While I haven't been spearing or even diving since sometime in early May, I have not been far from the water or fish. My work season tends to take up the best times for diving, but I still get to play with fish (and get paid for it!!) all summer long.
This summer (like always) I was working on a couple of halibut boats in Canada to collect data for the annual stock assessment of Pacific Halibut. There are so many inlets and islands on the BC coast that you could spend two lifetimes exploring and still not see everything. It is a beautiful place, but I'm still having trouble adjusting to plastic money and two-dollar coins that are affectionately called "Toonies".
Any-hoo, here's some photos!
Steaming out through Active Pass
One of many inlets that we anchored in for the evening
Quillback rockfish
Got to watch the sun rise and colors change on my birthday (this pic was taken at about 0445hrs)
Beginning of hauling a string of gear
160lb halibut
Sunest on the summer solstice (pic was taken at 2230hrs)
Me demonstrating the proper angle to hit the "off switch" on a lingcod with my finger. The lingcod was released unharmed.
And finally, this guy. This is a rare sighting, a juvenile short-tailed albatross. There are so few of these birds left that almost every individual in the population has been fitted with a leg band. They have a bubblegum-pink bill, and the adults change from the black plumage seen here to a mix of white and yellow with black edged wings. I keep looking at this bird and all I can think of is that this must be the bird that Gary Larson modeled all his birds after in his Far Side comic strips.