By LillyKatPTR Senior Staff Writer
And so another Opilio crab season goes into the books.
Our Deadliest Catch gang all made it back to Dutch Harbor safe and sound, in one piece, meeting their respective quotas. And those quotas ... wow ... 574,000 pounds here, 850,000 pounds there. The crews cash in at about $1 million or so for their crab payloads, which ends up earning each deckhand anywhere from $47,000 to $52,000 in take home pay.
Sweet.
The Northwestern continued its flaming hook tradition whereby Edgar Hansen (Captain Sig's bro') sets the hook on fire when they go to pull up their last pot for the season. It is for good luck, but as Captain Sig says, they don't know if it works until next season.
Captain Keith did indeed have a hole is port aft tank aboard the Wizard, which explains why the darn thing ended up being a bottomless pit, unable to truly be topped off. As quickly as he was raking in the crab, he was sending them back out to sea. Funny. The boat really does win in the end, says Keith.
The Time Bandit wrapped up a 42-hour marathon session to meet their 574,000 pound quota. Yahoo! I have to say Captain Andy is entertaining. He's funny, goofy, never seems to get overly flustered or angry. I'll miss seeing him at the helm come King Crab season. (No offense to bro' Johnathan - we like him, too).
But I have to say that this season will be remembered for the Cornelia Marie crew's resilience in light of Captain Phil's troubled health - which, in and of itself, is what will mark this season. To face what they faced, yet pull out a 1.2 million pound crab payload worth $1.3 million is a tribute to the true die-hard spirit of this crew. We remember their season got off on the wrong foot given they could not even find the crab in their first strings, then they encountered engine troubles that forced them to return to port. When they finally limped back out into the Bering Sea and started to rake in the crab payload, they were hit with Phil's near-death blood clot health issue, which saw him have to be removed from the helm and take up residence in a hospital. Credit should be given to relief Captain Murray Gamrath for pulling the crew together and doing one heck of a pinch hit job. Captain Phil's health still remains an issue, and it is yet uncertain as to whether his fishing career will be over. We sincerely hope not. Considering only 2 out of 10 people survive a blood clot passing through one's heart and onto one's lung, we'd like to think Phil has already beat the odds.
And though only one tragedy occurred during the actual Opilio season, shortly after all crews left Dutch Harbor, the Bering Sea reminded everyone just how deadly she can be - claiming the vessel Alaska Ranger.
47 people into the water.
42 rescued.
5 lost.
A sobering reminder of just how deadly this job really is.
You can catch replays of Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel throughout the remainder of the summer. Visit the official Deadliest Catch Web site for the latest on the captains and crews of the Northwestern, Cornelia Marie, Time Bandit, Wizard, Early Dawn and North American.
2 comments:
That really is a sad reminder, even though it makes good TV, these people live it for real. $50,000 is a lot of money for a catch but I don't know if I'd risk that much. Actually maybe I would, but still, I kind of want to do more than just feed my family, maybe like see them grow older.
I think this is one of the reasons I really like this show - it is definitely for real ... risks and all. And fishing seems to be one of those things that gets in your blood (especially if you grow up surrounded by it, which a lot of these guys have). So, it's kinda almost like they were born to do this - and perilous though it may be, they love it. They wouldn't want to do anything else. It's an amazing passion and dedication juxtaposed against this enormous risk they take every season.
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