Thanks, Isidro!

Today you have to thank Isidro, one of the Vizconde Mates, for the blog. With the usual tasks plus the extra work during the end of the survey, today has been very intense. We've just got the 100th haul, and if everything goes well, in 16 more hauls we'll be heading for St. John's. This morning we have also caught a record catch of Greenland halibut for this survey. In short, we are very tired but at least the day has been very productive.

Except for the blog. I had no time to take photos, which are my cue for the writing. I was thinking that I had no choice but make time to look for photos when Isidro started his watch. During his shift we took two hauls and there were plenty of visitors in the bridge, because there are also shift changes among the biologists and the Vizconde crew. But at some point there was peace (peace in the bridge, not for Isidro) and Isidro, who is very patient, has stoically endured the avalanche of questions I have made without warning. And he also gave me pictures you can see here.

Good old days in the Grand Banks. Photo by Isidro Patiño

Isidro was fishing cod here in the Grand Banks in the late 80's in what are known as parejas. The parejas were twin boats, designed to fish together. Each had a bottom trawl that required both boats to shoot it and haul it, so you can imagine the magnitude of the swept area. The catch could only go to one of the ships, so one boat made the day haul and the other the night haul. The hauls could last 9-10 hours plus 2 to shoot the gear and haul it on board, which was not easy at all.

Isidro tells me that the fishing trips were 4-5 months, spending three weeks at home and back to the Grand Banks.

The boats had the classic design, with the bridge aft, unlike the modern trawlers. In the photo you can see that among the masts there are "ropes", called stays, and they hold the blocks used to haul the gear, to port or starboard. In the side where the gear was hauled these boats had an opening called "bathtub", in which the catch was deposited before going down to the fishing park.

One of the ships in a Spanish pareja. Photo by Isidro Patiño

In the fishing park there was a filleting machine, two frozen tunnels, a skate peeler and two machines to cut open cod. A good haul could bring in 14-15 tons of fish, which was processed by the 14 deckhands. The cod were manually decapitated by 2-4 deckhands and others were in charge of the machines. There was also a deck foreman, a salty foreman and a last one for the freezer. In the kitchen there were two people, six in the engine room and on the bridge two officers and a helmsman.

Isidro says that when they got a good haul they hardly slept until all the fish had been processed. With luck they could sleep 4 hours in one go, and there would be no day and night, lunch or dinner hours. This has not changed in commercial fisheries. The cooks served scheduled meals but between hours there was nothing, unlike in our Vizconde, where there is always something to snack on. There, the deckhands themselves had to cook when they needed a meal outside schedule. And Isidro said that they were really good at it.

These crews also suffered the usual mishaps with the gear, which snagged often and had to be fixed on deck. With the cold that our deckhands endure in May, I cannot imagine what it must have been to spend hours on deck in January. Nor were there any demands on personal protective equipment as nowadays. They did not have a life jackets or helmets. Some deckhands used motorcycle helmets with a screen but to avoid the cold. They used the time while shooting or hauling gear to break the ice on deck with wooden hammers, and occasionally had to go out to get rid of it to avoid accidents. Isidro says that the minimum temperature he suffered here were -21ºC. The conditions on board were not very comfortable either: two bathrooms for the whole crew, one cabin for six, one for four and one for two, plus three individual cabins for officers. I understand that this has not changed either, and I have been told about some modern boat with cabins for eight men.

Isidro reminds me that I have to talk about Toby, a dog that went to sea with them and who liked being on the bridge with Isidro. He scared the hell out of the birds and barked at the sailors who arrived late to their shift. Having animals on board has ended with the regulations to travel abroad with pets, but it used to be customary. When Toby stopped its seafaring days three cats replaced him.

Toby the seadog. Photo by Isidro Patiño

So the next time you feel terrible because you have to get up early to go to work or you sit in front of a fish course think of the work that the Vizconde crew is doing and of course the crews of all those fishing boats that spend months at sea.

Thank you very much, Isidro!

Winter time in the Grand Banks. Photo by Isidro Patiño