Backbreaking work: Deep-sea fishing in the Arctic Ocean | DW Documentary

The first winter season for this new fishing trawler from Cuxhaven. It's one of the most modern in Europe. For both crew and vessel, the expedition will be a test of endurance. We are all in the same team and the others are enemies. So we want to fish more than the others. And now the adrenaline, time to watch out. I'm going to pass the bus now. Fishing in the Barents Sea can be profitable and dangerous. At these temperatures it can all be over fast. 33 men, almost two months at sea, thousands of kilometers away from home. A floating fish factory. Perfect, guys, thank you! Tromso in northern Norway. The trawler sets out from here. Come on. No, that's a different one. I don't know if you can see if he's standing sideways. The ship will weigh anchor tomorrow. Putting one behind the other is better. If you would hold the straws together. Deckhand Christian Meyer has to get provisions on board. What's that? A long one. You know, they don't. Together with Luciano Costa. Double this one up. Okay. Thank you. The trawler from Cuxhaven will be at sea for 40 days. 50 days. These look like frozen goods. And then there's the fresh produce section, fruit, vegetables, and so on. There's bread, too, in there, I think. Pepperoni pizza. Pepperoni pizza. Ten tons of food for 33 men. Pedro Costa is Luciano's brother. Being cold and wet is part of the job. That's just how it is. You get used to it, being out in the cold. Pedro and his brother are deckhands for the Deutsche Fischfang Union, or German Fishing Union, the company that owns the vessel. You gotta go on up. My father spent 15 years at sea in Portugal before we came to Germany. I decided to give it a try, and then my brother did too. Going to sea runs in the family. It's in our blood. To go to them. Most of the crew here have been working for the German Fishing Union in Cuxhaven for a long time. The pallet is broken. It's a bit broken. That was risky. Ronny Hübner is the on-board logistics coordinator. He was also on the previous voyage. He only had a few days off at home in Rostock. Bacon, huh? Bacon? Yeah. Choco croissant. Choco croissant. Choco croissant. If it's not on board now, the crew will have to live without it for the next few weeks. The ship won't be restocked. Only the ship's cook really knows what's on board. Yeah. In here, yeah. Yeah. The crew works around the clock and eats around the clock, too. It's very important for both the body and soul. That's what they say. The cook's good. Cook Bergleif Johansen is from Iceland and used to run his own restaurant. It's like three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner and then also night food. It's almost four so times 33 people so it's a lot of food. The most important is the bread, to have enough bread and potato but meat I always have enough and then of course we're Because we're fishing some good fish. Fish and chips. That's it! That's it. Does the other one have to go too? Tim has to go too. I have to... But the Berlin can't set sail just yet. It's time for the annual lifeboat inspection. Tim Harders flew in specially from Cuxhaven. The lashings stay on the boat, yeah? Yeah, yeah, it's like this. Okay. This is basically the last... Basically, if someone falls overboard, this is the last chance to rescue them. If someone falls overboard, this is your last chance to catch him. Very difficult at these temperatures. It can all be over very fast. If you're not wearing a survival suit, you only have about three or four minutes in these water temperatures. The water here in Tromso is just under two degrees Celsius, and the journey will take the ship even further north. The lifeboat wasn't lowering properly, so a mechanic replaced a part last night. Tim now has to make sure everything's working in case there's an emergency. First task complete. But there's still work to be done below deck, where the heart of the Berlin is located, a state-of-the-art fish processing plant. How is it going with the equipment? It's okay now? We have run everything. You have run everything? Test run was okay? The ship has a new conveyor belt, simpler than the old one which kept breaking. The belt moves fish crates. Whether it'll prove itself out at sea remains to be seen because there are other factors to consider out there. You've got water, you've got frozen pans. Things tend to slide around when the ship moves. Everything always looks good on the drawing board, but reality can be different. Have a good voyage. See you next time. Nice to meet you. Tim used to be a deckhand, but he now works out of the headquarters in Cuxhaven. I sometimes get restless and would love to just stay on board, but that's a bit tricky with a family. With family, it's always a bit difficult. But I still go out once a year to keep my papers up to date. To keep the papers alive. He's going back to Cuxhaven, and the Berlin is going fishing. The next day, Tromso is the Berlin's second home. This ship heads out from here towards Spitsbergen. My pointy. You're happy and you're not happy. You're away from home for a long time, but you're making money. Pros and cons. But most of the time, you're just glad to have a job. That's a great job. As long as you make it home again, it's all good. All good. It's always good. Yeah. Ok boys, release spring. Stefan Vidar Thoriso is captaining the Berlin for the very first time. He's only been working for the German fishing union for three months. The Berlin is the most state-of-the-art ship in the fleet, and one of the most modern trawlers in Europe. Every vessel has its own character, so you need to learn a little bit. Many of the equipment here I know from previous vessels, but there is always something new. And then it just takes a little bit time just to get the feeling. Like with a car, when you buy a new car, you're a little bit nervous first, but then after a few days, then you get a better feeling. His job is not only to steer the ship, but also to find the best fishing grounds. There are some spots that are more likely than the others. They're going to try one spot, but maybe we have to move after that. And then it's just fishing nose. It's a game, yes. We are competition, we are competing with other vessels. This here is one team. We are all in the same team, this crew. And the others are enemies. So we want to fish more than the others. Three, four, three, two, one. Stefan first steers the ship to the opposite shore to refuel. 600,000 litres. Tim Shaw from the Thunen Institute is also on board as a scientific observer. The Federal Research Institute regularly sends staff members out on German fishing trawlers. Tim will be documenting what the crew catches. I'm not interested in specific fish, it's more about the stock. What does the stock look like? What's it made of? That's the main goal. And he used the data to set quotas for the coming year for commercially exploited stocks. All the countries with fishing rights here set new quotas every year, how much and what kind of fish each trawler is allowed to catch. Tim's findings play a key role. As a neutral observer, I wouldn't exactly call myself a marine conservationist, but indirectly, by monitoring the stock, you're protecting marine life from overfishing. But the first catch is still a day away. The Berlin has refueled, and the pilot is on board. And I go a little bit astern, and then I take the bow and just support the stern on the pier. Yes, we can do that. But there is one thing I would like to do because it's traditional for a company. When we go here, I'm gonna take a one round to starboard because it's traditional for a good safe voyage. No problem. As long as we don't crash into anything, it's OK. Yeah, that's what I mean. The Berlin has 300 nautical miles ahead of it, about 500 kilometres. Through fjords and into the Barents Sea, the pilot will disembark just before the trawler reaches the open sea. See you next time. Thank you very much. And I'll see you in 40 days. Bye-bye. The Berlin needs one night and one day to travel from Tromsø to the fishing grounds, to the waters south of the uninhabited Bear Island, off the coast of Spitsbergen. Stefan has been here before in other trawlers and knows the area well. There is a good fishing place here around Bear Island. We are going to try there. Nobody has been there. We will try the first catch close to Bear Island. Near the end of its journey, a problem arises. The guide rope, the main connection between the net and the ship, is broken. It needs to be repaired before the ship reaches the fishing grounds. All the fishing gear hangs from this steel cable. If it snaps, the trip is over. The rope will need to be spliced, ideally by a professional. But the deckhands are also trained in making repairs. Peter's shift has just begun. It's kind of like braiding. I'm just a 30-year-old class president. If the guide rope breaks, the whole net could end up in the water. The net, the boards, everything. Replacing everything would cost millions. With million cost. At least half a million. It's now a finished place. And make ready for put on board. The repair took an hour. The line can now be reattached to the spreader boards. They weigh several metric tons and ensure the net remains open on the sea floor. Arrival on the fishing grounds. The captain is asleep and the first mate and helmsman command the bridge. It's cold, so let's see how long it will take. They monitor both the net and the ship. the ship. This allows them to coordinate better during the haul. Valbjörn Valbjörnsson is the captain's official deputy. First tow is all about catching some fish, not too much, just to start the first factory. Get it up and running, and after that, we go full in. So always in the beginning, we try to start slowly while we are starting everything up again. So we'll see what happens. Two, three, four, five ton will be very good to see if everything is running. And if you have no major problem, you will start to try to push for more, a lot more. Fishing is a slow business. The first catch is always a bit of a gamble, but helps the crew decide what comes next. The men only earn more when they catch fish. They get a percentage of the sales on top of their base salary of about 1,500 euros. They're hunting for cod on this trip. . Fish is expensive right now. We're hoping for a good trip, if that's okay. We're hoping for a good trip. I don't know what to say. But you never know what's coming. Three hours later, the first haul. The Berlin is fishing with two nets simultaneously. It's caught nine metric tons of cod. The catch was better than expected. Three tons per hour, towing hour. And it was actually not so much for the first hour, so for the later two it was very good. Much more than expected. It was actually just supposed to be a test catch. Pidwell's shift continues below deck. The Berlin is what's known as a factory ship. The cod is processed as soon as it's hauled in. Petrol's first task is on the heading machine. We have to hook the fish in here so that the cut is exact. We have to hook the fish here, so that the cut is made exactly behind the fin, to make sure no part of the product is wasted. If you make a cut like that, you end up throwing away part of the fillet. Much of the process is automated, but removing the head still involves a bit of manual labor. This is a normal job like any other. Other people do the same work every day. It's no different. Two hours later. Pedro's shift at the factory was supposed to be over soon, but he's already been assigned a new task. Back on the bridge, Captain Stefan Wieser-Thorisso is on duty again. They say goodbye to the factory and then the people who work on the ceiling come. They let the factory know. And then the people working on deck come over. ...change back into their work clothes and get ready to haul in the net. Stefan called him over because not enough fish were being caught. I believe that maybe one jagger, one breitl could be broken on one of the trawls. We are going to hoist now the trawl and take a look. Of course, it can be something broken on the net as well, but I hope it's not. And... The headline is loose on both trawls. It's broken, the upper breitl. We will just fix it and we will shoot again. They can't fish properly. Trawling is suspended for now. Almost all the deckhands are from Portugal and many even from the same village. Just this broken one small stroke wire and top wing stand back because it's safety chain is broken same. I think it's fast and bottom and sometimes it's... The safety chain is designed to break in an emergency. If the net gets snagged on the seabed, the chain breaks, not the net. Yeah, I know, this is cool again for cooking, yeah. No need to change the throat. An hour later, the net is lowered to a depth of 300 metres. The nets used in bottom trawling are controversial. Environmental groups say they destroy the sea floor and even entire habitats such as reefs and corals. The two nets are huge, 100 meters long and 30 meters wide. They need 20 minutes to be lowered completely. The fifth day at sea. The Berlin had been planning to travel a little further south, but since the first catch things couldn't have gone much better. We are alone on the area, nobody is here, and therefore we try to keep it like that, the fish for ourselves. It looks like they've hit the jackpot with this northern fishing ground. It looks like it's quite good as you can see here on the echo sander there is some life here. Here is definitely fish in the mid water and here we can see he has dropped down on the bottom and this is what we saw in the night so I assume it's still there and here you can see size up to up to 120 centimeters long. It gives me indication that what is what is in these echoes is long like this so therefore it's most likely a fish. Herder Masson is the Berlin's chief technician. He wants to get the hot tub working again. It broke down on the last trip. Yeah, using the hot tub after a long hard day at work gives you, yeah, you relax, relax your body and makes you more ready for the next day. We are working long hours and so it is very important to maximize your recovery for the next day. But the hot tub will have to wait for now. He's needed in the fish processing plant. There's a problem at the filleting station. The conveyor belt has suddenly stopped working. I believe it was overload on the motor. We had to reset the drive. Inverter drive. So it needs to be working now. Problem solved. Back to the jacuzzi. The replacement part has been flown in specially. Last trip there was a breakdown on this pump. We are going to replace it now. A hot tub on a trawler. A novel amenity for a fishing boat. After a long hard day, it is remarkably good to relax in the warm water. And the seawater is even better for your skin and everything. So that gives release from stress after a hard day's work. Close here. La, la, la, la, la. Yes. The fishing industry is also suffering from a lack of young talent, which is one reason why trawlers are becoming more comfortable. The water is running, but the pump breaks down again an hour later. No one's going to be relaxing in the hot tub on this trip either. Tim Shaw supervises the next haul. He's known on board as the biologist. In fact, he's a technical assistant. He's been interested in fish since childhood. I'm checking to see if we've caught the target species or not, or if there's a bit more bycatch mixed in. If I see a bit more red, that usually means there is a bit more Atlantic redfish in there. It tends to be bycatch. Quite a lot of redfish, probably caught with a net. A trawl net. The type of net is definitely important. We also record what was used to fish. With bottom trawling, it's unavoidable. Various species live on the seafloor, and catching just one species is impossible. You always have bycatch. Redfish don't bring in much money, and there are quotas for bycatch, too. Once those are reached, the Berlin has to stop fishing. But the next haul is another good one. The Berlin doesn't want the competition to know. We are not just on towing speed here. And then the other vessels who are monitoring us, they see we are just probably fishing. And maybe they'll show it's not so much activity here. But they don't know that we have the net on deck. It's a little bit playing. Stefan's idea is that if he keeps the vessel moving slowly, no one will suspect that the Berlin is catching so much that the crew has actually had to suspend fishing. There's more than enough to do at the processing plant. Even for biologist Tim, he scrutinizes the hauls. 65, 2355, 75, 1950. That's a male, 41 centimeters, 900 grams, caught again. He takes random samples and documents his measurements with a voice recorder. 69. First, the length. You can see that quite clearly here. And the weight. For most species, that's all there is to it. With the rays and sharks, you can also determine their sex with the naked eye. This one here, for example, is a female. The male would have two additional appendages. These are marine creatures, too. Sponges. So big! I have never seen them this big before. Off Greenland, there's another species that gets just as big when they come to the surface. It's unusual for them to be that big. But I record those too. I record everything that comes up. All of it. He works 12 hours a day. The Berlin had been alone in these waters, the nearest ship 200 nautical miles away, but now she's got company. We bring out spare parts for them and they bring spare parts for us. Sometimes it's very big packages, but you see sometimes the trawlers only need a small package. It's a phone for the bridge on Kirkela, and you see we package it very well if it goes in the water. And they have some medication for the hospital here on board. The medication arrived in Tromso too late, but it is vital. Painkillers and antibiotics. The Kirkela is a fishing trawler from the same company. It's on its way. Docking right next to each other is too dangerous. The men can only exchange goods using a dinghy. Stay there, stay there, stay there. Perfect guys, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, package is on board and Kirkela mob boat is gone. That was very easy. It's easy when the packages are this light. Day 6. Chief technician Hrder Masson has been called to the fish processing plant. The issue is serious this time. There is a blinking light on Y2. Y1 is constant. At point 11 and 12 there is a constant light. Y1 is constant, Y2 is blinking. We are dealing with two or three problems at the same time. It will be related to any of them. Ten men at the fish processing plant can't get on with their tasks. Nothing's working. And so far, no one knows what the problem is. We're at sea for 40 days. Every hour wasted is money lost for us. A technician back on land is on the line. I need tourist service. I don't know what's cooking it. If the problem can't be solved, the ship may have to return to shore. The crew would lose thousands of euros. This was a very eventful and learnful evening. We know that it is related to this inverter and this conveyor belt and cable, so now it is not influencing any more other parts of the system. We are isolating it from the system so we can continue to run the other parts. The system is now back up and running, after nearly seven hours. The cause? Probably a short circuit due to a faulty component, which has now been disconnected. Do you feel our symbiont? It's back up. We're back in business. It was about time. Now we know production can continue, and we don't have to call at a port. We don't have to run a hairbrush, because if we did, we would have made a mistake. If we hadn't found the faults, we might have had to return to a port, and that would have been more lost time. A relief, for sure. That seems to be good. Now the crew has to process the last catch. The trawler set out from Tromso five days ago and is now fishing south of Bear Island off Spitsbergen. The weather conditions are ideal, but a storm is forecast. First mate Valbjörn Valbjörnsson has been hauling the full net through the sea for hours now. The processing plant has no more room for fish. While they are fixing the problem, we just wait with the fish mid-water and he's just swimming around in the cauldron. It stays alive and healthy there, and now the factory is ready, so then we just hoist it up and start again. One or two hauls were lost due to the factory problems, and with that, a fair bit of money. A lot. I would say up to 100,000 euros. Then finally, the OK from the fish processing plant, ready for a new catch. If everything goes smoothly, the deckhands will need about 20 minutes to haul the entire net back up from the seabed to the deck. One of the wires is broken so one of the trolleys is not coming correctly. The Berlin is fishing with two nets at once. One of them is twisted and has to be straightened. Then the deckhands can haul the catch on board. It's a good catch. This is just the perfect amount. Eight, nine tons. It's fast through the factory, fast in the freezers. The deck crew's shift has just begun. They fish around the clock in two shifts, eight hours on, eight hours off, with no days off. The floating fish processing plant is below deck. The faster the fish get into the freezer, the better the quality. Immediately after being caught, they're decapitated and then have to bleed out in ice-cold water. Ori Haraldsson is the plant manager and is responsible for quality. I squeeze it out and see how much blood comes out, whether it's white or if it needs a little longer. Larger fish take longer, smaller fish are quicker. It's getting quicker. Almost every part of the fish is now processed in a nearly fully automated system. The most valuable parts are the fillets. The innards are turned into animal feed. The skin is used to produce collagen for the cosmetics industry. Luciano Costa is at the filleting station. He handles whatever the machine can't. That they are completely clean from... To make sure they're completely free of bones. Sometimes a fin gets caught in there. We cut that off, and then they're basically clean, so you can throw them back in. Good lighting is essential. Every now and then you'll see white spots here. You can feel them too. If you run your hand over them, you can still feel the bones. So you trim that part off a little, and then you can toss them back in. Everyone on the ship has to do a bit of everything. Jorn Arngrimsen is a highly experienced seaman. This is the last quality control. So if the guys in trimming are not doing a good job, then we see it here. And if they leave some blood or something, then we cut it out. So we want the fillets to be white. And then we also make sure when we pack it, that the fillets are not touching each other. That's why we use the plastic. And here, Speed is very important. The more you pack, the faster you do it, the more fish we can catch. So here we want the guys to work fast. So usually when we get new guys, we put them together with the old guys so we get a little bit of competition going on to get them up to speed. Jonas from Iceland, like many others, he hopes to eventually become a captain. Cook Bergleif Johansson alone is responsible for feeding the 33 men on board. Bless you. Hi. Can you give me like 12 kilos of big, big cod? Yeah. I have it all side here. Yeah. He starts preparing lunch early in the morning. Very good. Excellent. Thank you. Bergleif, known as Bergi, lives in Sweden. He used to own a restaurant, but it closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. He then became a ship's cook. Yeah, most of them. But some don't eat. But we always have something different if they don't eat fish. You can do so many different things with one fish. I love fish. These fish were swimming in the Arctic Ocean just a few hours ago. Oh, it's unbelievable. So fresh and good. Best fish in the world, I think. Most of the cod the Berlin catches is destined for the UK, where it's turned into fish and chips. Bergi's father also went to sea as a cook on a fishing trawler. Lunch is ready. Now he has a few hours off before the next meal. Down at the fish processing plant, Tim Shaw is also hard at work. The observer from the Thunan Institute is collecting data on the fish population. Size and weight are easy to measure. Age is a bit more complicated. So I'm cutting the... I cut open the fish's skull and remove the otolith. The otolith is a small bone in the inner ear. Here we go. I lift it up with tweezers. There it is. There it is. The otolith is the only way to accurately determine a fish's age. I dissected insects and frogs during my training, you learn all that. This isn't anything new, it's just standard practice. No different from the lab. It would be the same in the lab. Tim's data helps determine how much cod can be caught next year. It's very... It's pretty intense. There's no other way to extract the otoliths from the fish. And the processing keeps going here. And everything is time-sensitive. It has to be timed just right. He spends 12 hours a day surveying fish throughout the entire expedition. At least, that's the plan. The Berlin has now been underway in the Arctic Ocean for eight days. The weather is slowly turning rough. Captain Stefan Vidal-Thorisso is on the bridge. The Berlin, the most modern trawler in the entire fleet, is packed with computers and sensors that indicate, for example, whether the fishing gear is positioned correctly in the water. Now I see that the battery on the door sensors need to be replaced, so we need to replace the door sensors with a fully charged battery. We also want to do it now before the bad weather. The storm is expected to reach the Berlin's fishing grounds as early as tomorrow night. The fishing gear is covered in sensors. They're designed to ensure the fishing is as effective and environmentally friendly as possible. Trawl nets are controversial. Environmental groups have been criticizing them for years, saying they destroy the seabed. The trawl clump is a heavy steel roller designed to minimize direct contact between the net and the seafloor to prevent damage. It too is equipped with sensors. All this high-tech equipment is new to the crew. Each individual sensor costs as much as a small car. This allows us to see almost every part of the fishing gear. What the doors are doing, what the clump is doing, how the trolls are on the bottom, how much fish is in the contents. So this is very good for us. We have a few types of sensors. These are for the doors and clumps, so we can see how the doors are standing, if they are falling down and how far apart they are. And these are the new ones we have. There's an eye here, so we can see once we stop seeing, then we know there is so much fish that the sensor doesn't see the bottom anymore. These are very good. The sensors have been checked. That's one less thing to worry about during the storm. Luciano's shift is over, and he's handing off to Ronny Hübner. There's another pallet ready down below. You can take it away, write it down. I've got the boxes, and everything's ready. Everything okay? Is the freezer empty? Yes, one freezer is empty. Luciano has been working for the German fishing union for six years. He lives near Cuxhaven with his wife and three children. You're exhausted after eight hours. You're just looking forward to eating something, taking a shower and going to bed. Eight hours later, you start all over again. He's away from his family for six weeks and shares a two-person cabin just a few square meters in size. The shifts are scheduled so that one person always has the cabin to himself. First come down a bit, sit down a bit. First, I wind down a bit, sit down and relax. Then I check my phone and text with my family a bit. I'm starting to write with my family. Internet is only available via satellite. Yes, it's sad that you can't do that with the family. Yeah, it's kind of sad you can't be with your family, when something's going on at home or whatever. There's nothing you can do. You're here. But when you're at home, you're just happy to be with the family and have some free time. You're working around the clock here, but when you take time off after a trip, you get to be home for a bit and spend time with the family. At least Luciano's brother is with him on the ship. The wind is starting to pick up. Tim has weighed and measured enough fish for today. Now he's preparing the otoliths for the lab in Bremerhaven. He has to document everything precisely. Which otolith belongs to which fish? How big and how heavy was it? He wants to collect about 900 by the end of the expedition. They are cut in half, and then, just like with trees, you can see the growth rings, the winter and summer rings. These are crucial for determining the age of the fish and for stock assessment. You can draw precise conclusions about the age of the stocks and the fish, their size and weight. That information is then factored into the stock assessment. This is extremely important for the fishing industry because it essentially provides the raw data that determines quotas. Both the fish stock and the fishing industry, including the jobs it provides, are meant to be preserved, which is why it matters. Matters. Fishing companies are required to have scientific observers like Tim on board. He's the first aboard the Berlin. Night shift on day nine. The next haul is coming up. Pedro, Luciano's brother, is the deckhand in charge today. I'm going to switch to some of these miyajis. I'll take care of it. I make sure everything is hoisted properly and give instructions from below on what to do. They can't see everything from up there. He's normally the one up there, controlling the net. But they're a co-worker down, so Pedro has stepped in. First the hunters come in. The jiggers are coming in. We have to check if they're broken or damaged. What are your expectations? The jiggers are the steel cables that connect the net to the ship via the main line. More to my side, please. Okay, good. It's good. It's good, Zé. One is damaged. It has to be replaced. But first, the net has to come in. We'll haul it gradually, because it's a bit much. That's good. Good catch. It's good. Good catch. The nets have been full since the start of the trip. But they can't be too full. Otherwise, Otherwise the fish get squished, and then bloody. Both nets are full, although they also contain redfish. By catch. That's not what they're after. Reel it in. The fishermen have to use every single fish they catch. That's the rule. The net stays up for only a few minutes. Time is money. The faster we set the net, the more we catch. The more we catch, the more we have for ourselves. About 20 minutes after hauling it in. Here we go. The net goes back into the Barents Sea. Ronny is primarily responsible for logistics. He prepares the fish for shipment. It's stored at minus 20 degrees Celsius in the freezer, which they call the hotel. On other ships we didn't have a hotel like this. It was all just mixed up and you had to go down and sort it all out. Here it's sorted automatically. Okay, all the boxes are there. Then I look at this. These boxes contain just one variety. Let's say we have 60 boxes. It shows me that. Here's a full pallet, here's a full pallet. I can take them out to make some more room. Then I just click remove to the pallet and it moves on to the pallet. Fully automated, the cargo hold contains a two-storey warehouse. 700 metric tons of fish can be stored here. About 100 metric tons are already here after just over a week at sea. In good weather you don't notice anything, just like on land. But when the seas are too rough, the forklift has to stay in the garage. That's my main task. That's actually my main job. I'm up front in the freezer. It's my job to make sure the fish is packed properly, the right size and the right box with the right number. Then I stow it all away and everything gets catalogued. The Coast Guard wants to know where everything is. He hopes to keep doing this job for a few more years. For a start, I love the sea. I've been at sea for about 25 years now, and it pays well. It's a huge difference from what you'd earn on land. There is no difference to what you would earn on land. OK, one more. Everyone here on board earns between 10,000 and 15,000 euros per expedition. Tim Shaw has a problem. He's had toothache for two days. There's an infirmary on board, but no doctor. Captain Stefan is in charge of medical care. When he's ashore, he regularly takes crash courses at a hospital. I'm gonna take a look at your... into your mouth if I see something, some marks about the teeth. It's supposed to be with this side here. Yes, left side. Okay. Is it this one here? This one? This one? Yeah. Okay. If Tim's problem is serious, he'll have to leave the ship. Okay. Either the tooth is damaged or there could be starting an infection in the tooth root. If it is an infection, then it's possible to kill it by antibiotics, a very strong dose. But if it's not, then it's bad teeth. And if he will have damaged teeth for many weeks, he could get infection in his blood. So that's why it's very important for him to go to a dentist, I'm sure, to take a look what is going on. It's better to leave now, because I don't know how things could go. I reckon toothache is one of the worst kinds of pain there is, especially at sea. But he can't get off the ship just yet. There's no vessel around that could take him on board and bring him ashore. And the crew has to storm-proof the ship. There is a net here I want to make a little bit faster, because we have a very bad storm coming. With gale force 10 winds and waves up to 8 meters high, switching ships would be far too dangerous. Jorn checks all the hatches one more time. We always have to think about the safety of the guys on deck. Even though the vessel can continue fishing, we maybe don't want the guys on deck in bad weather. So it's going to be pretty rough around 20-25 meters per second. This vessel can handle it. But if the waves get too big, then we have to stop. Two hours later, Pedro is back on duty on the bridge. It's something no one wants, right? Bad weather. The wind is strong and the waves are getting higher. It's already quite dangerous for the guys out there. For the people out there, you have to be really careful. You really have to be careful that the nets don't swing out to the side and catch on something. The wines are being washed and so on. Pedro is in charge of the men on deck. Fishing is very dangerous. Every year, about 100,000 fishermen worldwide die on the job. I have to look closely. I have to watch very closely. Something could happen at any moment. Just a moment. The catch has to be brought on deck. On older vessels, the men would have had to suspend fishing in this kind of weather. The other ships had the ties off at the bottom of the deck. On older ships, the winches were outside, down on the deck, so you could go out there and help the guys and stuff. It's always so uncertain that they're always working like that. I feel totally uneasy watching them work while I'm up here. Another full net. Twelve metric tons. Careful. Careful. A few weeks ago, the weather was so stormy that the vessel had to seek shelter in the fjords. This time the crew is continuing to fish. The storm doesn't subside until the next morning. A second trawler is now on its way to the Berlin's fishing grounds to pick up Tim. When the boat goes in the water you stay in the middle of the boat in front of the steering wheel. I will be behind it so just see where I am and there you can hold on. So if you stop on the ladder I can maybe go up and go on to you. So just grab on to the ladder and go. Okay and it will be fun. To cross the open sea, Tim needs a survival suit. I'd love to stay on board longer, but it is what it is. I have to go. Jorn is keeping Stefan informed. The Santa Princesa also belongs to the German fishing union. Many of the men on board learned their trade on her. Now it's going to carry Tim home. Okay Berlin Bridge, I have all guys on board. We are waiting for your permission to go. The lifeboat is 10 meters down. Tim will then be taken to the Santa Princesa. Cast off. The crossing to the other trawler takes just under five minutes. The waves are still high even though the storm has passed. As soon as you have a grab on the ladder, go, go, go. Go, go, go. The biggest challenge is using a rope ladder to climb from the lifeboat onto the Santa Princesa above the freezing cold Barents Sea. Third time's a charm. For Tim, the expedition is now over, but for the crew of the Berlin, the journey will continue. Another 30 days of deep-sea fishing on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.