Seaworthy (6 page)

I had many nightmarish stories of bad watch-standing practices to share. I spared my crew all the minute details, but the gist of the bedtime story I now chose to tell them was not aimed at putting them to sleep. There were many episodes of falling asleep and narrowly missing a fatal collision with another vessel or a landmass, but what appalled me even more were times when the watch stander was wide awake and making decisions in the wellintentioned interest of allowing the captain more sleep. In one case the man in charge had a bout of “get-home-itis.” He looked at the chart and decided that a straight line was indeed the shortest distance between our present position and the dock that he so yearned to step onto. He changed course to shorten our steam, saving fuel, and manipulated our ETA to better suit the making of happy hour at the local watering hole. To this day I don't know how we made it through the dangerous shoals that his new course took us over. When I looked at our track line on the plotter that evening, I knew I'd seen a miracle. With the weather and sea conditions as they were, we should have been dead—all five of us.

I usually told a new crew about the time that a man fell asleep on watch and nearly ran us between a tug and its tow. And how I slapped him across the face to wake him. And how I fired him on the spot. But I didn't feel that was necessary tonight. Relying on luck to keep us alive did little to instill confidence. Relying on ability did. All of my men were savvy navigators and conscientious guys in general. So I should have no trouble sleeping away my eight-hour time off the wheel.

“Sleep tight, Linny,” Arch said softly as I relinquished the chair to him. I wasn't accustomed to crew members calling me by such a familiar nickname. But Arch was an old and trusted friend who was more like family. And I preferred this nickname to “Ma,” which is what Ringo and company had teasingly (and I chose to believe lovingly) called me. “We've got a lot to be proud of,” Arch said as he took the chair. I knew that he was speaking to us as a group, so I hung around to acknowledge him. “This old girl is gonna be fine,” he said as he patted the arm of the chair affectionately. “We brought her back to life from close to the grave. Think of what we've accomplished. And we haven't even caught a fish yet.” Archie's voice cracked a bit. I sensed that he was very emotional, so I said good night. We were way beyond captain and crew aboard the
Seahawk.
We were a group of friends. It was cool.

“Thanks for bringing me fishing with you, Linny,” said Hiltzie.

“You're welcome. Thank you for agreeing to make the trip.” I hurried down the stairs into the stateroom I was to share with Archie and climbed into the top bunk. I'd never had a roommate on a fishing trip before and would have preferred my own space. But as long as I had to share, I was sure glad that it was with Archie. I hoped that Dave would still be thanking me at the end of the trip. This should really be a great experience for him, I thought as I pulled my sleeping bag up under my chin. And I was certainly feeling good about affording Dave this unique opportunity. If we could “hatch” the boat (fill the hold with fish) twice and hit the market at the right times, we'd all be happy about more than just a good experience. I wouldn't miss lobstering at all. I knew that Hiltzie wouldn't either.

 

I really despise sleeping bags. They make me feel all cooped up, like a bug in a cocoon, but not remotely cozy. I would have unzipped the bag, freeing my claustrophobic feet from the skinny, dead end if I could have sat up. This had to be the smallest bunk I'd ever been crammed into. There wasn't an inch of extra room in it—even turning over would be prohibited by hips and shoulders. Good thing I could sleep on my back. Well, I couldn't expect to return to swordfishing after being away so long and step right aboard the best boat. Archie was right—the
Seahawk
was fine. Besides, it had taken me many years to work my way up to the
Hannah Boden.
And the
Seahawk
had plenty of character. Small bunks but big personality. Plus, there really weren't many boats left in the industry to choose from, even if I'd been given the option of running another, I realized as I started a mental count.

The position of skipper aboard a U.S. Grand Banks longline vessel is the absolute pinnacle of the commercial fishing world. I had always felt I was one of the few who remained of a dying breed of blue-water fishermen. And now that the number of Grand Bankers that sailed from the United States to catch swordfish was down to half a dozen boats or so, being one of their captains really placed me on an endangered-species list. I had always taken great pride in introducing myself as a commercial fisherman, in spite of the public's misconceptions. We had long gotten a bad (and sometimes deservedly so) rap for pillaging our way through precious natural resources and promoting the eating of unhealthy fish, but the tide had turned. The latest government research had proved that the North Atlantic swordfish stock was totally rebuilt. And my understanding was that science was saying the presence of selenium negated any adverse effect or danger of mercury from consuming swordfish. I was proud to be heading out in more of a politically correct and environmentally healthy atmosphere than the one I had left. Yes, there is a certain snob appeal in being a member of such an elite group of men who risk all in pursuit of fish. And I had always felt that commercial fishing is a noble profession. We feed the world. But I had better get to sleep soon, I told myself. There wasn't a lot of room in this bunk for a swollen head.

Apparently all my happy thoughts produced great sleep. “Time to get up, Skipper. Six o'clock,” Machado said, loudly enough to wake me but softly enough to not bother Archie, who was snoring in the bunk below. Had I really passed out for nine and a half hours? The stretch down from my bunk was a long one for short legs, and I had to place my foot carefully on the edge of the lower bunk to avoid stepping on my roommate. I hustled into my boots and scurried to the wheelhouse. “Good morning, Linda.” Machado greeted me with a huge infectious smile. “There's fresh coffee on in the galley. Want a cup?”

“Thanks. I'll help myself in a few minutes. And thanks for the extra rack time.” I looked at the electronics and was pleased with our progress and delighted that the crew had indeed kept us on course through the night. Archie had somehow managed to get the second computer of three up and running. So now I had a backup. I was glad that Arch had tackled the computer, as I had almost no ability and even less patience. None of the multiple fish-finding software or weather-forecasting programs I'd been promised by Jim Budi worked, but the feed from the GPS seemed to function. So I had another fine track plotter that was driven by a system with which I was just becoming familiar, Nobeltec.

The rising sun in the windows made me squint, but I could never bring myself to wear sunglasses. There is something special about steaming directly into the sun and losing clear perception in its blaze on the ocean.

I thought about the Grand Banks and how aptly named the area is. Grand indeed; these fishing grounds have quite an imposing legacy. Two of the most renowned maritime catastrophes in history occurred there—the
Titanic
and the
Andrea Gail
—creating an aura to match that of the Bermuda Triangle among seamen who work or traverse the massive banks and the surrounding expanse deemed so grand. But it's not all about disaster. Not only do the Grand Banks produce some of the god-awfulest weather for mariners to contend with, but they also house some of the greatest fishing on the planet. Lifelong commercial fishermen who have never fished the Grand Banks are somewhat incomplete in their experience. To quote a late friend, “If you ain't been to the Grand Banks, you ain't been there.” In my own career the Grand Banks is where I have fished among icebergs and killer whales. Now I felt the heat of the sun through the window on my face and chest and knew that soon I would be shivering and that this warmth would be a memory.

Mid-September is not the optimum time to begin the Grand Banks season. Swordfish fall into the category of “highly migratory,” and typically they split from the Grand Banks when the Gulf Stream begins to pull offshore. This happens quickly and without notice, usually by the end of October. So we didn't have the luxury of time. And the moon had been full two nights before. Again, not optimum. I wished that we had reached the fishing grounds a week earlier, rather than having five days yet to go. Trips should ideally be in sync with the lunar cycle—steaming and dock time were best done when things were on the dark side and in the new-moon phase. I had always been most successful from the first quarter of the moon through the full and up to the last quarter. We were 100 percent off of my desired schedule. But the weather was beautiful. And that counts for a lot when you are getting your sea legs aboard a boat that is unknown to you. Besides, I recalled that Scotty, John Caldwell, and Jim Budi had all confirmed that fishing had recently been good off-moon. So, they said, don't worry about it. Ignore it, don't fret . . . I couldn't recall receiving such casual advice upon departing for a fishing trip in the past. I felt more relaxed and confident than I ever had in my years of captaining, and I attributed that to my age.

Far from worrying, I didn't have a care in the world as the
Seahawk
glided effortlessly along, bobbing slightly as if nodding her head or tapping a foot to some unheard music. This many hours into our steam and with the boat purring contentedly, my confidence level in the
Seahawk
was growing. I wandered around the boat and found Archie in the galley cooking oatmeal. He sang while he stirred. The other guys were in the three-sided steel structure on the stern called the setting house, where they were working on gear. There was a satisfaction about their work, I thought. These guys seemed genuinely happy to be here. And now they took pleasure in doing something that had a direct correlation to catching fish. All the sweaty, dirty chores we did at the dock served no purpose other than getting the boat offshore. Of course, getting off the dock is necessary, but making gear is more pertinent to what we all had a passion for—catching fish. In the past I had to get on the crew a bit to be meticulous about how the gear went together, as they often hurried through the job and the results could be sloppy. With Timmy's sportfishing experience, I knew that he would be anal about the gear—to a greater degree than even I was. As the greenhorn, Hiltzie would follow the lead set by the others. Dave Hiltz was bent on doing a good job, which was refreshing.

Machado measured four-hundred-pound-test monofilament fishing line in two-fathom lengths and crimped a snap—a small clothespin-type gadget that functions to secure leaders to the main line—onto one end. Over and over he made the “tops” of leaders while Tim cut “tails”—three-fathom pieces of the same mono onto which he attached hooks using crimps. In this case they were D crimps, sized to fix this gauge of monofilament—half-inch sections of tube-shaped aluminum into which the newly cut ends of monofilament are shoved and mashed together with a tool called a crimper. The two sections of leaders are crimped together, joined by a small lead swivel. Hook-to-snap assemblies are called leaders, and the men would be busy making them until all three hook boxes were full—approximately three thousand leaders. It was enough work to keep them employed the entire length of the transit to our destination.

While Machado and Tim made leaders, Dave Hiltz worked on ball drops. During fishing, the main line is suspended by flotation that keeps it relatively close to the surface of the ocean. The bullet-shaped Styrofoam floats—or dobs, as some fishermen refer to them—are attached to the main line using snaps, which are fixed to five-fathom pieces of monofilament that act to allow the main line to sink to that depth. The main line needs to be some depth below the surface to avoid some of the part-offs that are often encountered and the spin-ups that can occur when the gear is in the turbulence of waves. Spin-ups, which happen when the leaders and ball drops curl tightly around the main line rather than dangling freely from it, are a time-consuming nightmare. And a part-off, the breaking of the main line in midstring, occurs when the line is crossed by a ship that has a draft deeper than the line's position beneath the surface of the water, or when a shark bites the line in two, or when it's stretched beyond its tensile strength. A typical set is thirty to forty miles of thousand-pound-test monofilament main line, a thousand leaders, and three hundred floats. So if the gear is constantly spun up and parted off—severed by sharks, ships, or current—you're in for a long, hellish day.

Hiltz measured five-fathom ball drops, pulling mono from a spool hand over hand and stretching it at arm's length, each stretch being six feet, or one fathom. Dave crimped a snap to one bitter end and tied a three-inch eye, or loop, in the other end, into which the floats themselves would be snapped when we set the gear out five days from now. Completed ball drops were cranked onto an aluminum spool, where they are stored when not in use. The main line was stored on its own drum, mounted to the deck just aft of the fo'c'sle and looking like a giant spool of thread with a hydraulic motor on one end. The line would free-spool off the drum when “setting out” (putting fishing gear into the water) and would be “hauled back” (retrieved from the water) hydraulically.

The gear operation closed down when Archie announced that breakfast was being served in the galley. I had eaten frozen pizza nearly every morning for years aboard the
Hannah Boden,
so hot oatmeal was a bonus. We all managed to squeeze in around the tiny galley table, pushing Timmy's bedding into a corner. Tight quarters were further diminished by the size of the men. I was elbow to elbow with Machado and Hiltz. The company was as warm and sweet as the bowl of oatmeal. It hadn't taken long for this crew to develop real camaraderie, I realized as I nearly spit a mouthful of cereal across the table, unable to suppress a giggle at Machado's antics. By the time I had inhaled breakfast, Tim was laughing so hard his face was McIntosh red and Archie was wiping tears from his cheeks. Hiltz sat quietly chuckling and shaking his head.