It's one of the toughest jobs in the world, in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Nigel Benson hooks up with Josh Harris, of Deadliest Catch.
What you see is what you get with Josh Harris.
The Bering Sea fisherman is so salty this article would be twice as long if all his expletives were included.
"I started crab fishing with my Dad when I was 10 years old. It's all I know how to do," he admits candidly.
"I didn't graduate from high school or go to college and chicks dug guys with good stuff. The only way I could do that was fishing. I can make $120,000, for seven or eight months' work, fishing."
Josh's father, Captain Phil Harris, was one of the original stars of Deadliest Catch until he died in 2010, aged just 53, from a massive stroke while offloading crab at Saint Paul Island, Alaska.
Josh and his brother, Jake, were working on their father's ship, Cornelia Marie, and joined the Time Bandit after his death.
"It was a chance to take a step back and broaden our horizons," Josh says.
"I wanted to check out the different ways of fishing and improve my skills at crab fishing."
The brothers are about to set sail on the eighth season of Deadliest Catch, alongside The Wizard, Northwestern, Kodiak, Seabrooke and Ramblin' Rose.
And it promises to be a dramatic series, with a halved crab quota forcing captains to roll the dice on fishing the depleted red crab grounds, or risking all in a hunt for the elusive blue crab.
"It was the worst year ever recorded, weather-wise," Josh says.
"The whole Bering Sea froze.
"That's never happened before. It was terrible, with temperatures around -5°C, and we were getting frost-bitten ears. We had a couple of close situations."
Crew members work day and night, for up to 40 hours at a stretch, hauling 300kg pots in 10m seas and 60 knot winds as freezing waves crest the deck.
The crabs are also formidable prey, reaching 28cm in diameter and a 1.8m leg span.
"They have 350 pounds [160kg] pressure in those claws and they'll take your finger off," Josh says.
"About 97% of what we catch goes overseas to the Asian market.
We get about $US7 [$NZ8.60] a pound [0.45kg] for the crab we catch. But they sell for up to $100 a pound over there."
The business is profitable for both fishermen and film-makers, with Deadliest Catch watched by about three million US viewers a week.
The series is taped during the October king crab and January C. opilio crab (known to the fishermen as "snow crabs" or "opies") seasons.
The United States Bureau of Labour lists Alaskan king crab fishing as the job occupation with the highest fatality rate, due to the conditions in the Bering Sea.
In the first season of Deadliest Catch one of the featured boats, the Big Valley, sank, drowning all but one of its crew.
The Harris boys hope to have their late father's Cornelia Marie back in the pack for next season.
"We're trying to buy it at the moment. We're in the process of doing that now. It's not going to be easy, but that's what we're shooting for, my friend," Josh says.
"I would be stoked and he [Dad] would be, too. But there's a lot that goes into it. It's not easy and there's a lot of pressure. The big thing is to catch crab and to keep the guys safe. I just want to get out there and do my best and we'll see what happens."
• Season eight of Deadliest Catch premieres at 7.30pm tomorrow on Discovery Channel.
