I converted also. Used to bandit fish in the winter and summer then longline for swordfish and tuna in the spring and fall. I miss the freedom a lot. The money is nice to be guaranteed but fishing you never have anybody breathing down your neck and if I wanted to go on deck with my flip flops on there wasn’t a damn camera to worry about. It used to be fun working the oil patch but those days are gone too.
20 years in Alaska and Washington Coast, started on trollers fishing Kings and Silvers, worked for Western Pioneer back when they still operated the largest wood vessel in service, long shoring, then crane driver then deckhand on the old Dolphin for Pio. 3 seasons deckie on S.E. Alaska purse-seiners, then on to Draggers in the Bering Sea, couple hitches on the SS Ocean Phoenix, Bos’n, Mate on the American #1, cutting fish 16 hours a day, more work as Mate for Cold Sea, mothers ship taking cod-ends from catcher boats, Mate on Omnisea, taking crab behind St. Paul Island. Mate on first U.S. Vessel to make test drags in Russia after the wall fell.