Back in September we got to tow the near-shore response barge 500-2 to Cordova and anchor up in Nelson Bay for ten days of fishing vessel training. This entails dozens of fishing boats – in this case bow pickers, gill netters, and seiners from Cordova who are contracted to the Alyeska pipeline company to respond in the event of an oil spill – to come out for a week and practice near-shore oil recovery with boom equipment provided by the barge.
The weather was wonderful, we had a massive northern lights show one night, and towards the end of the trip I got to take a walk into town with a friend of mine from another boat. It’s strange to walk a mile or two when you’ve barely walked more than twenty feet in a straight line in weeks.
