Seaworthy Page 9

  The ice maker had, like the main engine, just been worked on at the dock prior to our departure. The refrigeration guys had spent the better part of three days troubleshooting when they finally discovered that two hoses (intake and discharge) had been reversed. Of course, by that time they’d replaced every conceivable problematic part in a process of elimination. We were thrilled with the abundance of new parts thrown at the problem before finding the hose reversal, and the machine had made great ice until just a short while before. I now hoped Tim and Arch could pull a rabbit from a hat and, to mix my metaphors, keep us from becoming Nova Scotia’s newest bad penny.

  I poked my head around the side of the setting house, where Hiltz had returned to work building leaders with Machado. “What the fuck, Skip?” Hiltz asked, with wide eyes and arms open to either side, palms up in question.

  “The tide is going out. Don’t worry, Dave,” I said, hoping to calm his agitated nerves.

  “I’m not worried. All I want to do is catch fish.”

  “In that case I’d be worried.” I chuckled as I left the stern and heard the men laugh behind me. They didn’t call us the Shithawk for nothing. As I marched the length of the deck, I could see that my team of engineers had the ice machine surrounded. I elbowed my way between the men to observe that they had the refrigeration gauges in place, connecting the compressor to a bottle of refrigerant. The small, round sight glass that functions to indicate when there is unwanted air in the system, or lack of refrigerant, showed an abundance of bubbles.

  “I don’t know what caused it, but some refrigerant seems to have escaped. We can’t find a leak,” said Arch. “Don’t worry, we’ll have it back up and making ice before the chicken dries out.” Timmy didn’t look as optimistic but didn’t say anything that might contradict his friend. I left the men charging the drum-shaped machine and returned to the wheelhouse to begin the depressing act of figuring distance and time to a variety of ports along Canada’s southern coast. I scanned the chart. It was clear that the most convenient stop for repairs would be the tiny island of Saint-Pierre.

  Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, two lone islands claimed and owned by France, lay just thirty-two nautical miles south of Newfoundland. I had been to Saint-Pierre a number of times in the past when Canada first shut down its cod fishery and thought it prudent not to allow foreign vessels to resupply in Canadian ports while the native fishermen were out of work. The French didn’t seem to mind taking our money, I recalled. Saint-Pierre is, of course, French for St. Peter, one of at least six patron saints of fishermen, a number I’ve always found telling. A trip to Saint-Pierre to fix the ice machine would be the least painful as far as lost time. I would hardly have to change course. And we would be closer to our targeted destination than a return to Sambro or a steam to any port in Newfoundland would take us.

  I sat and thought about the prospect of having repairs done in that all-French-speaking place with only English spoken aboard the Seahawk. I had always gotten by in the past. But I’d never needed anything more than fuel and groceries. “Petrol” was universal, as were hand motions to the mouth to indicate food. I remembered the quaintness of the island and how it reminded me of home. I recalled that Saint-Pierre also owned the distinction of being the only place in North America to have used the guillotine, and I wondered why this was the single fact I could bring to the surface from the depth of ten years.

  I tweaked the autopilot a few degrees to the north on the outside chance that news from below would soon lead me in that direction. Saint-Pierre was a neat place. It had always appealed to me in a “Gee, I sure would like to come here sometime for a vacation rather than as a necessity to get supplies for work” sort of way. Even the time zone was unique! Three hours behind Greenwich mean time, two hours ahead of eastern standard, one hour ahead of Halifax, and thirty minutes off Newfy standard made this island more islandlike than any other landmass surrounded by water to claim the title. It might be fun to go there, if we had to go.

  Who was I kidding? Myself? The truth is that I would feel like a total loser if we had to go to any port for any repairs. The next port of call for the Seahawk had to be Bay Bulls, Newfoundland, with a boatload of fish to unload.

  As it turned out, all this psyching myself up to be delayed was for naught. Tim was gleeful in his exclamation that he and Arch had been successful in fixing the ice machine, which was now “up and making better and more ice than ever.” The weight of pending failure left my back and shoulders as I changed course back toward our original waypoint. I felt as though I had dodged a bullet and could now abandon the defensive stance I had assumed and stand tall. I prepared myself to hear alarms as Timmy warned me that he would be testing them all right away. Arch delivered the chicken dinner, complete with stuffing and lots of gravy. Life was good again.

  In what was now becoming a familiar kind of internal ritual, I realized that I hadn’t reacted to the ice-machine problem in the same way that I would have in my younger days, and I couldn’t help questioning why. I had this ten-year increase in age lurking around my psyche and taking responsibility for everything I did, said, or didn’t do or say. I couldn’t imagine having one of my old hissy fits now. I didn’t want to be thought of by my crew as a screaming idiot who rants and raves in the face of adversity. I didn’t want to act like a tyrant. I had always spoken of working with my crew rather than them working for me. That is how I truly felt, and feel. It went beyond simple syntax. I hoped that the occasional outbursts I was capable of had indeed become a thing of the past—written off as youthful foolishness—and were not playing hide-and-seek. I knew that I was a real team player. I knew that I had an uncanny ability to buckle down when necessary. That quality hadn’t come aboard this trip, nor had it been swept out with the ebbing tide of other things that recede with age. I guessed it didn’t matter why, and I hoped that the anger management would continue through what was feeling like a series of personal tests studding this extended shakedown cruise.

  Forty-eight hours of one thing after another had pushed me to the limit. When the wind picked up a bit, causing a healthy sea, it became clear that the stay wires securing the outrigger booms were too loose. Turnbuckles were tightened to their maximum, or “two-blocked,” as we say, and still the wires were slack enough to allow the booms to wag. Links of chain were removed, and shackles were interchanged until the best combination possible was achieved. When spray became green water taken over the bow, the troughs formed by the sides of the house and the top of the gunwales became sluiceways through which rivers ran. It rained salt water in the engine room. Dripping water over the heat from the engines created briny stalactites that grew down from the overhead like icicles, creating new work for Timmy in their removal. The camper-style toilet in the head leaked water. The generator leaked fuel. Even the electricity leaked somehow, causing static interference in all the electronics.

  The computer quit. The radar quit. Dave Hiltz quit every time something else failed. Things were breaking, sometimes two at once. When it seemed we were outnumbered, we dropped into zone defense. Whoever had expertise or energy to tackle the job became point man, with the four others solidly behind, helping where needed. When the problems slowed to a trickle, we went back to one-on-one, every man covering his own territory. We held team meetings at the galley table to discuss strategy for defense in the next attack, something that flew in the face of what I had always maintained: that a commercial fishing vessel is not a democracy. We planned offense—sometimes a gang tackle, sometimes more of a tag team—to get through the daily chores beyond repairs. The Shithawk had us on our heels, but we continued to move ahead.

  The beeper buoys were a mess. Two of their canisters were full of water. One had half an antenna. One had no antenna. One had a full antenna but no electronic board. Two had faulty switches. One had a frozen switch. The “real gem,” according to Archie, was the buoy with no buoyancy, no batteries, and a cracked canister. We actually stood around that buoy and marveled at how and why it h
ad remained aboard the boat. We were now at the point of laughing at each piece of equipment as it fell. And they fell like dominoes. Deck lights became disco blinkers when the boat rolled just right. We rewired, replaced, and refitted where we could. Where we could not, we placed bandages and secured blowout patches and jury-rigged until it seemed there was nothing left to go wrong. How many times did I hear Tim say, “It’s fixed. I think we’re okay now”? His words soon became known as the kiss of death. In the few moments that we relaxed, we sat and waited for the next thing to break, leak, or malfunction. We hung strong as a unit in spite of the Seahawk’s efforts to divide and conquer. I didn’t have the energy to fly off the handle.

  Archie became known as “Archie Bungee,” for the number of bungee cords he stretched around the boat. Two-part epoxy formed patches until the Seahawk looked like she had broken out with a strange rash. He seemed to have an endless source of bungees and personal first-aid supplies. Bungees and Liquid Skin were like weeds. Archie had put the end of his thumb back together after a mishap with a knife, had glued together a gash on his forearm that otherwise would have needed stitches, and had filled a hole he’d acquired in falling onto the stove in a rough head sea that sent him for a loop—all with the amazing bandage in a bottle. He swore by the stuff, and we all agreed to buy stock in Liquid Skin should the fishing trip not pan out favorably in our financial interest.

  When the water maker bit the dust, I struggled to keep my cool. I ran into a knot before I reached the end of my rope with the ridiculousness of it all. Valuable fresh water was being used to flush the leaky toilet, which was absurd when you considered where you were. Someone had carelessly left a valve open and depleted our entire freshwater supply. I was mad. Now I would have to get a bucket of salt water every time I needed to use the head. And there would be no hot shower after a long, cold day on deck. Tim worked on the machine that makes fresh from salt water until I went to bed. It seemed hopeless. But I resolved to overcome my anger and frustration. I couldn’t blow a gasket. Arch was out of epoxy. Hadn’t I spent the first eight years of my fishing career showering with a deck hose and pooping in a bucket? Yes, I had. I could do it again. And if the captain doesn’t complain, nobody complains.

  When Archie woke me the next morning, he coolly reported that Tim had fixed the water maker and that he had two of the three computers running again. They must have been up most of the night. I sat in the captain’s chair, watched the sun rise, and knew that the worst was behind us. There was virtually nothing left to go wrong. Our teamwork had paid off.

  Arch delivered a steaming cup of coffee and said that he would wake the crew when he had breakfast ready. “By the way,” Arch said as he started down the stairs, “I think we should do some safety drills soon. I put together a ditch bag to take in the life raft and organized the survival suits to make it easy for everyone to grab one.” Although this didn’t indicate much confidence in our fine craft, I agreed that drills were in order and thought that perhaps after breakfast would be a good time to start. Safety was one area where bungees and Liquid Skin would not save us. The importance of working together, rather than against one another, is greatest when lives are at risk. Everyone has his own “station” and responsibilities in different types of emergencies. And we all count on everyone else to do his part for the good of the whole. It wouldn’t do four of us any good if the fifth couldn’t complete his task. What if someone didn’t sound the general alarm to alert shipmates of a problem? What if the radioman forgot to call Mayday? What if the guys launched the life raft prematurely? What if someone neglected to bring a survival suit topside for me? What if the EPIRB (the emergency-position-indicating radio beacon) was inadvertently turned off? What if all the vents were not closed in a fire? The what-ifs were endless. There was only one answer—teamwork. Life-threatening situations are the times when a captain most wants to be one of a single, cohesive unit. It certainly would not serve me well to alienate myself from the men I might ultimately count on for my life. But it was a balancing act of sorts, I knew. I had to guard against becoming one of the guys. That was one sure way of losing control of your command. When the time was right to do so, I would make it clear that I was the boss. So far I hadn’t needed to.

  The smell of bacon made my stomach growl in anticipation. Oh, good, I thought, another low-cal meal. It was no wonder the crew tipped the scales at a good half ton among the four of them. If I wasn’t careful, I would leave the boat after two trips shaped just like a porpoise. At my age it was getting difficult to keep my matronly figure. I wasn’t vain about most things. But weight had always been an uphill battle. There were five pounds that I’d juggled around on a seasonal rotation, and they had refused to migrate out of belly fat as of late. Maybe if I worked hard this trip, I would at least look a bit fitter than I did right now. I would certainly burn off the rashers of bacon Arch served me. And the eggs and toast. I had been heavier in my younger days of Grand Banks fishing, but in better shape and stronger. Food was always a great diversion. When the chips are down, we eat and forget. I so enjoyed the plate of perfectly cooked eggs that I nearly forgot how rotten the past two days had been. Maybe that really was behind us now.

  I was proud of the way we had all pulled together when the going was tough. And I was amazed at my ability to keep my cool. I had grown up, I realized, and out of the childish rages that many a crew had suffered. Ten years ago, in the same sequence of events that I’d endured this trip so far, I would have screamed my voice to extinction. I had never made a full trip without a touch of Grand Banks laryngitis. This would be a first.

  It was nearly 10:00 A.M. and time for the daily morning report from the fishing grounds. I hopped out of the chair and reached to turn up the volume on the starboard SSB radio. The digital frequency display indicated that the radio had been set to 2182.0 megahertz, which is the emergency channel. That was curious, I thought as I turned the knob clockwise one click and then back in the other direction two clicks. I distinctly remembered leaving the starboard radio tuned to 3417.0 so that I could eavesdrop on the fleet and better plan my fishing strategy. Or was it the port radio that Timmy had finally succeeded in accidentally tuning to the right frequency? No, it was definitely the starboard. I now scanned a few more turns to the right and then back to the left. There was no three-megahertz channel. I felt the heat rise from the pit of my stomach to my neck and eventually to my face, where it burned. Angst increased with every spin of the knob. Someone had frigged with my radio! I spun the knob wildly, searching for anything that resembled the secret channel. I tried the other knob, which controlled the “groups” of channels in bunches of one hundred. Between the two knobs, I knew that the radio had the capability to store thousands of channels, and this knowledge fed my growing anger.

  Playing with electronics while on watch is absolutely forbidden in my book. Plus, this radio wasn’t like the one in your car; it had many knobs and buttons and was extremely complex to program. What could have possessed someone to change the frequency of the radio to the emergency channel? This was the breaking of what I considered a cardinal rule. Was someone planning to make a Mayday call? This seeming OCD behavior on my part could really become a question of life or death. I was now turning both knobs at once, one with the right hand and one with the left, both in the same direction, then toward each other and then away in opposite directions. The more I searched, the further I seemed to be getting from where I started. And there seemed to be no hope of returning. The blood that had now left my hands had accumulated in my temples, where it surged faster with every turn of the knobs. I clenched my teeth and resisted the urge to rip the microphone cord from the receiver. It was now 10:15. I wondered what the fish reports had been and whether anyone had given bearings of where they were working. I wondered how many fish had been caught so far today, and in what temperature water, and how deep, and with what type of bait… . I wondered how far ahead of us Scotty was, and when he would be making his first set, and where.

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sp; Just as I was ready to give up and find a heavy object with which to crush the radio, there it was—3417.0 flashed in the orange-lit digital display. Scotty was just signing off. He thanked Charlie Johnson for the information, wished him luck tonight, and said he would be north of him tomorrow and making his first set. Then the radio went back to static. I had missed the entire report. I let my arms drop to my sides from the radio over my head. My hands tingled. So Scotty would be fishing tomorrow night. I wondered where the small fleet was working and whether I could possibly reach the area by tomorrow or the next day. I didn’t want Scotty to get too much of a head start. I couldn’t believe that one of my geniuses had touched my radio. Who did they think they were? Watch meant watch; it did not mean play captain with the electronics. I took a deep breath, said to hell with self-control, and stepped out the back door of the wheelhouse.

  Archie and Hiltz stood at the fish hold’s hatch. Arch was applying a little Liquid Skin to the end of his thumb, while Dave ran a knife over a sharpening stone. They sure looked happy down there in the sun. I was pissed. I started down the ladder and was cursing before my feet hit the deck. In my own defense, I did not lose control. It was a conscious—if spontaneous—decision to go nuts. “Which one of you jerks decided to tune the radio?” They looked at each other, then back at me. “Some fucking idiot changed the frequency from where I had set it, and I just missed the fishing report.” This was met with looks of surprise and silence. “There are too many fucking captains aboard here! What the fuck? If anyone dares touch anything in the wheelhouse again …” And on and on I went. It was bad. Once I started, I couldn’t stop myself. I swore. I threatened. I belittled. I called them names. I think I may even have stomped my feet.