Seaworthy (5 page)

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 certainly 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.

“Everything's good in the engine room. Timmy has that under control. This boat is really comfortable. I'll bet she's a great sea boat,” Arch said as he squinted out the back window at the last of the colorful sky. I dove into the steak and Stove Top stuffing like it was the last meal I would see. It was all smothered in gravy. Nothing could have been more unhealthy and fattening. I never would have worried about
that
ten years ago either. But I didn't complain, because I had appointed Archie to do the cooking. We hadn't had to draw straws to see who was stuck with the chore of feeding the group. “I feel good. This feels right. You feel good?” Archie asked.

“Yes. This is great, Arch. I feel great,” I lied.

R
ipe and one sliver shy of full, the cantaloupe moon shone a flashlight beam along our path as we steamed east through the Gulf of Maine. It was glassy calm, and running lights glowed dimly on the stabilizing birds at the ends of the booms, rounding their edges to appear like jet engines under wings, red on port and green on starboard. This breathless night allowed us to haul the birds out of the water and gain a full knot in speed, as they normally ride below the surface to retard the roll of the boat and they slow us down in the process. The steady drone of the diesel two decks below added a soothing hum to the slow, gentle rocking of mysterious origin. The last of the lime green landmass had crept from the edge of the radar screen as the faded umbrella of city lights closed over our wake. At sea—it's more a feeling than it is a place.

It was this feeling, the state of being at sea, that I hadn't experienced in ten years. This sensation is the result of living the total contradiction of burden and freedom. I am the captain, I thought. The freedom to make all decisions, unquestioned and without input, was something that I had missed during my sabbatical. To be held ultimately, although not solely, responsible for the lives and livelihoods of a loyal and capable crew was strangely exhilarating and empowering. But high hopes and expectations were weighty loads. It's the willingness, and not the ability, to bear that burden that separates captains from their crew. Right here and right now, as the
Seahawk
plodded along, I was fondly embracing the burden of that responsibility. Just being on the boat made me feel good. I was confident. And confidence is a key to success.

I tweaked a knob on the autopilot to correct our course two degrees and remain on a perfect heading according to the numbers displayed on both GPS's. As I eased myself back into the captain's chair, Arch pulled himself up the narrow stairway and into the dark-paneled wheelhouse beside me. “Everything is secure below. Timmy is in the engine room doing a few things, Dave is reading a magazine at the galley table, and Machado is sleeping,” he reported. “I really like Machado. He's so funny! I think he'll more than make up for not being around to help at the dock. You got a great crew!”

“Thanks, Arch. I know I do.” I meant it. Confidence in my crew fed my personal confidence. I believed that this was the best crew I had ever sailed with. Certainly the most mature; we probably wouldn't be plagued by the usual crew problems that stem from basic personality differences and lack of sleep. I wouldn't have to break up any fistfights or garnish any wages as punishment for poor behavior. Small squabbles could be annoying, I knew. And nothing was more exasperating than trying to reason with real, solid, mutual hatred when both parties are virtually connected at the hip for an extended voyage. Liking one another was huge. As far as work ethics go, nothing beats the older, more experienced guys. It's very much like the “young bull/old bull” thing. Four of the five of us owned and operated our own boats, so we already knew the basic moves that otherwise needed to be taught. Mike Machado was the only non-captain aboard, but he was also the only one other than me with any Grand Banks fishing experience. And between the two of us, I suspected that we had racked up more miles along the salty way than any pair I could think of. “Yes,” I said, “I think we have a winning team aboard. Just the right combination of talents and strengths.”

“Speaking of talents and strengths, here I am,” Tim said laughingly as he popped his head through the back door of the wheelhouse behind Archie. “The engine room is looking good. The water maker is cranking out, and the ice machine is making great ice—lots of it. I just shoveled. How's the list?” he asked, referring to whether or not the boat was leaning. I looked directly at the bow to determine that we were indeed not listing to either side and gave a silent nod. I was happy to forgo the usual lecture on the importance of keeping the boat on an even keel and the dangers inherent in not doing so, which is why I'd asked Tim to compensate by moving ice or fuel.

“Why didn't you tell me? I would have helped you shovel,” said Archie.

“You take care of the galley, and the rest of us will handle the shoveling. Thanks for dinner, by the way. It was great,” Tim said. I was relieved that Timmy had understood without having to be told that Archie was valuable in many ways and that none of his assets were in evidence on the end of a shovel. At his age and with the range of experience and breadth of knowledge that Archie had concerning just about anything, I didn't want to waste him in the fish hold. Again, I was appreciating the maturity level of my shipmates. I knew that Archie and Tim had a mutual liking and respect for each other, reminding me of father and son.

“I'm gonna call Marge tomorrow and get a recipe for chicken,” Arch said. “Do you mind if I hook up the satellite phone in this corner? It's the only place the antenna wire reaches. Everyone can use it to make calls.” He was twisting the small coupling at the end of the rubber-coated wire that came through a hole in the aft bulkhead and terminated in the corner he'd mentioned. The five of us had a lot in common, I realized. Our similarities went beyond the fishing gene. Food was of utmost importance, as was family. So a call home for a chicken recipe was a no-brainer. “I'm gonna fix that computer on my watch tonight. Did you find the manual for the weather fax? I know I can get that going. I bungeed the hell out of our stateroom. These things are coming in really handy so far,” he said as he pulled a short loop of bungee cord out of a hip pocket. “These and the two-part epoxy . . . I can keep us going with this stuff.” I had always known Archie as a guy with a short attention span. I guess you'd call it adult ADD.

“All I want to do is catch fish!” Hiltz had entered from the stairs and delivered what had already become his mantra. “Are we there yet, Skip?”

“Almost,” I said, taking a closer look at our ETA below the track plotted on the only functioning computer monitor. “One thousand miles at seven point three knots—you can do the math,” I told him as I slid out of the chair and leaned over the navigational chart built in on the after bulkhead. I've always preferred paper to electronics. I circled our present position in pencil and inscribed it with date and time.

“Where's Scotty?” That was Dave's other obsession. All he wanted to do was catch fish and know where Scotty was at all times. I understood his interest in the whereabouts of the
Eagle Eye II
as we went farther from shore than Dave had ever been—a lot farther—as a way to seek peace of mind through safety in numbers. As long as Scotty was in our vicinity, however wide or vague that might be, Dave seemed to relax.

I was more interested in the whereabouts of the
Bigeye.
Her captain, Chris Hanson—or “Chompers,” as he's commonly known—is reputed to be one of the more disliked fishermen on the eastern seaboard. Although I had never encountered him, I had heard that Chompers had a history of doing whatever he had to do, regardless of fishing etiquette or safety, to pay his bills. From the radio chatter I gathered that the
Bigeye
's captain was in Newfoundland outfitting for his Grand Banks debut.

I explained to Dave that Scotty couldn't be very far ahead of us, as I had caught a glimpse of the boat before the sun went down. We would be tracking slightly south of Scotty's course, since he had to steam to Newfoundland to pick up two crew members. His extra miles would gobble up what Scotty would otherwise have gained in a tiny speed advantage, so we would reach the grounds and make our first sets on the same evening. I suspected that the
Eagle Eye II
was capable of making better speed, but the price of fuel had bolstered her captain's innate patience, and he had pulled the throttle back. Satisfied that Scotty would not be out of radio range for the next sixty days, Dave eased into a story about the scars that ran the length of his arm, acquired while tub-trawling for halibut.

The four of us started trying to beat one another with tales of personal injuries inflicted at and by the sea. I joined in after Dave's second round, which ended in an episode of near amputation, and regaled the men with a litany of broken bones suffered, including a badly fractured ankle that snapped when I was suddenly buried in a pile of oversize offshore lobster traps. My crew literally dug me out of the mountain of gear that had given in to one hellacious wave, surprised to find me alive. I hobbled around on the ankle to finish the trip—two weeks—until it had healed out of kilter and had to be rebroken in a surgical procedure. Tonight, before the end of the third round, I had totally extolled my own bravery and pain threshold with the telling of my left hand's battle with a half hitch of thousand-pound-test monofilament. Although my hand won by parting the fishing line before being torn from my wrist, it was so badly swollen that it could not be put in a cast. So I did what any self-respecting fisherman would do and went back to sea with an Ace bandage and a bottle of aspirin. None of the episodes we chose to share proved much in the way of possessing brain cells. When the tales wound down to nicks and cuts and scars “that used to be right there,” I decided to begin the night watches.

Arch was to stand watch first for two hours, waking Dave to do his two-hour stint. Tim was on the list at number three, and Machado was last and would wake me at 4:30 A.M. The watches would rotate, last man first up the next night, so that no one would be permanently saddled with the dreaded middle watches. Although the British navy would bristle at it, I had always referred to these as the “dog watches.” We didn't sound bells every thirty minutes either. Night watches aboard a commercial fishing vessel require . . . well, watching. The men would watch the radar for traffic or other obstructions; the horizon for lights indicating traffic; the engine room for leaks, fires, and other problems; the ice machine for production; the GPS for our progress toward the fishing grounds; and the compass as a check on navigational electronics. Basically, the watch standers were responsible for keeping the boat on course and safe while the captain got some sleep.