“Off we go me mates after the boat’s loaded up, the pods are loaded and secured, and the bait is on. Then we are ready to shove off. I heard there’s a storm brewing, so it’s not going to be easy for us out there. It looks like we’ll have a battle on our hands.” And it was a battle on the sixth hour at sea.
The tempest was ready for them with its battle axes fixed, its black clouds shaped like the devil’s head, its leaning out over the horizon with its cheeks full of air to blow and blow. The wind was coming from the north, the south, the east, the west with no rhythm to know where to steer the boat. Rogue waves were rolling over the side. Then the captain had to count the men to see if any were swept out at sea and gone down to Davy Jones’s Locker.
The tempest was gaining more strength to make it worse for the men with plenty of air left in its cheeks. The deck hands were still tossing the pods over the side and bringing them back up while trying not to get killed by all the shifting heavy machinery and swinging pods on the deck.
Sometimes the pods were empty and other times full. When they were full, the risk wasn’t so bad, but the empty ones made them wish they would have stayed home. Life’s not so easy out there on the stormy seas, but in order to feed his family, one has to do what he has to do. Such is the life of a crabber on the Bering Sea.
I love that TV show "The Deadliest Catch."