Seaworthy Page 19

  I decided to start on the warm side of the break, not because Tommy wanted to be there but because that’s just the way I wanted to fish my gear. Five miles into my set, Tommy called asking for my beeper numbers and water temps and positions at turns. He had changed his mind and was now setting on the cold, or inside, of my gear. I warned him that he might be in the sharks, because I planned to touch the cold on every pass over the temperature break, leaving him in ice water for much of his set. He didn’t seem to care until the next day.

  “Fuckin’ blue dogs! I’ll never get this shit back aboard! You can have this fuckin’ spot all to yourself!” It was like music to my ears as I watched my crew clean and ice the last of the fifty-five fish we landed that day. And off to the east Tommy drifted, out of my berth and into the next in line, fouling up his new neighbor in good shape. All these years later, I could still feel the sense of relief.

  I chuckled now as I watched the Seahawk’s water-temperature gauge climb quickly from fifty-six degrees to sixty-seven. Nice edge, I thought, and just below my favorite corner. I’d silently set here and drift right into the sweet spot before anyone was the wiser. From out of the darkness, a single renegade wave slammed the bow with force enough to send the boat back into the crest as it broke over the bow and flooded the deck. I watched out the back window as the crew scrambled around trying to catch the boxes of bait as they sloshed rail to rail in the knee-deep water. Wind-driven rain was pelting the side of the wheelhouse, sounding like a drumroll. Just a squall, I told myself. The next sea caught us on our port beam, rolling the boat onto her side so far that she dipped the end of the port outrigger. Crew and bait were pinned against the gunwale until she rolled back the other way, sending all cascading to the opposite side with the water. I pulled the throttle back. I thought about Tommy. I do not want to be that guy, I thought. I am not that desperate.

  It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Safety, being the first concern, was now on edge and teetering, teasingly toeing the line. I opened the back door long enough to yell to Archie to wrestle the bait into the freezer again, then swung the boat around, putting the now-hefty seas on our stern, jogging fair wind just long enough for the guys to stow the bait and secure the deck for the night. We had enjoyed a great stretch of weather until now. We were due for a little blow. And here it was. “Better safe than sorry” had always been a successful motto. There was no sense adding to our previous roster of miseries by risking an injury. If someone did get hurt or the boat sustained some damage in this gale, it could be serious enough to cancel, rather than postpone, the entire effort. It was certainly wiser, and a better business decision, to knock the boat out of gear and drift with the fleet tonight.

  The Seahawk rode up and over the waves like a duck with her starboard side to the wind. I was relieved to learn that the boat behaved so well lying to. With the rudder hard to port, the waves were pushing gently aft of amidships, each one landing a slightly glancing blow rather than slapping full on the beam. When I spread my bedroll onto the wheelhouse floor and hauled out my sleeping bag and pillow from under the chair, I estimated the wind velocity at around fifty knots. I was glad to have given my bunk to Timmy during my detour into St. John’s, as it seemed so unfair for him to attempt sleep at the galley table. Someone was nearly always opening the fridge or turning on a light to make coffee. Besides, I’d always had my stateroom topside and felt it was the right place for the captain to be. I would certainly have preferred a bunk to the deck, since I hadn’t found a comfy space that would allow my face not to be very close to the watch stander’s feet. I tried at first to sleep on the chart table. But that required me to literally breathe down the neck of the man on watch. If I rolled over, my elbow stood a pretty fair chance of whacking in the head whoever was in the chair. And if the boat took a deep roll to starboard, I might just fly right off the table and shoot down the stairs. That combination of wickets became unnavigable after about two watches, which was when I hit the deck, so to speak. It was a bit of a frig to have to roll up the mattress and stow my bedding every morning, rather than just turn out of a bunk. Now the only danger was being stepped on. I liked being closer to what I needed to see and hear in order to perform the duties I expected of myself. So here I was on the floor and feeling okay about not setting.

  I told my crew that I was putting our safety ahead of productivity on the priority list. And while this was true, it wasn’t the whole truth. I would indeed have fished these weather and sea conditions if I hadn’t been horning in on the Destiny’s berth. Billy had been at swordfishing a very long time and had no doubt experienced all the slimy moves and tricks that any pirate could pull from billowing sleeves. Billy was a savvy guy as well as a tough one. Payback would have come, and it would no doubt have rendered my slight misdeed not worth whatever it produced.

  But fear of retaliation wasn’t it either. Simply put, there is no joy in cheating. I love the process of fishing. Poaching, encroaching, stealing, interloping, pillaging—these had never been my way of conducting business. These illicit practices were reserved for people who fish solely for the money. I had learned long ago that if money is the prime motivator to go offshore, you’re going for the wrong reason. Although I hadn’t gone through with sneaking a set in, I did feel a tiny bit of shame for the adrenaline rush the prospect of doing so had created. There’d always been this hint of titillation in thinking bad thoughts about deeds I wouldn’t carry out. I fell asleep that night watching the radar relentlessly sweeping its circular glass and knowing that I, too, was cleaning a slate of sorts.

  Although the following day was a long one—waiting for five captains to wake up, waiting for five captains to make decisions about where they would begin setting, and waiting for five captains to estimate where they would finish their sets—we began our trip in earnest that night. We began it honestly and with integrity, in a slot just below Swanny, who was below Billy, who was west of Kenneth. A Nova Scotian by the name of Brett aboard the Ivy Rose arrived a bit late and strung his gear outside mine, leaving a nice wide, polite gap between the two strings. Scotty was closing in on the area and would be filling a space between Billy of the Destiny and Kenneth aboard the Eyelander the following night. Charlie Johnson, captain of the Seneca, and Barry Marx on the Dee Cee were steaming in and out respectively, so the fleet now consisted of five fishing and two traveling.

  With so few boats, the ocean seemed to have grown, I thought as I wove back and forth across the temperature break from fifty-eight to sixty-five degrees. I was setting to the south and into the current, with intentions of steaming back to the north end of the gear to haul into the current the next day. Part of the business in this area is constantly stemming the tide, or working against it while setting and hauling, so as to hold ground and not drift away and out of the fleet and productive fishing. Tide is the one thing you can count on always working against you, making efficiency in hauling imperative. We can’t stand for delays of any kind if we want to make sets back to back to back and put a trip aboard. I’ve had days when I won’t even stop long enough to pose with a slammer sword for a quick photo.

  I wasn’t happy to see Archie on deck when he was supposed to sleep during set out so that he could steam the boat back to the other end while the rest of us slept. But I imagined he was too keyed up to miss the very first mark on our fresh slate. He caught me looking down from the deck behind the wheelhouse, flashed a big smile and a thumbs-up. “We’re fishin’, Linny!”

  And we were indeed fishing. We were doing business! We managed to get the gear out and back and back out again without missing a beat. Of course, it’s important to note that I’ve been known to be optimistic to the point of delusional. We were not revolutionizing the sword operation, but we were putting fish on the boat. Our first haulback tallied twenty-eight fish that averaged a little over a hundred pounds each, a very respectable start. We were going through all the growing pains that are part of working a boat that has not been maintained to very high sta
ndards. Timmy, who had now proved himself invaluable in the engine room and on deck, was a real workhorse. He managed, with troubleshooting assistance from Archie, to keep everything belowdecks ticking. Because of the saltwater rain in the engine room, Timmy’s daily maintenance was more extensive than what normally needs to be done aboard a vessel that doesn’t have holes in the deck above the main engine. Timmy worked hard on deck, and even harder fixing run-down, derelict equipment. He took great pride in his work and smiled a lot when fielding frequent comments from the rest of us pertaining to his remarkable progress with the sow’s ear. Not a day went by that I didn’t get a report from Timmy: “I fixed it. I think we’re okay now.”

  The biggest daily difficulties were the ratty main line and the beeper buoys. Archie, who was getting virtually no sleep, was plagued at night by the weak signals from the beepers as he attempted to steam the length of the gear without running it over. The lack of good beepers made for very long nights for Archie and me. Neither of us felt right about leaving the other to the totally frustrating task of trying to get the boat to the end buoy by daylight guided by signals that were faint at best and didn’t indicate the correct direction until the buoy was within eyesight—totally defeating the purpose of the buoys. And part-offs were the worst. We were averaging three part-offs a day, with two days of five. Parted gear is time-consuming enough with good beepers. But with buoys that don’t work well, they eat up days like nothing else, leaving us hauling gear way after dark on some occasions and later than everyone around us on all occasions. We didn’t have as much main line as reported before we sailed. And we wouldn’t have been able to fish any more than what we had in its poor condition. We didn’t have enough floats to fish more than eight hundred hooks anyway. This put us at a distinct disadvantage in the friendly competition within the fleet of boats fishing, some of whom were running fifteen hundred hooks out the stern a night. But we were putting fish aboard.

  Archie was a godsend. He was a nursemaid to the crew, dispensing Band-Aids, Dramamine, and fatherly advice. He really was the glue that kept the other guys together in spite of the hardships we hadn’t anticipated. He put a hearty meal on the table every night. This is not an easy task in bad weather, but it’s imperative for morale. I never knew when, or if, Archie slept. But if he did, it wasn’t when I needed him to take a watch so that I could. I have a most vivid picture in mind of Archie with a cutting torch working on a bird-nested main-line spool that had suffered the worst backlash I’d ever seen. The drum had spun faster than the line was going into our wake while setting out night number six, creating a rather dangerous situation with loops of slack line going everywhere. Some of the loops jumped over the end plates of the drum, jamming tightly into the bearing. We had to terminate the set at three sections and spent the rest of the night clearing the spool of the messed-up line. Archie, who had finally decided to take a nap, came running onto the deck when he heard the boat slow down and worked in the cold rain and wind in bare feet until things were right. His sweatpants were so soaked they wouldn’t stay up. Whoever had a free hand kept it on the back of Archie’s waistband. Otherwise I’m sure he’d have worked bare-assed.

  Hiltz was great, too. He had finally passed his kidney stone, an occurrence cheered by his shipmates, who were monitoring his visits to the head and who met each exit with, “Well?” Hiltz was sort of funny, with his short fuse. He would get disgusted, throw his hands in the air, and say, “That’s it. I’ve had enough. I quit.” The first time this happened, the guys were concerned. Hiltz took off his oil gear and went into the fo’c’sle, leaving us shorthanded on deck to finish hauling. He wasn’t gone long, so I figured he was using the head. When he came back, he went right to work with a smile on his face as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The quitting became a daily episode; he once quit three times in a single haulback. In spite of the drama, Dave Hiltz was truly a great asset to our team. He absolutely did what he said he would when I hired him. He filled in and did what was needed when it was needed, assisting his shipmates in their duties, making himself the most willing and competent all-around crew member. Hiltz had taken full responsibility for the leaders, which required him to stay on deck even longer than the others to keep the boxes full of pristine gear. Hiltz was always the first guy with a gaff when a fish was alongside, and he was always quick to help in the fish hold. When we were catching sharks, Hiltz jumped in to relieve with the pulling of heavy leaders and releases. Machado even taught him to clean fish just in case he fell behind in a real flurry and needed help. Which brings me to Machado.

  Mike Machado had an uncanny ability to tiptoe along a very thin line between being irreplaceable and being fired. By the time we’d completed a week of fishing, Machado and I were in a true love/hate relationship, as far as I was concerned. His whining and complaints were nonstop, ranging from a lengthy punch list of boat problems to issues with the groceries. He was an anomaly, one minute exhibiting sheer laziness, then just getting the job done, then doing it really right. Machado snacked while lying in his bunk. He got up one morning and found an entire Kit Kat bar in one of the folds of fat under his chin. When he ate the melted mess, I was torn between disgust and admiration. In job performance Machado was a great butcher, cleaning fish with speed and expertise. He also had the right rhythm in the stern of the Seahawk while setting out, baiting hooks, and keeping everyone entertained. But he dragged his feet every step of the way, no matter what we were doing. However, I must say that when the going was at its toughest, Machado always stepped up. He stepped up when I needed him most. He stepped up his physical game when he had to, and he always exploited his greatest asset—his sense of humor. I remember clearly a couple of instances when the chips were down—a combination of bad weather and poor fishing—and Machado regaled us all with monologues that would put certain late-night television hosts out of business.

  I went to the galley one night expecting some long faces after a day of miserable weather and four part-offs that cost us this particular night’s set. I was anticipating giving a little pep talk to the crew. The words of a former boss, Bob Brown, were ringing in my head as I descended the stairs: “We work on a share basis. We share the good, and we share the bad. Right now we’re sharing the bad.” Archie was putting food on the table as well as he could with the boat rocking and his eyes tearing from laughter. I had missed Machado’s first act, so I caught his routine in midperformance. He was really getting on Archie about the menu. “Really, Arch, I’m not kidding. Gravy is not a food group, nor is it a staple of anyone’s diet. Please tell me we have vegetables aboard. I mean, other than onions and potatoes. Come on, Arch. Where are the veggies? You know, the green stuff that grows in gardens? We do have some, don’t we? Because I haven’t seen any this trip. How about a salad? Did you order any lettuce? How about cabbage? I like coleslaw. We don’t have a single veggie on board, do we? I’ll have the first confirmed case of scurvy in the last century. My fuckin’ teeth are rattling.” And this from the guy who has treasure hunts for chocolate bars buried in his body parts.

  “We have vegetables,” Arch confirmed through a real deep stomach laugh. “In fact, we’re having stuffing tonight. See?” And Arch set Machado’s plate in front of him.

  “Stove Top stuffing is not a vegetable, Arch. Jesus! Ronald Reagan told America that ketchup was a vegetable! He’s responsible for an entire generation of malnutrition. Okay, forget about the green vegetables. Broccoli and spinach are apparently off the menu for the next forty days. But what about carrots? Or tomatoes? What the fuck? By the end of this trip, my teeth will have fallen out and I won’t be able to chew a carrot anyway. Okay! Now I understand the abundance of cream-style corn aboard this fuckin’ scurvy raft.”

  Arch held up the stuffing container, slipped his glasses from his forehead to the bridge of his nose, and read, “Celery, onions, parsley. That’s green!”

  “Onion powder and parsley flakes? You’re trying to pass that shit off as vegetables? I never thought I’d be
jonesing for asparagus. Linny, how’s my complexion? I’m feeling weak and depressed. My gums are bleeding!” Now I was laughing so hard along with the crew that I couldn’t answer. Not that Machado needed one. He kept going. The last I witnessed before taking my dinner topside was Machado holding the blue box of Morton kosher salt close to his cheek, caressing the picture of vegetables in the logo, and muttering, “Veggie porn, veggie porn.”

  Each time we had to miss a night of fishing because of late finishes in hauling due to part-offs and sick beeper buoys, we lost our place in the lineup with the fleet. But because we didn’t set out, I had the next day to find a new berth—or search for greener pastures, as it were. The good nature of my crew only enhanced my attitude that the glass was barely one-quarter full. We had shifted positions a couple of times. It didn’t seem to make much difference, as the fishing was just sort of average and we knew we needed to stick it out and keep grinding to put a trip on.

  We were getting geared up for our eighth haulback when Archie couldn’t pry Machado from the galley table without feeding him yet another pancake the size of a manhole cover. I was at the breaking point. I was on deck with Timmy and Hiltz and waiting for another warm body to begin hauling. The weather was foul, and I was already anticipating a long day when Machado finally graced the deck with his sauntering presence. The waves were building, and we took a sea that caused his dainty little foot to slip about an inch to one side from where he’d planted it while carefully donning his gloves. That was it. Machado went into one of his hissy fits, cursing the boat and its owner and declaring this whole scene a joke. He looked up at the sky, as if pleading with God to free him from his misery. “I’m a grown man! Why am I out here? I have a real job. This boat is sucking the life out of me!” The big guy was seriously frustrated. But I figured he’d work through it. He’d step up today. The weather was treacherous—the worst we’d seen yet—and we had thirty-two miles of gear to get aboard.