know fear

The salmon boats left in the dark an hour before dawn and if he had seen how big the surf was, he'd have never left his slip. It was a south swell and the surge in the harbor was stronger than anything he'd seen. It was his first year working out of Santa Cruz and his first year running his own boat. If he had known how big the waves were he'd have slept in and gone surfing instead, but he'd already caught more waves than fish that summer and still hadn't paid the July slip fee and here it was the 24th.

He rolled a joint to save for sunrise while the engine warmed and watched for the other boats to make their move. His boat had no radar and he liked to follow other boats close enough to keep a mast light in sight in the fog. If he lost them in the fog then he had to wait till nine or ten o'clock when it burnt off to locate the fleet, but by then the morning bite was over and you were surrounded by sea lions and even if you were lucky enough to hook a fish you couldn't get it on the boat.

There were four boats in the channel ahead of him and he waited in his slip not wanting to be in a crowd in the narrow channel waiting for a lull to charge into the darkness. The surf sounded huge, but he knew that it always sounded bigger than it was. The slope of the beach and that it broke in the shallows as one long wall made a two foot ankle slapper sound like a thunderclap.

Local surfers had been talking about a big south swell coming from Tahiti for a week. It was suppose to be big Wednesday and huge on Thursday. Sometimes it's just talk and no swell ever shows, but this one had already hammered Hawaii. He backed out of his slip and eased into the channel. Three boats waited just ahead of the fuel dock and a fourth was coming back.

He thought that was a good idea and probably what he should do. It wasn't chickenshit to go back but smart. But he was under a lot of pressure. He wished he had fish harder. The season was almost over and he hadn't caught jack shit.

He idled up the channel watching the bobbing boats ahead of him. Eighty one year old Victor Ghio on the Caterina G. was the lead boat. Victor went everyday whether or not the fish were biting. If Victor went, then he was going. He waited and thought about that. He didn't want to do anything stupid. It wasn't worth risking the boat for a few fish.

There wasn't a star in the dark overcast sky and the surge from the swell shoving in between the narrow jetties had the boats jumping up and down as if they were riding pogo sticks. It would be better, smoother, on the outside, he told himself. The weather forecast called for ten knots or less of wind increasing to ten to twenty by afternoon. A typical day on the bay in the summer. He’d like to sneak out, snag a few fish and beat the wind back to the harbor.

He’d promised his surf buddy T-Bone a salmon on his birthday. Today of all days. T-Bone had thrown a lot of barbeques for the local crew on the east side and he wanted to come through for him. He wished he had saved a fish from the day before. Wished he’d never left his slip. He didn't want to do anything stupid. He fished alone and talked to himself. Always questioning his own judgment.

He was scared stiff and he knew what fear was; he'd been dealing with small doses of it everyday that summer. He moved up for a closer look. The waves were three feet inside the channel and the engine was doing a thousand rpms just to stay in one place. He was about to turn around when it flattened out and the boats ahead of him raced out. Now it was his turn. He had to go for it.

He pushed on the throttle to seventeen hundred and went for it. Outside and beyond where the surf broke he eased off the throttle. He made a quick check of the gauges and turned his attention towards the lights of the other boats when the front windows went dark. Black mountains loomed on the horizon. Mountains on roller skates. He hit the throttle and she rode over big rollers. Monsters. There was going to be hell to pay to make it back into the harbor and no way in the dark. He might as well go fishing.

It was a big south swell. A ground swell, as in underground. It didn't show on the surface until it was in the shallows and then it grew with the fury and pride of a swell that had traveled from the bottom of the Pacific to the top. It had not come from Tahiti, but further south. Born as a low in Anartica, it moved north into the Tasmanian Sea; the Roaring Forties, between Australia and New Zealand, where it picked up spin, speed and strength and worked its way into warmer waters growing in force until it was a full blown tropical cyclone.

It had not come from Tahiti. It sledgehammered the island on its way north. As a deckhand on a tuna boat in Papeete he saw volcanic boulders as big as Volkswagens thrown over the twenty-five foot seawall by the waves like they were popcorn. He thought of these things, but did not dwell on them. He had a job to do.

He had to concentrate on the job at hand. Finding hungry fish. He pointed the bow at Victors’ mast light, set the auto pilot, checked the engine compartment and wished he had some coffee. He could see the city lights of Monterey and that was comforting; there was no fog on the bay. He began to tie hootchies, a lure; a plastic squid, with a hook hidden in its skirt, that swam behind a flasher, which attracted fish. He used 80lb. test leader for his flashers and 60lb. for the hootchies, so when sea lions stole his fish, he lost only a hoothchie and not the flasher. Hootchies cost ten dollars a dozen and flashers are ten bucks a piece. But its still not about the money, its all about the fish.

He’d lost at least five hundred fish to lions that season. He had stopped counting at four hundred because it hurt too much to know. He tied half a dozen white hootchies and a handful of green ones that glowed in the dark. He never brought a gun on the boat and sometimes a dozen followed the boat waiting for a bite. Big cows cruising along teaching their pups the art of theft. And the only thing he could do was rant and rave like a maniac, then pick up his gear and run elsewhere. He had quit counting because it was driving him crazy.

It was eleven miles out to where he fished the day before and running at only seven knots he had to have patience. Time is a constant, it is only our perception that makes it seem quicker or longer. It seemed like dawn was a long time coming but part of that was the constant throb of the Detroit Diesel 353 and his desire to spark the doobie. The mast lights ahead faded like morning stars as the sun rose over the eastern hills and the warm light colored the underside of the clouds a fuzzy pink and he felt good about his prospects.

There was a one to two foot rolling swell out of the Northwest and no wind whatsoever. The surface was as smooth as polished glass and it had a calming effect, his whole body relaxed. He hated being caught in the wind. He lit the joint taking deep hits. The water was clear and thick with jellyfish. A zillion white jelly fish the size of softballs pulsated into the current which ran downhill.

Victor and the other boats had changed course, turning ‘Uphill’, up swell, to the west and slowed down to trolling speed. Through binoculars he could see that they were putting their gear in the water. He angled his boat due south and climbed on top of the cabin to look for birds. He refused to fish in jelly and was sure they would thin out in deeper water. He went into the cabin to check the water depth, take a couple hits and tie a few more hootchies. In a couple miles he came across a hard edge in the water. On the ‘Inside’; towards the beach, the water was muddy chocolate looking and on the ‘Outside’, a clear deep green, with a long stretch of clumps of kelp and seaweed running roughly east and west, indicating a rip. And just outside the rip sat hundreds of black salmon birds.

He slowed to trolling speed, put the stabilizers in the water and aimed for the birds. He raced to get his fishing gear in the water then went into the cabin to write down the starting lat/long numbers. He came on deck in time to see the port side bow line pump.

Rather than let the fish soak and tire to make it easier to pull, he ran the gear immediately for fear of losing the first bite to a lion. A nice eleven pounder, he did not clean it right away, not wanting to put the scent of blood in the water. It was a quarter till seven and he already had the skunk off the deck. It was a good feeling.

The day went by quickly, because he kept busy and focused, working the spot; tacking back and forth, and because the sea lions left him alone. It was the first time in a month that they didn't take a fish from him and he felt lucky for that and other reasons. He felt blessed and remembered to thank the Man. He wondered where the lions went and hoped they had migrated south to mate, but he didn't feel that lucky.

He was happy. He had a dozen fish and lost a big one behind the boat and didn't even care, because he had a huge one that would make twenty five pounds easy. It pumped so hard, he thought it would break the pole. And on the surface, behind the boat, it spit the hook, but he nailed it with a wild swing of the gaff.

He cleaned the big fish and lay it on top of the ice in the slush box so that he could look at it again on the way in. Every time he looked at it he giggled. He’d love to catch another one and he watched the springs for pumpers, but the horizon above Davenport was a lineup of whitecaps and knew it was only a matter of time. It was time to make a decision. Fish harder, continue uphill and turn around when it got too windy and make a long downhill tack. Or pick up the gear and run for home now. There was no decision to make. He had a story to tell and a barbecue to cater. Party at T-bones’.

He picked up the gear, turned and pointed the boat towards Loma primate. Using the silhouette of the mountains to line up the course home while he waited on the slow loran to get a fix and reinstate itself. He was studying the coast in the distance, saw the mist and realized he had forgotten about the south swell.

He was seven miles south of the Lighthouse, out in the bay and it looked like a fog bank but he knew better. It was the sea spray from huge surf slamming granite rock. Mountains of water that hammered the cliffs north of town hard enough to split atoms. Thundering, pounding waves that ground granite into beach sand.

He had half a doob of the killer green and knew he should finish it. Later it would be too much on top of the fear. He didn’t even want to think about what the harbor entrance looked like. He took deep drags, held them and began to pray. He didn’t want to wig out when it came time to make the move and he prayed for strength. He might be able to sneak into the harbor during a lull or he might have to run to Moss Landing where the south swell would not be felt; being blocked by the Monterey Peninsula. He took a couple more hits and wondered what to do. It was six miles in the trough to Santa Cruz and thirteen miles down swell to Moss.

He watched the sea spray and began to feel the fear. The smart thing to do was tack for Moss, but he didn’t want to do that. He was only a little more than an hour away from the comfort and safety of his slip. He would tack back home to Santa Cruz, look at the entrance and go from there.

He tried not to look forward but could not help himself. He took one last hit and sacrificed the roach to the wind. He went into the engine compartment to check on things. He didn’t need anything going wrong at the wrong time. He gave the deck hose pump bearing a shot of grease even though it didn’t need it. He needed to do something. He talked to himself. He had to stay focused. What did he need to do? First, secure everything on deck. He put the hatch on the cockpit, lashed it down and looked around for anything not tied down. Satisfied, he went into the cabin to get out of the wind, now fifteen knots.

It was a little over five miles to the harbor and even from there he could see the profiles of two big boats waiting outside the harbor for a chance to make the mad dash. Big and fast party boats. Charter boats. He watched for fifteen minutes and it seemed like an hour and the boats didn’t budge. This was serious shit and he wasn’t sure if he was up to it. The spray from the waves hitting the cliffs looked like geysers going off. He could feel his heart start to beat harder and there was nothing he could do about it.

He went on deck to look at the fish and think of T-Bones’ barbecue and try to relax. The big fish was beautiful and impressive and he felt blessed to have caught it. He stared at its eye and felt like it looked back at and into himself. He looked ahead and wanted to cry, but knew he couldn’t go there. He stared at the fish for strength and friendship.

At four miles out he recognized the two party boats waiting in front of the harbor. The Makira and the Sea Dancer. Fast boats, if they were still waiting for the right time to sprint in; what chance did he have on a seven knot boat of beating a swell that was running twenty-two?

At three miles out, with binoculars, he spotted a sport boat, a Fiberform, waiting behind the party boats in the swell outside the surf line. The party boats lifted up and down as if they were in and elevator and the tiny sport boat bobbed and like a styrofoam cup in a pool full of kids.

At a couple miles he slowed and changed course downwind to raise the poles. He put her back on course and checked the engine one last time. He peeked at the fish and asked him for help. He was half a mile outside the mile bouy and slowed her to an idle. The back sides of the waves were huge green monsters and when they hit the beach the white water spray looked like explosions going off. The third reef at Steamer Lane was going off the Richter Scale with solid thirty foot faces slamming into the cliffs; it must have felt like an earthquake. He couldn’t watch anymore.

He idled in, in no hurry. He had been watching the party boats waiting for a lull for over an hour and they were still waiting. He stuck his head into the engine compartment again and when he came up to watch ahead he realized he was praying. He was on auto-pilot now. He went back into the cabin to steer by hand.

Inside the mile bouy, in fifty feet of water, the building swell lifted the boat as if she were as light as a feather. The Chloe Marie rode the big rolling swells like a duck without a care in the world and the Detroit Diesel 353 roared like a lion on the hunt. They would not fail him. If anything, he would be the weak link. His heart was beating faster than the diesel and pounding harder than the surf. He was on the verge of blowing a gasket. If there had been a panic button, it would have been pushed long ago.

The swell grew into waves about half a mile offshore and thundered onto the beach. One solid wall of water from the wharf, past the boardwalk, the river mouth, the jetties and all the way down to Black’s Beach. A wall of water three stories high and a mile wide. One huge wave after another. There was no let up. He lined the boat up with the west jetty and turned and pointed her bow into the swells. He started counting the waves. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. There was no let up.

He studied the ocean horizon and fought to keep his eyes away from the waves at the Lane. Now and then checking his drift and making adjustments, kicking it in and out of gear to keep in line with the jetties. He had a snowflake’s chance in hell of out running the swell. He hoped to make it in during a lull. It was all about timing. And aiming. He wanted her pointed straight into the middle of the harbor channel. In case a wave hit him, he wanted it to wrap around the stern, not hammer him boardside. The last thing in the world he wanted was to be hit boardside. That’d be all she wrote.

He waited and watched the horizon and it seemed like forever. It never let up. It seemed hopeless. Then it the swell let up for a little while. Somewhere between a moment and a minute, the ocean held her breath. The skippers on the party boats saw the window of opportunity and black smoke poured from their stacks as they raced in.

Zippity Doda. They slipped in and made it look easy, while the Fiber Form struggled behind. He could not see through the waves to see what happened next, but he could imagine. The first wave of the next set picked up the boat like it was Tupperware, flip flopped it around and bounced it off the east jetty.

The V.H.F. radio blared on channel 16. “This is Santa Cruz Harbor Patrol. The harbor mouth is closed. Do not attempt to enter. There is no steerage. We have a boat floating upside down in the channel. I repeat, do not attempt to enter. Anchor up at the wharf.”

No way in hell he was going to anchor at the wharf in a south swell. That’d be like trying to sleep in an elevator shaft and if his anchor drug he’d end up on the beach. He watched the ocean with an intensity he’d never known. There was no let up. If anything, the swell seemed to be building. Every wave slightly bigger than the previous.

All of forty feet high and a mile wide the wave rose from the depths in glory and roared forward to unload trainloads of thunder onto the beach. The white water spray obliterating the thirty foot light tower on the west jetty. He had never seen anything like it. He looked at the ocean and knew.

It had flattened out. Plateaued. The last big one was the last one for a little while. It was now or never. He had never known anything truer. All his experience on the water had only been training to recognize that one moment. He gave her throttle, turned the boat and pointed her home. He opened the cabin doors in case he had to jump. He gave her all she had; twenty-one hundred. She screamed and his heart raced. He turned his head astern only once and the fear of death shook his body.

The swells were coming fast. The first wave would be a small twenty footer. After that his big brothers would come to punish. His body went rigid. His hands held the wheel like visegrips. He focused forward on the entrance and begged the boat to go faster.

He thought that he was home free, a couple hundred yards off the west jetty when the rip current caught the boat and twisted her to portside. Panic choaked him, he turned hard to starboard, and when the boat straighten out, he straighten the wheel. And not a second too soon.

She was within spitting distance of the rocks when the wave hit. It lifted the boat and he was looking fifteen feet down onto the top of the jetty boulders. Then she dropped and slide down the face of the wave like it was something she did everyday. Piece of cake. Glad you were along for the ride. She slid into the deep channel and it was all over.

“Thanks Chloe.”, He loved his boat more than he would have thought possible. There was a cheering crowd on the small jetty. He stuck his head out the door, shoved his fist skyward and roared. It felt great to be alive. His friend Kathy was on the jetty and he waved at her. She would be at the party. He pulled into his slip and Roland who worked at Bayside, the bait shop, was there to help him tie up.

He shut her down and put the big fish in the ice chest in his truck. Marauder Joe stood at the top of the dock ramp. “That was stupid. You should have gone to Moss.”

“No shit.” He was exhausted. All he wanted to do was slam a couple Pacificos with his buddies at the Dirt Farm at the Point and watch the waves pound the cliffs. He drove along East Cliff Drive and was wondering about briquettes when he heard the honking coming from behind. He’d forgotten to weigh the fish.

A truck with a NO FEAR decal splashed across the windshield. The driver lay on the horn and the passenger flipped him off as they crossed a double yellow line to race past. He was too tired, to return the one finger salute.

‘No fear my ass. They’re gonna crap in their pants when they see the surf.’ And for a brief macho moment he thought to chase them down and slap the one kid around to teach them both a lesson. But that was stupid and simply not his style. Besides, hadn’t he learned anything?