Deadliest Catch

On a recent flight back to Chicago from Virginia I sat next to the most inspiring and interesting dude. We were flying on Southwest, a budget airline that boards with a first-come-first-served method as opposed to a seat assignment. Luckily we get our own row, but near the end of boarding a twenty-something guy takes the aisle seat next to me. Right away I can tell he's a total Virginian gentleman: in a mild Southern accent he asks if he can take the seat, and he offers to grab some pillows from the overhead bin for Emily (who was still getting over the flu). What a decent dude, I think. I also noticed he had a sleeve of sailing-related tattoos on his arm, but I wasn't sure how that played into his obvious Southern-Virginian persona.

After he starts to strike up some conversation, (the typical 'where ya headed, whattaya do' stuff) it turns out he's from Lynchburg, VA but actually makes his living as a commercial fisherman on a boat in the Bering Sea. I was seriously impressed-- the guy's a real-deal fisherman on the high seas! He was on his way to Seattle, where he'll board a vessel and fish for halibut and black cod in the Pacific, all the way up to Alaska (and dungeness crab when the fish season's over). Not only is this one of the worlds most dangerous jobs, it's also quite lucrative, apparently. He's been doing it for 6 years-- spending the majority of the year on the sea and coming back to VA at the end of the season-- and says he's well on his way to 'retire' someday soon and buy a house in Virginia with cash. Brilliant. At this point, I'd never seen the show Deadliest Catch, but I began to get a sense of how seriously dangerous the job is-- as he said it, "It's not if the boat will sink, it's when". In fact, he lost some friends last year when their boat, The Ocean Challenger, when down-- he was actually a member of of the majority-Virginian crew mere weeks before the tragedy, but had decided to take a week off, since it was the end of the season. While he was getting some work done on his tattoo, the boat he just left was hit hit by a storm and capsized in 3-story-tall waves. Truly chilling.

What inspired me was the realness and honesty of his profession, but also interesting was his ability to talk about his career choice in almost a philosophical manner-- not only was he a hard working guy, but he had really figured out his philosophy on life. It was the most interesting airplane conversation I have ever had, and I'm still inspired. Best of luck Jeff, may you stay safe on your future voyages, and may the fishing season treat you well.

  4/07/2008