Seaworthy by Linda Greenlaw Page B

and would be “hauled back” (retrieved from the water) hydraulically.
    The gear operation closed down when Archie announced that breakfast was being served in the galley. I had eaten frozen pizza nearly every morning for years aboard the Hannah Boden, so hot oatmeal was a bonus. We all managed to squeeze in around the tiny galley table, pushing Timmy’s bedding into a corner. Tight quarters were further diminished by the size of the men. I was elbow to elbow with Machado and Hiltz. The company was as warm and sweet as the bowl of oatmeal. It hadn’t taken long for this crew to develop real camaraderie, I realized as I nearly spit a mouthful of cereal across the table, unable to suppress a giggle at Machado’s antics. By the time I had inhaled breakfast, Tim was laughing so hard his face was McIntosh red and Archie was wiping tears from his cheeks. Hiltz sat quietly chuckling and shaking his head.
    I hated to leave the breakfast scene. All that good nature, humor, and just plain positivity was magnetic. I had rarely shared a meal with my crew at the galley table in the past. Generally, the conversation was unfit for mixed company. Not to mention the fact that the crew needed time to bad-mouth their captain. But these guys were different. I had certainly shipped with gentlemen before. But not four of them at once. I had always eaten alone in the wheelhouse, paranoid about being away from the radios and missing some critical piece of information that might trickle in. There wasn’t much of a trickle happening these days, I knew. There may have been all of one boat out fishing last night. There were two at the dock unloading in Newfoundland and three in transit. Soon there would be more activity to keep track of, and I would need to have all radios tuned and ready. With this in mind, I excused myself from the galley and headed topside to program frequencies into our single-sideband radios.
    Scotty had given me a short list of channels to monitor in order to stay up with the small fleet. Standing on my toes, I could just reach the two SSB radios that hung from the overhead behind the chair and above the chart table. Although the radios’ manufacturer was I-COM, a maker quite familiar to me, I had no experience with this particular model. Most radios are similar and straightforward in operation, enough so that operating instructions are unnecessary. Or at least that was what I thought when I began pushing buttons. I turned the tuning knobs around and around, scanning the hundreds of preprogrammed frequencies for the ones I needed until my arms were tired of being held over my head. When I couldn’t find 3417.0 megahertz on either radio, I decided to program it in. Frustrated after many failed attempts, I began a search for the instruction manual.
    I’d been through the steps of programming laid out in the user’s guide several times with no luck when Timmy entered the wheelhouse. “Hi. How’s it going? Mike is organizing the fish hold and wants me to shut down the ice machine. I think I’ll change the oil in the generator. It’s almost due,” Tim said.
    â€œNo.” It was a knee-jerk reaction. “Don’t shut the ice machine down. What if it doesn’t crank back up?” I asked as I continued to push buttons on the starboard SSB. “That would be a real bummer. I’m never comfortable without it running, even if it means shoveling ice overboard to make room for fish. It’s a pet peeve of mine.”
    He sighed. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. We’ll keep stock-piling ice for now. But I’m sure between Archie and me we could always get the ice machine running again if we did shut it down.” I liked Tim’s confidence. Confidence breeds confidence. But I had cut trips short in the midst of very productive fishing when ice was depleted. Confidence does not erase memory. “Anyway, I heard that having a list was your pet peeve.