Seaworthy (21 page)

The man in the plane announced that they were low on fuel and headed to Newfoundland, reiterating that we were to remain here until the ship arrived to “deal with the situation.” I answered that I understood, then sat back in the captain's chair to watch the horizon for the coast guard ship. As I scanned the crease between water and sky, my mind wandered to happier places. I missed home and faced my first regret for embarking on what was turning into a blue-ribbon disaster. I could be home, going through the doldrums of peacefully hauling a few lobster traps along the rocky shore, waving to a passing sailboater, wondering what my mother was making for dinner, and dreaming about being back offshore. I began feeling guilty for bringing four nice, responsible men along on this miserable trip. I was willing to bet that none of them had ever broken a fisheries law. Hiltz had never even received a speeding ticket, and Timmy made Hiltz look like a hardened criminal in comparison. I would have to get this conglomeration of events straightened out for the sake of sparing my crew's innocence.

I wondered who would believe that I'd never been in any trouble. Isn't that what we all say when we find ourselves there? I'm a decent and law-abiding person. I have never participated in what anyone could consider even the slightest misdeed. Unless you count the time I swiped a ball bearing from David Brown's desk in third grade. The teacher had us form a search party for the missing steel ball, and we were not to go out for recess until it was discovered. I miraculously “found” it under a radiator in the back of the classroom. David Brown was really happy. I was sure the teacher knew that I had stolen it, and I had to live with that deceit burning a hole in my otherwise honest being for the remainder of that school year. I had stolen and lied. But beyond that, I told myself, I had a clean record and conscience—until now.

But the longer I sat, the more incidents came to my attention through the cobwebs of the past. For someone who professes never to have crossed the line in word or deed, I sure seemed to be coming up with a lot of evidence to the contrary. Maybe I wasn't as squeaky clean as I once believed. And every time I'd done something wrong in the past, I'd been nabbed. Apparently
that's
the trend that had kept me mostly on the straight and narrow. If I'd believed that I would get away with a misdeed, I might just have tried more often. I now had to admit that I was a goody-goody not out of any moral or philosophical scrupulousness but rather out of fear of being caught and punished. Perhaps my self-image had been askew all these years. More likely, though, was the fact that I had surrounded myself with some real bad actors the length of my fishing career, in contrast with whom any normal person would ascend to sainthood.

I'd never worked with anyone guilty of a capital crime—that I was aware of. But drug-related charges and convictions, theft, and other forms of violent activity had seemingly been prerequisites for deckhands in the past. As long as my men followed the rules and laws of the ship, the only prior experience I was interested in was fishing-related. Granted, the rules I established were few: No drugs or booze or weapons allowed. And the cardinal sin of throwing plastic overboard was grounds for immediate dismissal. No sleeping on watch was strictly enforced and punishable by loss of pay. Other, smaller infractions, like fighting, resulted in fines levied. The fear of losing a paycheck had always kept the men somewhat in line. In my present situation, with my present company, I was beginning to question the upstanding perception I had maintained of myself through the years. Compared with my present crew, as opposed to men with whom I'd fished in the past, I looked quite culpable. The longer I sat, the more swollen my bag of guilt became.

The
Cygnus
came on the horizon at about 6:00 P.M., a rigid-looking vessel with strict red and white lines. The size and speed of the ship as she approached said no-nonsense. The captain radioed his intentions of coming within one quarter of a mile and launching an inflatable boat that would deliver the boarding party. The boarding party would consist of three men—two Canadian fisheries officers and one coastguardsman. The captain then explained that the three men would come aboard the
Seahawk
to do an investigation. I radioed that I understood and agreed to wait with my engine out of gear and drifting until advised to proceed. The coast guard had boarded my boats many times in the past. And my only concern back then had been whether any of my men would be taken from me for outstanding warrants or lack of legal citizenship—leaving me shorthanded to finish the trip. This time I knew that my crew was safe.

We watched—my crew from the deck and me from the back door of the bridge—as the ship's crew launched their small, hard-bottomed inflatable boat. Five men scrambled into the bright orange boat and headed toward us. As they came alongside, Arch and Timmy stood flanking the door with hands extended to assist the boarding party as they had to step up and onto the
Seahawk
from a moving platform. The officials waved my men away, refusing their friendly attempt at assistance. All the Canadians were armed, with guns strapped across chests that were clearly protected by bulletproof vests. They were certainly taking their jobs seriously. The inflatable peeled away and headed back toward the ship, while the three officers made their way up to the wheelhouse. Although I do not recall family names, I remember the head of the party introducing himself as Steve and the others as Terry and Dimitri.

Along with the introductions came a lot of what I assumed were boilerplate statements issued by Steve and required by Canadian law. I can't repeat the exact words, but the tone sounded a lot like being read your Miranda rights. I gave Dimitri permission to manipulate any or all of the electronics on the bridge he deemed necessary to conduct his part of the investigation. While he did his job, I answered questions asked by Steve, basically explaining how I came to my present circumstance. I told them about the drift test and how the results led me to make the set that I did. I explained the set and showed them the history stored on the plotter, which clearly indicated that I'd never entered Canadian waters during the setting of the gear. When Dimitri needed a diagram of my set to include in his evidence, I gave him a flash drive to copy it with. The questions continued, mostly the same stuff rehashed. Steve periodically made calls to his superior officer, who I assume was shoreside using a satellite phone, and he also radioed the ship from time to time.

Next in the Canadians' routine was the interrogation of my crew. Individually, my guys were asked to sit at the galley table and answer questions. I had already advised them to cooperate fully and to tell the truth, as we had no reason to do anything but. I can only assume that we all had the same story. One at a time, the men came to the bridge to report that they'd been questioned and to assure me that we were going to be fine. When the officers returned to the bridge, the crew went below to wait at the galley table and speculate about how much longer it would be before we were released and allowed to finish hauling our gear. Steve made a call on the satellite phone. Steve made another call. When he hung up from the second call, he said, “You're not going to like this.”

“What?” I asked.

“I am placing you under arrest and seizing the vessel. I have been instructed to escort you to St. John's, Newfoundland.”

T
he
Seahawk
's small wheelhouse was a tangle of legs that sprawled from folding chairs as the three men snored, heads back and arms crossed over uniformed chests that heaved in total discord. The authorities, who had been quick to tell me they'd been on their way home after two weeks of offshore duty when diverted to the scene of my transgression, slept soundly with the comfort of the two-hundred-foot
Cygnus
as a chaperone. I was surprised to be allowed to drive the boat after having been placed under arrest. (Goes to show what I know.) The exalted feeling I had reveled in while hauling gear—the epitome of being real and in the moment, here and now—was gone as if it had never existed. I now sat in the captain's chair and experienced the most bizarre, most surrealistic out-of-body experience. Some part of me was drifting dreamlike in a flood tide of confusion and emotion, while the rest of me went through the mechanics of captaining my boat. I was oddly juxtaposed between maintaining command while in custody of what I regarded as an unknown, yet greater, authority.

The officials had agreed to allow us to haul what remained of our gear. And we did so at daylight, landing another half-dozen fish, which we were allowed to take. When a bitter end came aboard with a mile and a half to go, I knew that a search for the missing piece would be hopeless, with no functioning beeper to toll us in. I made a halfhearted attempt to track the stray gear down and finally gave up, knowing that this was a needle in a watery haystack. Besides, I had bigger problems to deal with. We were 240 miles from St. John's, Newfoundland. So I figured I had at least thirty hours to chat with Steve, Terry, and Dimitri, once they woke from their naps, about what would happen to me when we hit shore.

Archie sneaked up the stairs and tipped an imaginary cup to his lips, asking if I wanted coffee. I shook my head and stuck out my lower lip in an exaggerated pout, indicating my mood, which had blossomed into full-blown sadness from the sprouts of disbelief of the night before. Arch nodded and pulled a camera from his breast pocket. We glanced at the Canadians' arsenal, which they had piled haphazardly on the chart table, and then looked at each other. Arch shook his head, then scowled at me for even having the thought. It would have been a really cool picture, but I let it go and went back to being sad and staring at the horizon while feeling the chill of the shadow cast by the
Cygnus,
which remained close by on our starboard aft quarter.

The situation was so foreign to my experience that I didn't know how to act. I covered my awkwardness by concentrating on the familiar. I focused on the weather and navigation and planned a new fishing attack. When in doubt, go to what you know. I asked Archie about the amount of damage the sharks had done to our leaders. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Then, as if humoring the crazy lady, he agreed to check with Hiltz and Timmy. I listened intently to the SSB radio for positions and fish reports from the boats working to the east and formed a strategy for squeezing into the lineup. When Archie reported a loss of three hundred leaders, I ordered the crew to begin rebuilding. “But, Linny, you're under arrest,” Arch said, as if trying to wake me from a dream. I insisted that I didn't care where we were going and that we really needed to work on the gear. “The boat has been seized. We're going to Newfoundland.” Arch spoke softly and kindly, as if I didn't quite understand my situation and he was trying to explain without upsetting me.

“Arch, get the crew on the gear. If you don't, I will.”

“I'm on it.” And away he went, looking a lot like a spanked puppy. I just couldn't have the crew thinking we were done. I had my doubts, but they needn't know. The only part of my world that was real and tangible was my command of my boat and crew. I would hold on to those with clenched fists. If I let go, everything would meld into the blur of the unknown and scary.

One at a time, the arresting officers shook themselves awake and stretched the stiffness from backs and knees with groans of pain. They were polite and courteous, as if paying a social visit on board, nothing at all like I'd assumed they would be. In spite of my present status—under arrest and in custody—they paid me the respect due to any captain. There were many transmissions in all directions on radios and satellite phones between the
Seahawk,
the
Cygnus,
Jim Budi, and someone I guessed to be the real boss and the one calling the shots, for whom I came to develop a strong dislike. The nameless authority was ordering the underlings to do what they actually seemed uncomfortable doing and was a great target for my silent but growing feelings of fear and anger. From my support system came assurance that the problem was being handled and that I would be released and free to return to the fishing grounds before we closed in on St. John's. This was countered by my Canadian custodians, who relayed a skepticism that undermined the power of each encouraging update from Jim Budi. The struggle shoreside went back and forth, and intensity grew palpable in the frequent snippets shared.

There was no privacy in any conversation. I heard all “they” said. And they heard all that I said. I'm sure we deduced quite accurately the tone and content of the talk of higher-ups on each side of the equation. It became increasingly clear that I had landed in the middle of an International Incident, and that although I was the unintentional instigator, I had become a pawn. Whatever had transpired in the crossing of the boundary was now insignificant. Principles overshadowed reality. Now the arresting officers and I sat on the sidelines and became spectators. A strange bonding took place. Like characters in stories of prisoners and their captors, we were forming a real and sympathetic rapport.