It’s a new year and the Opilio season starts on January 15th.

The “Deadliest Catch” crew’s gear waits for them to arrive and outfit the boats for the rest of the long, hard Bering Sea winter.

Merry Christmas from everyone at the F/V Cornelia Marie.  We’re tied up in Dutch Harbor until Opilio season; which starts January 15th.  Of course, the crew will start work before that day getting everything ready.  The Opilio season is a long, hard grind compared to King Crab.  The weather is worse, the ice is a problem and the danger is higher.  Here’s a couple photos of our last offload for King Crab.  These were provided by a blog about Dutch Harbor, called Dutch Harbor Dirt.  Thanks to the webmaster, we’ll be using his photos throughout the season.

This is a follow up to the last post a few days ago.  The F/V Cornelia Marie came into to deliver their final load for the Red King Crab season today.  The guys can now take a couple weeks off for Christmas, but will be back to Dutch right after New Years to get ready for the Opilio crab season.

Christmas is coming, but the boys are still fishing.  We’re one of a handful of boats still fishing for Red King Crab in the Bering Sea.  It’s been a rough season… repairs, bad weather and poor fishing has led to a long, hard season for the Cornelia Marie.  Our buyer says they won’t buy any Crab after December 17th - so the clock is ticking.  Hopefully, this week we’ll finish up our quota and the guys can go home for Christmas.

But, the break won’t be long because the Opilio season starts January 15th.

Are you a member of Facebook?  If not, it’s easy to sign up at http://www.facebook.com.

We have a fan site on Facebook called “Deadliest Catch - F/V Cornelia Marie”.  It’s really easy to find - just search for “Cornelia Marie”.  Join the group and you can check out the many videos, and pics we have posted there.  Somehow, the F/V Northwestern’s Facebook Fan site has twice as many members than ours!  We can’t let that happen  - so please join now.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  The F/V Cornelia Marie is in Dutch Harbor.  We had to stop in for repairs  We can’t head back out just yet because the weather here is bad.

Our mechanical problems have caused us to unfortunately extend our King Crab season.  It’s been a longer than normal King Crab season for us, but hopefully it will be over with one more trip.

Tomorrow is an all day “Deadliest Catch” marathon on Discovery Channel.  See you there.