I worked on a fishboat for a few years, which was heavy gruelling work One of the jobs I had – yes, there were multiple – was cooking meals in the galley. I prepped meals, watched the sounder for the inevitable shallow spots, and steered, the floor pitching wildly underneath.
I careened from one spot to the other. The spaghetti I made for lunch one day, was topped with Parmesan cheese, the smell of which promptly drove me outside, to lean gasping over the rail.
Under normal circumstances I do not get seasick. This ‘moving feast’ no longer qualified as normal. My ignorance made my very first day of fishing, a personal day from hell. Bill hollered at me. The heaving rollers made me queasy enough to kill any pleasant thoughts I may have harboured in anticipation of this lovely experience.
No matter how I steered that boat, those shallow spots evoked screaming headlines in my head. ‘WOODEN BOAT SPLINTERS ON ROCKS! TRAGIC END!’ I’m not sure if the term “multi-tasking” had been coined at that time, but I certainly learned what it meant.
One day, quite by accident, I opened a can of Pacific Evaporated Milk upside down. You’d think the world had come to an end. Without warning, Bill got a crazed look in his eyes I’d never seen before, and he ordered
me to fire the can overboard immediately!
It was almost full and I refused. ‘Waste not, want not’, was how I was raised. His eyes went a little wild, and I thought for a moment that I was
the one going into the drink.
I learned very quickly that a can opened upside down on a boat – according to him – was extremely unlucky. Into the Pacific that can of Pacific went! However, the next time I opened a can upside down, I ripped the label off so Bill wouldn’t notice that he‘d be having a spate of bad luck in the near future.
I’m a rational person, after all. The biggest positive impression I left with Bill was my ability to handle anything that stank.
Big, strong he-man Bill has a weak stomach. Specifically, anything that really stinks – really, really stinks, means he’ll automatically gag like a cat with a giant hairball, and an undigested dinner sitting in the way.
And so it was that, early one morning I awoke and heard an awful racket coming from the head.
In my sleepy stupor it didn’t dawn on me immediately, that what I was hearing, was Bill retching. Then, after coming fully awake, and recognizing it, I wondered, why? He’s not the sea-sick type .. and it was calm anyway.
I got up to see what the commotion was about. There was Bill, yarding with a wrench on the outflow pipe leading from the toilet bowl through the hull, retching as he worked!
What are you doing?” I asked. In between gags, he managed to tell me he was trying to undo the pipe because it was plugged, and the toilet was backed up. I listened to him dry-heaving for a few more minutes and then ordered him out of the head. I took the wrench and managed to unscrew the pipe, remove the stinking mess, re-fasten the thing and get the water flowing again.
I think that impressed him enough to keep me on as deckhand, in spite of my green-horn status.
In spite of Bill’s admiration for my poop-handling, the screaming continued over my inability to fully comprehend the world of commercial fishing, and I discovered another, totally different side to the man I thought I knew. On the plus side, I was never thrown overboard, or left on the nearest rock pile either!
That Bill and I were still together by the end of the ‘92 fishing season, speaks volumes for the relationship.
The following year I decided to follow Mossman into his halibut fishing endeavours. I thought I worked hard during salmon season, but compared to halibut longlining, working on a troller was a Sunday picnic.
My mind doesn’t quite want to remember anymore. The memories
have become a confused, nebulous fog, but I will try and describe the gong show that was halibut fishing, as best I can, the next time.
Mossman’s Law Rule #4 – Rabbits’ feet don’t work. Lying through your teeth does.
Mossman’s Law Rule # 5 – When it looks bad, it might be good, maybe not. Ya takes yer chances.
Elly Mossman
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