Lost at Sea Part III

by John S. Mickman

Last week in Part II of ' Lost at Sea’, the guys were a little down after a string of bad pots and the wind was still whipping them around. Pots had broke loose and the crew was rushing to save them when Tony found himself in the middle of chaos.

When the tremendous weight of the 3 pots came crashing into the rail, the force vibrated through the pots and his hands, as Tony struggled to hold on. He knew if he let go, he would probably die. He held on with all his strength, but he was no match for this maelstrom the sea had created. His hands broke loose, and he fell backwards into the shrieking wind and frigid water of the North Pacific.

I was running right behind Tony as he fell into the ocean, but I didn’t stop to see him hit the water. With the boat traveling at about 9 knots, I knew if I stopped to watch him, Tony would soon be left in the foaming wake of the Marcy J. As the careening pots smashed into the rail, I made a mad dash for the stern of the boat. With the deck at such a steep angle, I felt like I was actually climbing up to get to the starboard, stern quarter of the boat. I knew a life ring was back there, and everything else faded from view as I focused on getting to it. I could see it behind the back row of pots. All that mattered to me was to get there.

As I reached the life ring, my heart sank in despair. The force of the water as it cascaded over the rail, had shattered the stiff Styrofoam life ring. It hung limply in 4 pieces, held together only by the throwing rope. This would never work. All the pieces weren’t even there. “My God, Tony” I murmured to myself as I took a quick look for him off the stern. I didn’t see him. Well, this life ring was all I had. I looked at the frothy wake as we steamed along. I knew that if I didn’t do something NOW, it would be too late to do anything, ever. I tore off my gloves and stripped the knots that held what was left of the ring in place. Then I looked for Tony in earnest. “Tony” I screamed into the wind. “Where are you Tony? Can you hear me? Tony!”

Nothing. He was not on the surface, but I couldn’t wait to see him before I threw the ring. It had been at least a minute since he hit the water, and we were traveling at about 10 miles per hour. If he ever came up, he would need this life ring, and right now. I judged the strength and direction of the wind, wound up and let it fly, just as I had done with the grapple a thousand times before. As it left my strong right hand, the life ring took off in the gale as if it had a life of its own. It reminded me of a Frisbee as it made a huge arc, the 4 pieces slightly wobbling, and the rope that held them together looked stiff, like rounded pieces of re-bar. At one point, the life ring even rose in the wind and was carried further yet. Go, go, go..... At last it landed. Right in the middle of the wake, further than I would have ever hoped.

Still no Tony. I took out my knife and starting slashing through the web of the pots, throwing buoys overboard. As I looked around, I saw a bunch of buoys in the water that Chris had thrown to his brother to mark the location so we could return. But as we sailed along, I saw the wind pick them up and throw them far from where they had landed in the water. The buoys were soon lost in the gigantic swells.

Tony was in the fight of his life. Just before he hit the water, he took a huge gulp of air. As he went into the water, the shock of the frigid water almost pushed the air back out of his lungs. He could feel the tension of the water compress his heavy clothes and oilskins tight against every part of his body. He thought how slow and awkward he felt.

Unfortunately, as Tony hit the water, the boat was skidding sideways down the side of the gargantuan swell, and Tony was washed underneath the hull. His eyes open, he saw the churning wings of the propeller as it came toward him. Instantly, he fought his way down to keep from being chopped into pieces. The terrific force of the prop wash from the huge propeller as it churned along at 500 revolutions per minute, threw him down into the depths of the icy water. Whop, whop, whop, whop...

As soon as he was out of danger of the propeller, Tony tried to swim to the surface. He was an exceptional swimmer, even in cold water such as this. He and Chris used to have great fun diving off of glaciers in Southeastern Alaska when they were kids. But when he was a kid, he never went swimming with all his ‘skins’ on, and they clung to him in a death grip as he continued his slow decent to the bottom of the North Pacific. He could stroke with his arms, but his legs were useless with the big, bulky, calf high fishing boots he wore. “If I can’t get these boots off I’m all done” he thought as he bent over and struggled with them. As he sank deeper,  the pressure of the water clasped his oilskin pants and boots even tighter, as if some giant snake was coiled around him. In this death grip, Tony finally pulled his left boot off.

Suddenly, it became quiet. He could hear his heart pounding, and everything began to move in slow motion. Of course he thought, I always take off my left boot first. Now the other one.  Tony was struck with the ease of taking off his right boot.

By the time Tony got his other boot off, his lungs were almost bursting. He was 25 feet down in the water, when he finally began his breast stroke toward the surface. Still in slow motion, Tony took full advantage of each stroke and he began to rise. He looked up at the surface. Funny, it kind of looks like the sky with a swirling bank of clouds.

He began to think of Anne, and their wonderful their life together. How lucky I am to have found her, he thought. She makes me whole. And our new baby. Is it a girl or a boy. I’m going to find out. I’m not going to give into this. All I have to do is get to the surface. All I need to do is breathe.

But as he neared the surface, he realized that he was almost finished. His lungs were bursting, and hypothermia was setting in. He found his arms barely able to move. If, and when he ever got to the surface, he knew he would not be able to swim any distance at all.

Finally, he felt his arms break the surface, and he breathed in a deep breath of air. Unfortunately, in the frothy ocean, the breath he took was half water, and he gagged as the icy water went into his lungs. He thrashed wildly, trying to stay on the surface to get another breath, and he couldn’t see. His eyes were fuzzy with water and he was bobbing wildly, gasping for air. He went down again, pulled in by the soggy weight of his heavy clothes and oilskins. “My God,” he thought to himself, “I’m going to drown”. With his last burst of strength, using every reserve he had, Tony fought his way to the surface one last time. He knew this was his final effort.

As he burst through the surface, his arms flailing wildly, his right hand hit something solid. He looked to his right trying to clear his eyes, as he grasped at this last chance for life. “It’s a life ring! I can’t believe it’s a life ring, right here.” He was ecstatic. “What are the odds?”

As he grabbed at the ring, the water began clearing from his eyes and he looked more carefully. “How come this life ring looks so funny? It’s broken into pieces! It looks like a piece of junk,” he thought. With the last of his strength, Tony gathered the 4 pieces of the life ring together, held them to his chest, and pulled his legs up into the fetal position. “This will work, at least for a little while”.

His next thought was about the location of the Marcy J. He used the last of his energy to paddle around in a circle looking for the boat. It took an amazingly long time before he finally spotted her in the distance. As he watched helplessly, the Marcy J was just disappearing over the horizon. “Chris and John had to have seen me go overboard” he said to himself. “How come they aren’t turning around to pick me up?”

Back on the boat, Chris had seen me make the run for the life ring, and the first thing he did was to yell, “Man overboard. Tony went overboard. Port side!” to Harold over the intercom. Then he raced to the rail alongside the deckhouse and began untying buoys from the rail and throwing  them overboard. They were to be there not only for his little brother to hang on to,  but also to mark the spot he went in. Chris couldn’t see Tony, and he knew the toughest part of a search and rescue was the search part. He wanted to mark the position well. But then he saw the wind picking these buoys up and blowing them away. Bummer.

When I came back from the stern, Chris and I had to secure the loose pots which were still crashing to and fro on the deck. It didn’t take a minute to lash them down. As we finished I asked Chris if he had seen Tony. “No. No sight at all. The last time I saw him, the hull was sliding over him” Chris said as he gazed into the stormy water. I turned around and took a bearing on our direction. “You know”, I yelled to Chris over the din of the storm, “I don’t think we turned around. What do you think”?

Chris whipped around with a horror stricken look on his face, and raced to the intercom horn. “Dad, Dad, man overboard. Do you pick me up?” Nothing. “Dad! Do you pick me up?” He looked back at me with a look of absolute terror. “Jesus Chris; he has the intercom turner off!” he yelled to me.

In the next instant, Chris flew in the entryway, through the galley and up to the wheelhouse. “Dad, are we going to pick him up”? Harold was engrossed with the information Oscar was giving him over the screeching radio. “Pick who up?” Harold asked. “Tony”, exclaimed Chris. “Tony went overboard”.

“What! When? Which side did he go over on?” Harold cried as he dropped the mike and threw the throttle back on the main engine, so he could maneuver a 180 degree turn.

“Does John have his eye on Tony?” Harold asked.

“No. We haven’t seen him since he went overboard about 5 minutes ago”, Chris said.

“You and John get up in the rigging and start looking. I’ll get on an opposite course and we’ll go back and get him. Come on, let’s go!” Harold was a man possessed. His son was washed overboard. Every seaman's worst nightmare was now in progress. As he turned the boat around, he pushed the throttle back up to the peg and raced back to find his boy.

Chris and I climbed as high in the pitching rigging as we could go. The huge ground swells were sometimes gathering to 30 feet, and they were tossing the Marcy J wherever they wanted. Being in the rigging 40 feet above the deck, we really had to hang on. It was a wild ride.

I looked across the surface to spot Tony and was struck by the color of the water. The overcast sky had cast an unusual green pallor on the water. The strange, opaque green color reminded me of the color of the sky back in Minnesota just before a tornado would hit. How would we ever find Tony in this empty, mass of water. I thought of Anne, and the young child they would soon have. “Come on Tony, where are you?” I kept repeating to myself.

Even when we were on the crest of a wave, everything in the troughs was invisible to us, so at any given time we could see only a small part of the surface. “Hey Chris,” I yelled. “You know Tony has that crazy yellow oilskin jacket on. That should make it easier to find him”. Chris didn’t glance over as he continued to gaze the surface. “It’ll help” he said, “but I don’t like the looks of this. I can’t see anything except water.”

Harold leaned out of the wheelhouse window and yelled up to us. “Anything yet?” he asked. “No, but slow down a little bit. We should be coming up to the spot he went overboard soon”, Chris reckoned. We all strained to find Tony.

A minute later, Chris yelled, “Over there John, at 2:30, right on the horizon. Do you see him?” After looking for about 15 seconds I still couldn’t see anything. “No, I don’t see him. Do you still see him”, I asked.

Chris yelled back over the noise of the storm, “No, I thought I saw something there for a second, but it’s so rough, I’m not sure now”. Then, from out of nowhere Chris and I saw him at the same time. “There he is!” I yelled to Chris.

“Yea, I’ve got him too”, Chris yelled back. “Don’t take your eyes off of him. I’m going down to tell Harold where he is.”

Chris actually flew off of the rigging, but I didn’t take my eyes off the spot we had seen him. I could only see him part of the time. The rest of the time, I just kept my eyes on the spot.

Harold leaned out of the wheelhouse window and looked up at me. “Where is he John?” I pointed my arm right at the last place I had seen him. “Just a couple points off the starboard bow. At about 1:00” I yelled as loud as I could. Chris climbed half way up the rigging and shouted course corrects to Harold. Finally, Harold shouted back to us that he had Tony in sight. “Get ready to bring him aboard”, Harold cried as he pushed the Marcy J through the angry seas.

Chris and I climbed off the rigging and went down on deck. The bow of the Marcy J was raising to the test of each wave, and after reaching the peak of its thrust, would come thundering down in a flurry of  water. Harold was going to have to maneuver the boat through these seas carefully, and as close as he could get to Tony without letting the huge bow of the Marcy J crash down upon him. We weren't out of trouble yet.

Next week in the conclusion of ‘Lost at Sea’ Part IV, find out if the crew can get to Tony in time…

John Mickman