Into the Mist
By: Chris Alleyne
Tags: Mystery, Short Story, Fiction, Suspense

Photo by Author

Into the Mist

The story behind the story

In 2015, I joined a photographer friend and two others for a week in Alaska — 2 days in Anchorage and 5 days camping in Denali. After some discussion, he and I drove from his home in Las Vegas north through Oregon, Washington, BC, and The Yukon and into Alaska through a crossing called Poker Junction.

After the other guys left us in Anchorage, we caught the biggest of the Alaska ferries, the MV Kennicott, for the 5-day trip back to Bellingham in Washington.

On the third or fourth day, I think it was, I was standing at the rail on the Port side of the ship, watching a huge fog bank swallowing the islands to the east, and I saw a lone fishing vessel making its way north. I snapped a few photos and watched the boat disappear into the heavy mist. I thought that I had simply gotten some interesting shots, and went on my way.

I have always been fascinated by these photos, and often wondered how it would feel to be on a 70-foot boat, bound for who-knew-where and about to disappear into a mist seemingly without end.

Almost 5 years later, in January 2020, I started writing short stories, and these images were sitting in the back of my mind. I could see the name of the boat ‘Alrita’, so I started doing some hunting online.

While googling ‘Alrita’, I came across a fish-processing operation called Senasea in Ardenvoir, about 90 miles east of Seattle, whose owners seemed to be connected to the boat. I sent off an email to find that the boat had been built for the grandfather or great-uncle of one of the owners and that her father had been Alrita’s skipper at the end of the twentieth century.

She forwarded my email and, within days, I received a reply. The gentleman in question, who I will call ‘Mike’ until such time as I get his approval to use his real name.

Mike has been incredibly helpful, providing me with information specific to the Alrita and to the industry in general.

Initially, it was my plan to have the boat sunk by some strange means, and most of the crew killed. After my communications with Mike, and general research on the Northwestern fishing industry, I have decided that it would be disrespectful at best to inflict this on the boats and men who work on them.

Longline fishing in the colder regions is a dangerous and physically-demanding task. Those involved in this industry deserve to have their story told. Unfortunately, the physical distance between me and the people involved make it impractical for me to do the research required to produce such a work. The story you may have read is fiction, but I hope that I have not wandered so far from reality that people shake their heads in disgust.

Into the Mist

The story

The Akita had been built in 1945 by the Prothero Brothers, in a yard in Seattle, Washington. She was a combination halibut boat, fishing with nets and longlines, she was 73 feet long and displaced 35 tons net. The boat fished along the Gulf of Alaska, as far West as the Aleutian Islands.

In May of 2015. Jason Savage had been on the beach for close to 5 years. His nest egg was awfully close to hatching and flying away, leaving him with an empty nest.

A month earlier, he had been told of a fishing boat berthed close to Westport Marina, on the Southern entrance to North Bay, called the Akita, which was searching for a First Mate. He applied using a computer in an Internet Café in San Francisco and when he checked his email a few days later found, to his great pleasure that he had been offered a job, provided that he could be in Westport before May 15th.

He had arrived in Westport a few days early and found a trailer to rent. Spent the evening sipping a beer at a table on the roof deck of his trailer.

The next day, he wandered around the docks until he found the boat and the company office.

The door was open. Savage pushed it, entered, and said “Hello there” to an empty office. Walked in to be accosted by a bushy-haired man, marginally smaller than a grizzly but, apparently more friendly. The two men were of similar age, the other man looked perhaps a few years older.

He had long, white hair and a similarly coloured full beard and moustache. He broke into a wide grin. “Ah. I suppose you’ll be Savage, then.” He said, sticking out his right hand. “Good to meet yah.

“I’m Jonah Wharton, master of this fine vessel.”

Savage did a double-take that he couldn’t hide. “Jonah…?”.

White teeth appeared through the beard. “Aye. Helluva name for a sailor. And a skipper as well!

“Well, so far, so good. No whales yet.” He smiled again.

We shook hands. “I guess we could as well see how we do together. If you’re not busy that is?”

Savage nodded, “Works for me. Got no pressing plans before Friday.”

“Good.” He said. “There’s a couple of the guys out by the boat. Do you know anything about diesels?”

Savage nodded “A bit. Enough to know which way a nut tightens, anyway.”

“Great.” Wharton indicated a yellow toolbox. “Grab that and bring it along, will you?” And headed out the office door. Jason grabbed the toolbox, closed the door and followed him out into the muted sunshine. They walked along the dock.

As they approached the boat, a short, slim man climbed down the ladder. He had a definite European air about him and, when Wharton introduced him as Luigi Rosselli, his Italian roots were confirmed.

‘Grease’, as he was apparently called, was the ship’s engineer, and his primary job was keeping the two 435 hp CAT 3208 diesel engines running smoothly.

“Still has that roughness, Skipper.” He advised Wharton in curiously non-accented English as they made their way down the companionway ladder. “I don’t think it’s serious, but I would like it to go away.” He turned to me, “Do you maybe know how to bleed a diesel fuel system?”

Savage nodded. “Never done anything this big, but smaller ones, yeah.”

“You just need bigger wrenches.” Roselli laughed. “At least we’ll keep you warm, eh? Outside here is nothing like Summer in Tuscany, you know?”

Wharton poked me. “Luigi here enjoys the warmer weather. It gets a bit chilly here for him. That’s why we keep him down below most of the time.”

Luigi frowned. “They confuse me. They tell me that it is 50 degrees when it’s only 10. Is not fair! Ah. My tools.” He said, reaching for the toolbox. “Come with me?”

“You can’t have him yet, Luigi. I need to show him the wheelhouse. He’s mine too.” Said Wharton, chuckling. “See, you’re already spreading jealousy on board!”

Wharton put his hand on my shoulder. “That’s it for here. Time to go upstairs.” Then to Roselli, “I’ll send him back to you in a bit.”

They walked aft. “There should be at least one more here,” Wharton grunted. Called aft. “Hey, Manny? Did you fall overboard, yet?” And back to Savage, quietly, “Manny’s a good guy, but he can be a bit of a sourpuss when he’s ready.”

“Hey, Skeeper. You got new blood for us?” A large Hispanic — I would have said Mexican, but they frown on labels like that these days — stood up from where he had been sitting among coils of light cable line, and a box of leaders with evil-looking circle hooks attached. There was a buoy rig attached to the cable, and a small anchor at the end.

“Yep.” Replied Wharton “This is Jason Savage from…” He turned to me “Where did you say you were from, again?”

“I didn’t.” Savage replied, “but south of here, California, Oregon. You know how it goes. Did most of my fishing off the Northeast. Bluefin.”

He stuck out his hand and watched it disappear to the wrist into a monster of a grip that was firm but surprisingly carefully applied.

“Hey there. You come to make sure that the Skeeper here keeps us off the rocks? No?”

Not sure how to take this, Savage grunted concomitantly, and they left Manny to his lines and turned forward towards the wheelhouse. Wharton unlatched the door and pushed it open. They entered the small but nicely appointed cabin.

The central feature was the highly polished wooden wheel, bound with brass between the spokes. Next to it, the engine room telegraph stood on its pedestal slightly to the right of the centerline of the hull. The wheelhouse stretched almost the width of the superstructure, about 8 feet or so, with a semi-circular binnacle built into the centre-right facia which sat immediately below the windscreen. Also mounted there slightly to the left were a GPS unit and screen, a depth sounder, and a manual chronometer. On the right side of the cabin, also mounted in the facia, was a depth-sounder unit dedicated to locating fish and, immediately above, mounted above the windscreen, a marine band radio, and a shortwave set.

Against the back wall of the cabin, at a comfortable distance from the wheel, was mounted a flip-down seat for the helmsman. The seat was fitted with restraining straps, and a similar arrangement sat on the left side of the wheelhouse. There was also a small hinged chart table.

To the starboard side, there was a door leading aft, into what was the skipper’s cabin. ‘Office’ might have been more appropriate, as it contained only a bed and a desk with a spindly-looking chair. There was a locker above the desk.

All in all, it looked like a very serviceable arrangement, in fair weather or foul.

It required an additional hour to walk around the rest of the boat. The midsection of the hull was occupied by the icebox, with a passage down the port side to the engine-room. The fishing gear was all stowed on deck, under the roof to the rear of the superstructure. The lines neatly draped across a series of pegs, at the very stern of the boat.

By the time they were done, the sky was starting to darken, Roselli turned up and indicated that he’d had enough for the day and that he would be back the following morning to finish up below. We walked down the dock around seven-thirty, agreeing to meet back there by nine AM the following morning.

Wharton said, “There’s a small diner at the end of the street. Their food is quite good. If you guys are up for it, I think the company could spring for dinner and a few.”

He indicated an old grey station-wagon, and he, Roselli, and Savage climbed into it. Manny begged off to go home to the family and the three of us rolled the half-mile down to Mike’s Seafood and Brew at the North end of the road.

We ate. The food was as good as advertised. Then we put away three beers each. At ten PM, Roselli straightened, drained his beer, belched delicately and said, “My place is just down the street a ways, it’s a nice night, so I’ll just head out. See you tomorrow.” He left.

Wharton gestured to the empty bottles. “Want another one?”

Savage nodded, and the Skipper ordered two more beers from a micro-brewery that Savage had never heard of. The beers arrived, and he pushed back his chair. There were perhaps three people left in the diner with us.

The beer was cold. Good. “What are we hunting out there, Skipper?”

He steepled his fingers, grooming his moustache. “We’re into halibut, mainly.” He said. “For a long time, the treatise and laws have dictated that commercial halibut must be caught on longline tackle. No nets.

“Before they introduced the quota system, we would fish for up to three weeks at a time. Now it’s like 4 to 6 days, plus a four to 7-day haul back to Seattle. The fish is still good, and we get a better price than in Alaska. She’s good for around 5,000 miles at a time.”

They sat in comfortable silence, finished their beers. Savage said, “Okay, that’s it for me. I think I’ll walk home. That’ll get me in the right mood for sleeping.” I stood. “See you tomorrow?”

Wharton nodded. “The guys turn up around 9.30 or so. See you then.”

Savage pushed in his chair, nodded, and left the diner. In the East, a pale, watery moon had just risen above the processing plant, and the moonlight washed gently across the docks and boats tied up there.

He inhaled deeply, absorbing the salt-laden air, and set out along the road.

At 6 AM, he woke, made coffee, and headed out for his morning trot. An hour later, he was back. His phone blinked insistently on the table. He picked it up and pushed the buttons to retrieve a message from Roselli.

“Morning, Jason.” It said. “If you’re really familiar with diesel engines, I could use a hand. I’ll be there by 8 or a little later.”

Savage checked his watch. It read 8.10 AM. ‘Perfect, he thought.’ He dressed in work clothes, laced on his boots, and left the trailer, locking it behind him. walked out onto the street and turned right. Fifteen minutes later, he stood on the dock alongside the Akita. Climbed over the rail and down to the deck.

The boat rocked slightly as he landed and in seconds, Grease Roselli stuck his head up the companionway and said, “Morning. Swing by the galley and grab yourself a cup, if you need it.” He indicated the galley door as they went down the stairs.

Savage took a few minutes to get himself sorted out with a mug and fill it with an evil-looking brew from the coffee-pot. He took a sip. The flavour belied its appearance.

He left the kitchen and headed aft, to where Roselli was studiously bent over the coupling between the port engine and propeller shaft.

He pointed at the toolbox and watched as Savage started to bleed the aft outboard injector on the starboard engine.

Ten minutes later, he nodded in approval. “You’ve obviously spent some time with these babies. Have fun.” And returned to his coupling and feeler gauges.

Somewhere along the line, the Skipper stuck his head around the door, said “Hello” and beat a hasty retreat when Roselli growled at him “Go away. We’re working here!”

It was almost 11:00 when the two men climbed out of the bowels of the boat and back onto the deck. After the heat in the confined space, up top was chilly. Savage grabbed for the fleece that he had discarded when he had gone below and shrugged it on. Walked towards the bow and peeped into the wheelhouse, where the Skipper was bent over a folding chart table.

Wharton looked up. “Everything good?” he asked.

Savage nodded and added a bit of a shrug. “Seems so. Grease was smiling.”

Three days later, Danny Hawkes, at 24 the youngest crew member, flipped the last remaining mooring line off of its bollard, took two running steps, and jumped aboard. Savage was at the wheel, under the watchful eye of Jonah Wharton. It was 06.00, just after dawn.

He reversed engines and backed out into the bay, turning the wheel to port as he did so. Akita’s bow pointed out to the mouth of the bay, and he shoved the throttles forward, to move the boat towards the open sea. As he headed west, the sea’s action increased until they were out in the North Pacific. He reveled in the feeling of having a vessel under his hands. She felt almost like a living creature once in the ocean.

Wharton pulled a chart down across the chart table and put his finger on it. “My plan is to head north to Yakutat. a long haul, but the fishing is usually good there. It’ll take 5 or 6 days running at 8 or 9 knots. If the weather is good, we may drop a line off Ketchikan or Sitka. Depends.

“There won’t be much happening on the way, so you could maybe get with Manny and Winston and let them familiarize you with how longlining works. It’s not real technical, but it’s hard physical work hauling 50 to 75-lb halibut over the rails. I’ll take the wheel.

“On a good haul, we can pull in close to 3 or 4,000 pounds of fish on a 2 or 3 mile-long ground line. Guarantee you’ll feel that for a while until you get back in tune.”

Savage left the wheelhouse and went looking for either of the two men. He found them sitting on the cleaning table at the stern, talking about their last trip. He interrupted and asked if they could fill him in on longlining techniques.

Manny nodded. “You’ve come to the right place. Winston has been on the boat for” He paused, clearly thinking. “seven years, right?”

“Closer to nine, now.” His shipmate said. “Been longlining for twenty-seven, from when I was 16.” He adjusted his position and started.

“Apart from the skipper, everyone has at least two jobs, and one is always a deckhand. Like Grease is technically our engineer, but he’ll be up here pulling fish with the rest of us. Manny here is our cook. He’s better at it than a lot of people I’ve known. Hope you like Mexican?” He grinned.

“These days we have a crew of 6. There’s accommodation for 7 but, with quotas and catches dropping, we make do with one less. More money for the rest of us, y’see.

“A longline set can be anything from a mile to 4 or 5. I’ve seen longer, but that was years ago. Nowadays we use steel cable about 1/4” diameter, with 3-foot ‘gangions’ or ‘snoods’ which have the hooks attached. These are pinched onto the longline every 8 or 10 feet using a spring clamp which holds it in place.

“Typically, we soak a line for 8 hours, although sometimes we’ll go for 20 or 24, depending on the time of day. We don’t want to be hauling in the darkness unless we can’t avoid it. Longlining is real work.

“A 32-inch halibut, which is the minimum legal length, will weigh around 15 pounds. A single set will usually have up to 1,000 hooks on a longline. If half of them hook up with barely-legal fish, that’s at least 7,500 pounds of fish that have to be hauled over the rail. Add some 50 or 75-pounders to the haul, and do that 5 or 6 times a week…. You get the picture.”

Savage got the picture, and immediately his back felt sore. He looked concerned, and Manny said to him “Don’ worry, man. At least we’ve got the winch to haul up the cable!”

Savage grimaced. “ How big do these fish get?” He asked.

Winston stroked his nose. “The official record is almost 460 pounds, but someone caught one off Norway a few years ago that weighed over 500. And that was on a rod and reel. Glad it wasn’t me!”

Savage chuckled. “What else do you get usually?” he asked.

Manny replied “Some Black Cod, sharks, and dogfish. If a shoal of spiny dogfish arrives, most ever’thing else moves out. Also get various rockfish sometimes, depending on the ocean floor.”

Winston rose to his feet. “You guys want coffee? I’m going that way.” He disappeared forward. Ninety minutes later, Savage opened the wheelhouse door and said “That was educational, skipper. Can I spell you for a bit?”

Wharton relinquished the wheel. Said “Hold 300 degrees for now. Put the strap on the wheel, get Danny to go up forward to keep a watch and let’s go look for some breakfast. Around dawn tomorrow we’ll turn to the north.”

Three days later, Akita nosed her way through Queen Charlotte Sound and into Hecate Strait. We held our course to ensure that we didn’t get too close t Graham Island to the West; the chart showed a shallow plain for about 20 miles to the east of the island where the depth was mostly less than 20 feet.

While this was comfortably deep enough for their draft, one never knew what one would find on the bottom.

The water was calm inside of the island and the tide was low. The current was moving slowly in a northerly direction, and they gained perhaps half a knot in forward speed.

Jason and the Skipper were at the chart table, planning. “So we don’t fish in here, then Skipper? It has some nice-looking spots.”

Wharton shook his head. “No. This is Canadian water, up to 100 miles offshore. We can’t fish until we pass Ketchikan at the North end of the strait.”

They ploughed northward at 10 knots. As the tide turned, the current slowly swung in a clockwise direction until it was running directly against them. The boat slowed slightly, but noticeably. Forward speed dropped by just under one knot.

It took another day and a half for them to reach the north end of the strait, turn west through the Dixon Entrance and turn back to the North. At this point, they also crossed the invisible line into Alaskan waters and would start to look for likely places, once the fog lifted.

“Keep a few degrees north of due west going through the entrance,” Winston said. “There’s a rock that’s only about 12 feet deep.” He pointed at the GPS. “I think it’s around 55W, 133N, and we want to stay south of that. If the tide is low, it might do us harm.”

The fog was heavy. Savage was steering with one eye on the GPS readout, the other on the digital chart.

The Skipper had walked out of the wheelhouse minutes earlier to go and stand at the bow with Danny Hawkes in the lookout post. According to the GPS and the chart display, we were almost off the of Dall Island, about 15 miles south of the closest land.

Savage gritted his teeth and turned north to 298 degrees, throttling back on the engines to 5 knots. Minutes later, Wharton opened the door.

“What’s up?” He asked. “Looking for somewhere to park?”

Winston chimed in. “I was just telling Jason about that rock.”

“Oh, right,” the skipper said. “Didn’t realize that we were coming up on that.” Then, to Savage “ Are you good?”

“As long as the GPS and chart are accurate,” Savage replied. “Don’t want to make any unexpected landfalls.”

“What’s happening here?” asked Savage, as the boat started to roll.

At the same time, the intercom from the bow lookout station blared into life “Hard a-port. Port!” Screamed Danny Hawkes voice from the speaker. “There’s something in the water!”

Savage spun the wheel hard to the left, and Akita heeled against the roll. It wasn’t quite enough. The boat hit something with a soft ‘Thump’. Wharton was the first to react, his eyes flying to the depth-sounder display. It read 1 fathom. Then it suddenly returned to 35 fathoms. “What the hell was THAT?” he asked incredulously.

The port wheelhouse door flew open and a breathless Danny Hawkes rushed into the already-crowded space. “We hit something. At first, I thought it was discarded container, but then it moved!”

The skipper recovered quickly. “Could it have been a whale?” he asked the distraught lookout, who nodded slowly. “It didn’t seem hard enough to be a container.” He turned to Savage “Me and my big mouth! Maybe he’s decided to come for me, finally.”

The tension in the wheelhouse had been almost palpable. Then Wharton put his head back and laughed and suddenly all four men were laughing uproariously. When things settled a bit, Savage said “It wasn’t that funny. Was it?”

Winston Harper shook his head, his eyes still running. “Not really. We’ve been ribbing the Skipper about his name for years, but we’ve never had a brush with anything like that.”

Akita shook again. The wheelhouse was silent. This was no passing glance; this was a definite attention-getter. Harper opened the starboard door and stepped carefully onto the deck. Minutes later he was back.

“Skipper, you’re not going to believe this, but it looks like there’s an Orca keeping us company. And it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen. Must be forty, fifty feet long. He’s about six feet off the starboard; I can just see an outline in the fog. Could be a humpback.”

Wharton crossed the wheelhouse and pulled open the door to his cabin. He returned minutes later with a lever-action Winchester rifle and a box of 30-calibre ammunition. “I don’t want to hurt it, but I hope the shock of the slugs hitting the water will encourage it to shove off.” He fed shells into the magazine and opened the door, stepping outside as Harper had done. Saw the indistinct shadow a few feet from the hull. He raised the rifle, aiming close to the shape, and pulled the trigger three times.

The three in the wheelhouse watched in shock as Jonah Wharton was suddenly propelled up from the deck and outboard to disappear into the dense fog. The rifle followed. He screamed. There was a ‘Thud’ against the wheelhouse.

Then silence.

For a few seconds, no-one spoke. Then Savage said into the stunned silence, “That was no Orca.” He thought for a minute, turned to Hawkes and said “Go and see if you can find Manny and Grease. Tell them what happened and stay with them somewhere safe. Below deck.” He added as Hawkes reached for the door handle, “Port side.”

Hawkes left, and Savage turned to Harper, who hadn’t said a word. What are the chances of finding him?” He thought he already knew the answer.

Harper shook his head. “In this?” he asked “About zero, if he’s still alive. But I guess we should at least try.”

Savage throttled back even further until the boat wallowed in the small swell. Then he turned the wheel to starboard and slowly retraced their route as best he could remember approximately what position they had been in since Harper had drawn his attention to the coordinates of the shallow rock.

Fifteen minutes later, it was clear that it was a fruitless exercise. With zero visibility, if they found the skipper in the water, they would be just as likely to run him down as to save him. Harper said “I think this is hopeless. What next, skipper?”

Savage stopped as if he’d been slapped. He hadn’t thought of that. With Jonah Wharton lost to the sea, he was now the skipper of a boat that he had only known for days, in an area across the continent from where he normally would have been, and in conditions to which he was unaccustomed. Still…

“Obviously we need to get somewhere to make a report to the police and other authorities. Do you know if he had any family? I would think Sitka or Ketchikan.”

Harper scratched his nose thoughtfully. “It would be easier going to Sitka — all open sea. Ketchikan is closer, but trickier between the islands. With all the cruise tourism, Ketchikan should have better communications and facilities. I think that’s the better bet.” He replied. “I think Jonah has a son somewhere in the Midwest. Kansas maybe, but I wouldn’t know how to reach him.”

Savage reached for the mike on the shortwave radio. “I wonder if we could find a Coast Guard cutter out here..”

There was a long, slow grinding from the keel. Felt more than heard, and Akita lifted her stern by about a foot, then sank back to her normal displacement.

Harper pointed to the depth-sounder. The readout read 0 fathoms. “I think we’re being used as a scratching post for something big. I thought it might have been a humpback, but Alrita weighs 35 tons empty. I’m not sure that a humpback could do that.”

Savage said to him “Do you think that we have any other firearms on board?”

Harper shrugged “There might be a handgun at the skipper’s desk below, but I’m not sure.”

By this time, Savage had turned the boat through 180 degrees and they were headed just south of east, heading back into Canadian waters before making the turn north into the inland waters approaching Ketchikan.

Savage leaned over the chart, dividers in hand. He quickly measured distances and said “Shit. We must be at least 100 miles away. That’s nearly 12 hours steaming.”

Harper nodded. “More like 125 miles. 12 to 4 hours — if we’re lucky.”

Savage pushed the throttles forward, and Akita surged to her top speed of just over 9 knots. “We need to all be in communications with each other. I don’t like the idea of us being here and the rest of the crew being somewhere down below. But I don’t want one of us out there by himself and one here.”

He reached again for the radio mike. “US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard. This is F/V Akita just south of Dall Island in thick fog. Requesting assistance. Over”. He released the mike button and waited. Just then Grease Roselli opened the door and threw himself into the wheelhouse.

“Remember that vibration?” He asked Savage. “It’s worse now. Whatever that was below seems to have bent the prop shaft. We’re stuck to a maximum speed of 3 knots. Unless you want her to shake her guts out.”

The radio erupted into life “FV Akita, FV Akita. This is USCGC Bailey Barco out of Ketchikan. Say your situation.”

Savage pushed the mike button. “Our Skipper’s gone overboard, we’re in thick fog and it seems that there is something in the water that we keep running into. Our position is, he checked the GPS readout. 54deg. 35 minutes N by 131–16 west.”

“Roger, Akita. Acknowledge. 54–35 North, 131–16 West. That’s Canadian water. what speed can you make?”

Savage keyed the mike again. “My engineer has just told me that 3 knots is our maximum comfortable speed. Seems our prop shaft has been bent.”

The vice came back. “Steer 54.5 at your best speed. You’re about 12 miles from the US/Canadian border, and it would be smarter if we picked you up on our side. Probably won’t be a problem, but we’re at the dock in Ketchikan, and it’ll take us 4 hours to get to you.”

“Roger that, Bailey Barco. Steering 54.5, best speed.” Savage turned to Grease, “Hope she’ll hang on.” and set the throttles until the vibration could just be felt in the hull. “That’s 3.5. Guess that’ll have to do.”

The boat rolled through ten degrees. Harper looked out the glass on the starboard side. “Can’t see a damned thing. It’s really thick out here. But I think our friend is looking again.”

For a moment, the fog thinned as a swirling breeze wafted the water vapour around. Harper gasped. “What the hell is that thing? It’s damned nearly as long as the boat!”

There was a dark shape not ten feet away from the hull. There were no clearly-defined eyes; it looked almost like a huge lobster, but with a smooth carapace. He couldn’t make out any more features before the fog settled back in. Savage turned the wheel gently to port, bringing the Akita onto its new heading.

“Where’s the others?” Savage asked.

Grease gave a small smile. “Manny’s doing what Manny does every time he finds himself in a stressful situation. Cooking. Hawkes is in the galley with his head on the table. He’s too young to deal with whatever this is.”

Harper grunted morosely, “I think we all are. I certainly am — don’t know about you two.”

The boat shook violently as the creature changed its tactics and rammed its hard shell into the starboard side. She rolled further to port.

Savage yanked the wheel to starboard, and the boat almost sideslipped through the water, its stern slewing to port as the boat righted itself and headed a few degrees further south. Savage turned back to port, aiming for US waters. Calm reasserted itself in the cramped wheelhouse.

The Akita gave a slow groan as she turned slowly north, and settled onto her new course.`

And, suddenly, there was a cracking thud on the port side, just astern of the wheelhouse. This time, the thing rushed the hull and hesitated after this strike for long enough to push the boat laterally through the water. The wooden hull creaked, but the diesels kept a steady thump-thump rhythm and she kept forging ahead.

Grease opened the door on the port side, said “I’ll be right back.” And slipped down the companionway into the hull of the boat.

Minutes later, he pulled open the door and started to say something and close the door at the same time. Suddenly we were all looking at the man, horror-struck by the ten-inch long chitinous spear protruding through the middle of his chest. He opened his mouth again, and a spray of bright-red oxygenated blood painted the port glass panel of the wheelhouse. Then he was yanked back, as if by an invisible hand, and disappeared from the open doorway.

Harper and I stood there dumbfounded. I jerked the wheel to starboard and the momentum swung the door shut with a BANG! We both jumped. Again, there was silence in the wheelhouse. In a matter of just over an hour, we had lost the two most experienced members of the crew. And none of the rest of us knew what was going on.

Savage grimaced. “I think we’re going to have to put her on automatic and get together with the other two. I don’t like leaving up here unattended, but I don’t think we have a choice.” He reached for the leather strap that the Skipper had shown him, clipped it onto an attachment on the port side, wrapped it twice against one of the wheel spokes and clipped it off to the starboard of the wheel. Shook it firmly. Said, “That should hold.”

Turned to Harper and said “We don’t know which side this thing is. When you go out, drop straight down the companionway and get into the hull. Try to stay below the rail, and don’t be slow about it. I’ll be right behind.”

Before leaving, Savage went into the Skipper’s cabin — his now, he guessed — and rummaged around in the desk drawers until he came across one of the biggest handguns he had ever seen. It was a brushed chrome pice that was nearly a foot long, with a bore that looked like a small cannon. ‘Desert Eagle Pistol’ was etched into the left side of the slide, and the manufacturer on the other. Further rummaging turned up a depleted box of .44 Magnum wadcutters. He grabbed a handful and put them into his pocket.

On the way out, he glanced at the GPS; 54–37 x 132. scribbled it on a piece of paper. Turned to Harper. “You first.” He said.

The older man slid down the companionway ladder, ending up on his knees below the top of the deck rail. He scrambled the 5 or 6 feet to the stairs into the hull and virtually fell into them. Minutes later, Savage followed his lead and the two of them moved aft to the galley.

As promised, they found Manny stirring a huge pot of chili. Danny Hawkes was at the table, he still had his head on his folded arms and was making small sounds that sounded like a puppy in pain.

The creature hit the port side again. This time forward of where they were.

Manny looked at them. “Did you leave Grease on watch up there?” he asked.

Winston Harper looked at the deck. Shook his head. “He’s gone.” Manny’s face slumped and Hawkes, who had raised his head from his arms, made another small sound before dropping it back onto his arms.

“How much further, Skipper?”

Savage checked his pocket for the scrap of paper. Scratched his head. “I believe the East/West border follows the 55th parallel approximately, so we should be a couple of miles south.” Then, as the other faces brightened, “Remember that won’t keep this creature out. We’re still at risk until we find the Coast Guard.”

Faces fell. Manny, meanwhile, was putting heaped bowls of chili on the table. “It’s gotta be eaten, and we gotta eat.” He said with simple logic. Looking up in surprise as Savage dropped the nearly 5-pound pistol on the table, “Where did that come from?” He asked.

“This was the Skipper’s backup piece. I think he expected to sink any small boat that might have attacked us.” He ejected the magazine, saw it was fully loaded, shoved it back in, and pulled the slide back just far enough to see the gleam of brass. “Looks like he was loaded for bear. And ready, too.”

Savage picked up his spoon and dug into the chili, realizing that he hadn’t eaten for the day. Adrenaline burns energy. The chili was good.

For about 5 minutes, the four men almost forgot about their situation and ate in silence. Even Hawkes raised his head, pulled his bowl to him, and started eating.

Savage said “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be separated. Between the wheelhouse and the cabin, there’s room for us all there. When we’re done here, let’s all move up top.”

Just then, and almost as if it had been listening through the hull, the thing outside announced its presence by crashing into the port side, directly in line with the galley. A fine trickle of water seeped between a hairline opening between two planks, then stopped.

“I don’t know how much more of this she can take, Skipper.” said Winston Harper. “A few more like that and we might be heading for the bottom.”

“All the more reason to be up there,” Savage said.

Manny grinned. “You planning to go mano a mano with that thing Skipper? Your cojones are bigger than mine. I’ll take my chances in the sea.”

“Anyone got any better ideas?” Savage asked. The silence was in itself an answer. “Let’s go then. Manny, you first, then Hawkes and Winston. I’ll be at the back.” Then quietly to Harper.” Keep an eye on Danny. He’s really shaken up.”

Manny went out the galley door, forward to the stairs and up to the deck. HE made sure that he stayed below the rail as he crept to the companionway up to the wheelhouse.

Tight on his heels, Danny Hawkes hit the deck and raised his head an inch above the rail.

Harper, who had just stuck his head up above the deck, saw something brown off to his left. “Down!” He shouted.

His outstretched right hand just caught the hem of Hawkes’ jeans, and he yanked hard backwards, pulling the younger man flat on the deck, There was a sickening ‘Thud!’ and some form of appendage with a 20-inch spike at the end flashed over his head and buried itself into the solid wood of the inner superstructure. The tip broke off in the wood.

“Stay down.” hissed Harper. “If you want to live.”

Hawkes snaked his way to the foot of the companionway and went up to the wheelhouse like a lizard.

Harper shook his head, then continued until he too disappeared into the wheelhouse.

Savage rolled to the rail, peering out through one of the two-inch drainholes at the bottom. He could see it, or a part of it. a brown carapace, overgrown with huge barnacles, floated in the water, just on the edge of visibility, six feet away. He pulled his right hand around, dragging the Desert Eagle with it. Aimed the gun at the brown thing and pulled the trigger.

He saw brown pieces of chitin fly into the air, but there was no way of knowing how much harm he had done. Then, he moved as quickly as he could up to the wheelhouse.

“Jesus, Skipper.” Danny Hawkes gasped. “What the hell did you shoot at it with? A cannon?”

Winston Harper shook his head. “Don’t EVER fire that in an enclosed space. The shockwave alone will damage you. Did you hit it?”

Savage nodded. “I saw bits of the shell fly off, but don’t know if I’ve done any damage. We need to come up with a plan.” He put the gun on the chart table. “I think we should take turns sleeping — if we can. One in the bed, one at least relaxing in the chair by the desk.

“We can start with half-hour breaks and, if things calm down, we can extend them. The Coast Guard should be here in a couple of hours anyway, Manny., you and Winston first. Close the door. Danny and I will hang on here.”

The two men entered the cabin where Manny said to Winston, “Hey, hermano, you’ve been up here all morning. You do the bed. I’ll just sit here.”

Harper smiled “ Don’t know how much sleeping I’ll be doing, but I’ll try.” He rolled into the bed, turned onto his side, and less than two minutes later, he was snoring softly.

Manny put his feet onto the other side of the bed, still wearing shoes and, minutes later he joined his shipmate.

Savage reached for the mike, keyed it, and said “USCG Bailey Barco, this is F/V Akita. We just crossed the line, so we’re all yours now. Please come quickly.”

The static stopped as the Coast Guard operator came back. “F/V Akita. USCG Bailey Barco here. Please give us a position and state your status.”

Savage replied. “ Position now 55–02 north, 132–01 west. We’ve taken a few bumps and the port side is leaking slowly. So far we’re okay, but situation isn’t desperate. Yet.”

“Roger that, Akita. We should be there within two hours. Hang in there.” The Coast Guard operator sounded as if he was talking to someone who’s cat was stuck up a tree. Totally unruffled.

Things went quiet. Savage thought that he might have at least hurt the creature with that shot. He hoped so.

Two hours and a few minutes later, Savage heard the sound of a foghorn in the Northeast. He woke from a light doze, noted Danny Hawkes lying on the floor snoring, and heard the melodic noises coming from the cabin. ‘So much for half-hour stints,’ he thought. He reached out with his left hand and pulled the cord in the port rear corner of the wheelhouse.

Akita spoke. Danny leapt up from the floor as if he’d been shot. “What, what,” he stammered.

“Coast Guard, I think,” said Savage.

A moment later Manny and then Winston appeared at the cabin door. Harper said, “So nothing different then?”

“I’m not going outside to welcome them,” said Savage. “We can talk from here.”

“I don’ theenk.” said Manny in his Spanish accent.

Savage noticed that he could turn it on or off at will.

“Fog’s lifting. A bit,” said Winston, looking out the starboard side, where visibility was perhaps 30 feet.

Savage blew the foghorn again. The reply was almost instantaneous from off the starboard bow.

Savage turned to the others. “I plan to ask if they’ll take us in tow. There must be a yard in Ketchikan that can patch us up to get home. I’ll go aboard when we all go, and the rest of you can decide for yourselves.”

Winston was the first to pipe up. “I’ll be right next to you Skipper. The old girl will get lonely. Besides, you hardly know her.”

Danny Hawkes quickly said “Me too. I’m now getting to know her, and I think she has a thing for me.”

Manny just nodded. “You honky folks will need someone to cook for you, so I guess I’ll have to come too.”

Savage smiled, made a fist, and stuck it out. The others dropped theirs one by one onto his. He felt good.

The next time the cutter’s foghorn blew the ship was about ten feet away on the starboard side. Everyone jumped.

A megaphone blared “F/V Akita, this is the US Coast Guard. Prepare to be boarded.”

Savage clicked the mike. “US Coast Guard. We sure are glad to see you guys. Be warned, there is still something lurking out there. Suggest you put some sharpshooters with heavy ordnance on both sides of the ship. And tell them to keep their eyes open. We’re all in the wheelhouse. What’s left of us anyhow.”

There was a thud on the deck just forward of the wheelhouse. A light grappling hook attached to a light line dropped and was drawn up slowly until it snagged under the rail and drew the two boats together. This was followed by two agile seamen who landed on the deck with heavier lines. They quickly wrapped them around two bollards on Akita’s deck.

Moments later, a rope ladder rolled down and a lithe man wearing a Coast Guard hat with minor braid around it clambered down and headed to the wheelhouse.

Savage opened the door. “Welcome aboard the Akita, sir. I’m Jason Savage, the acting skipper.”

The officer snapped off a sketchy salute. “Commander Justin Johnstone, USCG Bailey Barco. At your service skipper.” He took off his hat and tossed it on a nearby chair. “I don’t think we need to stand on ceremony here. What can we do for you?” Savage motioned him to the chair and sat sideways on the helmsman’s chair.

When he was done, Johnstone looked at him strangely. “If this was anywhere else in the world, I’d have you wrapped up in yards of chain and put away for a long time. But, this is Alaska and after spending ten years here, I’m accustomed to hearing strange stories. Do you have anything that might help the people down south believe any of this?”

“Yeah, possibly,” Savage said, opening the starboard door and reaching aft. At almost the limit of his outstretched arm, he got a grip on a piece of dagger-like chitin and worked it slowly out of the wood. Handed it to the commander. “There’s another piece embedded in the port side as well. You could maybe send them to get them analyzed.”

Fifteen minutes later, a carpenter from the Bailey Barco was taking a look at the hull in the galley shaking his head. He started recaulking the joint. The water slowed to a seep, to occasional dampness, and then stopped completely.

“That should last till Ketchikan,” he said, gathering up his tools and returning to his ship.

By the time he was done, the crewman had fashioned a towing bridle that ran back from the Bailey Barco, the split into two about twenty feet before it reached the Akita. Lines were attached to the bollards each side of the bow.

Johnstone asked again, “Are you guys sure that you don’t want to come aboard? With a tow on, it’s at least eight hours back to Ketchikan. Don’t take it badly, but our accommodation is a helluva lot nicer than what you have here.”

All four men shook their heads. Savage replied, “Sorry, Commander. But we’re all stuck on this. Buy you and your men a few cases of beer when we get there?”

Johnstone nodded. “Sounds like a plan that could work.” Then he turned and climbed nimbly up the rope ladder.