The Crab Season is finally over and we are now working
to get all of our crab pots off the fishing grounds onto shore for winter
storage. A huge gale is blowing. At this time,
Mill and I have left the stern of the deck while Dave and Chris finish
buttoning up the lazarette hatch while we run to another string of gear to
stack on deck.
As I watched in the
partial protection of the deck house, I watched as Chris and Dave put the hatch
cover back on the lazarette opening and tried to ‘dog’ it securely into place.
The wrench they used was specially made for the purpose, but as I watched,
Chris was having trouble with the latch. After a couple of hard smacks with the
palm of his hand, Chris took the hatch off and turned it upside down on the
deck to see what was wrong with the dog mechanism.
As I was watching Chris and
Dave work near the stern, up against a wall of crab pots, the sky and water had
a certain look to them; the sea was green and the sky was grey – a little
lighter than the green sea. Then, in an instant, from the corner of my eye,
everything got green – very green, very
fast. I turned my head to see what was happening and saw a wall of water higher
than the boat with a breaking sea on top of it. It was a colossal ground swell
which had to be 50 feet tall – or taller. Huge rogue waves like this travel rapidly
and this one was about to hit the Marcy J square on our starboard side.
I screamed to the guys as
loud as I could: ROGUE WAVE!!! – and then the mighty sea engulfed us and washed
over the entire vessel. Because it came onto us from a quarterly direction, I
was shielded from the main blow of this monstrous sea. The Marcy J listed way,
way over to port, and for a minute, I wasn’t sure if she would be able to right
herself.
Chris and Dave were
completely exposed to this maelstrom and unable to get away from the thunderous
swell that had engulfed us. They disappeared from sight as I was washed with
water over my head. I grabbed for the shrimp wenches as the sea pushed me past them
and held on for dear life. For what seemed an eternity. Both arms were hugging
the huge line cleats on these wenches and I was glad I had something solid to
hold on to.
At last the water subsided
enough for me to breathe, and I was able to get my feet back onto the deck as
the boat lost the dangerous list and the water washed back over the rails and
through the scuppers. I immediately started slogging my way back to where I had
last seen Chris and Dave, but I didn’t see them; the water was too high. When
it finally got down to about 3 feet deep, I saw both their heads; they had been
smashed up against the netting of the crab pots and been ‘pasted’ there for the
duration of the event.
Wow. Good thing we had those pots on deck or they
would have been washed overboard for sure, I thought to myself – at first. Then I saw the look on Chris’s face;
he was ashen grey and writhing in pain.
Oh no, I thought as I trudged toward them. Chris is hurt.
I rushed to them as fast
as I could. Dave seemed OK, but Chris melted down to the deck, and he was
trying to hold his lower leg. Before I could get there, Dave stood up and
helped Chris to his feet. I watched in horror as the bottom half of Chris’s leg
was swinging free around in the swirling water. It was obvious that the bottom
part of his leg was broken in half. Blood colored the water as it leaked over
his boots and down the inside of his oilskin pants.
“God damn it Dave. What
happened to Chris?” I cried as I reached them.
“I think that hatch cover
got pasted into his shin bone and broke it off” Dave yelled to me over the din
of the wind and water. Chris couldn’t talk. Although tears were streaking down
his salt crusted cheeks, no sound emerged. He just kept holding on to what was
left of his leg, just below the knee.
“Come on Dave” I shouted.
”Let’s get him into the galley”. As gently as we could, Dave and I carried
Chris across the deck, through the entryway, down the passageway and into the
galley. Chris was gasping in pain. Mill came to help and we laid Chris on the
galley table.
I ran up the latterway to
the wheelhouse and yelled to Harold (Chris’s dad), “Harold, Chris has a broken
leg. We have to Medivac him off the boat!” What that meant was that a Coast
Guard helicopter would fly out and lift the wounded man off the boat, into the
helicopter and fly him to a hospital.
“Take the wheel John”,
Harold said as he flew down the latterway to the galley to his son. As I stood
by the wheel, the guys stripped off Chris’s oilskins and cut his pant leg up
past the break. It was bad; the skin and muscle of the back of Chris’s shin bone
area was the only thing holding the bottom part of his let together.
Harold returned to the
wheelhouse and called the Coast Guard. No matter Harold’s urgent plea’s, the
Coast Guard said there was zero possibility they could go out in this gale and
lift Chris off in the middle of the Bering Sea. No way. We would have to get to
the Port Moller Cannery. They would take him to an Anchorage Hospital from
there. Major bummer!
All we had onboard for
pain killers was aspirin, and as we fought our way through the monstrous seas,
each crash into a new swell would throw the boat off and Chris would flinch. We
had tied a tourniquet around Chris’s leg and changed it every 15 minutes or so.
This was the longest 20 hour trip of my fishing career; my best buddy Chris was
writhing in pain the whole way. None of us could sleep. We nursed Chris as best
we could the whole way.
The only good part of this
story was that Harold’s boat insurance paid a buggered up crewman a full crew’s
share while the man couldn’t fish, so Chris and his family wouldn’t struggle
financially while he healed. It took about 15 months before Chris was back on
deck, but he had recovered to almost 100%. Whew.
So, short one man, Mill,
Dave, Harold and I returned to the fishing grounds and finished picking up all
our pots in 2 ½ more loads. Another week of work. The mood on deck was subdued.
We just wanted to go home and see our families.
We finally made our last
trip to Dutch Harbor, unloaded our pots and made the 5 day return trip to
Kodiak. I spent a day or so in town visiting my buddies while waiting for a
plane to Anchorage.
Then, finally after not
seeing my family for months, I arrived back in Minnesota. I was tired, but
healthy and had about $50,000 in my pocket. And boy, was it ever nice to see my
wife!
* * *
* *
Although I haven’t seen Dave or Mill for years, I
still see Chris and Harold and Chris’s brother Tony. The four of us are
lifelong friends that have had more adventures together than I can shake a
stick at. Whenever we all get together, we tell, and retell, all of our
favorite tales into the dead of night…
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