Seaworthy Read online

  The little peephole in the door slid aside, exposing half a face. The cell door swung open, and my attorney said that I was free to go now. It could have been hours or days for all I knew. He said that someone was waiting for me with a car, and asked that I follow him. He warned that there would be media burning film and asking for comments. He advised that I not comment. The processing officers bade me adieu with smiling faces. The cameras had thinned out, with only a few hangers-on left to record me reclaiming my freedom. Apparently a handcuffed female American captain being led into captivity was more newsworthy than one exiting on her own steam. Someone did ask if I had anything to say. I answered, “No, thank you,” and wished the attorney hadn’t been with me. I knew I had the ability and ammunition to put real teeth in sound bites. Oh, well, I still had an arraignment in three weeks and, I supposed, a trial. For the first time in twenty-five years, I regretted not following my mother’s advice to go to law school.

  The status of being freshly sprung from jail did not evoke the feelings that I’d assumed it would. Freedom just did not live up to its hype. Not that I wasn’t happy to see Archie and Jim Budi, but I still felt burdened. Arch gave me a bear hug and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “It nearly killed me to see you in handcuffs. I wished that I’d been the one arrested,” he said. And I knew he was sincere. Jim drove while he and Arch filled me in on what was happening back aboard the boat and among the fleet. The electric motor that was responsible for the Seahawk’s steering had been examined and condemned. The other crews were finding their own lousy luck. One of Scotty’s men had broken a wrist, putting an abrupt end to their fishing in order to take him ashore. (Oh, good, I thought, then reprimanded myself for being so petty.) And among our own crew, Dave Hiltz was suffering from kidney stones and was slated to go home. By the time the motor could be replaced, a new man could be flown in to take over for Hiltz. And the fish were biting. An electronics man was working on some of the faulty equipment and would remain on the job, fixing whatever he could until we sailed. And the fish were biting. Arch had lined up a guy to replace Hiltz. He had booked a ticket from Florida and would arrive tomorrow night. And the fish were biting. Scotty had to come ashore, and I wasn’t able to get out and take advantage of a head start. I couldn’t help but think I might as well have stayed in jail another twenty-four hours—even if the fish were biting.

  The layer of the onion that I found most distasteful was losing Hiltz. I was so happy with the team I’d assembled; I doubted the unit could be as strong without my friend Dave. I never have been really at home with complications that arise on land. Too many years of coping with things at sea, where the options are few, if any, had spoiled me for contending with problems on the high and dry, where there are many possible resolutions. If Hiltz had had kidney stones offshore, he would suffer until he passed them. But here we are. And if it’s Dave’s prerogative to opt out, then far be it from me to ask him to buck up. I had worked with crew members who’d been so sick for so long that I thought they might die before we made landfall. But I’d never cut a trip short because of it. I didn’t know much about kidney stones, but I had never heard of anyone dying from them. I couldn’t wait to throw the lines. The fish were biting.

  We pulled up beside the Seahawk. Hiltz was sort of hunched over the fish hold’s hatch with a gallon of water in one hand and rubbing his lower abdomen with the other. I hopped out of the car and stepped aboard. “Gee, that didn’t take as long as I thought it would,” Hiltz said. He grimaced. His usual high color had turned pale.

  “Really?” I asked. “You’re kidding, right? It sure felt like a long time to me.”

  “Try this for a while.”

  “No, thanks. I’d rather be incarcerated, handcuffed, humiliated, and gain a criminal record that will tarnish my otherwise perfect reputation for life than pass a grain of sand through my weenie.”

  “It fuckin’ hurts.”

  “I’ll bet it does. So you’re going home?”

  “I don’t think I have any choice. I hate to desert you like this. I’m really sorry.”

  Before I could further my efforts to sway a change of heart in Dave, thinking that he was using the stone as an excuse to bug out of the snowballing calamity I called a fishing trip, Timmy appeared on deck carrying the electric motor. It was large and looked extremely heavy. I couldn’t imagine how any one man could have managed to lug it up from the engine room. The guy was a brute, plain and simple. His massive forearms were streaked with grease and rust, and sweat ran the length of his face and dripped from his chin. He placed the fried motor gently on the deck and said, “Here’s the culprit.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “The motor—not you, Linda.” Timmy’s signature grin was infectious and elicited the same from me in return, one I knew was the first in some time. “I’m sure glad to see you. I hope it wasn’t too bad.”

  Out from the galley waltzed Machado with an overstuffed sandwich. He bore the telltale signs of having assisted Timmy in the engine room; both perspiration and grime stained his sleeveless T-shirt. “Hey, Linny! You’re out, thank God. How bad was it?” He extended the paper plate, offering me some of his sandwich. I gladly accepted half, sat on the hatch, and replayed my experience to the guys, perhaps exaggerating slightly the tightness of the cuffs and the time endured in them. My men had been working aboard the boat while I was in jail. This was certainly a switch. I entertained them for a few minutes. Then we got to the important part: How soon could we get back offshore?

  Timmy and Arch ran down what they understood of our schedule. Today was Friday, they explained, as if I had just come out of a time capsule. The new steering motor would be installed tomorrow morning, and Hiltz’s replacement would arrive at ten tomorrow night. It would not be possible to leave the dock any earlier than midnight tomorrow. So, they reasoned, there was plenty of time for the electronics man to repair some of the primary equipment essential to our fishing success and safety and for us to enjoy a bit of St. John’s. Machado chimed in here with a recommendation that we check out George Street, which I knew from experience was Newfoundland’s answer to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Fishermen on George Street? Bad news as far as I was concerned. I thought back to the many nightmarish results of evenings spent on George Street by various members of my crew. I doubted that the street famous for the number of drinking establishments and foot-loose, fancy-free women had aged at the same pace I had. But, I wondered, who was I to restrict or advise? I suggested that we all work aboard until dinnertime, have a meal out together, and then go our separate ways, mine being straight to bed.

  And that’s exactly what we did. Dinner was excellent, although I was a bit preoccupied with fears of what kind of trouble the men might find after I retired and left them to their own devices, and I worried about our timing in relation to the moon and the best fishing, and the sad fact that I was not in a position to take advantage of Scotty’s misfortune. Hiltz pulled himself together long enough to eat, but he was clearly in some pain and quite willing to head back to the Seahawk with me rather than venture out with his shipmates. Arch and Tim both decided to call it a night, too, leaving Machado to wander George Street alone. Arch was tired, and Hiltz didn’t feel well enough to carouse about. This was the weirdest bunch of guys I had ever sailed with. Timmy didn’t drink. Not as part of a rehab or a twelve-step program; the man did not drink, period. He had never even sipped a beer in his life, making him the most unlikely of my unlikely fishing crew. With 106 bars within walking distance of the boat, St. John’s didn’t have much to offer teetotalers in the way of nightlife.

  The next morning I woke with the delighted realization that today was sailing day. We would be off the dock and headed for fishing before the stroke of midnight. All this trouble and nonsense of my arrest would be left behind, to be dealt with at a later date. The guys, except Machado, were up, drinking coffee and planning their day. We had a lot of work to do, but there would be a bit of free time this afternoon to relax and regroup for what
we anticipated would be a long stint at sea. We all got busy, even Hiltz, who suffered through building new leaders while consuming as much water as he could in an attempt to flush the stone from his system before boarding his flight home the following day.

  I drifted around, up and down from engine room to wheelhouse, and supervised a bunch of projects and chores that were being done by a combination of crew and hired professionals. The uneasiness of being ashore when others are catching fish was relieved in increments as jobs were completed and the time grew nigh for Air Canada to deliver my new man. Machado surfaced from his cavelike stateroom, perhaps a little hungover but cheerful enough. He regaled us with escapades that had ended at 3:00 A.M., which, surprisingly, did not include any women. His only acquaintance of the night was a homeless indigent named Brian, who enjoyed being treated to cocktails and a late-night snack. The recapping of his time with Brian reinforced what I was learning of Machado’s kind soul shining through a gruff (and thick) exterior. He even had a picture of the cowboy-hatted Brian that he’d taken with his cell phone. “How’d you get rid of him?” I asked, sort of wondering if Brian was hiding somewhere with intentions of making a surprise appearance after we left the dock. (Hey, I’ve seen it all. Nothing is too outlandish to question.)

  Machado knew what I was getting at. He laughed and said, “Don’t worry. I poured him into a cab with a twenty. He’s probably still touring the city.” I relayed that I was overly anxious about leaving the dock and once again starting this trip. And Machado agreed that the time had come for our luck to change. He had enjoyed St. John’s but was ready to go fishing. We all were.

  The waiting was painful for me. I was ill at ease and out of sorts by the time the guys had finished their projects and were getting cleaned up. The electronics man had failed to actually fix anything. I set the men’s curfew at 10:00 P.M. and reluctantly agreed that we were in no worse shape than when we’d left Fairhaven. The plan was to do whatever we wanted or needed until Jim Budi delivered our new man from the airport, which would likely be around 11:00 P.M. I was nervous about the guys leaving the boat, and I hoped they would return sober enough to throw the lines by midnight. Even though Tim had never had a drink, there’d been a first time for all of us. And some of us had had our first in St. John’s. The locals call it “screeching in,” for the rotgut rum distilled here. I had been nineteen, and never so sick in my life. That fear quickly dissipated when I learned that Tim and Machado were heading to a museum and Hiltz and Arch had planned an evening at an Internet café. I was so accustomed to digging my crew out of barrooms at sailing time that I found it hard to believe their plans did not include copious amounts of alcohol consumed in the spirit of “We may never pass this way again.” Although I was getting to know and trust these men more and more, the bad experiences of the past were so pervasive and had been repeated so often that it was impossible to scour them from memory.

  Arch insisted I join him and Hiltz at the café, where I could use his computer to touch base with everyone at home one last time. That was a brilliant idea, I thought. Ten years spent on or near shore had created ties to people other than shipmates, and ties meant certain responsibilities. I hadn’t really given my parents the full story of why I was in Newfoundland. Now that I was out of jail, I could fill them in without worrying them as much as news of my arrest would have. I should also e-mail Sarai and see how school was going and assure her that I would indeed be home by Thanksgiving. Of course, I was sure I was the furthest thing from her mind, which I considered proper. But I was for all intents and purposes her parent, and I wanted to be responsible and acknowledge that I cared about her well-being. And Simon would naturally be interested in whatever I had going on that I hadn’t already told him on the phone, which was nothing. But I would send him a note, too. Much better to occupy the last few hours doing something other than sitting and fretting. We all agreed to rendezvous for an early dinner, and off we went.

  We had been in the café long enough for me to have finished three lattes when Archie decided to give his friend a call to let him know that Jim Budi would meet him at the airport and drive him to the Seahawk, where we would be waiting with the engine running. It was time for his layover in Newark, Arch said, and dialed the number. I didn’t pay much attention to the conversation, as I was deep in a phone call with my mother—filling her in on the details of my arrest, including my opinion that I hadn’t done anything wrong and that everything would work out as soon as I had my day in court, and also getting all of the latest scoop from home. I finished with my mother, promising that I would call next when I returned to Newfoundland to unload a whopping catch—I guessed that would be in three weeks or so. When I hung up, I saw that both Arch and Hiltz were staring at me. “What?”

  “I got him. He’s still in Florida. He says he thought he needed to be here tomorrow night,” Arch said with an air of disgust.

  “Are you friggin’ kidding me? We’re not staying here another twenty-four hours,” I said. I thought for a few seconds before adding, “Call him back and tell him not to bother boarding the flight. We’ll go shorthanded.” And I meant it. My desire to cast the lines had increased to a desperate need. That need had tentacles that stretched and wound and tightened to a strength that threatened to choke me with the possibility that we would remain in Newfoundland while others were catching fish. It wasn’t inconceivable that Scotty might beat me to the grounds (again) while I sat wasting precious time. “Come on, let’s get out of here and find Machado and Timmy.”

  Hiltz stood and said, “I’ve passed these things before. I’ll be fine. Let’s go catch some fish.” So Hiltz had done the right thing. I knew he would. It was near time to meet the others for dinner. The three of us hustled to the prearranged rendezvous, with me leading the charge powered by an inkling that if I hesitated for a split second, something would change and we’d be stuck here forever.

  We met. We sat. We explained. We ate. We threw lines from the dock with a flourish and attitude that the third time was the charm. My grip on the gearshift as I pushed it forward was real. The transformation from out of body to here and now was spontaneous. As I steered the Seahawk through the sheer-faced cliffs that protect the port, I felt deliciously exposed. Leaning with both elbows on the window ledge, hands propping up my chin, I stared down Newfoundland. Not blinking was, for me, a small yet palpable victory in a sea of seemingly random defeats. I stood firm as the Canadian province grew smaller and smaller in the center of my view, looking aft. Dark evergreens merged with grizzled gray bluffs until their blurred amalgamation was surrounded in swirling blues of sky and water—like a stubborn clot in settled-out paint, freshly stirred. The slow-motion shutter that narrowed the lens eventually closed tight, relieving me from the eye-watering contest. The effect of distance was better for the eyes than for the soul. “Out of sight, out of mind” was just an expression with no credibility, I thought sadly. Newfoundland was gone. But not so the feelings that lingered.

  The judge had agreed to allow my attorney to represent me at the arraignment on October 27. That was good news, as I expected to be in the midst of finishing up a trip at that time, or at least attempting to put some weight on the boat. The fish that we’d caught in our first, only, and ill-fated set were in the hold—all whopping twelve of them. Of course, their presence only added to the irritation that I was now finding difficult to abandon in our wake. As far as I knew, whenever a vessel was charged with illegal entry and/or fishing in Canadian waters, its catch was seized and sold by the officials, as it was considered to be the property of Canada. In my case the authorities could find no market in St. John’s for swordfish. Thus I retained ownership of the contraband fish. In my opinion it wasn’t as if I had inadvertently taken something from Canada that they wanted or valued in any way. I had never known of any swordfishing boats that hailed from Newfoundland. There were some vessels that fished out of Nova Scotia. But they export all their catch to the United States, effectively driving down the price that
Americans receive as nonrecipients of the generous government subsidies guaranteed to Canadians by their keepers. It wasn’t as if I’d been fishing for their sacred cod, which had always been tantamount to stealing bread and butter from the very mouths of hungry Canadian children. As it turns out, you can’t give swordfish away in Newfy. I’d accidentally taken something from them that they didn’t even want.

  I reluctantly tossed the bucketful of sour thoughts over the stern and turned back to again face the bow. Consciously refraining from taking one last look over my shoulder, I knew it was time to stop thinking like a scolded child and begin thinking like a fish. Much of the success of this trip, if there was to be any degree of triumph, would be due to some entry into the psyche of my lifelong adversary, Xiphias gladius, broadbill, or the almighty sword. With 260 miles to go to the fishing grounds, or roughly a day and a half, there wasn’t an abundance of time to reintroduce myself to the thought process and the philosophies I’d spent so many years developing in the pursuit and capture of the target species.

  The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s published description of me, which Archie had run across while surfing the Net, as the “Notorious Serial Swordfish Killer” echoed in the recesses of my short-term memory. The title wasn’t actually haunting, but it was distracting in its unfairness. Is that what people who don’t know me really think? I wondered. I had never thought of myself as a murderer, even on my best day of fishing. I’d never had a lust for watching the life be decanted from a carcass. Nor had I acquired a taste for blood. Whatever killer instinct had existed in me, I suspected, had been driven by hunger. It had always been a situation of catch fish or fail, catch fish or don’t eat, catch fish or don’t get another chance—lose the boat, lose the crew. In the past I had to kill fish. It was a matter of survival in the business that had become my life. Any loss of hunger would be compensated for by passion. I love the hunt, the battle, and the conquest. These passions had not dulled.