South Again - Chapter Two
South Again
I remember a day, a beautiful glassy day in the Gulf back in the early years. Brian and I had a fun group on board and were making a little bit longer of a run offshore than normal to make sure and put them on the fish. On this day we were running a 12-hour trip which was one of the longer charters we offered. On these days we would typically run further offshore than usual to fish some of our less fished, deeper spots and we would try to focus on larger catches. Giant Red Snapper, Grouper, Amberjack, Mahi and King Mackerel were always the focus on these longer trips. On the long runs between spots, I would always ride up in the wheelhouse with Brian and we would enjoy a smoke or two and just gossip and shoot the breeze. The GAMBLER is what we call a convertible boat, that means the wheelhouse is located at the highest point of the boat, in our case we had a wooden ladder gel coated with the beautiful bright white color of the boats hull. When you climb the ladder from the back deck up to the wheelhouse the Captain’s chair and helm were centered perfectly with long blue cushions on either side for sitting. The helm was complete with all the electronics the captain needed to navigate from spot to spot, the always buzzing VHF radio used to communicate between boats or contact the USCG in case of emergency and a big white swivel chair. While we were running the motors started to cavitate and made the boat start shaking something horrible. Brian immediately pulled back on the throttles and brought the GAMBLER from her 19-knot cruise speed back down to a full stop. I was sitting alongside Brian on the long blue cushions where I routinely relaxed running between spots when Brian looked over at me and said “Brad, we hit something, she’s cavitating like crazy” he continued with “head down the ladder, grab your mask and hop over and see what the hell is going on”. “No worries, Capt.” I said back, you see as a deck hand going overboard was a common and often welcome task. It was a great way to cool off in the scorching heat of the summer and an even cooler way to impress the clients with how cavalier we were about hopping off the boat in 100s of feet of water like it was a backyard pool. Impressed clients often mean larger tips, which after all was the name of the game for the boats mate.
I made my way down the white ladder back to the back deck, found our day’s crew and gave them a quick update about what we’re doing. “Hey guys”, I said “we are picking up a little cavitation in the wheel, I’m just going to hop overboard really quick and make sure everything is ok”. “I may need some help getting back in the boat if a couple of you wouldn’t mind helping”! I grabbed my mask out of the cabinet in the cabin where I kept my personal effects each day and walked back outside, flicked my cigarette out overboard and hopped up on the gunwale so I could talk to Brian a little clearer. Brian walked over the starboard side where I was perched and told me “Man I have no idea what we hit but I’m getting a ton of movement in the rudders”. He continued with “Check the props first if there’s nothing there check the rudders aren’t bent or broken”. “No worries, Brother” I told him and hopped into the deep, crystal-clear water. I swam around to the stern of the boat, all the clients peering over the side at me making the obvious jokes about sharks and sea monsters, took a solid deep breath and sunk down below the GAMBLER to where the props were located. As soon as I sunk not even a foot below the surface, I could see our problem. I quickly surfaced and yelled at Brian “We found an old tugboat rope Brian; she’s wrapped around both props and looks like it’s trying to pull the struts together”. The struts are brass arms that are attached to the bottom of the hull, they hold the shafts in place and allow them to spin freely so the props can rotate. On boats with twin motors the props are what we call counter rotating; they spin in opposite directions. So, you can imagine once the 2” thick tugboat rope caught both props and the rope was tightening it was bending the two struts’ inwards towards one another.
Brian without hesitation yelled down to the customers on the back deck “Hey Guys, grab that bait knife off the bait board and hand it down to Brad”. He instructed me “Brad, get back under there and cut all that rope out of the props, once you have it all out throw it up in the boat and yell at me”. “Yes Sir” I answered, took another solid breath and went to work cutting the sturdy tugboat rope out of the 3-foot Diameter props. Keep in mind I’m working under the GAMBLER while she is rocking with the swells, in 200’ of water and 20+ miles out in the Gulf. This is not your normal work environment by any stretch of the imagination, but this is what we lived for this is the stuff we loved as a charter crew. After 10 minutes or so of taking a breath, cutting the large rope, and dragging it to the surface one piece at a time. Taking another breath and repeating the process I had all the rope cleared of the props and safely secured on the back deck of the boat. I pushed back away from the stern of the boat so I could see Brian up in the wheelhouse and yelled “It’s all clear Captain, we’re good to go Brother”. Brian looked down at me treading water behind the boat and told me “Awesome work Brother, back off a little bit and go back under and see if you can tell if the struts are bent at all”. If the struts were bent, we would have to cancel the trip and start a long slow trip back North to dock, the struts being bent could cause cavitation that could damage the shafts and in turn the motors.
I took another breath and descended once more to see if I could notice any obvious signs of damage to the brass struts. I couldn’t notice anything wrong with them so relieved I surfaced again with the great news. “Hey Brian” I yelled “everything looks good, the struts look fine to me” I should have known something was up, when I was relaying the good news to Brian he had a big smile on his face, which usually meant something was about to happen. Brian yelled back at me “Awesome Brother, I need to run her to makes sure she isn’t cavitating anymore” and with that he pushed the throttles on the twin Cummins Diesels forward and slowly began to motor away from me. Now keep in mind I’m still treading water, 20 plus miles out in the Gulf of Mexico in 200’ feet of water. While the GAMBLER slowly motors away from me, I can see the smiling faces of everyone on deck, and I assumed they were just playing and would turn around any second and come back to get me. I thought wrong, Brian had a different plan, what seemed like an eternity I could see the stern of the GAMBLER, puffing black diesel smoke out the exhaust slowly motoring away from me. So, there I am, treading water in 200’ of water with a bait knife in my mouth and the theme song from JAWS starting to slowly start playing in the back of my mind. They say if you are afraid of heights, you should never look down, well I am here to tell you that same exact rule should apply to swimming in deep water. There is nothing more terrifying than looking below you, into that deep bluish-purple abyss and realizing you are now a small part of a giant food chain. I continued to tread water for what felt like 30 minutes when it was probably more like 3 at best when I heard the distinct sound of the GAMBLER headed back to save me.
There she was, I could see her heading back my way. That beautiful white gel coat hull, the royal blue on the wheelhouse enclosure and Brian nestled behind the helm bringing her back to pick me up. As they got closer and closer, I kept waiting for Brian to slow the boat down so the crew could help me back on board, but he never checked up. He kept the motors in gear and did a slow drive by; on the port side of the boat, I noticed all our customers were lined up laughing as if something was about to happen. It was… The guys had all grabbed large handfuls of cut bait, squid, cigar minnows and whatever bait had been soaking in the Sun on the back deck, and it was now ammunition. As Brian slowly cruised by me still treading water, they began to launch the sunbaked bait at me. Now showered in bait and blood the GAMBLER slowly disappeared again but in the other direction. I’m not sure how far away they went, and it was probably less than 100 yards but I’m here to tell you treading water in 200’ of deep blue water as a part of a now distinctive chum slick is enough to make even the most seasoned deck hand a little nervous. I could hear the JAWS theme song again and was sure that any second the man in the grey suit was going to make a visit. If you’ve never swum in very deep water far from shore let me the first to explain the sense of vulnerability and pure helplessness is a very real thing. The deep, dark purple void beneath you, the slight pull of the offshore currents and the complete unknown of how close potential danger may be. Finally, my time as a piece of chum was short lived and Capt. Brian spun the GAMBLER around and brought her back to where I was treading water and doing my very best job pretending to be completely unphased by the prank.
He expertly backed the boat up to my location and a few of the stronger guys on board reached down, grabbed my arms and hauled me back on the back deck. Back on board the guys all joked and told their version of the story, each one ensuring me that Capt. Brian had orchestrated the whole thing. With the props cleared of the tugboat line, the struts still in great shape and me not eaten by a shark Brian yelled down from the wheelhouse “Alright Boys, we’re about 20 minutes from our spot, let’s start getting ready again”. That was it, we were back to fishing and doing what Brian and I did best, loading the custom cooler on the back deck of the GAMBLER with fish and showing our crew the best trip ever!
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