still on the fish

You can see our house Kinnererach from the fish cages at East Tarbert Bay

For most of the Autumn I worked regularly on the fish farms. Usually this coincided with good weather so I missed out on plot work. I also knackered both knees. I suppose a 56 year old marine operative is bound to be vulnerable to a few twisted joints but the left knee now has a torn ligament and the right knee torn cartilage. Okay so a life time spent with much mountaineering, sailing and doing other fairly active outdoor pursuits was bound to leave me a bit vulnerable.

In the bleakest of midwinter periods we graded the fish. This involves lifting the net on a cage, pulling a line of floats half way across the cage and the well boat pumping out the fish from one side, grading them and returning fish within a certain weight category to the other side of the cage, storing fish to be transferred to other cages in their wells. The first night I did this we did over twelve hours without a break from 7 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. It was a starry autumn night and the wind blew up about 7 in the morning after a calm and beautiful night with the Milky Way strewn across the sky. The fish shimmer in the floodlights of the work boats. I have always enjoyed being at sea at night and always loved night watches when sailing. It is very existential when there is a spread of stars. The company pays an antisocial hours allowance for overnight working but this is hardly in the same class as a banker's bonus. The fish grading for me was four days in January of 11,11,13 and 15 hours - again working straight through. The Sunday was 6 a.m. till 9 p.m. but we got it finished ! Now I can't say I like working these hours but it is good to know I have enough stamina to see it through. Problem is I am then too knackered to get on with the build - just want to have a long lie and take a day off. The first law of project management is that you never lose just one day. If you have a day off or the weather is bad or the digger breaks down then you have lost one day's work and another day to catch up - two days ! Any time lost - then double it.... that is how quickly you get slippage...