Greenie's Life

On the crab boat, no one called Henry by his name. Everyone followed Old George and called him 'Greenie'.

Originally it meant Green Crew, a rookie crew member. In the way Henry remembered it being said, in Chinese it was 'rookie'.

As the military saying goes: veterans give orders, mid-levels wait, rookies endure. No matter where you are, being green means no rights—it's like an unwritten rule.

On the Annie No. 21, Henry was indeed the only one without any offshore crabbing experience. Even the least experienced among the others had followed Old George's boat a few times; this year was their second year aboard.

Being green meant knowing your place—Henry had that awareness. Besides, he really was starting from zero, knowing nothing. Of course he couldn't rely on his super strength to beat everyone into submission.

If he wanted comfort, he could go home!

But under Old George's leadership, there was no deliberate hazing of newcomers. Because the first day out, sailing to the crabbing grounds in the Bering Sea, was the only peaceful time.

What followed was a terrifying, non-stop grind!

A crab boat worked nearly twenty-one hours a day. That didn't mean there were three full hours to sleep. Those three hours were scattered throughout the day, leaving maybe just over an hour of actual continuous sleep.

Work was divided into shifts of two to three hours each, with five to ten minutes of rest between shifts. That time was used for eating, drinking, and bathroom breaks. So a crabber ate five to six meals a day.

Lunch and dinner had longer breaks—twenty to thirty minutes. Those were the only two chances all day to eat hot food. The rest of the time, it was simple dry rations.

The work was complex and dangerous. Crew members had to hang bait bags filled with minced meat in the center of iron crab pots weighing 350 kilograms, then drop the pots about 150 meters below the surface to lure crabs in to feed.

But that didn't mean everyone could rest after tossing a pot overboard. How could a boat have only one crab pot?

The operation was continuous. As soon as one pot was dropped, the earliest one had to be hauled back up. Whether it had caught any king crabs or not, it had to be reset with fresh bait.

One major issue during this process was icing. Ice wasn't like seawater splashing onto the deck—solid ice wouldn't flow back into the sea through the scuppers on its own. Some even froze onto the crab pots.

If too much ice accumulated and wasn't dealt with immediately—by smashing it with sledgehammers and throwing it back into the sea—it could affect the boat's center of gravity and cause a capsize.

So even if all the pots were in the water and none were being hauled back, everyone still had to smash ice. There was no chance to sneak a break.

Dropping and hauling the pots, of course, relied on the boat's crane. Henry, as a greenie, couldn't touch the crane. He basically worked alongside the veterans around the crab pots.

And don't think king crabs were some docile sea creature. Even when hauled to the surface, where their activity was lower than on the seabed, their hard shells, spikes, and claws were still very real. Even if you weren't stabbed or pinched, just grabbing a king crab could injure your hand. Gloves were a must.

Of course, Henry wasn't about to let some king crab hurt his hands. But he didn't make a special case by working bare-handed to show he was invincible.

Besides the non-stop work hours and the unfriendly target crabs, the biggest challenge on a crab boat was the sea conditions.

In October and November, the Bering Sea was firmly in winter weather. Arctic storms sweeping down from the North Pole mixed with seawater, forcing the crew to work in near-freezing temperatures. Sometimes fine snow even fell.

And there were often strong winds exceeding 26 kilometers per hour, whipping up waves ten meters high. Crab boats were small—there was no way they could be stable. In such working conditions, just standing steady was a challenge.

Not to mention the big waves that frequently crashed over the boat, sweeping careless crew members overboard. Fortunately, crab boats weren't warships—if someone fell in, rescue efforts were made. But in such harsh sea conditions, the difficulty of rescue was obvious.

You could say the first hurdle—and the biggest one—for anyone wanting to work on a crab boat was not getting seasick. Or at least, trying not to get seasick...

If you got seasick, you'd be too busy throwing up to do any work.

So these harsh sea conditions, the terrifying work hours, and the troublesome king crabs were why Alaska's crab boats were always short-handed every year.

As for Henry, he'd originally wondered if he could just take it easy, get more rest—wouldn't that be better?

But after actually experiencing the work environment, he didn't need to ask anyone. He could answer that himself.

Ice-smashing had to be done constantly, and the sea conditions were that bad. Being able to sleep soundly on a boat like that would take enough skill to nap on a roller coaster.

So everyone on a crab boat would surely agree: fill the boat fast, then get back to port quickly.

Who in their right mind would protest about too little sleep? Get it done early, get home early!

At times like this, an experienced captain was crucial. Besides steering the boat through wind and waves without capsizing, he had to accurately judge where the king crabs were.

Because king crab migration patterns weren't fixed, and they didn't show up on fishing radar or sonar, the harvest depended heavily on the captain's experience, intuition, and luck.

If luck was bad, time at sea stretched out, and risks increased. If the captain was sharp, the boat could be fully loaded and heading back in about five days.

What Pole had told Henry earlier—about a trip taking about two weeks—that was the kind of result a lousy captain would get.

Most people couldn't last two weeks. After maybe a week or more, even if the hold wasn't full, they'd choose to return to port for rest.

After all, this kind of high-intensity work was a fight for survival, sustained by adrenaline. If you pushed too hard and someone dropped dead on board, or the whole boat was lost, that wouldn't be good.

In those few short days, Henry's performance in the eyes of the veterans was more than satisfactory.

In such a high-intensity work environment, the worst thing was a useless teammate, and there was no time for workplace bullying.

Henry's rookie status couldn't be erased—there were too many things on the boat he didn't know, and he loved asking questions. But once he asked and did it once, he almost never made the same mistake twice.

The reason I say 'almost' was because coordinating with others inevitably led to some hiccups in tacit understanding. But no one complained, because a single shout was enough for Henry to correct himself quickly.

Who wouldn't be satisfied with such a worry-free crew member? A 'greenie' like him earned the least of anyone. There was nothing to envy.

His learning speed and efficiency at work gave him chances to do things beyond the basics.

You could say that except for the ship's wheel, which he hadn't touched yet, Henry had handled every tool on the crab boat, inside and out. And no one had objected. All this in less than five days.

New book requesting follow-up reads, collections, recommendations, thank you~~