Tenders on dive harvest boats are responsible for regulating the diver’s air and water supply and processing the harvest. From the deck, the tender listens to the diver’s breathing through an intercom system and watches their air bubbles in the water to ensure that the diver stays on the plot and is safe from passing boats. Understanding underwater communication is a skill: “A lot of it is situational. If I see him coming back to the boat and I hear him say something, more than likely he’s telling me to turn off his water. So I’ll turn off his water.”

Chris Harnish: geoduck dive tender

“I really like the water--the maritime industry in general. I worked on a couple salmon boats and did a little bit of crab fishing up north in Alaska. And then I was like, ‘man, this is just really, really hard.’ It’s great money, but hard. So, then I came down here and got introduced through a friend to geoducking.”

“I figured if I could get seasonal work for all seasons then I’ll have a full-time job all the time and still have time to travel around and do what I like to do. So I’d work and make some money and then take off and do whatever seasonal work I could scrounge up.”

“For me it was growing up being a runaway, being homeless, being a junkie; then I was like, ‘wait, I don’t have to be a victim. I can actively control my life by working.’”

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