Reflections from Antarctica

REFLECTIONS FROM ANTARCTICA  by Doug White

I recently had the opportunity to venture down to the Ross Sea to do a summer season of longline fishing for Antarctic toothfish with New Zealand Longlining (NZLL) onboard the F/V Antarctic Chieftain.

The Antarctic Chieftain is a 61 metre purpose built longliner.  Built in 1998 for a Taiwanese company, it was brought in 2002 by a Russian company then by NZ Longline in 2008.  NZLL spent nearly $1.5 million making it habitable for Kiwis to work on, but for anybody over 1.8m (6 ft in old measures) it posed a few challenges to keep the skin on your scalp!

We left Nelson on the last day in October on a beautiful 25 degree cloudless day in shorts and a tee shirt and 9 days later we were still had a beautiful day (all 24 hours of it) but the temperature had dropped to -1^o C and if you were outside, a lot more than shorts and a tee shirt were required if you wished to partake in the evening meal!

I quickly came to realise that fishing in this part of the world has its own unique set of challenges. The first one is that once you go below 60 degrees south, you are in the CCAMALR zone (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) and nothing whatsoever (even a ciggy butt) is allowed over the side. If you think that MFish and Fishserve tie you up in paperwork here in NZ, try working in CCAMALR - these boys make our team look like amateurs.

The second one is that although you may be where you want to fish, there is this stuff called ice which seems to have a very strong affinity for the fishing grounds. When the ice is thick, all you can do is stare at the sounder and dream, and wait for the next ice chart to come down the wire with hopefully a clear patch of water to enable the gear to go over the side.

Eventually, five weeks after leaving Nelson, we finally got some gear in the water - all 1500 metres of it - only to watch the downline floats promptly disappear from view as a huge patch of ice moved over the gear.  24 hours later, we were still looking for an end and the 5500 hooks attached to it.  The floats were finally spotted when they popped up in-between the ice floes and it was all hands on deck to get the gear aboard and lay sight on our first toothfish.  With an average weight of 32kgs, they certainly give you a good work out in getting them aboard and through the processing room but it was good to finally have some product going into the freezer.

The decision was made to try and push through the ice bridge and get into the Ross Sea so another couple of weeks of bashing ice saw us go backwards on some days and around in circles on other days, just trying to find a way through the ice pack.  One day we had to hove to and drift with the ice and wait for some leads to open up, just as well there was a well stocked library onboard. What this time did allow was a full appreciation of the beauty of the scenery and the inhabitants of the place.  Even though you only see ice, water and sky,  the interaction between all three makes for some amazing sights  which you can only capture glimpses of with the camera (and a cheap one at that), see the photos following.
  
We eventually broke through into clear water and started fishing in earnest and at that stage I wondered if my body was going to last the distance as I was using muscles that thought they had retired many years ago.  Too much time behind a desk driving a computer and not enough real graft!! Thanks to generous dosages of Voltarenand a determination not to give in, the body finally came into line and life settled into a good fishing routine.
 
Christmas and New Year came and went and we were just settling in for the long haul when we had a mishap on the boat which resulted in us having to head back to New Zealand for repairs. Just when it was getting interesting, but that’s fishing as they say.

The highlights for me were the environment, watching Orca try to wash seals off an ice floe and the Adele penguins - Charlie Chaplin replicas.

The trip, whilst not a raging success it was not a failure either and for me, it was a unique experience that I feel very privileged to be able to have experienced.