That Sinking Feeling
The Last Days of the Shodan
You don’t ever really think that it will happen to you.
Even as you hear and repeat the command shouted down from the top house “put on your survival suits”, you will still pause and take a look around.
Dark green water has begun to pour up into the galley cabin from the fo’csle. Gear on deck sloshes around. Out beyond the stern, a hatch cover floats away. Images so strange that they don’t register it as being real.
But it’s the sound that lands it home. This piercing wail that matches the severity of the pitch of the boat itself. Sound, a sudden sputtering cough, and now the sickening absence of sound as forward motion slows.
Alarms sound everywhere.
And then those go quiet too.
The Shodan is going down.
The F/V Shodan was an old Marco. It was our skipper Todd’s starter boat and one that he never outgrew. Forty seasons of fishing. A former karate teacher, Todd named her after the first level of black belt attainable. But, as the years passed, instead of graduating to another level, Todd kept modifying the Shodan. He added protractible stilts to keep the boat upright during beach landings, added cameras to monitor the engine room and lazarette, a top house so he wasn’t exposed to the weather when fishing. The Shodan was dense with years and years of improvements and gadgets. Through trial and error, the boat had become an extension of Todd himself.
Todd was a young 70. Fishing kept him young. Generous at heart and communal in spirit, the old sensei had seen the fishery evolve from a rag tag fishery to the ultra competitive industry that it is today.
Older now and soft and wide in the middle, it always surprised me how much scrambling around he did on the boat. Todd wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty in the engine room or wedge himself under a bunk in the foc’sle to find a spare part.
Always friendly and ready to offer a drink, Todd’s top house had been dubbed the “Hookah Den” - partly for the fact that there was plenty of plush seating to recline but no space to stand. To get up into the top house, Todd had to perch precariously on the corner of the galley table. Every time he scrambled up there, I held my breath as I watched the table flex under his weight - the boat teeter-tottering in rough weather.
I had heard him take a tumble off the table once and, terrified, I bolted in from the deck to see him sprawled out on the galley sole limbs akimbo.
Todd chuckling himself as he gathered himself.
“Well, I guess I can cross that off the list for this season”.
Wild places called to him. Before becoming parents, Todd and his wife had spent ten years teaching in the outer villages that stretched along the Aleutian chain. Remote and desolate places like St. George’s Island.
Rather than have a harried pre-season, Todd arrived in Dillingham earlier than everyone else in the yard. In the quiet and as the preseason services started to become available Todd readied his boat and tinkered on his modifications. By the time we, the crew arrived, the boat was ready to load groceries and launch.
With all the projects done and fishing at least a week until fishing might open, Todd had Round Island in his sights. Tundra fires from an errant lightening strike rendered the downwind air quality in Dillingham hazardous to breath. Even more reason to spend the rest of the preseason exploring. Covid had also made us a little bit more socially averse.
With towering spires and cliffside bluffs that loom over four hundred foot drop-offs, Round Island is already special. But Round Island also serves as the summer haul out for male walruses. Having mated, while the females stay with the pups on receding pack ice, the males sun themselves until their open capillaries turn their skin pink. Sated, they lounge in the sun like German tourists, some too spent and sun drunk to even make it all the way out of the water before passing out.
Round Island is about as hard to get to as any place. In 2022, there were officially three visitors to Round Island which along with the two biologists that summer on the island and monitor the walrus population, made the official count of people visiting the island five. This year, the four of us would make it six. To curry favor with biologists, we brought a bag of satsumas … and a bottle of whiskey.
Hiking along the waving grass on the spine of ridge with six hundred walruses braying 400 feet down at the water’s edge, we might as well have been stomping around trying to figure out how to invent the wheel.
My iPhone Survived the Sinking. This was on it.
Having spent a couple days exploring the island, we weighed anchor and set off to find an anchorage closer to the fishing grounds. It looked like we would be on short notice soon and Todd wanted to be within striking distance should they spring an opener on us.
The Shodan back deck consisted of Aron, Ari and myself.
Now Aron and I could have NOT gotten along in another life. In fact, the first time that we met I thought of him as brash and unrefined. A New Yorker transplanted to Costa Rica, Aron was a private chef when he wasn’t fishing and, ironically, so was I. And our styles couldn’t be more different. He was straight ahead steak and potatoes - Bada Bing Bada Bang and he would tell you how and why his food was so good. I, on the other hand, preferred to execute things that were more creative or more elegant in execution and listen to people enjoy their food.
A former crabber, Aron was a hammer by nature. He would approach every problem with brute strength and, if that failed, he’d find a tool to get more leverage. I was smaller, more cunning. Mechanical advantage and stamina were my game. I’d take a minute to plot before starting a project. Aron would just tear right in.
In spite of these differences in approach and there being too cooks in one galley, we had developed a mutual respect and trust that comes with toiling together on the back deck of a boat and watching each other perform under duress. Through shitty weather and physical exhaustion, Aron and I wordlessly pushed each other to pick faster and always had each other’s back.
Drift gill netting is unique in that every fish caught must be removed from the net by hand. It is labor intensive and, in a high volume fishery, such as Bristol Bay, there is little chance for rest. Picking fish with another experienced picker feels like this deadly tango. Fish are passed between participants as moves are set up by one but finished by the other.
Aron and I had developed our own wordless communication which was beautiful in its efficiency and brutal in its execution. We could see the net coming over the drum and instinctively knew what to pick ourselves, what to leave for the other guy and what to adjust to set the other guy up success. Trust.
Ultimately, game respects game.
The other deckhand was our greenhorn, Ari. A baby-faced nineteen year old and a philosophy/ physics double major at Bucknell, Ari was mostly onboard to bleed fish - which is what it sounds like. After the fish are picked, their gills are cut and they are bled out to prevent bruising. Ari plays rugby and reads in his free time. He’s thoughtful and strong and knows when to put his head down and when to ask questions.
A tradition evolves on the back deck. After every set. As we ready the boat for its next task, reset or deliver, the three of us would share a quick fist bump.
As the season moves into full swing for what will be a record bay wide harvest, we have developed the steady rhythm of a well-oiled machine. Everyone finds their role and pitches in extra where needed. I keep an extra set of eyes on Todd - as much to glean from his 40 years of experience as to make sure his youthful mind didn’t demand too much of his 70 year old body.
Mind says, Yes.
Body says, No.
By July 8th, we have fallen into a steady program of deck loading the boat and delivering. A deck load is where the boat is filled beyond the hatches and fish is loaded on deck in spare brailer bags. In any other season, two or three deck-loads would be great. We’ve been doing it for a week now. Sometimes twice a day.
Of course the were the usual mechanical issues that popped up - a Pacer pump that needed to be replaced - more than once and this or that. But between the experience of Captain and crew we could problem solve with alacrity and, more importantly, never miss any fishing time. Any of the bigger issues that we’d dodge, Todd would exclaim in his jovial way:
Well, I guess we can cross that one off the list!
Fishing in the Bay can feel like this constant flirtation with disaster. We push the gear, we push the boat, and we push each other trusting that we have the resourcefulness to fix things when they break and the physical reserves hidden in that tank that’s only accessible when you’ve reached the end.
Just the day before, July 8, we had delivered what we called an “Easy 13”. Glassy waves, sunny weather, and the gear coming back fast and heavy. Easy picking, smooth delivery, a solid meal and a lick of sleep before waking up and doing it again.
Today is different though.
Sideways rain, a steady hard wind, and four to six off seas. We were maneuvering near the beach with a heavy onshore breeze. We had picked up a “hard 12” but, in spite of only having an hour of sleep, spirits were high.
How could they not be?
Our hatches were stuffed again and there are couple of brailer bags on deck bursting at the seams with salmon.
Another day, another deck load.
Reflexively, we start readying the deck for delivery.
Deckload.
Deliver.
Deckload.
Deliver.
It’s what we do.
But the loud hailer shakes us from our reverie.
Okay, boys, let’s get ready to make another set.
Maybe Aron and I exchange a quick glance.
But, we are quick to shift to full support.
Okay, so Jefe wants to make another set. Let’s load the old girl up!
As the net pays out, I set up a couple more deck bags for the young buck, to bleed and pitch fish into. We also add boards athwartship to keep fish from sliding back towards the stern. As much as possible we want to keep our weight forward.
Almost as soon as the whole net is paid out, we start hauling it back.
It’s plugged with fish.
The new deck bags are full and so we start just packing all four deck bags chock o block.
Instead of setting up another row of deck bags, we keep picking and just pitch fish over the bin boards.
We’ve done a delivery like this before. Where loose fish were contained between deck begs and under reel - essentially keeping them trapped and centered in order to prevent free surfacing and causing a threatening list.
Aron and push each other to keep up the pace as we sing and bob our heads to a steady mix of old school hip-hop and reggae. Although the stern feels kind of heavy, I stay focused on the simple steps in front of us. Keep picking. Get the net back. Then worry about next steps.
But I’m myopic to a fault and the red buoy could never seem so far away.
Unbeknownst to the deck crew, Todd has been on the radio with our partner boats to see if anyone could swing by and take the rest of the net. His ‘quick top off set” has turned out to be much more than that.
Obliged to help out, the Alia offers to come as soon as they’ve finished picking up.
In the meantime, we keep picking… and fast.
Aron’s energy has started to flag and he’s starting to lean on force and just tear through meshes which drains his energy even more. Subtly, I start pulling the more tangled fish onto my side. Speed means everything to me, now, as any net that remains in the water continues to fish will add to our load. The faster we get it back, the LESS fish we’ll be dealing with.
By the time Alia arrives, the buoy is within reach and it no longer makes sense to pass our net to them.
Instead, they cheer as they circle us with their boat and snap photos as we victoriously flex for the shots. Our stern is crazy low.
The will be the most fish that the Shodan has ever had on board.
The buoy back on deck, we fist bump and start securing the deck to make the run in to deliver.
Ari heads below to check the valves and reverse the flow of our deck hose should we need to evacuate water.
We’ve already put in the stern plugs to keep water from backing into the stern as they dropped beneath the water line.
Concerned by how heavily we list to the port, we have Alia try to tie up alongside but the Shodan is listing hard enough that our top house might crack their windows so we opt out. We can take this delivery in ourselves. We’ll just take it slow. The weather has come down quite a bit since we started fishing today.
We start making weigh and as the Alia peels off to go find another set.
On the back deck, we take steps to center and secure what we can. Instead of setting up another row of deck bags towards the stern, we decide to set up another row of deck bags ON TOP of the most forward bags that we have.
It’s a scramble to set up and then physically exhausting to pitch fish UP and into the bags but it controls the fish from free surfacing AND moves weight forward with the hopes of lifting up are stern.
From the back deck, I remember hearing Todd throttle upwards and I surmise that he’s hoping that the forward motion would help drain the stern - the water now deep enough crest the tops of my Xtra Tuffs. I can feel cold seeping into my pants and moving down into my boots. Soggy doggies.
My myopia keeps me looking for next solutions. I scramble to find a perch on one of the forward deck bags and look over the deck.
Things that I don’t normally register as buoyant are starting to come free. I watch our buoy float away. A hatch cover. The deck mats.
The pitch of the engine begins to rise.
Over the loud hailer:
Start pitching fish overboard!
We scramble down from our perches and begin to pitch. Fish that we had just pulled on board are two at a time tossed over board. Our forearms jelly from the effort of getting them onboard, we are now fueled by adrenaline. There’s probably 8000 lbs of fish on deck. 4000 of it loose.
We put our heads down and start grunting through the task. Slipping and sliding amongst the sloshing deck.
You guys need to put on your survival suits…right now! Do not fucking wait.
Even as I confirm the command by repeating it, the words do not seem real. I’m too focused and too calm.
We scramble over the fish and squeeze past a full deck bag that partially obscures the cabin door. The safety orange survival suits are tumbling through the overhead hatch and onto our heads.
Pulling the galley door shut, I see another fish hold cover floating away. The flat light gray contrasting against the dark, oily green of the sea that tries to swallow it and then spits it back up.
Ari is taking big breaths and blowing out hard.
I get his attention as I hand him his suit.
Young Buck. We are going to be fine. Look! There’s already a boat headed our way. We’ll only be in the water for a second.
We’ve been in these suits already. It’s part of every preseason ritual to shake the musty neoprene suit out of its bag and to monkey with the strobes to get them working. If you change batteries, it’s a good habit to write the month and year on the battery with a Sharpie. Is there a whistle and a mirror tethered to the chest? Has the zipper been ripped up and down with bees wax worked into its teeth?
Moldering and stinky, maybe we’ll try them on and do our best Gumby impressions. I’m usually loathe to deal with the suits because my other preseason projects feel more pressing. Today, I had gone through the suits together with new kid.
The galley doesn’t have enough space for us all to unroll and don our suits at the same time so, while Aron and Ari try get theirs on, I take an extra fifty seconds to drop down into the foc’sle, pluck my phone and passport from my bunk and drop them into the chest pocket of my pullover rain jacket. There’s a snap pocket there that folds over kind of like a dry bag. Presumably to keep your ciggies dry.
It’s weird to remember that I felt guilty about going down there and grabbing anything. It somehow felt…selfish.
Now, I’m propped up and sliding the suit up and over my boots and over my rain gear. In all my years, I’ve never pulled an immersion suit OVER my foul weather gear - never even imagined it. It’s hard to do. My hands, after pulling 20 000 lbs of fish on board, can barely grip the suit and, now, with the mitts pulled OVER my picking gloves, I have the dexterity of a neoprene lobster and I can’t get the hood over my head.
I can’t get my hood on.
Aron and Ari are looking away trying to discern where they are going to crawl out.
Hey! I can’t get my hood on over my head!
The whine of the engine too loud for them to hear me.
I start to panic.
Ari, please. You have to help me. I can’t get my hood on!
I’m surprised at how much my voice sounds like I’m pleading. Ari turns and quickly helps me muscle on my hood.
We standby in anticipation as the boat pounds along with the engine screaming its displeasure at being pushed harder than it has ever been pushed before. In a last ditch effort to save the boat, Todd has pointed Shodan towards the nearest sandbar and with throttles down all the way, he attempts to run the boat aground.
But then there’s that sputtering, choking cough and a chasm of nothing that follows as the boat slows to a sickening halt and then begins to succumb to the pull of the sea on her stern.
From the open hatch above us, Todd’s voice:
Now’s the time guys. Abandon ship. Abandon ship.
I follow Ari as he vaults out the galley window and tightropes up the gun’l to the bow.
Aron forces open the foc’sle door and scrambles over the net bags trying to ignore the dark wall of water that flows in behind the open door.
The F/V Maggie B swings up alongside as her crew scrambles out onto the back deck.
Jump in and swim to the stern!
Jump in and swim to the stern!
Ari jumps and is immediately swept away by the current.
SWIM! SWIM!
And to me
JUMP! JUMP!
I look around to see that I will not get caught in the rig of the sinking ship.
And then, with a lobster claw hand, pry my hood open to release air and jump in feet first.
On pure adrenaline, I’m probably paddling hard before I even hit the water. At the Maggie B’s stern, I find a handhold cut into the stern of their boat. A swarm of hands reach over the rail and help me scramble aboard.
As I tumble onto their deck, I can see Aron tightroping along to the bow readying to jump.
Ari’s caught up to the boat and out of the water and is helped over the rail.
Now Aron’s safe too.
From the deck of the Maggie B, we watch Todd scramble out and onto the roof of the top house. The Hookah Lounge. The Shodan sinking beneath his feet. His red survival suit contrasting against the slate sky. He almost looks proud up there. So proud that I’m relieved when I see him finally commit to the jump.
Recovering our breath and sopping wet on this strangely unfamiliar back deck, I reach over and touch Ari’s leg and put a fist up in his face.
You good?
He bumps me back and nods.
Yeah. I’m good.
Aron and I make eye contact and exchange one by air.
It takes all hands to help Todd up and over the stern now.
Well, I guess we can cross THAT off of our list.
We watch as he watches the Shodan sink beyond her antennas. Forty years of memories becoming a time capsule.
I peel off my survival suit and ignore the crew of the Maggie B as they encourage me to come inside where it is warm.
Too shy.
After being on the Shodan alone for so long, it feels weird to be on someone else’s boat. Surreal.
Too polite.
I don’t want to get their cabin wet with my soaking clothes and rain gear.
Someone brings out a hot cup of tea which I spill all over myself with a shaky hand.
Adrenaline dump?
Cold?
All.
I duck into the crowded cabin and, immodestly, strip out of my wet cloths. A stranger hands me some sweats and a sweatshirt.
Now safe, we start trying to find words to explain and understand what happened. For the strangers on the Maggie B. but, even moreso, for ourselves. It’s the first telling of a story that we will construct and reconstruct over and over again trying to wrangle some sense of it.
When the high water alarm sounded, Todd recounts seeing water pouring UP and INTO the engine room. This would indicate that the hull was breached from below. Having a lot on board, played a role in our sinking but something structural gave way. Even though we had the deck hose set up for extraction, with the rate that the water was pouring in, we were overcome much faster than we could have made a dent with deck hose in reverse.
Amazingly, my phone works and I start shifting into “next step” mode. I record our position so we know where the boat went down. I take photos of us taking alcohol swab tests and record the results with time stamps. The skipper of the Maggie B gives Todd $500, so I get his mailing address for reimbursement. We make a call to the Coast Guard to let them know that we are safe.
The Maggie B takes us to the tender which we were trying to deliver to and the tender continues taking deliveries until they are full. From there, they bring us to the nearest town, Naknek, a twelve hour run away.
A hastily assembled care package arrives from the Maru, a boat in our radio group. A bar of dark chocolate, 4 white claws, a pair of wool socks some ashwaganda hot tea mix and a ukulele. Never before had I felt more seen by a gift.
When we left our home port in Dillingham, we had packed everything that we thought we would need for the next six weeks. We have just lost our workplace, our shelter and all of our belonging. Destabilized and land sick, we wobble off the dock in a town that is not our home port
Baby steps and big steps.
We buy toothbrushes and toothpaste and have a moment as we brush our teeth all together for the first time and, most likely, the last time ever.
We call loved ones. Insurance companies. The Coast Guard.
We assemble outfits from the lost and found at the laundromat. A change of clothes from the one’s we have on our backs.
Although the community is unfamiliar, word has spread about our fate and helping hands appear from everywhere. A loaned vehicle… a place to stay…. This is a fishing community and they all know the risks and have taken them. We could be them.
Word comes from the fishing grounds that, at low tide, Shodan’s top house is exposed. Mind you the tides are 28 foot in difference. At high tide, she is totally submerged.
Todd finds a helicopter pilot willing to take us back to Shodan on the afternoon low tide. Aron already has a flight home arranged. We drop him off at the airport and then split up to stage for our trip back to fishing grounds. We leave Ari to stay with a friend. He’ll fly home shortly. I start working on trying to find wetsuits for Todd and I, so that we can be dropped in the water and swim back to the boat. Failing that, we end up flying back to Ugashik in our still damp survival suits with a change of clothes double bagged and triple knotted in a couple of construction grade garbage bags hippy tech. My wallet and phone are packed in a Ziplock and brought along for the ride as well. I keep them close from now on. Things that made the crossover from life to another. All the more valuable because they were the only things that made the transition. They feel chosen.
The flight back to Ugashik takes only an hour. Depending on the conditions, the helicopter will either land on the nearest sandbar and Todd and I will swim back to the boat or it will hover above the water closer to the boat and we will splash down and swim back to the boat from there. At this point, I’m more excited than scared and really focused on looking after Todd. After forty years, losing the boat is like losing a family member. I press the pilot for details - rotor downwash, noise when the doors pop open, anything else.
I’ve never jumped out of a helicopter.
We touch down on the water upwind of the boat and the pilot hovers as Todd and I egress from either side and slide off of either pontoon. I paddle around to accompany Todd as we make our way to the boat, mindful to be the last person out of the water this time.
The weather overnight has ravaged Shodan. Blowing out all her windows and flushing anything not tied away.
Inside the galley, only four inches of air remains overhead and Todd and I alternate stealing breaths of air and then holding our breath as the air gap disappears with each passing wave - the upper layer tasting of diesel. And then there is the fridge, too big to just float through the doorway, it slams around in the cabin like a dead body.
The suits are too buoyant to swim into the foc’sle. The water too full of silt to see anything. We will return empty handed but for some items recovered from the top house. A briefcase full of paperwork, Todd’s phone which miraculously still works (iPhone!) and, mostly importantly, an aluminum mug that his son had made for him out of the metal scraps from when Shodan was built.
We get a stout line through the eye of the bow cleat should a salvage operation need something to tow on and then we swim to one of our partner boats who is circling us and filming.
We will spend a meal and on a raft up with our radio group. Some have known for most of those four decades. It’s still hard to know what to say. We are then dropped off on another tender which will finish loading and then take us on another twelve hour ride to Naknek. There we can catch a flights out to where we need to go.
On the overnight passage, I try to get some sleep. Restless, I wander over to find Todd working on a jigsaw puzzle left out by the tender crew on the galley table. We nod and sit in silence for a bit. When we do talk, I try to steer the conversation towards future plans rather than play the tape stuck in auto-reverse.
Todd is wistful and realistic. He’s 70. Maybe this was a sign to retire. 40 years is a long run. But it’s such a tough way to finish. Restarting would be just as tough. Finding a boat or salvaging this one. Dialing it in….
I gently counsel him not to make a hasty decision that he feels like he has to hold himself to. There will be time.
Sleep on it.
But I also know that sleep doesn’t always come.
In the dark, we replay the tape.
The chance to edit never comes.
Back in Naknek, I make a few phone calls and send a few texts while Todd makes arrangements to fly home.
I plan to keep working.
I’m already here.
I want the money.
But, moreover, I need to get over the fear.
Four days later, I’m pounding along on another boat in borrowed clothes with a huge stone on my chest as I watch the aluminum flex from inside the hull. That thin sheet of aluminum that separates us from the sucking cold, dark and green.
This boat is a semi-soft landing in that I’m working for a friend whom I’ve worked for before. He understands the situation and I’ve already warned him that I might be a little bit “tender”.
But then we start fishing.
Set the net out.
Get it back.
Deliver.
Make a meal.
Steal some sleep.
Make coffee.
Repeat.
It’s what we do.
For now, the myopia works.
There will be time to stare into the void later.
If this opened something for you, Brother Wang goes deeper. It's a serialized memoir about invisibility, prison, forward motion, and what happens when stillness finally comes.
You can go to the first installment by clicking on the first installment —> Superpower