Baptism Under Fire: Life On The Bering Sea by Robert Yarber

I have been a Bering Sea Fisherman. Rob does it all man! What is the Bering Sea like?

It's dangerous, that is for certain. If you are reading this, you’ve probably seen the TV show “Deadliest Catch”. What’s nuts is that I have not! After having lived through it, I know for a fact I would’ve never done it if I had seen the show haha. It is soooo dangerous! Are you kidding? The things that I have seen and experienced would blow your mind. However, how I even got on a boat in Dutch Harbor is the mind blowing story. Even how I got to Alaska in the first place. Where to start? The story is quite unbelievable.

My Norway dream was dying. So was everything else in my life. I was having a baby with my lady at the time and our baby died. Then our relationship died. Then I fell headfirst into a deep depression that included lots of drug use. That, in turn, led to me getting fired from my job. This all happened real quick in a matter of weeks. It was like bam, bam, bam, bam! I was going down, going down fast, and almost going out for the count.

I was a few months into my madness and I was watching not only my dreams, but my life go down the drain. I needed to get away. I needed a fresh start. I begin to look for employment out of state. Anywhere but here you know? I go onto craigslist. Yes THAT craigslist and I saw an ad for work in Alaska! It peeked my interest because I’m trying to get away right? It says that it’s a company in Alaska that will fly you to Alaska to work for them and they have housing provided for you. The Last Frontier it said! Come explore Alaska. A free trip to Alaska, being able to get away from drugs, and save money to get to Norway. Let’s do it. The craigslist ad was being placed by Goodwill. Yes THAT Goodwill and it was through Job Connections. The crazy part is that I had just missed them! They had already came to my town. They had already came to the next town! Then the capital. Then Portland! This opportunity came and went. The only way I was gonna be to do it was if I drove to another STATE!! They were having interviews the next day in Vancouver, Washington. I lived in in Corvallis, Oregon. That’s between a 2-3 hour drive away. Of course I went! It wasn’t even a question, that’s what I’m saying. I wanted this BAD! I drove to Washington and sat through the video and got interviewed and asked questions and I was ready to go! The guy interviewing me must have thought I was crazy because he said to me “You do know the job you’re going to be doing right?” and I did. It was a pretty shit job tbh. Standing for hours shoulder to shoulder picking parasites out of fish or gilling crabs. It DOES suck. To me, this is what I had to do to get to where I wanted so I couldn’t wait to begin! I had a singular focus. They said that I had to get myself to Seattle, Washington on a certain date and they would fly me to Anchorage and then Dutch Harbor.

First of all, that ad in craigslist was a lie! A good ol’ bait and switch. Dutch Harbor is a super tiny town, on the super tiny Aleutian island named Unalaska. When I say the ad was a lie, I mean that you cannot explore the last frontier on Unalaska island. It takes about one hour to walk the entire island. There is no phone service or WiFi anywhere!! The phone company charges like $25 for a gb of service! It’s insane. You don’t see nothing but your dorm room, the game room in the main building that has a billiards table, the weight room, and the TV room, and the factory you work in. It’s not a proper representation of the last frontier side of Alaska is what I’m saying. It’s just really cold and you go from one building to another building. The whole thing has two bars! Technically there are four bars but two of them are the bar inside the airport and the bar inside the one hotel. Otherwise you are left with the sports bar and ironically named Norwegian Rat Saloon.

When I got to Alaska, the only thing I was thinking about was Norway. It’s fitting then that the very first thing I saw when I got to Dutch Harbor, was a big guy wearing a Norwegian Rat Saloon hoodie. In that moment I swear I knew that that place would be involved in my story somehow. You could call it fate perhaps? Opportunities were being drawn to me. The only thing I needed to do, was be unafraid to take them.

In the first days and couple weeks actually, there were big storms. As a matter of fact, storms prevented my group of people from even getting to Dutch Harbor. We had to stay in the airport in Anchorage for almost a week! Sleeping in an airport is not comfortable at all. I really think airports need to change their chairs to make them comfy for people who have to stay the night there. A lot of travelers spend a lot of time in airports and its so uncomfortable grr. I digress, then a small window of decent weather allows us to fly in the tiny “puddle jumper” plane to the island. Much like our group though, there were other groups of workers also waiting at the airport to fly to the island. So we weren’t working because we didn’t have a full team of workers. We also didn’t have any boats coming in because of the storms and them not catching stuff. Nothing was happening. I had an idea in my mind that Alaska was gonna be where I went and worked my butt off like 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 4 months and since I was on this tiny island I wouldn’t be able to spend my money and I could just work lots of overtime and save and be able to have money to go to Norway. That did not happen. The storms made it so there was no work. We just sat, everyday, for almost 2 weeks. I got no service on my phone. I really want to download some movies on Netflix and videos on YouTube. A guy comes up to me and says “They got WiFi at your bar!” My bar? “Yeah, YOUR bar, the Norwegian joint, $5 gets you WiFi on their property for 24 hours”. That’s funny that he said my bar. I had been talking about Norway so much that this complete stranger was already associating it with me. It’s funny but it’s also cool. I was fully focused on making this happen.

I thought of Alaska as training ground. I’m thinking Norway is cold so if I can make it in Alaska, I can make it in Norway. I’m from Virginia and it does snow there and it does get cold but Virginia is not the Arctic Circle. I gotta make my bones in the Arctic Circle. This no phone service is killing me though, I need this WiFi. The problem is that I am completely broke. It was all my money to get a bus ticket to Seattle. I always say “I came to Alaska to GET money, I didn’t come WIT money lol”. I didn’t even have the $5 for the WiFi at the Norwegian Rat. I would have to borrow it from my bunk mate. We were in dorms provided by the company we were working for. We were four to a room with two sets of bunk beds. I was on the top bunk, my feet hung off the end, and yes it sucked. I ask my bunkie if I can borrow the $5 until we get paid and he agrees but he only has a $20. I take it upon the promise of bringing him back $15 change and repaying him the $5 when we get paid. I walk to the bar, stormy wintertime Alaska, with a puffy coat, my phone, and my laptop in a backpack.

The Norwegian Rat Saloon. If it’s not world famous it should be! I hope I can help make it world famous. It changed my life forever. Inside that bar, I would meet the people who would offer me a job on a boat! The manager of the bar is named Kim and she’s a delightful woman and the bartender Jazz is her daughter. I would end up spending a lot of time in that bar. I go to the bar and get a code for the WiFi and instinctively put it in my phone. Then I try the same code on my laptop and it doesn’t work! Oh no! I really needed it for my computer because the screen in bigger for watching movies. So without permission I spend $5 on a second code for my laptop. I’m like fuck I’ll just have to explain to dude and hope he isn’t too mad over $5. I am completely wrong for that. It just happened to work out for me and I’ll tell you how in a minute.

I’m in the Rat waiting through the slowest download times ever. The storms are making it so bad. My download had paused. I’m just waiting and in the meantime I see a group of guys come in the bar. These guys are flashing lots of cash and spending it at the bar. Remember how I came to Alaska to get money? haha. Exactly, and a closed mouth doesn’t get fed, so I get up and walk over to the group of guys. I straight up ask how they got all that money. If it’s legal, I want in! I haven’t even been working really because of storms and then we had an orientation/half work day and worked for two full days, then more storms. At this time, we are in the fourth day of not working again. Every day that passes with me not working is a day less of wages I could have earned and put towards Norway. I wasn’t nervous or scared to approach these guys. I was more scared of not going over there! I was more scared of going to Alaska and coming back with nothing.

The main guy is from Yakima, Washington and talks with me and he tells me that I need to get a job on a boat. THAT’s where the real money is. That’s where he got his money. However, it’s extremely hard to get a job on a boat. People fly into Dutch Harbor on their own and just walk the docks looking to get work on a boat. So he tells me that if I look online and sign up or something, that maybe this time next year somebody will contact me. That doesn’t help me at all. lol I was given hope and then just as quickly, my hopes were lost. I order a water from the bar so that I’m not empty handed and go back to my corner booth to sulk about my life and attempt to regroup. I ended up falling asleep actually and I wake up the main guy I was talking to tapping me. “You want a job on a boat?” Well of course! Dude, I was just talking to you like 45 minutes ago! He says “Two guys just came in the bar looking for somebody for their boat! They’re outside smoking by the smoke shack. Go holler at them and I know YOU can get a job.”

Outside were the Deck Boss and the First Mate of the F/V Aleutian Sable. They were each drinking a bottle of beer. Direct is always best right? The same way I went direct to the Yakima guy is the same way I walked up to these two very seasoned fishermen. I was definitely nervous. My heart was racing! This right here could be the moment I was waiting for. I have zero idea what any type of boat job means though. I have never even been on a boat! haha I just know the only way I am gonna make the money to get to Norway is to get on a boat. I only worked 2 1/2 days for the original company that flew me up there but I was seeing how 16 hour days with lots of overtime were actually 10 hour days with lunch and breaks were basically 8 hour days! And that is only on days you are working, which we weren’t. I was there 3 weeks and had worked 2 days. Now, not only am I not gonna make the money required to go to Europe, I’m not even making regular money. You would be making less money than working at any job wherever you came from. I looked at this boat opportunity as the one that could change my life. But outside talking with them, I was not off to a good start.

They asked me a few questions, “Do you have any boat experience?” I answered back, “Not exactly, no”. “Have you ever even been on a boat? Do you even have gear?” the Deck Boss asked me and I had to say to him “No, I have not been on a boat before and define gear?”. I was the GREENEST of greenhorns but I could tell these guys were in a tight spot. They had to take me. I told them that I came up to Alaska looking to work hard to make a dream of mine come true. If the job doesn’t involve anything super technical and just requires bravery and hard work, I can do it. Hey! I can do it. I had NOOO idea what I was in for haha. Later I would find out that they had a guy they had met who was supposed to go to their boat and interview with the crew. This had just no showed the night before. I would even meet the guy later and thank him! haha But it was only because of this guy not showing up to his scheduled interview, where he was gonna get the job, thats just a formality. You have to be an extreme asshole to get turned down by a boat of fishermen. So because he didn’t show up, now they had to literally just walk into a bar and ask if anyone wanted to go out to sea. Then we cross paths and they take me on.

This is a big moment in my story and in my life. The Deck Boss tells me that they will take me on and I have until he finishes his half empty beer to make my decision. Wait, they’re taking me on?!? OMG! Ok what does that mean? All of my stuff is in the dorm room. The only people that know about this are us 3 so far. I have about 30 seconds to make the biggest decision of my life up to that point. I have no phone service, meaning I cannot even consult with my parents or anything. What is even happening right now? These are two people I’ve never met before, offering me a job I’ve never done before, on a boat I’ve never seen before. These are the type of moments that change somebody’s whole life. Do you go for it? Or do you play it safe? Understand the full gravity of the situation. I was flown to Dutch Harbor, Alaska by one company. That same company provides me housing and feeds me 4 awesome meals a deal. The only way this company will fly you back home is if you complete your contract. If you quit for any reason or get fired, they will not fly you home and its an expensive 2 plane tickets to get you back home. This boat is offering no security though. If I leave to go on this boat and then suck it up and get let go, I’ll be in no man’s land. I wouldn’t even have enough money to fly back home, and to stay I would have to beg the company I just no called and no showed, to hire me back. I cannot fail. I put my laptop into my backpack and say “fuck it”. I’m on my own now. Later my Mother would tell me she was calling everywhere looking for me! She called the morgue, the police, everywhere. Imagine, had I been scared and played it safe, none of this would have happened! But about this “gear”. I don’t have any!

My lack of gear is a problem. They tell me that we can go across the road to Alaska Ship Supply and get everything we need. Wait, who is gonna get everything? Remember I am broke! Please don’t tell me that against all odds I have found myself a boat job, but I can’t accept it because I don’t have the necessary gear! The first mate is name Tom and I pull Tom aside and explain to him that I don’t have any money. I can’t afford to buy anything. He tells me that’s fine because we will just charge everything to the boat and they will take it out of my pay. Oh really? Let’s get it. I had to buy everything because I was gonna now be living on a boat! In addition to rain gear and an extra pair of boots. I had to buy 2 pillows, sheets, a blanket, snacks, food, tiger balm (MANDATORY), socks, sweats, hoodies, and anything else you can imagine. I had a whole shopping cart full of stuff. I didn’t even know about Tiger balm. I was told “we get it in on our boat” and that I would need it. Huh? What does that even mean? Is this gonna be hard? It sounds like its gonna be hard. By the time I get to the checkout line and get all my items scanned, my total bill is over $1,500. This is all happening real quick, its only been about 45 minutes since I first met these guy and now they’ve bought me $1,500 worth of stuff. Or rather I’m in debt $1,500 that I am gonna have to work off. I guess this is real.

We go from the bar to Alaska Ship Supply, which is a big Home Depot type store, right to the boat! What about my things?! My suitcases? We are sailing out the next day. I get to the boat and get introduced to everyone and do all of my paperwork and I had to take a drug test and I get shown around. I meet the people in my sleeping quarters. Mau was my bunkmate. He was a career fisherman and had been on boats over 30 years. He was Samoan and very knowledgable. I used to ask him questions about all sorts of stuff and as long as you treated him and your shared area with him with respect, he was cool. I never had any issues with him. On the other side was Ed and Chris. Ed was a dreadlocked black guy from Los Angeles and Chris was white guy from Wisconsin. A crazy mix! Our “room” was so small that all 4 of us could not stand up in it at the same time lol. The next day Tom drives me over my dorm so I can grab my stuff. I still have the $10 change from the $20 my bunk mate gave me and I didn’t even have to explain why I spent $5 more than I said. The reason for that is because my bunk mate had lost his key to our room. A key replacement cost $20. I still have my key and since I’m leaving I work out a deal with him that he can just have my key and let me keep the change. Whew! That worked out nicely for me.

Back to the boat, we’re sailing out. It takes 18 hours to sail to where our pots are. My boat is a pot fishing processing boat. That means we have a bunch of “pots” on a “string”. We put the pots out and then we spend all day going around each string to get the pots. In the pots will be fish! All on the boat we take those fish, we head the fish, meaning we cut off the head. Then we gut the fish, then we weigh the fish, freeze the fish, break the freezers means unloading the freezer, package the fish, and by the time we are done its all ready to go! Right from our boat you can put it put it in your freezer or you can eat it or whatever. We were catching Alaskan Cod. We caught 1.2 million pounds of Cod. Do you know how much fish that is? It’s a lot! This would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Being sea sick is the worst. I had terrible sea sickness. I was told by the deckhands that half of them had gotten sick and half of them hadn’t during their first trips. I bought some Dramamine in preparation and I was popping em like breath mints. The best way that I can explain it is that it feels like your brain is underwater and sloshing back and forth. Slowly, very slowly. You feel like you need to vomit but you don’t want to because vomiting sucks. I was told to throw up but I was stubborn and just kept taking more and more Dramamine, which is only delaying the inevitable. My crew tried to tell me and I didn’t listen but I am telling you now that the following is true. When you are feeling sea sickness and need to vomit, just do it! I swear your brain is trying to recalibrate itself and you gotta vomit so that your brain knows whats going on. After that you will be good! I fought that and instead had days of diarrhea and my balance was off. It’s called getting your “Sea legs”. The best way I can get you to picture it is like a baby giraffe taking its first steps. That’s what its like walking on a boat before you get your sea legs.

While I’m going through the worst sickness ever, I’m also doing the hardest work ever! Every job on a boat is hard! I know this because I spent the first couple days trying to find the easiest job! Hear me now, every job is harder than the last. It only gets worse! I was the biggest guy in the crew physically, so of course they got me doing all the lifting of heavy things. I have to constantly lift 55lb (25kg) all day putting fish into the freezers and then after their frozen, I take a crow bar and get the pans of fish out. Non stop, 20 hours a day. There’s no breaks either, if you slow up the pans will start backing up. If the whole crew has to wait on you it is not good. My muscles are not used to this. The freezer is cold, I’m outdoors, on a moving surface, lifting all that weight, in Alaska, in the wintertime, and I’m sick! My muscles are throbbing, there’s no rest. I need to try a different job on this boat man. It’s too hard. We were SUPPOSED to be switching but I didn’t know that. Because I was the greenhorn, they were making everything two and three times harder than it would normally be! They were trying to see how tough I was. Either that or just run me into the ground so I would quit and they could get themselves a proper fisherman. I ask the foreman for a move. I’m dying! He tells me to go into the hull of the boat and help Chris stack the finished packages of fish and put wrapping around them. You remember them storms? Well now I’m in those storms! On a boat and it’s madness. And I’m in the bottom of the boat. This job was less physically taxing on my body but omg Chris and I would get everything stacked, which is about 25 packages, and then hit a wave and everything would get knocked over, including us! We would then have to hurry to recover in addition to the constant dropping of new bags! It was so stressful. And cold!

The hull of our boat is the storage freezer. We fish and process until we fill up the bottom of the boat, then we head back and offload the boat, then refuel and head back out. So the hull has to keep everything super cold until we get back, so for weeks at a time. I never been so cold in my life when I first went down there. This is how cold it was. My sea sickness was horrible in the hull. I was being thrown around on my ass left and right. I was so sick. I needed a bag or something and so I called up to the foreman to drop me down a fiber bag. I threw up in it. I’m laying on my back dying and poor Chris is having to do all the work by himself. I’m seeing stars. I go to throw up again, this is the second time in like 2 minutes, and unbelievably the vomit i just spewed into the bag is FROZEN! What the hell? How is that possible. I literally just did that! OMG! I’m gonna die. I gotta get out of here. I yell up to the foreman to please let me up, I’m dying down here. I just need fresh air and a toilet. I need to puke and crap. And cry! What have I gotten myself into?? You know, I really thought it was gonna be a lot easier than this. Dakota comes over and starts opening the hatch. When he opens it, he says “Be careful coming up, we’re in a ditch and waves are crashing down crazy!”. He didn’t need to tell me that we we stuck in a ditch, I’m in the bottom of the boat getting tossed around, I am AWARE we are in a ditch! Get out of my fucking way!

Right as I was coming out of the hatch, the world biggest wave crashed into my face! The water was so cold and it went right into my hood and all the way down my entire body. You don’t even know what cold is! Bering Sea, Alaska cold ass water, inside my rain gear, on my face and now coming out of the bottom of my pants leg. I’m wearing thermal pants and long sleeve shirt, then sweat pants and a hoodie, then rain gear, Everything is soaked! And I have to take a crap. And I need to puke again. And I need to change my clothes. Dakota yells to EVERYONE about how I just took the biggest wave right to the face and he’s never seen anything like it before. Fan-tastic! I get into the bathroom and I have so many layers on that it’s a struggle to get out of my clothes! I finally get free and sit down to poop, when as soon as my cheeks hit the seat, I hear a boom boom boom and its my foreman at the door! “Hurry up Yarber! Let’s go!” wtf? Let’s go? I just sat down! My entire world is spinning right now. I have made a terrible mistake! I am on boat in the middle of the damn sea! When I look out in every direction, all I see is water and sky. Nobody even knows I’m out here. My family doesn’t know. My friend’s don’t know. I just casually jumped on a boat to do one of the worlds hardest, most dangerous jobs on one of the most violent bodies of water. As I’m taking a crap, all the crappy water sprays up all over me! I look to the sky and say aloud “Why?” haha. Something with the pressure of the pipes and them being right above the water etc. The point is that apparently, unless we are docked, you wanna poop upstairs. This is my first freaking trip! I thought nothing could be worse than being drenched in arctic sea water, but shitty toilet is indeed worse.

Everything is fast, fast, fast, on a boat. I was super slow in the beginning but by the end everything flowed. The same scenario happening to me later is just me going and changing my clothes. Wet clothes get put in the dryer, wet from water or sweat. If you get covered in poop water, hop in the shower and change and get right back! My first trip was absolutely horrible but I never gave up and I worked my butt off. I would get better and I showed them enough effort for them to keep me on for a second trip. Now my muscles have grown accustomed to the movements and the work and things are moving. I rocked it the rest of the time.

I experienced so much out there. I feel like I lived multiple lifetimes. It’s so much work. Work, work, work. 20 hours a day working your ass off. Then when the boat is full. You have to sail for 18 hours until you get back to Dutch Harbor. It takes 11-14 hours to offload the boat. Then you’ve got to clean the boat. There is always work to be done on a boat. I learned this lesson early. If you hang around on a boat, eventually you will be put to work. One day after my first trip, I’m walking around the boat just looking at stuff and my bunkmate Mau needs help with something. He says it will only a minute or two. He says everyone else is sleeping or at the bar. I agree to help… Maaaan it took 3 hours helping him! So now, whenever my boat is docked and I’m done cleaning, I am OUT!

Bering Sea Tough. Earned, not given. I am so proud of myself for having the courage to do it and the mental fortitude to stick with it. When your dreams are bigger than your fears, you keep going. I was a greenhorn sure but I was gonna earn the respect of those seasoned fisherman and my captain. I was tested. I was challenged. I was physically tossed around. I was hungry and tired. 30 and 40 foot waves crashing down on the boat. I mean the type of stuff that when you look up, you see water! How can you be standing on a boat and look up and see the sea? It’s pretty crazy. You get introduced to yourself out on the Bering Sea. When that time comes and you’ve been up since 5 am and it’s midnight, the sea is slamming water everywhere and gigantic waves are crashing against you, life is shitting on you, and you’re too tired to breathe. When you find that situation on you, that’s good, because that’s baptism under fire. If you can’t make it through that, you’ll never make it where you’re going. And when you do make it through that, you find the only respect that matters in this world. SELF RESPECT.

When it was over, I would talk to captain one on one. I told him thank you for letting me stay on the boat despite a horrible first trip haha. He told me that he had been fishing for ever 40 years. He knows what it takes to come out here and do this work. He knew I was hurting, tired, and was overwhelmed because I had never done anything like this before EVER! And despite all of this, I never complained (to him lol) and I never quit. He said to me, “Son, I didn’t let you stay on this boat, you EARNED your spot on this boat”. Damn right I did.

Rob Does It All.

You see how you can see the sky right there. Imagine walking by and looking in that same spot and seeing water! 😳

My guy Eddie taught me everything I know! 🙌🏾

The sunsets I saw out there are unrivaled.

The birds follow for all the fish guts that come out of the grinder into the water.

I was really out there. Risking my life everyday for my dreams! 💪🏾

You don't see any land in any direction!

Snowing in the middle of the sea! I saw every type of weather out there!

The stuff you never get to see. I took this picture with my phone! #Robventures

I don't even know what that was!!! So I took a picture with it haha.

Alaska. Dutch Harbor. The Bering Sea.