Seaworthy (11 page)

He had my interest. I wondered whether it was ethical or within company protocol to take on bait, or any added expense, without permission. As I pondered, I received a gentle reminder of why we were here in the first place. Sure, I thought, I wasn't to blame for the engine problem. And this delay had cost us dearly in time lost toward eventual fishing. The moon was shrinking. Could we swing a double bait bill? No, probably not. Could I turn down perfect bait? No, definitely not.

Another nudge from the peanut gallery convinced me that I was perfectly justified in doing whatever I deemed necessary to give my crew and myself every possible advantage in what hadn't started out real swell. “All right, I would like some decent bait. But we can't afford to toss what we have. And we will certainly be billed for it. How about a thousand pounds of the best and biggest mackerel to supplement what we have already?” This was a fair compromise. Although the crew was tired, they rallied to show sincere enthusiasm for new and improved bait. Machado dialed his friend.

A little while later, a truck backed down the wharf and came to an abrupt stop with a hiss and puff from the air brakes. The men quickly moved the boxes of bait from the back of the truck to the
Seahawk
's deck. I tore the top of a cardboard box open to inspect the frozen contents. Machado had not exaggerated. Horse mackerel is what we call this size fish at home—and these were horsier than most. Certainly full-figured, they carried their girth from head to tail and must have averaged two pounds each in weight. Rather than the dull haze that older bait of lesser quality shows in its skin, the fish shimmered in black, deep blue, and crisp white. Four grown men stood behind me and admired the frozen mackerel with oohs and aahs more appropriate to a bunch of guys looking at a copy of
Playboy
magazine. When we finished ogling what we imagined would result in some whopper swordfish, I signed the receipt and went up to the bridge to start the engine in preparation for leaving the wharf. The prospect of having better bait than Scotty was exciting.

The engine warmed as the crew stacked the new bait in the fish hold on a bed of saltwater ice. I booted up a computer and examined the electronic chart of Sambro Harbor that appeared. I hadn't paid strict attention to the way we'd entered the port, as I wasn't driving at the time. But the channel from the wharf looked to be well buoyed, and the conditions were pristine. I'm always a bit apprehensive when navigating in an area with which I'm unfamiliar—even with the best electronic aids and paper charts, nothing beats local knowledge. I switched on the radar and the depth sounder.

Then I stepped out the back door and did a quick head count. All present and accounted for; even Machado sat on the rail and smoked a cigarette, waiting patiently for me to shove off. I asked the men to let all the lines go except for the one running aft from the forward bit. I put the boat in gear with the rudder hard to port. The boat strained against the remaining line, springing the stern to starboard and away from the dock. I put the engine in neutral to relieve the tension of the line, nodded to Hiltz to release the spring line, and we were off.

Idling the length of the channel, I kept an eye on the chart plotter and the depth sounder. The area appeared to be idiotproof in its abundance of deep water interrupted by the occasional rocky outcropping or island. The landscape was very much like home, causing slight warmth in this otherwise cool day. Outside the harbor I steered east of a tiny island named Isle of Man and split the difference between Inner Sambro Island and Sambro Island proper. The last peak of ledge protruding through the glassy surface was Gull Rock, which I passed to the north before turning east and getting back on course for the Grand Banks. The only obstacles to stay clear of were the dangerous shoals around two spots marked on the chart—Black Rock and the Sisters—each of which I would give a wide berth.

Land faded as open ocean seemed to embrace the
Seahawk
in her easterly progress. I snapped on the autopilot and sat in the captain's chair, worries dimming with distance gained from shore. Things could have been so much worse. Scotty had taken us in a northeasterly direction to Sambro, so the time under tow had been somewhat productive, as we were closer to our destination now than we had been when the engine broke down. And with the price of diesel fuel at an all-time high, any savings was huge. Repairs to the engine had gone more smoothly than I could have imagined. I had spent too many days in foreign ports waiting for engine parts that always got lost along the way to be anything other than surprised now to be at sea. We had spent only twelve hours at the dock. The crew was intact and already at work making gear. Our time in Nova Scotia had been a touch-and-go landing in terms of boats. And I was in the captain's chair, not a passenger at the end of a towrope.

Conversation on the SSB radio clued me in to the disappointing fact that I would not beat Scotty to the grounds, as his crew members were being delivered to him by another of the Eye Fleet's boats, the
Eyelander.
Captain Swanny was unloading a trip in Bay Bulls, Newfoundland, and was scheduled to leave the dock in time to rendezvous with the
Eagle Eye II
just as it was arriving to make its first set. There goes that edge, I thought. Oh, well, we had a wager for the biggest fish, and I was confident that our mega-mackerel would land a real monster regardless of who was first to get hooks wet. The new bait was our secret weapon. Basic Fishing 101: Great bait and sharp hooks would always outproduce any combination of gadgets and tricks. I knew this and felt it the way devotees feel their religion. I was confident.

The GPS indicated seven hundred miles to go and an average speed of 7.8 knots. In just under four days, I would be scoping out a piece of water. My present destination, marked as a waypoint on the chart plotter, was 44 degrees 30 minutes north latitude and 48 degrees 30 minutes west longitude. This was the general location of what had been reported as the most productive swordfishing so far this season. Once we arrived in the area, I could begin the most important of my responsibilities—putting the gear on the fish. The job of finding the perfect spot to work, based on currents and surface temperature, had always been my forte. I felt my pulse quicken with anticipation. Four nights from this evening, we would be making our first set. I wondered how it would feel to haul the first fish aboard.

At dusk I could smell Marge's chicken recipe. Life was good again. We were on our way to engage in my first love. Mother Nature had been cooperative so far. Even if Murphy's law had flexed a muscle, it had been meager and quickly overwhelmed. After all, conquering obstacles was one of the things that drew me to a life at sea. There was so much satisfaction in persevering through hardship. And there was never an end to the hardship as long as I was aboard a boat. I sometimes felt as though I marked time at sea solving one problem and waiting for the next to materialize. The engine failure was behind us, and any complication that arose now would seem like a snap in comparison.

The sounds from the engine room were muffled when Archie filled the stairway. I knew he was coming to deliver dinner, the aroma of which had piqued my ever-present appetite. “Hi, Arch,” I said as his head and shoulders came into view above the top step. “It's another beautiful night!”

Arch rested his massive forearms on the ledge surrounding the stairs. He didn't have my dinner. He held a wrench. “The ice machine isn't working. Salt water is pouring into the fish hold.”

I
could hear Hiltz shouting. “There's a fucking lot of water down there. Is the pump working? Where's Timmy?”

“Timmaaay!” Arch bellowed from the wheelhouse stairs, loudly enough for Tim to hear in the engine room. Tim replied just as loudly that he was on it.

“The water is up to the second pen board! What the fuck?” Hiltz screamed again.

Arch smiled nonchalantly, shrugged his shoulders, and said to me, “It's not that bad. We're not sinking.” I wasn't sure whether my concern should be for the level of water in the fish hold, the fact that the high-water alarm never sounded, or that the ice machine wasn't working. No ice aboard a fishing boat is not like no ice on a picnic. Warm beer and tired salad are no big deal. But no ice-making capability on this trip spelled doomsday like nothing else. We were in the business of providing fresh fish, and that meant packing them in saltwater ice until they went to market. Nonfunctioning ice machines have ended many a fishing trip. No ice, no fish. Lack of ice was indeed a nightmare, and one that would be confronted as soon as we addressed the first priority of dewatering the boat.

Like most shipboard near emergencies, flooded compartments that are normally without water need to be dealt with quickly to minimize damage and danger. The level of danger rises as the water does. In marine stability we have the term “free surface effect,” which refers to the sloshing motion of liquid—be it water or fuel or whatever liquid cargo may be on board; when a volume of fluid moves, it changes or exaggerates the motion of the vessel. This can obviously be very dangerous, as it puts the boat in an unstable condition. At around six pounds per gallon, depending on its salinity level, the right amount of water in the wrong place can be disastrous. And for the water to be high enough to cause anyone to make noise about it, I knew there was, as Dave had said, “a fucking lot” of it where it should not be. I also knew that shipboard emergencies test the leadership/teamwork balance aboard, and these areas had always been ones in which I'd excelled. Even when not perilous, hard times in general call for cool heads and cooperation behind whoever takes charge.

Hiltz continued to vocalize with an ever-increasing degree of hysteria while Arch remained calm, almost to the point of worrying me that he wasn't taking the situation seriously enough. I knew that Dave Hiltz had a penchant for melodrama. But Arch was the other extreme. Nothing seemed to shake him.

“I guess I had better take a look. Excuse me, Arch,” I said as I squeezed by him and down to the main deck. The cover was off the fish hold's hatch, making it easy for me to assess the water problem. Before looking down, I promised myself to not let whatever I saw put me over the edge. The water was indeed deep enough to raise an eyebrow, but not deep enough to panic me. If the sea state had been anything other than calm, I would have been more upset. It's always disconcerting to be “making water” anywhere other than into the freshwater holding tank, and I hoped that Arch's first analysis had been correct, about the source of the water being the ice maker. Shutting off a valve would shut off the flow. I vowed to remain cool and collected, no matter what.

I'd been in much worse situations. I recalled an all-night bucket brigade to empty a flooded lazarette. Now, that was scary! I had, out of necessity, become part of the human chain of bucket scoopers, passers, and dumpers. Sheer determination (and fear of capsizing) had kept us all going until we got the water down far enough to discover and remedy the problem. Water weighs more than air. Many a boat has rolled over and/or gone to the bottom because an alarm did not work. And, like fire, when water problems go unnoticed long enough, they become difficult, if not impossible, to contain and reverse. There are times when a captain can bark orders and other times when working with the crew, elbow to elbow, is the best way out of a bad situation. I realized that this was something that had not changed since my last trip and in fact never would. I'd be the first to roll up my sleeves when the time came. There was no doubt in my mind that the time would indeed come. I just hoped it hadn't already.

All U.S.-licensed commercial fishing vessels are subject to safety examinations performed by the coast guard and also by surveyors working for marine insurance companies. One of the more critical and elemental parts of maintaining the safety of any boat is to ensure that the alarms are functioning properly. High-water alarms are self-explanatory devices, required in every separate compartment of a ship's hull, that sound an alarm when they become submerged. I figured that the alarms all worked when I saw the safety examiner place a sticker on the
Seahawk
's windshield showing that the vessel had passed all the tests before we left Fairhaven.

Whatever the alarm situation, I knew that the
Seahawk
had ample and multiple pumping systems to dewater, also required in every compartment. So I was confident that we would soon be riding lighter in the water. Timmy joined me at the hatch, looked down, and confirmed that the water was now receding. He shared and voiced the same concern I had as to why the high-water alarm had not sounded, and he added that we'd been lucky that he'd happened to be going into the fish hold to get Archie a gallon of fresh water (of all things) to make gravy with when he discovered what could easily have become catastrophic if we'd been eating healthier. Thank God for gravy.