Superstitions

            The almost only safe assumption that one could make about fishermen is that they are all superstitious.  At least, I’ve never met one who wasn’t.  There is a slough of superstitions out there, almost as many as fishermen.  Some are more commonly known than and abided by than others.  The number one cardinal sin on a boat is to whistle, alas, one will whistle up a storm.  I almost got fired once from accidentally whistling.   I was clear out in Togiak, too and would have been screwed to find my own transportation home. 

Leaving the hatch covers upside down is another big one.  I’m not real sure what will happen but I just know I’ve never done it to find out.  Saying the word “horse” on a boat is bad luck in some circles.  I think this one came from back in the day of wooden boats that used to transport horses.  In bad weather horses scare, kick, and damage the boat.    You are supposed to replace the word “horse” with draft-animal as in “I have a 200 draft-animal power Volvo diesel engine…”

Of course, bananas are bad luck on a boat.  Everyone knows that.  This is because putting bananas next to other fruit makes them turn rotten faster.   Some folks tweak this one a little bit and say that bananas are only bad luck in the wheelhouse.  But what if you have a bowpicker and don’t have a wheelhouse?  I don’t know, but I wouldn’t chance it.

Another is not leaving the deck bucket right side up, it simulates the boat filling with water and sinking.  Coffee mugs need to all hang the same direction, though I don’t remember the direction or the reason for this one.  OMG!  I almost forgot a HUGE one; never ever leave port on Friday.  This is a biggie and I can’t believe it almost escaped me.  One other boat made this mistake and was never heard from again.  Want to know which one?  The Titanic.  Yup, left port on a Friday and look what happened to them. 

A lesser-known superstition is having someone of the opposite sex pee on your net for good luck.  I’m not going to really go into detail on this one.

Another superstition, one that came around to bite me in the ass once, a little bit, is throwing all your spare change overboard to appease the fish gods.   I only worked on one boat that abided to this one and have never heard of it since.  Makes me wonder about that skipper.

Anyhow, me wanting to be a good deckhand, I reached into my pocket as requested and sent my coins into the drink.  It was a donation to the herring gods, or so I was told, as we steamed west to seine Kodiak and Togiak. All was fine and dandy until the day I got smacked in the face with one of the metal rings on the bottom of the seine.  It gave me a big fat bloody lip and put 3 cracks in my front tooth.

The next day was a day off and our spotter pilot offered to fly me into Kodiak to have it looked at by a dentist since we were about to head out further towards the end of the earth, Togiak.

I hopped in the plane with the plan to look up a dentist in the phone book and give them a shout in Kodiak.  But, when I arrived, I had no quarters for the payphone (this was way before the day of cell phones.) In addition to bumming a ride from the pilot I had to bum a quarter, too.   Though, it was mostly all for naught anyhow.  The dentist told me there I had a 50/50 that my tooth was going to break in two.  Thanks, but I could have guessed that on my own.  Oh well, it was a pretty day for a flight and I got to get off the boat for an afternoon.  Though I did spend the next month drinking tons of milk and not biting into apples.   Fast-forward 14 years later, my front tooth still has 3 cracks in it, but is holding up just fine. 

Knock on wood. 

Watch that tow line!

“Watch that tow line!” shouted Bill, trying to stop me from running across the deck. But, it was too late, I was already in motion.
Bill used to crab and as a result, has perfect teeth. He got them by leaning over the rail at the wrong time, just as a crab pot appeared, smacking him in the face and shattering all his teeth. Now they are all flawless and false.

We were seining herring up in Togiak, Alaska back in the late ‘90’s. I had a few seasons fishing under my belt, but was still pretty green when it came to seining, unlike Bill who had been crewing for about 20 odd years. Bill was stacking corks and I was stacking leads, the top and the bottom of the seine net, as the net came in. When it went out, it was my job to make sure the net didn’t get hung up.

The opener was only 10 minutes long, which is an amazingly short time to set a seine net. Hell, even coffee breaks are longer than that. Anyway, we were setting the net at 16 knots, full fart. I could see that it was going to get hung up going over the stern so I darted across the deck to throw the end over. I took two steps when I heard Bill, who was standing right beside me, scream “NO!! Watch that tow line!” But it was too late.

So instead of watching the tow line, I watch my feet sail up above my eyes as I sailed across the deck, perfectly horizontal, six feet in the air. I thought for sure I was going over. All I could think is how cold that water is and how badly that will sting like pins and needles all over. Then I thought of how fast we are going and wondered if I would get run over by the boat. Or sucked under. Or caught up in the net. Or run over by someone else’s boat. Togiak herring is like a demolition derby on water, not a good place to take a swim.

Before I really knew what even happened, I landed flat on my back about eight feet from where I started and about a foot away from the rail. Turns out, on my dash to clear the net, I stepped on the tow line at the exact same moment it went taut, catapulting myself across the deck. Still stunned when Bill asked me if I was Okay, I nodded that I was. “What the hell were you thinking?” was his second question. “The net was going to get hung up” I said, as meek as a mouse and he grabbed my hand, bringing me to my feet. “Forget the net” he snorted. “But, skipper said….” “Forget the skipper, watch out for yourself first. You know how close you just came to getting slashed in two? Or launched overboard?”

I didn’t and there was no time to reflect. I was no more back on my feet when the skiff came ‘round with the other end of the net, it was time to stack leads.

Later, when we were with our partner boat, who saw the whole thing. We weren’t even tied up to them yet when I heard “Holy shit! I thought for sure you were going in the drink!” “Are you OK?” “What happened?” “Are you hurt?” They all asked at the same time. “I’m fine, I’m fine” I assured them. It took seeing all those guys concerned about me to realize that maybe I did get pretty close to getting hurt. But, I tell you what, that was good advice and from that day on, I always kept one eye on the tow line.