the Sulk which had 2 CB’s with it at all times. Dima was the rep who would get out tallies on rep hour 3 hauls a day usual around 20-30 in each. I tried to be funny once and when asked how did it go. 3 hauls 75 tons Romania outlawed communism. . It was the world we lived in. I had gone back to sea after Euro89 as the logical thing since I would start at a higher day rate of about 80 dollars a day up to 117 on my last as Dima congratulated me with irony. The fleet was over and a lifeboat was picking up reps to go to whatever ship was going to take them home. I looked down into the redpainted oval shaped thing and saw a company rep smiling up from inside red hair like mine. He had only 3 days before the fishery ended still an adventure. There was a rope ladder down the side and as I got to the bottom a crewman from inside appeared and said Jump! He was going to catch me. So I did and practically tumbled into the inside.
