Was aquatinted to a fella who worked on commercial fishing boats. Met him after 10 years of not having seen him. He was cleaning floors at a blood bank. I called him by name. He barely recognized me. Told me he was doing public service work as part of his DWI arrest. We talked a bit about this and that then I was off. A few months later a friend of mine who knew him called. He said ‘did you hear about Ted?’ Seems he was working as a Hand on a long line codfish boat that was trying to negotiate moriches inlet in rough weather when the boat flipped. He didn’t make it. The rest of the crew made it ashore.
You often take your life in your hands playing in the sea when it’s angry.
Mike Rowe on dirty jobs talks about the time he was on a grab boat in Alaska. He complained to the skipper about how unsafe things were.
“My job isn’t to keep them safe. It’s to make them filthy rich.”
Mike Rowe does a thing now called “Safety Third”. Mainly - don’t expect all the slogans and signs and OSHA laws to keep you safe. Only YOU can keep yourself safe.
[You often take your life in your hands playing in the sea when it’s angry.]
It certainly is an unforgiving monster when its angry. The power is incredible.
“Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November comes early.”
When at sea, your life belongs to God. Spent a few years on an old C-2 hull. Thirty foot swells coming out of Capetown.
Commercial fishing is much more dangerous than being a fireman or policeman.