Just Another Tuna Pilot Guide (Download)

Ok this one is for those of you thinking of heading out to the tuna fishing world. I took a few days and put together a short (60 page) guide based on my experiences in the fishing grounds as a tuna pilot. There is a port guide at the end of this that IS NOT

Poaching Tuna (Jan 30)

No, I don’t mean in the kitchen. The last few days the Captain has taken to doing an early morning flight, just before the sun comes up over the horizon, not that it has done us any good so far. The tuna schools don’t seem to break the surface until the sun is well up

The Kitchen is NOW OPEN (Jan 21)

The Kitchen is Now Open Apparently even in the middle of the ocean and thousands of miles away from the nearest port there isn’t much job security. Today I had a passenger to transfer from our boat to another boat, the ships cook. Well, former cook. Last week I could hear the Captain going on

Skunked, also…Economics of the High Seas (Jan 16)

I transferred to this boat, the Shilla Jupiter, on the 6th. It had already been at sea for a week at that point and when I came aboard I eventually got around to asking the fisheries observer how much tuna we had onboard already – the answer was that in the week they’d been sailing

The Fine Traditions of Korean Drinking (Jan 12)

Today was one of those days that you know you just aren’t going to fly during. The crew know it, and the officers know it because the boat is moving from one fishing ground to the next on the chase of what has been lately elusive tuna. In the high seas you aren’t allowed to

Ramen (Jan 9)

It has been a few days since my last post dedicated to The Roaming Pilot specifically, I’ve been working on something else. I had a lot of people on facebook asking me for tips and pointers or guidance on the tuna pilot thing, some even asked me to write a guide. So – that is

Today was a Cool Day (Jan 7)

Today was my first real day of flying for the Shilla Jupiter. The first flight of the day was run of the mill, except that instead of flying with the Captain or the First Officer, the Second Officer is the designated passenger on this boat. Not sure if that is a Shilla thing or if

The Sea God…King…something (Jan 6)

After today’s transfer and demo flight and getting settled into my accommodations my mechanic and I fashioned a shelf for my bunk so that I could have a place for my laptop. The rest of the day was spent not doing much, as there was no need for flying. They closed the tower (observation and

Be Flexible Part II (Jan 6)

In my post for January 1st I wrote about how you need to be flexible to do this job. I would stress even more the importance of that now. On January 3rd I wrote that I might be transferring at sea to the Shila Jupiter and that came true yesterday. The Captain of the Shila

The Difference Between Ships (Jan 5)

I’m guilty of thinking that there was some sort of standard of operating procedures on tuna boats no matter who owned the boat or where it was based. I mean of course there is, a common rank structure and the work is more or less the same, but sociologically each boat I’ve boat I’ve been