Seaworthy (25 page)

As we continued to thrash about in the ever-increasing waves, our pace now at a virtual crawl, I remembered that frustrating business lesson with not-so-fond feelings. I was captain of the
Gloria Dawn
at the time, my first boat, and was in the midst of what was becoming a prolonged trip northeast of the Flemish Cap (another twenty-four hours to seaward than our present position). Fifteen sets into what my crew and I had been enduring in the way of weather—bad enough to provide us with a real physical beating, making everything more difficult than usual yet not bad enough to warrant a night off—I finally relented and decided to keep the gear aboard due to a prediction of worsening conditions. The fishing hadn't been spectacular. In fact, we were in the process of setting a perfect example of grinding away and hoping for improvement, or at least high prices for what we were catching. We had enough bait and fuel for another four sets, and the moon was on the rise. Nothing but benefit could come from a night off at this point. We all needed a night's sleep. The moon needed to grow. The weather needed to straighten out. And the fish needed to get hungry.

There were at least forty boats strung along the break from the west side of the tail of the Grand Banks, around the southern tip, and up the east side all the way to well east of my position at about midfleet. My berth had not been producing anything more than what the others were reporting, but I was aware of the potential of this particular spot. When the fishing turned on, this would be the best of it, and we could very well put a slammer trip aboard in a couple of nights. As I now recalled, about half the boats made the same decision that night, with the other half fishing to keep tabs on what was what. The next night we'd switch. It was a real concerted effort and coordinated agreement to increase everyone's productivity while sparing valuable bait and fuel during this period of slow fishing. It's a known fact that fishermen always cooperate and work together for the good of all when the fishing is lousy. When the fish are biting, it's every man for himself.

I slept soundly that night so many years ago aboard the
Gloria Dawn.
It was the first time I'd had more than a short nap in two weeks. I woke before daylight with the realization that the weatherman had been wrong. The wind had dropped out, and I instantly regretted being included in the nonfishing half of the fleet. When I entered the wheelhouse to take over the watch just before dawn, I could see the lights of another vessel off in the distance. I cranked the radar to a range that showed the boat at eight miles from me. I hadn't seen another vessel since we'd begun fishing this trip, as we were all setting end to end and no one had been inside or outside my forty-mile slot. I grabbed the VHF's microphone and hailed the boat eight miles southwest of me. The reply was immediate. “Hello, Linda! It's Captain Tommy on the
Miss Leslie.
”

Oh, no, I thought. Tommy was the clown of the fleet in his total ineptitude. Nobody wanted to fish near Tommy. I knew I had to drive him away by whatever means it took. Tommy was a complete menace. He once set forty miles, hook for hook, right on top of another man's gear, and his boat broke down before they had the mess straightened out, forcing the other captain to haul both strings and take the idiot under tow. Tommy just always screwed things up. Stupid like a fox, he always pretended not to understand where he was or where he needed to not be, and he had always been suspected of hauling other people's gear and stealing fish. Tommy was famous for doing whatever he wanted, where he wanted, regardless of whom he was stepping on, then later begging for forgiveness for his honest mistake. I hadn't heard Tommy on the radio since I'd started this trip, so I knew he was probably just arriving and looking for a spot. “Hi, Tommy. You must be headed to the east end of the fleet. Jerry has been starting around the forty-one line. With this nice weather and favorable tide, you can make it to his east end in time to set out. Over.”

“I don't know. We'll see what happens here today. I'm just getting ready to pick up my end buoy. Come in.”

“End buoy? You've got gear in the water? Over,” I asked as my stomach turned.

“Yep. I got it in late last night, but I think it looked pretty good. I'll let you know. Come in.”

“
You'll
let
me
know? Tommy, you're in my berth. I'll be fishing here tonight. Over.”

“Well, I heard you weren't fishing last night. I have to get busy here. Talk to you later. Bye.” And he was gone. I was enraged. Tommy had just managed to sneak a set into a spot I'd fished for fourteen consecutive nights. If he caught any fish, it would be impossible to budge him. I prayed that he would have such poor fishing that even
he
would think he could do better elsewhere. I prayed that he would be all fouled up and not be able to get his gear back aboard in time to set again, and he'd drift into the next berth and be out of my way. I spent the day kicking myself. Late that afternoon Tommy was back on the radio with a report of ten fish. That was about half of what I'd been catching. But I didn't know whether he was telling the truth. I told him that I was getting ready to toss my end buoy and wished him well wherever he might be going. Tommy said that he would like to stay here and set alongside of my gear, as he knew I was nearing the end of my trip and he'd like to take over my berth when I left.

“I have bait for at least five more nights, Tommy. You might be better off finding your own set. The break has been too tight for two abreast. Over.”

“It's too late for me to get anywhere else and set tonight. I'll try it next to you. What water temperature will you be favoring? Come in.”

“I'll be working the whole break, from cold to hot. The fishing hasn't been good enough to fine-tune the set. And now that I've missed a night, things may have changed. I'll be covering all of the bases. I think you'd be better off finding your own berth. Over.”

“I caught all ten of my fish on the warm side of the edge. So I'll fish outside of you. What time are you starting? Come in.”

There was no shaking him off. I was stuck with the jerk. And I didn't trust him. If he said he wanted the warmer water, he might be tricking me into fishing warmer myself so he could have the cooler side of the break. On the other hand, he might realize that I didn't trust him and be trying a reverse con job on me. The only solution was for me to make my set the way I normally would but perhaps making sharper turns that Tommy couldn't possibly follow in and out, forcing him to stay well off my gear and, I hoped, out of the fish. But, I realized, Tommy might attempt to mirror my set and end up all over me, screwing both of us up and ensuring that neither of us caught anything the next day, since everyone knows that tangled gear does not fish.

I decided to start on the warm side of the break, not because Tommy wanted to be there but because that's just the way I wanted to fish my gear. Five miles into my set, Tommy called asking for my beeper numbers and water temps and positions at turns. He had changed his mind and was now setting on the cold, or inside, of my gear. I warned him that he might be in the sharks, because I planned to touch the cold on every pass over the temperature break, leaving him in ice water for much of his set. He didn't seem to care until the next day.

“Fuckin' blue dogs! I'll never get this shit back aboard! You can have this fuckin' spot all to yourself!” It was like music to my ears as I watched my crew clean and ice the last of the fifty-five fish we landed that day. And off to the east Tommy drifted, out of my berth and into the next in line, fouling up his new neighbor in good shape. All these years later, I could still feel the sense of relief.

I chuckled now as I watched the
Seahawk
's water-temperature gauge climb quickly from fifty-six degrees to sixty-seven. Nice edge, I thought, and just below my favorite corner. I'd silently set here and drift right into the sweet spot before anyone was the wiser. From out of the darkness, a single renegade wave slammed the bow with force enough to send the boat back into the crest as it broke over the bow and flooded the deck. I watched out the back window as the crew scrambled around trying to catch the boxes of bait as they sloshed rail to rail in the knee-deep water. Wind-driven rain was pelting the side of the wheelhouse, sounding like a drumroll. Just a squall, I told myself. The next sea caught us on our port beam, rolling the boat onto her side so far that she dipped the end of the port outrigger. Crew and bait were pinned against the gunwale until she rolled back the other way, sending all cascading to the opposite side with the water. I pulled the throttle back. I thought about Tommy. I do not want to be that guy, I thought. I am not that desperate.

It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. Safety, being the first concern, was now on edge and teetering, teasingly toeing the line. I opened the back door long enough to yell to Archie to wrestle the bait into the freezer again, then swung the boat around, putting the now-hefty seas on our stern, jogging fair wind just long enough for the guys to stow the bait and secure the deck for the night. We had enjoyed a great stretch of weather until now. We were due for a little blow. And here it was. “Better safe than sorry” had always been a successful motto. There was no sense adding to our previous roster of miseries by risking an injury. If someone did get hurt or the boat sustained some damage in this gale, it could be serious enough to cancel, rather than postpone, the entire effort. It was certainly wiser, and a better business decision, to knock the boat out of gear and drift with the fleet tonight.

The
Seahawk
rode up and over the waves like a duck with her starboard side to the wind. I was relieved to learn that the boat behaved so well lying to. With the rudder hard to port, the waves were pushing gently aft of amidships, each one landing a slightly glancing blow rather than slapping full on the beam. When I spread my bedroll onto the wheelhouse floor and hauled out my sleeping bag and pillow from under the chair, I estimated the wind velocity at around fifty knots. I was glad to have given my bunk to Timmy during my detour into St. John's, as it seemed so unfair for him to attempt sleep at the galley table. Someone was nearly always opening the fridge or turning on a light to make coffee. Besides, I'd always had my stateroom topside and felt it was the right place for the captain to be. I would certainly have preferred a bunk to the deck, since I hadn't found a comfy space that would allow my face not to be very close to the watch stander's feet. I tried at first to sleep on the chart table. But that required me to literally breathe down the neck of the man on watch. If I rolled over, my elbow stood a pretty fair chance of whacking in the head whoever was in the chair. And if the boat took a deep roll to starboard, I might just fly right off the table and shoot down the stairs. That combination of wickets became unnavigable after about two watches, which was when I hit the deck, so to speak. It was a bit of a frig to have to roll up the mattress and stow my bedding every morning, rather than just turn out of a bunk. Now the only danger was being stepped on. I liked being closer to what I needed to see and hear in order to perform the duties I expected of myself. So here I was on the floor and feeling okay about not setting.

I told my crew that I was putting our safety ahead of productivity on the priority list. And while this was true, it wasn't the whole truth. I would indeed have fished these weather and sea conditions if I hadn't been horning in on the
Destiny
's berth. Billy had been at swordfishing a very long time and had no doubt experienced all the slimy moves and tricks that any pirate could pull from billowing sleeves. Billy was a savvy guy as well as a tough one. Payback would have come, and it would no doubt have rendered my slight misdeed not worth whatever it produced.

But fear of retaliation wasn't it either. Simply put, there is no joy in cheating. I love the process of fishing. Poaching, encroaching, stealing, interloping, pillaging—these had never been my way of conducting business. These illicit practices were reserved for people who fish solely for the money. I had learned long ago that if money is the prime motivator to go offshore, you're going for the wrong reason. Although I hadn't gone through with sneaking a set in, I did feel a tiny bit of shame for the adrenaline rush the prospect of doing so had created. There'd always been this hint of titillation in thinking bad thoughts about deeds I wouldn't carry out. I fell asleep that night watching the radar relentlessly sweeping its circular glass and knowing that I, too, was cleaning a slate of sorts.

Although the following day was a long one—waiting for five captains to wake up, waiting for five captains to make decisions about where they would begin setting, and waiting for five captains to estimate where they would finish their sets—we began our trip in earnest that night. We began it honestly and with integrity, in a slot just below Swanny, who was below Billy, who was west of Kenneth. A Nova Scotian by the name of Brett aboard the
Ivy Rose
arrived a bit late and strung his gear outside mine, leaving a nice wide, polite gap between the two strings. Scotty was closing in on the area and would be filling a space between Billy of the
Destiny
and Kenneth aboard the
Eyelander
the following night. Charlie Johnson, captain of the
Seneca,
and Barry Marx on the
Dee Cee
were steaming in and out respectively, so the fleet now consisted of five fishing and two traveling.

With so few boats, the ocean seemed to have grown, I thought as I wove back and forth across the temperature break from fifty-eight to sixty-five degrees. I was setting to the south and into the current, with intentions of steaming back to the north end of the gear to haul into the current the next day. Part of the business in this area is constantly stemming the tide, or working against it while setting and hauling, so as to hold ground and not drift away and out of the fleet and productive fishing. Tide is the one thing you can count on always working against you, making efficiency in hauling imperative. We can't stand for delays of any kind if we want to make sets back to back to back and put a trip aboard. I've had days when I won't even stop long enough to pose with a slammer sword for a quick photo.