Seaworthy Read online

  If Tim was our newborn, then Archie was definitely the patriarch. Not that Arch was ancient, but sixty-six is relatively old for crewing aboard a Grand Banks trip even if you don’t look your age. I suspected that Arch’s blond hair may have had some chemical help in staying blond, but the brightness in his blue eyes was all natural. He had already become the caregiver of our group, counseling, lecturing when needed, and handing out Band-Aids. Because of his age, I had planned for Arch to have a role of light duty regarding deck work and to have him take responsibility for the cooking and extra night watches when we reached the fishing grounds so that the rest of us could get a bit more sleep. He turned and began coiling a dock line, then flashed a huge smile up toward the wheelhouse. Archie was truly thrilled to be part of this team. And I knew he would be a real asset. He’s just one of those smart guys who you suspect retained all of his incidental education while having no interest in formal schooling. Any apprehension I had about Archie’s age was quickly overshadowed by his ability and attitude. Age, like gender, is only a problem if it’s allowed to be.

  To say that Machado rounded out the crew would be an unfortunate pun. He had put on about eighty pounds in the twenty years since I’d first met him and was now quite hefty. Salt-and-pepper hair and a jovial face made everyone like Machado at first sight, which was fortunate, seeing as until his last-minute appearance he was becoming increasingly disliked by his shipmates. His South Boston talk was tough, but his words were gentle. He was, I decided in five minutes, the funniest man I’d ever met. A natural comedian, Machado reminded me of Jackie Gleason. Genuinely satisfied that he was the man for the fish-butchering job, as we pulled away from the dock I was able to forgive his tardiness and the fact that he’d skipped the preceding week of backbreaking and filthy work we’d had to conduct without him. Levity thrown in at the right juncture to help in a heavy situation can be as valuable as light-footedness.

  I cast a glance in the opposite direction from where the last dock line had come. Somewhat forlorn-looking, Simon gave me a shy, crooked smile and half a wave. I thought I sensed a shaking of his head, as if he were wondering what I could possibly have been thinking when I agreed to take the Seahawk offshore for two months. I shrugged my shoulders and mouthed, “I know.” The only slight opposition I’d received with my announcement of returning to this world had been from Simon. He had asked what I was trying to prove. Although I’d answered, “Nothing,” the question haunted me a bit. When I first began fishing at the age of nineteen, I was told that all I needed was a strong back and a weak mind. That proved to be true for many years. Now, at the age of forty-seven, I have a stronger mind and a weaker back. Was this the question I needed to answer?

  I’d been here before, feeling bad about leaving someone special on the dock. But I would never turn back, as I knew from experience that the misgivings and doubts would be promptly upstaged by the nerve-soothing activity of work that had become second nature. Once I had broken the visual connection with Simon, my eyes, my thoughts, and my energy were all focused ahead and into the future. Five hundred miles, sixty days, tons of fish … There are many ways to mark time at sea. And it was all ahead of us. There was nothing to look back at. This is what I do, I thought as I steered the Seahawk through the narrow slot in the hurricane barrier that embraced the port exit shared by Fairhaven and New Bedford, Massachusetts. And this was the easy part. The week leading up to our departure had been pure hell. To be free from the dock and what it represents is liberating.

  Shortly after the call from Jim Budi, I had flown to Florida to attend the “turtle release” workshop and returned to Boston’s Logan Airport fully certified and raring to go. Three of my four crew members—Archie, Dave, and Tim—met me in Beantown with a rental car. It was late at night, and everyone was tired. The guys had spent the better part of the past week working long hours aboard the Seahawk and seemed happy and relieved that their captain had come to join them in preparing our boat for sea.

  The one-hour ride to Fairhaven was filled with fast talk from all three trying to bring me up to speed regarding the condition in which they’d found the boat, the work (mostly dirty) they had performed, and what needed to be done before we set sail. The list of needs was indeed lengthy. But I was confident that this team could burn through it beginning first thing the next morning. For now, I thought, sleep was critical. I knew that the four of us had two adjoining rooms to share at the local hotel, but before we turned in for the night, the guys thought it necessary to show me the boat. “We want to make sure you can’t sleep either,” said Tim as we climbed out of the car at the dock. They all laughed. I knew that nothing could be bad enough to rob me of this night’s sleep.

  The tide was at the right level for me to make an easy step from pier to deck through the fish door, a square opening cut in the hull through which swordfish are dragged from the water. The first thing I noticed was that the boat was port-rigged—set up to haul the fishing gear aboard on the left-hand side. This would be a tiny obstacle, as I had always worked boats that were rigged on the starboard side. Not much in the way of ambidextrous, I realized that the time since my last haulback would work to my advantage, as I was certainly out of practice hauling from the right side. The next thing I noticed was that the Seahawk was much smaller than I had remembered her being and that the work deck was cluttered with stuff that could only be described as junk.

  “What’s all this … shit?” I asked.

  “That’s stuff we took out of the forepeak when we cleaned. There wasn’t any more room in the dumpster,” Arch said, pointing to the steel garbage receptacle on the dock that was overflowing and surrounded by boxes and plastic buckets also stuffed with unrecognizable refuse that I assumed had all originated from the bowels of my new craft. “Those are the tools that I found worth trying to salvage,” he said as he nodded in the direction of a large table made of a sheet of plywood and two sawhorses. The table was covered with a variety of rusted tools, including an assortment of adjustable wrenches that really belonged in the dumpster. “That’s the best of it.” I couldn’t imagine what had filled the dumpster if these tools looked better in comparison.

  Not far from the dumpster stood one dozen of the crummiestlooking beeper buoys I had ever seen. These electronic buoys are imperative to successful fishing. You attach them to the line as it is set into the water, and they assist in locating the gear once it is cut free from the boat and allowed to drift with the current. Steel canisters house batteries and electronic boards that act as sending units of specific frequencies received by the boat’s radio direction finder. Each canister is ringed with flotation and topped with a two-piece, ten-foot antenna. Or at least that was how I remembered them. But not these. This dilapidated bunch of crap couldn’t possibly belong aboard my boat, I hoped. Archie must have read my thoughts. “The electronics guy is coming in the morning to fix the beepers. None of them work.”

  And so it went for the entire eye-opening tour. Every compartment of the boat displayed signs of neglect. There seemed to be a total absence of anything decent to work with. All of the equipment, gear, and systems necessary for fishing far from shore for long periods of time were sorely lacking. There was a fresh coat of paint in the engine room and a rumor that the main engine had just been rebuilt. But other than that, things were shaky. There were three antique computers in the wheelhouse, but my tour guide confirmed optimistically that some local computer genius would perform miracles before we sailed.

  The fo’c’sle (forecastle, or area beneath the forward part of the deck) was okay, except for the head, which sported a leaky plastic toilet that could have been ripped out of a decrepit camper, and the galley, which had been totally scavenged of utensils needed for eating or cooking. The bunks were adequate, except in number. One of us would have to sleep at the galley table. The bench seat on the starboard side had been extended, making it clear which side of the table was meant to be someone’s bedroom. The extension had been covered with a cushiony pad. Nice
touch, I thought as I sat and held my head in my hands. The first of the usual series of second thoughts crept in. “Wait till you see the lazarette. It’s a nightmare,” Tim said in reference to the aftermost belowdeck compartment that housed the steering gear and rudder shaft.

  “Not tonight, man. I’ve seen enough. Let’s get some rest and start fresh tomorrow,” I said. There was nothing the men could show me that would persuade a change of heart in me, I tried to convince myself. The boat was rough. I had fished worse. I liked challenge, didn’t I?

  “How about checking out the Eagle Eye II,” suggested Hiltzie. “She’s beautiful! I sure wish we were going fishing with that boat. Wanna see? She’ll make you feel a lot worse.” The Eagle Eye II, one of the other boats that would be competing with us for the catch, was tied to the dock directly behind us. At close to a hundred feet in length, she dwarfed the sixty-three-foot Seahawk. No doubt she was younger and more beautiful. But jumping ship was not an option.

  “I don’t want to feel worse. Let’s go check in.” The men reluctantly agreed, and off we went to the “dormitory,” where we left the door open between the two rooms and talked and laughed about the predicament that I’d gotten the group into, until finally drifting off to a very short sleep. I wondered whether the boat was as bad as I perceived or if perhaps I’d been spoiled by captaining the Hannah Boden most recently, which in comparison was a yacht. I remembered my years fishing the Gloria Dawn. Now, that boat was a wreck. I was young and proud to be captain of her. My greatest accomplishment during my four-year reign of the Gloria Dawn had been returning to the dock each trip. Even the owner looked surprised to see my crew throwing lines. I wondered whether I would feel the same pride running the Seahawk or if that, like youth, had passed.

  The men and I spent a full week working from sunup to dark and laughing ourselves to sleep in the dormitory. Jim Budi worked along with us and managed a small army of professionals who patched, condemned, and replaced everything that time and budget allowed before the well was declared dry and the hourglass empty. Our time had come. It was my last chance to back out.

  Captain Scott Drabinowicz had arrived at the Eagle Eye II in time to throw grub and bait aboard, and he was ready to go. Scotty hadn’t changed a bit, I thought. The only exception was the addition of a ponytail. He was a big, blond juggernaut of a fisherman who’d been very successful. I remembered that Scotty had always been extremely scientific in his approach to catching swordfish. He had freely shared information and lent good insight. I had always enjoyed fishing around him in the past and was looking forward to doing it again. He was certainly the right guy to hold my hand as I reentered blue-water fishing. Although we had a friendly competition between us—a buck to the catcher of the single biggest fish—I truly believed that Scotty wished me success. Steaming and fishing in his company gave me peace of mind. His boat was the mother ship of the small fleet, and Scotty was like the godfather of sword. Just seeing him was enough to bolster my resolve and check any misgivings. I just couldn’t falter with Scotty as a witness.

  We had certainly transformed the Seahawk, I thought proudly as Archie lowered the outriggers while I steered toward the Cape Cod Canal. I was plenty nervous about the age and condition of nearly every system on the boat. But I would keep those reservations to myself. We could have spent another month working at the dock, but here we were, heading to sea. Arch stuck his head into the wheelhouse. I smiled and pushed a thumb into the air. “We did it. We got her ready for fishing.”

  “I’m a little worried about leaving port without everything working,” my friend confided. “The weather fax and computer software for weather information weren’t fixed. You don’t have any fish-finding technology working. All you have is the surface-temperature gauge and a barometer. And the glass is broken on the barometer.”

  “Yeah, it’ll be like old times.” I feigned excitement and optimism. “The old gal may look a bit rough. But she’s stable and capable.” Although I was referring to the boat, I couldn’t help but think the same could be said of her captain. Jeez, I thought, maybe I should spend a little less time inventorying the ship and start taking stock of myself. Maybe the Seahawk wasn’t the weak link. Age and lack of use were certainly liabilities in terms of the boat’s anticipated performance. Boats do not get better with age. In fact, immediately following the maiden voyage, a vessel begins a steady and stunningly quick-paced decline. But what about me? It was too late to abandon ship with a Mayday from second thoughts. And there was plenty of time for bailing out the swelling self-doubt.

  I had left the dock in the most exhausted state I’d ever felt and was embarking on an endurance test. My legs were already weary of standing at the wheel when I exited the canal into Cape Cod Bay, and I shuddered at the numbers on the GPS that indicated 144 hours to go to reach our destination, a vague spot east of the Grand Banks that I had programmed in to get us headed in a general direction. I would only grow more tired as the trip wore on. What was more tired than dead exhaustion? Now that we had left landmass far enough behind to take a chance, I flipped on the automatic pilot and prayed that it would function well enough to allow me to sit down. It did. I briefly recalled a severe ocean storm that had kept me on my feet and fighting the wheel for forty-eight hours straight. I hoped that I would have some time to get into shape before Mother Nature scheduled any marathons.

  I sat and mentally measured my tolerance and ability to endure what I knew the next sixty days had in store for me. Out of necessity, I had, early in my career, developed my own techniques for the heavy, physical-strength part of swordfishing. I had developed female ways of putting moves on what most people would consider man’s work. Today I was not only female but I was also on the waning side of middle age. A lot changes in a woman’s body between the ages of thirty-seven and forty-seven. Lack of real, tough work had resulted in a fifteen-pound weight loss—and all muscle at that. So I was now smaller and not as physically strong. I would certainly have to develop all new techniques to do what the job required. I would have to, as my old boss Alden had advised in answer to any complaint I registered over eight years of working for him, “toughen up.”

  As the sun went down and we steamed into the Gulf of Maine, I contemplated my own seaworthiness. The ocean’s expectations and demands are so high that anyone who goes upon it must be worthy on many levels. I wondered how I would respond to the sleep deprivation that would surely begin when the first hooks were baited and set. I had always been able to function on four hours a night. Adrenaline had been my caffeine. Would adrenaline flow at the rate it had ten years earlier? Or had that dried up? I could, I reasoned, compensate with coffee. What about my hands? I inspected knuckles that were just beginning to show signs of arthritis. I would need to grab and pull a minimum of twelve hundred snaps from the main line every day we fished. And the snaps were made of the heaviest-gauge wire—gorilla snaps, we called them. I hoped that Archie had brought a bushel of ibuprofen. I wondered how my legs and back would stand up to pulling leaders tight with huge fish that resisted being caught. I had loved every strain generated by hundred-fish days a decade before. Perhaps I would need to stretch and warm up with a few calisthenics each morning. Good thing I had such a mighty crew. Would I have the balance and strength to keep my feet under me in heavy weather? My legs weren’t as strong as they could be. I should have kept myself in better shape. What if my legs buckled every time a giant green wave broke over the top of me? That could be dangerous. Jesus, even my eyes were shot, I realized as I donned my magnifiers to check the navigational chart. I’d never needed those before. No, I thought, age would not be an asset in the physical realm.

  I found a notebook and pen and made out a watch bill that listed the guys in order of the watches they would soon begin. Ten years earlier I would have started the first watch myself at 10:00 P.M. Tonight I wouldn’t make it to 8:30. Maturity can’t hold a candle to youthfulness. Unless, I considered, it’s a mental/ emotional thing. This endurance test would certai
nly go beyond physical. Mentally I needed to be stronger and wiser. Decisions were once based on gut reaction. I’d often made the right decision for the wrong reason. I’d done things purely from the strength of knowing that I could. Now maybe I would be more thoughtful with the realization of the possibility that perhaps I could not. I hoped that the past ten years had taught me something. I must be smarter now than I was when I’d last captained a swordboat. But what about quickness of mind? Would I react to emergencies fast enough? I had always prided myself on my mental reflexes in the face of danger or disaster. I had always been confident beyond reason. Maybe it was healthier to be wiser, more mature, and less confident.

  Then I wondered how old was too old. Although I couldn’t put my finger on it, I knew that I had gained something in seaworthiness that was more important than sea legs. The surest, most telling, indisputable sign of my age was the thought process I was now going through. I had never before wondered about nor doubted myself after the lines were cast and the boat was at sea.

  Hell, I’m not that old, I scoffed, snapping myself out of this reverie of neurosis. I mean, I still had my own teeth and everything, and was thankful for every one of them as Arch appeared with a plate of food for my dinner. He stayed and chatted and watched me eat for a few minutes. “Isn’t this great?” he asked. “Isn’t this a beautiful night?” I felt foolish for the time I’d wasted dwelling on my age. Here was a man old enough to be my father, happy as could be and thankful to be here. Arch wasn’t doubting his ability. I hadn’t even noticed the sunset.