Beaded Gangions

For the past couple of days I've been in the whale research office doing a variety of jobs, but mostly stringing beads onto gangions (as seen above). Gangions are attached at intervals along a longline and then hooks are attached to the gangions before the lines are strung between buoys behind the fishing boat. The beads that we're adding to the gangions will hopefully deter the sperm whales that like to steal fish off of the longlines. We are stringing gangions on three sets of line, each 600 ft long. It takes 1000 gangions!! It's a big job, but the ladies in the whale office are so funny, I really enjoy working there. The fisherman who will be using these lines while data is collected about their efficiency stops in every once in a while and he's quite a character. He's this very loud older man named "Bud" whose hearing is going so we never know if he's really comprehending what we tell him. There are some very funny interactions.

The North Pacific Fisheries Council is still in town and I sat in on part of a meeting today. I think I understood about 10% of what was said, but Linda gave me a dumbed down version afterwards. There are some really heated debates. I won't bore you with the details, but it's cool to hear discussion about longline fishing policies and actually know the people that the changes would be effecting directly. It makes me want to understand the issues even more.

In other news, I found an awesome bakery/café. It's called "The Back Door" and it's tucked behind the bookstore in town. I'm going to try to limit my visits to once a week, but I've already been twice this week and I'm totally going tomorrow since it's my birthday!!