Seaworthy (20 page)

F
or several numb-limbed seconds, I stood awestruck at the mysterious conspiracy of wind and tide that had pulled off such a covert and hateful caper. How could this have happened? The mixing of the Gulf Stream and Labrador Current in this region, which makes it so rich in fish, is also responsible for something called North Atlantic Drift, a prevailing current or tide that moves south and east on the west side of the bank—not north. The current was supposed to take the gear away from the Canadian fishing boundary and into the safety of international water, not into the most heavily patrolled and fervently regarded grounds on planet Earth. I manipulated the computer's mouse to move the crosshairs-style cursor across the electronic chart, stopping on the dotted line representing Canada's two-hundred-mile limit at the point closest to our present position due south of us. The digital display confirmed that the
Seahawk
was better than four miles over the line of demarcation.

Big on personal responsibility and accountability, I tried to figure out what I'd done wrong. Where had I made a misstep? The knot in my stomach moved up to my chest, and my muscles tightened like those of a hunted animal in a fight-or-flight reaction. I looked again at the red line signifying last night's set and reluctantly removed my hand from the panic button. Okay, I thought, I have been seen and probably photographed fishing in Canadian waters. It wasn't intentional. I'll just have to deal with it. I certainly can't pretend not to be here. I am aboard a sixty-three-foot steel boat, and the weather is crystal clear. Yet another first in my return to the Grand Banks fishery—this was something I'd never even imagined could happen to me. But had it
happened
to me? Or had I somehow unknowingly brought this on myself? The captain is ultimately responsible for everything. Perhaps I'd been negligent in not running up to the wheelhouse to check our position. But drifting north had not been in the realm of possibility. I must be guilty of something, I thought shamefully.

Friends of mine had been in similar situations in the past. And I had never been very sympathetic, thinking that they'd been foolish to take such a chance as to fish too close to the “fence.” My careless and guilty friends had received the proverbial slaps on the wrist for the same violation and had been told to get their hooks out of Canada and never return, or else. I would have to buck up and explain the situation and take my slap. I silently rehearsed my initial call. I was feeling like something between a total idiot and the victim of a cruel joke played by Mother Nature.

I can't remember ever deliberately breaking a law or rule. Even as a kid, with the knowledge that my maternal grandmother had advised my mother that I was one of those children who just could not be spanked, I never took advantage of that freedom by misbehaving. With the exception of the time I nearly burned the neighborhood out with a campfire gone bad, I had never been reprimanded. And even then I was actually trying to cook a hot dog and had not meant that to require three alarms. I defended myself and threw my pal Scotty Sturtevant under the bus. He had lit the match. My sister Rhonda had regarded me as a goody-goody and was pleased that I had temporarily joined her in her usual state of being in trouble with our folks. I never got grounded the way Rhonda did. I never wore the dunce cap at school or visited the principal's office. In adulthood I had formed a personal opinion that there are far too many laws, rules, and regulations. But I didn't protest or object to their enforcement. I wondered how my relationship with rules and the law might change with this new development. With a shove from the most threatening roar of the plane's engine yet, I reached for the VHF radio's microphone. Hesitancy was overcome by the knowledge that I hadn't intended to be here. Canadian law must certainly include a clause regarding intention. I hadn't actually done anything illegal, I told myself. Now was the time to buy stock in the notion that honesty was indeed the best policy. All I had to do was tell the truth.

“The fishing vessel
Seahawk
calling the Canadian fisheries plane. Channel sixteen. Come in, please. Over.” It was something of a relief to hear my own voice sounding professional and not frightened (although I surely was) or guilty. A man replied with some official numbers of the plane and a radio call sign, then asked if I was hauling gear. He sounded sort of mad, as in angry. I responded that I was lying to, drifting with the engine disengaged. He repeated his question about whether I was fishing, and his tone was now accusatory, as if I had lied about hauling gear. I wondered whether I
had
just lied. Technically, I was not hauling at this time. I got nervous and began my explanation, which I'm sure sounded like the improvised alibi that it was.

“Are you hauling gear? Do you have gear in the water? Are you engaged in hauling gear at this time? Have you been hauling gear?” He was certainly persistent with this line of questioning.

“No, I am not hauling at this time. The engine is out of gear, and we are drifting. Over.”

“
Seahawk,
are you fishing now? Do you have gear in the water? Were you retrieving your line when the plane was over you?”

I took a deep breath and held it in until my lungs simmered. I clutched the radio's mike at my side, unable to put it to my mouth. As I exhaled, my hand came up, and I keyed the mike. “Yes. Over.” There, I had given him the answer he so desperately needed. “But I didn't realize that I'd drifted into Canadian waters. I made a legal set last night. I have been working below since four-thirty this morning, and I don't have any navigational equipment at the deck helm station. The boat has a steering problem, and we have been struggling with blue sharks. Over.” Now I thought I sounded as if I were making lame excuses.

“Stay where you are. Do not continue to haul your gear. A Canadian coast guard ship is en route to you and will be on position in several hours. Over.”

Several hours? This really sucked. All the anxious steam that had built up hissed out in short, choppy breaths, and I whispered to myself, “Jesus Christ, what next?” My neck had gone limp, allowing my head to hang. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on what I might be able to say to the man in the plane to gain his sympathy. How do speeders talk their way out of tickets? If only I could write a letter as I had to the FCC when I was facing a fine for inadvertently transmitting on a forbidden radio frequency. I'm so much better on paper than I am live, I thought. And although it is true that I was recorded chatting on the same banned frequency on the same day the FCC received my groveling correspondence, I was only doing so to explain to the man on the other end why we had to switch to something more legal. Of course, that required a second letter. But it worked. My thoughts were interrupted with another transmission from the plane's radio, asking if I had understood that I was not to move or continue to retrieve gear. “Roger. Over.” Volume and emphasis trickled out of my voice with these final two syllables. Archie had come up the ladder and stood at the back door. “Did you hear all of that?” I asked.

“Yeah. Don't worry, Linny. We'll be all right. My hands needed a break from wiring sharks anyway. I'll tell the guys what's going on.” I hoped Arch was right. I knew that he was probably correct that we'd be fine. But in the meantime we had to wait several hours with about ten miles of gear remaining to be hauled. I realized that our situation was not dire. No one's life was at risk. We were not sinking or on fire. So our progress to the east would be delayed one more time. We would get there, eventually.

I joined the men on deck and added my opinion of what was yet to come to what Arch had already explained. The men all rallied behind me with indignation that we had to be detained by the authorities while I had been so diligent about doing drift tests and everything. Certainly I was not to be held responsible for what could only be explained as an act of God. The men had all seen the set I'd made on the plotter the night before. It was perfectly legal. I had done everything right. There was no explanation for our present illegal position other than the fact that we were aboard the
Seahawk.
The men all understood that I had nothing to hide, and neither did they. As soon as the ship came, I would simply continue to tell the truth and get myself off this inconvenient hook. “They're probably just trying to scare us by making us wait,” Machado offered. “They want you to sweat a little.”

I hoped that Machado's assessment was accurate. I worried about my reputation in the world of fishing. The only time I had almost been in trouble aboard a boat was when a disgruntled crew member had ratted me out for having a few illegal shark fins aboard. The evidence was found when fisheries patrol searched a small hidden compartment after they'd been tipped off. The contraband fins had been aboard and forgotten about when the regulations had changed, requiring fishermen who harvest fins to have the shark's carcass aboard, too. I successfully explained my way out of that one—it only cost me ten pounds of fresh fish. Of course, that was before I was portrayed in Warner Bros.' blockbuster
The Perfect Storm.
I wondered if that notoriety might be a factor in any decisions being made by the authorities. I hoped not.

I placed my left hand on the main line that was now getting way too tight with the strain of the boat drifting away from the remaining unhauled string. We had hauled about two-thirds of the gear at this juncture, leaving ten miles in the water. I backed off the drum a bit to lessen the strain and avoid parting off the line. This did nothing to relieve the ever-increasing stress I was feeling in my shoulders and neck. The plane buzzed again, and I realized that the airborne authorities above might mistake what I'd just done for hauling gear. I didn't dare put the boat in forward to jog up on the line in order to keep it slack. I decided that I would need permission to cut the line and mark it with a beeper to be retrieved after we straightened out this predicament. We could not drift like this, hooked up to the line, for several hours without creating more problems for ourselves. Drifting with gear trailing along under strain always resulted in spin-ups and part-offs. Things were difficult enough with steering woes and sharks—I didn't need to go multiplying them with greater hassles. I went to the wheelhouse to radio my intentions and ask permission to sever the gear from the boat at this time.

My request to cut and mark the gear was met with skepticism. Surely the men aboard the plane had dealt with bad characters in the past and were now paranoid that I must have something in mind other than what I'd stated. They must have taken many pictures by now of the
Seahawk
engaged in illegal fishing. Did they think I would cut and run? Of course, there's a chance that it was my own paranoia and not theirs that I sensed. The man on the radio put me on standby while he called his supervisor. The plane made steeper and steeper banks over us, seemingly afraid to let us out of its sight. I knew that the people up there had protocol to follow. These guys were just doing their jobs. Finally word came back that allowed me to cut the gear from the boat, along with another warning not to haul the gear or move the boat. I thanked the man and relayed to my crew an order to clip on our strongest beeper and cut the line. Now we had nothing to do but wait. And worry.

What would Alden do? Well, to begin with, he would have flipped the plane the bird on its first pass. Alden would never have left the deck to call the plane. He would have continued to haul until the end buoy was aboard. Then he would have faced the consequences behind the shield of a high-powered attorney. Alden had a lot of experience on the wrong side of the law. And he always wiggled his way out of trouble, never admitting that he might possibly have made a mistake. Too late for that. Besides, that wasn't my style. I had a real and heartfelt belief in the power of telling the truth. That, coupled with the fact that I've never been a good liar, eliminated any other option. Not that I considered Alden a liar, but he did have a way of shading things a degree or two. Full disclosure had never failed me in the past. Any reasonable person, Canadian or other, would see that I had not intended to be on the wrong side of any boundary line. Besides, we weren't exactly depleting the Canadian swordfish stock. My mental tally was at six. I guessed that I did deserve to be waylaid and inconvenienced, and I hoped that would be the extent of my punishment for what I'd managed to convince myself was no fault of my own.

The more I thought about it, the better I felt. I'd always had a great deal of respect for authority. I had dealt with the Canadian coast guard and fisheries department over the radio since I began fishing the Grand Banks nearly thirty years before. Every transit through Canadian waters coming and going had been announced and allowed with friendly civility. All interaction with Canadian fishermen had been the same. I would characterize my relationship with Canadians as great. I'd been in and out of Canadian ports my entire career. I'd been in the business long enough for the Canadian officials to recognize my name and my reputation for obeying and respecting their laws and limits. The Canadians were just following protocol. Not to do so would appear to be treating me with favoritism. They had to treat me as they would a man in the same situation, I realized. I would wait patiently for the ship to come and send me on my merry way, the way they always did with men in the same situation.

It was time to place the dreaded phone call to Jim Budi back in Fairhaven. The anxiety I'd felt when delivering the news of our engine problem had multiplied tenfold. It was just my luck that the
Seahawk
's satellite phone stayed connected long enough for me to get the facts out and short enough to eclipse any reaction from the other end. Now all I had to do was to sit and wait and let my mind imagine every worst-case scenario.