Mayday ... Mayday

Caught in a deadly storm ....

Photo by Adrian Smith on Unsplash

MAYDAY ….. MAYDAY

When one hears a Mayday call over the radio, it is never a good thing.

It means whoever is calling is in grave and imminent danger.

Mayday comes from French m’aider, “help me,” which sounds identical to Mayday. It is used around the world as a radio distress signal on sea. When the Coast Guard detects a Mayday call, they know the boat is in trouble and needs help, as well as any surrounding vessels.

We received one in my first years of fishing sometime around 1989. As I was green to this business, I had no idea what to expect. But even being inexperienced, I had an uneasy feeling in my gut of what was to come.

News travels on the boat faster than rain hitting the deck, so we all got wind of what was going on almost immediately after the boat turned toward the location. We didn’t know what we’d find once we got there. It took a few hours which seemed like eternity.

The storm had passed by the time we arrived.

As we neared, our boat slowed down to investigate. Our small crew was called to the deck to help look for anyone that might be in the water. It was hard to see anything, because the only thing that remained was the bow of the capsized vessel pointing toward the sky, with the entire boat submerged below. It is hard to gauge how much of the bow was sticking out perpendicularly to the level of the ocean. I’d guess 20 feet? My perspective was different when looking down from our protected deck onto this horrific sight below. It was obvious we got there to late.

The sea was silent like it had thrown a tantrum and anything in its way paid the price. The air was still. There was no wind, no swell. It felt unreal. But it was real. As we quietly took in the scene, trying to absorb what it meant, I saw her floating.

Lifeless, she drifted in my direction, like driftwood, and stopped, lapping against the boat softly in the water. It felt like slow motion watching her. Why did she stop below me? I didn’t want to see her. Standing against the deck rail, looking down on her, it was almost a holy moment. What do I mean by that? Floating on her back with her face pointing toward the sky, her eyes open yet unseeing. She looked peaceful, although I can’t imagine her death was peaceful at all. Her survival suit did not save her.

We could not save her.

It must have been terrifying - her last moments of life.

She was in a life suit but not completely. Ideally, one gets in the suit like a sleeping back, pull the hood over the head and zip it up in the front from the waist up to just over the nose. A Velcro strap wraps around from the back of the head covers the mouth adding extra snugness to keep out the icy water. Her head was exposed; life suit zipped up to her chest, hair was long and floating in the water around her head like a halo. Either there was no time to put this on, she wasn’t able too, or it came off in her struggle.

Looking into her face from above, I knew it could be me someday. It could be all of us on the boat. Without knowing her, I felt a pull of sadness. My eyes teared up, my heart ached. Nobody deserves this ending. Commercial fishing can be dangerous. The ocean at times shows no mercy. This was one of those moments.

Looking into her face from above, it didn’t seem real. Like she wasn’t real. I wondered how she felt before she died. Panic, fear, terrified, hopeless? Did this happen so fast there wasn’t time to think about her feelings? The distress caller in the original call said there were two on board. Where was the other person?

One of our deckhands dropped a skiff down to the water level by a crane. Four deckhands jumped in it to retrieve the lifeless woman. These strong men had a heck of a time lifting her out of the water. She was literally dead weight and waterlogged. They managed to get her inside the skiff and bring her on board.

The captain circled around the remnants of the bow which were still visible searching for the other person. We all were looking but it’s hard to see anything floating on the sea when waves create hidden spaces between them. The bow of their boat which I can only imagine had guided this couple through many fishing adventures was still visible, as if it was holding on for dear life. It wasn’t ready to give up, give in, sink. An overturned life raft, endless sea, a cloudy daylit sky, that was all there was to witness. Not even a bird flying overhead. After some time without success, our captain pointed our vessel toward Dutch Harbor to take the woman in. We’d given up hope finding the other person.

Sometime later that day, with curiosity and wanting to say a prayer for her, I went to see where she was lying. The guys had covered her with a wet, nasty tarp which apparently was all that they had. I couldn’t see her covered like that. It felt disrespectful to me, so I offered the deck hands my blanket I had bought from a vacation in Mexico. One of those colorful patterned styles that you could buy on the beach from a seller. “Could you cover her with this?” I asked and they did. I never saw the blanket again.

There was what we called down time heading into Dutch Harbor, Unalaska. We had nothing to do during that time. There was no fish to pack. This gave the crew (us) time to think and talk about what we just experienced. Once she was dropped off, we headed back out to the fishing grounds, which could take a number of hours, maybe even a few days for us to think some more. During this time, there was no internet, no distractions.

We were all shook up.

But in a few days, we were back to work and moved on.

I can’t remember their names. I wish I could. A few months later we found out the missing person was her husband. He had been picked up. He was floating under the overturned life raft, dead. Another vessel that came to the Mayday call after us discovered him there. They returned him to Dutch Harbor to be reunited with his wife. They could now rest in peace, side by side.

In the days without internet, people wrote letters that were then sent in the mail. It often took a long time to reach faraway places like Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The company received a beautiful handwritten thank you card from the woman’s mother which was shared with us. In it, she expressed the family’s gratitude for our efforts in recovering one of the bodies. She expressed that commercial fishing was this couple’s life and together was the only way they envisioned it. Dying together would have been what they wanted.

I can’t think of anything I am so passionate toward that I’d be okay dying over it.

Can you?

Except dying for a loved one, yes. Yet here I am. Year 36 in this line of work, and I’m still alive. Maybe I am more passionate about this profession than I want to admit.

Or maybe I’m just okay with taking a chance.

Either way, someday, I’ll be dead. I’d rather it’s not floating in the ocean, but I suppose there are worse ways to go.