Spending a holiday at sea away from friends and family can be hard. While nothing can completely compensate for missing out on various festivities, we don’t let the day go by without some sort of celebration.
This year, we started July 4th with the welcome smell of brisket in a smoker set up on the backdeck. We also noticed that we were really close to one of our groundfish survey charter vessels, the Last Straw. We jumped outside to take pictures and wave at each other as we passed.
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Fisheries/Aaron Chappell
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Fisheries/Alicia Billings
We ate the smoked brisket for lunch, along with a beautiful ‘Happy Birthday America’ cake for dessert. Dinner was pizza and chicken wings, and our spirits were noticeably higher as we moved into the evening.
We were lucky enough to finish our transect inshore, just off of Cayucos, California. We jogged just south of the line, faced the shore, and many of us went up to the top of this ship, called the flying bridge, to enjoy the view. Shortly after 9pm, the fireworks show started!
Happy 4th!
