A Life Changing Day

Everyone has them: days which for ever change who we are as a person. I can think back in my life and come up with any number of life changing days. Ones which changed how I view life, today is one of them, as was in the middle of December in '95. While accepting one, it is time to reflect upon another one, and to give my 3 readers a glimpse into part of my past, my history, and what made me who I am today.

It was during the time that I worked on a lobster boat, and was fishing out of Gloucester. There was a storm coming up the coast, and we were out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, just south of the “tit” on Stellwagen, or as other fisherman like to call it “to the Southern”. I liked to call it the “tit” well, because I have a slightly dirty mind, but if you looked at a bathymetric chart, it actually looked like a little bump sticking right out of the middle of the bank on the West side. In this picture, you can see the "tit" just to the East of the letter g in Stellwagen.

For those who have been out in the middle of the Atlantic, in December, on a boat no more that 42 ft, you know the feeling you have about how alone you feel. Sure, you had your VHF back then, cell phones didn't reach land from where we were, but on a day like this, the VHF was silent. We were the only boat out on the water because we were stupid, we were dumb, and not really thinking right. I remember that day like it was yesterday, I was down below the cabin, laying on the foam cushion we cut into a mattress, and feeling the up and down action of the boat as we steamed into the ever building sea.

When the weather is nasty, and I consider nasty anything from the East over 35knots, you get the roller coaster feeling down below on the bunk. The bunk is a flat cubby hole of plywood which is about long enough for a 6'2” hulking mass of a fisherman to sleep. There is also another bunk, which is about 18” above your head, the top bunk. As the boat rides into the sea, your feet are about above your head, but as the boat breaks through the crest, you come crashing down, and will literally get airborne. Because of this thrashing you take, you end up squishing the mattress from the top bunk in between your knees and the base of the top bunk 18” above you. This gives you the ability to brace yourself for the crash through the crest of a breaking wave, so you don't slam your head on the top bunk on the slam into the trough. Now as an engineer, and knowing a lot about vibrations, I have often thought that the worst possible time or place for any boat is when the seas are larger than the boat itself. This is when you can run into serious trouble, you can pitchpole, and you can become a victim of sea. The reasons for this are obvious to me, but I will explain it in a little more detail.

If you are either riding into a sea, or you are taking the sea in a following position (going with it) and the boat is smaller than the wave height, there is a position on the wave where the boat will “stall” for lack of a better word. Basically what happens is the wave breaks as the boat is climbing the crest, and the break in the wave will push the boat back down the wave. Either the stern or bow will then then bury itself into the trough of the wave, and the force of the oscillation will make the boat turn end over end. This has been the demise of many many mariners throughout the years, and it is something all good sea captains are aware of. It is one reason not to be out in the ocean in a small boat, when the weather is howling, and the seas are building.

On the trip out, I am in the bottom bunk trying to catch some sleep for the long and arduous day we have in front of us. The good thing is that I know the storm is coming up the coast, so I know that we will not be able to stay our there long, and the feeling of queasyness I have will be gone in about 8 or so hours rather than the usual 12-14. Surprisingly you can actually get some good rest when you are laying on the bunk, and the boat is thrashing about. It is almost like a rocking feeling you get as a baby. You get accustomed to the rocking, and moving of the waves, as it rhythmically helps you rock to sleep.

I woke up around 6am, just about the time the sun rose, we were about 30 miles South of Gloucester fishing the grounds called the Southern and we were in some nasty weather. The seas were 15-25ft which is pretty nasty for a 42ft boat to be in, but it is fishable, albeit difficult. The wind was howling, and I could hear the whistling of the wind as it rushed past some of the different antenna's we had on the top of the pilot house, that is how I knew it would be one of those days which would completely suck, one which would change my entire outlook on life.

We started hauling the gear, and the traps were coming up chock full of lobsters. When I say chock full, I mean full. For every trap, we were pulling out anywhere between 5 to 10 keepers, all nice quarters and halves. During December of '95, the price shot up to $5 a pound for lobsters, so we were making ungodly amounts of money. Every trawl we had was strung up in 20 traps, and we literally would garner about 200 pounds of lobsters per trawl. When the lobsters are coming in that heavy, it is nearly impossible to be fast and efficient on the back of a boat, there is just too much work to do. It would take us about 30 minutes to go through a single trawl, band all the lobsters, re-bait the traps, and reset them back. It was brutal work, but the money was out of this world amazing. Working on the back of the boat, I was making 20% of the catch, so for every trawl we hauled, I would make between $150 and $200 dollars. The captain was making the 80% chunk, so he was making over $1000 an hour, it was very alluring and lucrative for a young 25 year old punk of a kid.

Well, there we were, sitting in the middle of the Atlantic, about 30 miles South of Gloucester, just South of the tit, to the Southern. We were the only ones out on the water that day on account of the storm that was bearing up the coast, and the only reasons we were there was because my boss was a complete fuckup. You see, the previous two days were gorgeous outside, it was flat calm, highs of 40 degrees, absolutely amazing weather for December. I was banging on his door at 3:30am the day before trying to wake his sorry ass out of bed to go fishing, to no avail. He didn't wake up until 7 or 8, then wanted to go to the boat to “get some stuff done” which I wouldn't do. I knew how much money he was costing us, and I knew what the weather was going to be like, so I was pissed. I said something nasty to him over the phone, and said that I would not go there if we weren't going out, I had better things to do with my time than to sit around the docks and BS with people. This was the reason we were out in the ocean during a storm, it was the reason we were taking a beating, and it was also the reason I started to give him shit for the day.

After we hauled the first trawl, the seas were still about 15-25, but they were building. It is not a good feeling when you are out on the water, alone, and you see each wave getting bigger and bigger. We stayed to the Southern and hauled another 2 trawls before it was really too nasty to work, so we started to head in. I was thinking in my head that I still made $600 for the day, so it wasn't all that bad, we got through a couple of trawls that were on a 5 night soak, and they needed bait desperately. I was psyched to come home, because I knew the weather was getting worse and worse not by the hour, but by the minute.

One of the problems you have when you go out to your gear that is the farthest away is that you have to steam past other gear on your way in. You actually have to physically pass the buoy, and consciously tell yourself that you have $1000 at the end of that rope, but you don't want to take it because you are smart. Half of yoru brain is saying that the right thing to do is to pass it up, and go home for the night. The good side is telling you to be safe, and to be well. Unfoturnately there is another side to the psyche, the one with greed. It is telling the good side that he has no balls, that he is a pussy, and it really isn't that bad out. Well a grand for a half an hour's worth of work is a lot for anyone to pass up, so we started buoy hopping our way in, a very very bad idea. What I mean by buoy hopping is you steam in, you run a loran line to pass over some gear, you then have to physically look at the buoy, pass it by and not pick it up. It is the evil greedy part of you that subconsciously tricks the good part of you into working in more crap weather. That is what he decided to do, on a day we never should have been out there in the first place.

Around 9:30am, we were around the tit on Stellwagen, and came across one of our buoys. Sure enough, I hear the roar of the 8V71 Detroit diesel wind down to a murmur as the boat comes close to the buoy, we decide to haul it much to my dismay. You see, when you are working on the back of an open stern deck, there is no railing to protect you from the ocean. You need to watch what you are doing at all times and you need to make sure you do not go over the edge. It is very easy to slip, to lose your balance and to fall in, when the waves are tossing you around like a sock in a washing machine. It is dangerous, but if you know what you are doing, you can make it work and stay dry. In my entire life as a fisherman, I never ever went over the side. I know many many people who did, but I was always cautious enough to know what I was doing, and managed to never get in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was a day I knew could go over though, if we caught a wave wrong, or if one came from a queer direction while I was stacking the last row of traps at the stern of the boat, I could very easily end up in the Atlantic. It is why I don't like going out all to much when it is nasty out, not because I don't like the weather, I actually think it is kinda fun, but because of the danger involved working the rail, and running towards the back of the boat. No matter how comfortable I was, or how much experience I had out there, I knew that one false step could be the difference for me. Because of this, I was not pleased to still be hauling gear, in the middle of the Atlantic, while a nor'Easter is starting to grip hold of the coast.

We managed to haul another three trawls buoy hopping our way back towards Gloucester, and the weather just kept getting nastier and nastier. The wind which was once whistling from the mast, and the antennae, was now this eerie howling. It is something you never want to hear as a fisherman, because it is the sound when boats go down for the count. The 35knot wind was not blowing 35 any more, it was blowing more like 40-45knots with strong gusts over 60, and still picking up steam. The seas that were about 15-25 ft were now in the 20-30ft range, and it was at a point when I was actually starting to get a little scared. I have been in bad weather before, I have been out in the ocean when fronts have passed, and even in some pretty decent storms, but this one was the worst I had ever seen, and for us to be out on a boat that size, it was not to smart. If I was on a bigger boat, I would have felt 100% comfortable. Put me on one of the boats from Deadliest Catch, and I would love it. Not in a 42ft boat though, not on that day, it wasn't a comforting feeling to say the least. The moaning of the wind as it screeched past the mast was enough to make the skin on your neck crawl. You just KNEW it was not good, that something was going to happen.

Now, it is about noon, and we are about 12 miles South of Gloucester, when we pass one of our other buoys on the Northwest Corner of Stellwagen. It was some of our closest gear, but the weather was just downright horrid. The captain asked me if I thought we should haul one last one, and I asked him if he was on drugs (he actually was on klonopan DOH!) I told him that we already have over 1000lbs of lobsters on the boat, and it is more than enough for the day, but he didn't listen. He ended up grabbing the buoy and started hauling the line hoping to pad his cash flow just a little more that day, it was a bad idea, and I told him so from the beginning.

After about 8 or so traps, the culling table (the table where the lobsters go) was full, stuffed with about 120lbs of lobsters, so I started to band all of them as fast as I could. We hauled the next trap on deck, so i turned from the culling table, walked the trap from the rail and was getting ready to place it on deck. I have heard stories about rogue waves, but I have never seen one up close and personal, I was about to get my chance to see what all the fuss was about.

They say when certain things happen, when your adrenaline rushes, everything slows down. Your hearing and sight become acute, your senses heighten and you become more aware of your surroundings. For me, I was stacking the trap on deck when I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw a lot of white over the top of the pilot house past the bow. I turned, saw literally a vertical wall of water crashing down on us, I nearly crapped my pants. It was nothing like I had ever seen before, it was almost vertical, the steepest I had ever seen a wave, and it came from a bit of a different direction than the sea was slamming us from. This was our saving grace, because instead of taking the wave in a quartering direction, we took it head on. My boss cut the line of the trawl, and punched the boat forward into the wave. He had the engine running full bore, as the wave started to crash down on us. For me, I found a spot in back of the pilot house. When I looked up and saw the water, I went to the place I thought was protected the most, I held onto a cleat on the rail, and felt the freight train of a wave come crashing into us.

As the wave crashed over the top of the boat, the entire deck turned into a washing machine. The 8 traps that were on deck were swept over the stern of the boat along with 2 barrels of rope, and other miscellaneous gear. Two windows popped out, water filled up in the pilot house, and the 30ft aluminum pole with the VHF antenna snapped in 2 and lay in the water right next to where I was crouched. I was still holding onto the cleat under the gunnel rail with dear life, and I think my hand was pure white from the grip I had. I threw myself on the rail of the boat, leaned over the side, half into the Atlantic and grabbed the pole in the water. Everything happened so fast, but those few seconds seemed to last a lifetime to me. I got the VHF pole back onto the deck, screamed ever swear imaginable to my boss and told him I was done.

We limped back to port, soaking wet, torn tattered, but alive. It was that day, the one where I stepped foot on the dock, when I decided that I needed to go into a different path in life. I then realized that money was not everything in life, it is not worth your life, it is not worth the risk, and I wanted to live my life. That was one of those days in my life which was indeed life altering. It was when I came to the conclusion at 25 that fishing was not going to be how I was going to spend my entire life. It was the beginning of phase 2 of my life, which started about a month and a half later when I went back to school. It was a life changing day.

Today, I believe is one of those days in my life. In fact do I not only believe it to be true, I know it to be true. As I sit here on the plane to Seattle, I know my life will be different when I step off the plane. I am going through a baptism of sorts, one where you cleanse the mind of all that is detrimental to your well being, and then focus on the positive, the here and now, today. I am taking the clean approach to life, I a going to be eating healthy, living healthy, and loving healthy. It is something I am sorely looking forward to in life. I am doing this for myself, first and foremost. To be a better man, to be the best man I can possibly be. But I am also doing it for a friend, a dear friend in need of some help, and one that can right the ship of his life as well.

As I step off the plane and meet the girl I once knew when I was a cocky 15 year old with a rebellious streak, I will be overcome with all different kinds of emotions. I know how great of a person she has become in life, and I always thought she was destined for greatness. She lives in Washington State, and I live outside of Boston, on the other side of the country. I don't think either of us wants to move, and we both love the areas we live in, but that doesn't mean that I can't have a wonderful and great time with her this weekend. I am anxious to learn all about her life, about dressage, about her job, and how she became this totally cool granola eating hippy chick. I have been talking to her for the past few weeks, and I just knew that I had to see her. She asked me when I was coming out to see her, and I of course jumped at the opportunity. I am doing this for a lot of reasons, but none more so than for making me a better man in life.

I liken this point in my life to one where I don't know the path ahead, but I know the course will be different from what it was before. It is a good thing too, I was too caught up on these dilutions of grandeur in what life would be like with Amelia as my daughter, and it tore me apart inside. I have not written her name in this blog before, nor will I ever write about her out of respect for both her and Liz (her mother), but she showed me what it was like to be a father in life, and I loved every minute of it. I was not mentally ready for it at that point in my life, and because of it, she is no longer a part of my life. It isn't that I don't want to be the Uncle Michael in her life, I desperately do, but the feelings run too deep with me and her mother for us to be friends, as I don't think either one of us could handle it. Because I had these dreams that were taken from me, mostly because of my own actions, I sunk into a depression, and contemplated the worst thoughts in life. The past few months were the low point for me in life for one reason or another, I was unemployed, heart broken, with out a license, and basically just felt like a complete shithead, and ass. Now, that I have stepped out of the hole I was in, and I have started to look at life through the eyes of Michael again, I am coming to realize not only what I want, but how to go about the changes needed to make me a better man.

I know that I was my best in life when I was with Brigitte. I know was only 15 but it was before all of my escapades, and I like to think I was on the path to greatness. I was smart, athletic, and cocky, without wisdom or knowledge, just a budding teenager looking at life through virginal eyes. I thought the world of her, and I have ALWAYS wondered what became of her. Was she married? Did she have children? What did she do in life? Well, as I was browsing the Mascoutah page on facebook, there she was. She was in a bandanna, making holes for an outdoor game of Mancalla. I sent her off the obligatory e-mail, and I was overly anxious to see what she had been up to in life, what she was doing now, and how she got to where she is in life. I ended up writing a condensed version of my life story in about 2500 words hoping I didn't scare her away with my loquaciousness or reverence of her. We then started talking through e-mail, and over the phone, sometimes for hours at a time, but it was great. It brought me back to a time when I was at my best, the summer of 86, I was young, cocky, in love, and I thought I had the world by the balls. I was a person destined for greatness, or at least I thought so in my own mind, and I am climbing back to that person now.

So why would my life change just by meeting her? Because she always brought out the best in me. She is the person who I think inside I compare people with. She made me want to be a better person when I was a young child. She still does to this day even though she has no idea about it. I know when I get off this plane, as I am now somewhere over the great state of Montana, that I will be a changed man. I will have placed a transitional point in my life where I move on and start to right my own ship. I need to do this not only for myself, but for others who I hold dear to my heart. I have let the others in life carry the burden of a lot, and it is about time I pulled my fair share of the weight. I have about an hour left in my old life. The old Mike is leaving behind the new and improved Michael. I know I have it in me to be a great person, one that makes everyone he touches better in life. That is who I want to be, that is what I want to become it is who I am as a person. A Renessance Man in the 21st century, one who gets “it” in life, but has decided to take the reigns of the horse and lead others. This is one of those days, one of those life changing days in my life. Just like the faithful December day when the rogue wave nearly sank the boat, it is life altering but for the better.

Thanks for reading and listening to my long, boisterous and convoluted diatribe, my three readers. . .but thank you anyway. Maybe there will be a book written from going through these blogs, maybe I am just again sinking into my own dilutions of grandeur, who knows, but the Michael who will write the next segment to this blog will be a better man, and for that I am 100% certain.

Peace out,
Michael

Note* I wrote this on March 19, but posted it on March 23rd when I was waiting at the airport in Wenatchee to fly home. I didn't have internet access via my laptop, so the post is actually a few days after it was written, not that it matters. . .