School Buses off the Coast

School buses? That’s right. While waiting for a friend pick us up some shaft bearings at an industrial supply house in San Diego last week, we struck up a conversation with a guy who was getting parts to try to get his refrigeration system going again on his 70-ft commercial fishing boat so he could head up to Oregon and Washington. He said that friends told him he wasn’t missing much up there because the fishing was slow, but that there was a lot of debris in the water.

Debris from the Japanese tsunami that included some large items — including at least one school bus. His fishermen friends told him that there was so much debris that they were limiting their fishing and movements at night. But fishing boats aren’t the only commercial vessels out on the water. There are U.S. salvage boats scouring the North Pacific for stuff they hope to be more valuable than fish.

So be careful out there.