Of all the animals in Alaska, in the world really, I love the sea otter the most. The first sea otter I had seen had been the one that wintered on the docks at Seward. She was cute, and I was always careful to walk slowly past her so as not to disturb her. She was larger than I would have thought a sea otter would be and she always watched me pass with intelligent eyes. I liked looking at her as I passed. I'd even tried feeding her a few herring. (She never took food from humans.) I liked her fine, but I hadn't fallen in love with sea otters until I saw one in the water.
Billy and I had set anchor in a large bay south of Kodiak Village. We were exhausted and slept until the middle of the day. When I woke and went out on deck with my coffee I spotted a sea otter floating on her back twenty feet from my boat. It was a female, which I knew because of the two nursing babies on her chest. Also on her chest was a small rock and a hand full of clams. As I watched she cracked a clam on the rock. Once she opened the clam she used her other paddle like a hand to hold the babies, rock, and clams, then in a quick movement flipped over in the water. She was up right again so fast I wasn't sure I'd actually seen her flip over.
I'd watched her for about ten minutes before Billy appeared. It wasn't until he explained that I understood what she was doing. After breaking open the clam there were little pieces of shell on her chest. She didn't like this so she flipped over to wash the shell pieces away. Billy called it "cleaning the table." Which made perfect sense after he explained it. When she ran out of clams she pushed the babies off and dove to the bottom for more. The babies floated so close to each other they must have held hands or something, but I couldn't tell. When she came back up it was always perfectly under the babies. They reattached to the nipples like there'd been no interruption. Mom got busy with a fresh stack of clams and the process repeated. I could have watched her for days.
Billy said, "You know we could get about five thousand dollars for her hide on the black market." He misunderstood my shocked look, thinking I was amazed by the price. "I know a guy in Anchorage. I even know how to skin it out." "No," I said. My voice too full of anger. "Never, Billy. Never." Billy nodded and took it in stride. He'd already figured out that I was funny about animals.
Earlier in the week, a Japanese national in a thousand dollar suit, stepped on to my boat uninvited at Kodiak and offered me $1,000 an ounce for Dungeness crab eggs. There was no season on Dungeness crabs because the population was dangerously low. The guy didn't understand no, so I got angry and threw him off my boat. The species was in danger and this idiot wanted its eggs. I had talked to other skippers with the same story from Japanese buyers. They had too much money and no sense of ecological right or wrong. I've heard that Dungeness crabs have come back strong. That was good to hear.
On one trip our fresh water tank was damaged and all the water drained into the sea. Unfortunately, I didn't have any emergency water stored, so we were more than a hundred miles at sea in a brutal storm with nothing to drink. The one thing we did have plenty of was canned peaches. So for the two days it took me to reach the protection of a remote cove we'd spent drinking nothing but sweet peach syrup. There was no services on that part of the island, but I knew that we could go ashore and find fresh water somewhere. That night when we pulled into a protected cove we knew well, I was surprised to see another boat anchored there. I was pleased because of the extra level of safety in numbers, but also because it was a larger fishing boat that would have water to share.
The instant I saw the other boat they called me on marine channel 16. The skipper offered practical advice on the best area of the cove to drop anchor. After dropping anchor I called the skipper back and introduced myself. We made so small talk about how ruff the protected cove was. His boat was equipped with a devise to measure the wind, so he shared the bad news with me: Sixty knots gusting to 80 knots. Wind shifting from three basic directions to cause a williwaw. I'd never heard the term so he explained it to me.
A williwaw is a vicious and unpredictable gust of wind. The wind was generally coming out of the west, but it constantly shifted from south west to north west. Known as a williwaw. A nautical mile is 1.151 statute miles. So sixty knots is 69 miles per hour. On the Beaufort Wind Scale, the strongest gale goes up to 55 knots, which is a Force 10 wind. The 60 knot wind we experienced was a Force 11 violent storm. Four knots more and it would have been a force 12, which is a hurricane. The 80 knot gust would have counted as a Force 13 wind, a big hurricane, but since those were only gust they didn't count. A Force 11 wind was plenty, though.
On land these winds would have been strong enough to uproot trees and cause structural damage to homes. At sea they kicked up ten foot waves inside a protected cove. Those waves were completely covered with white foam, that foam blown into the air to obscure visibility. Because the wind williwawed, the waves too came from three different directions. The normally calm waters of that protected cove were now boiling with wave and spray.
Both boats spun like a top around our anchors. "I think it was safer at sea," I said over the radio. "I wouldn't doubt it," the other skipper responded. "I'm thinking about rigging a stern anchor," he said. "What do you think?" I'd had the same thought but rejected it. "Not sure about your boat," I said. "But that's not for me. This shifting wind would lay my deck over if it couldn't spin around with the shift. I thought about throwing a second bow anchor but I'm afraid they'll cross and tangle. Tangled anchors are likely to slip." There was a long pause and then he said, "Sounds like a good call. Where'd you learn so much." "Coast Guard," I said. "They trained us well." And they did. "So we should just ride it out," he said.
"Yea. I'm sitting in the chair with my hand on the throttle. Every time I get a big gust I power into it. My anchor is a 60 pound Danforth, and my anchor line is two inch nylon. I'm not real confident it'll hold." In fact I was very worried about that two inch nylon anchor line. If my anchor slipped, or if my anchor line parted, then it would take about a minute for my boat to be destroyed on the rocks of the shore behind me. That shore transformed from deep water to a steep cliff, with only a lone of large boulders to demarcate the change. If we were smashed into that shore, even though there was land there, we would likely die. And there wouldn't be a thing the other boat could do to help us.
"I hear you," the other skipper said. "I've got a hundred pound Navy and ten feet of heavy chain at anchor and two and a half inch cable for line. My sonar is showing the bottom is rocky, so the navy should hold, especially with the chain. Your Danforth should hold on that bottom, but I'd be worried about your nylon line on that rocky bottom." My sonar wasn't good enough to show the bottom's terrain. I was not happy to hear it was rocky. I could picture my line being ground back and forth across those rocks. Not a pretty picture. The other guy's anchor chain would lay in those rocks and help to hold his anchor. He was in much better shape.
"You could tie on to us," the other skipper said to my silence. I looked at his boat and tried to imagine the nightmare of coming along side him in this mess. "Thanks," I said. "But there's not a chance we could pull that off." After a short bit of practical advice between us we stopped talking to give instructions to our respective crews as the wind made increasingly violent shifts. Hours passed and we all settled into the dangerous fight with the wind and sea.
Billy had just handed me a fresh mug of coffee when he pointed at the other boat and said, "He's drifting." Billy was right so I called the other skipper to tell him. A crew guy came on the radio and said the skipper was in the head. (The bathroom.) I told the crew guy they were drifting so add a little forward power. As I spoke these words their heavy anchor cable parted and the big boat moved backward toward the rocks at an alarming speed. "Half throttle now!" I screamed into the radio. The crew guy didn't have much experience but he was smart enough to follow my instructions. When the big boat surged forward the skipper came bolting out of the bathroom. "Back off a little," I said. The skipper was on the radio now and he said, "I'm back. I've got it. Thanks. I owe you. Cable parted. Will call back when I get things sorted out." As I watched in horror the boat came dangerously close to the rocks but the skipper managed to use his engine's power to place the boat in the middle of the cove. It took a great deal of effort to keep it there in the battering wind.
My shouting brought our third crew guy to the pilot house. He was clearly worried. Billy had just handed me a sandwich so I took a bite to allow a moment to think. "That boat weighs three times ours and has four times the superstructure. The wind is ten times harder on them than us. Because we are lower and lighter we'll be just fine." I sat the sandwich on the dash but the boat's movement caused it to fall to the deck. When I bent over to pick it up the front windshield exploded and the cockpit filled with wet nylon rope, splinters of glass, rain and sea water spray.
As the other skipper had warned, my anchor line had rubbed on the rocks enough to cut it in half. When it parted it was like a giant rubber band. Since my anchor line threaded directly off my bow, when it parted it came straight back at the boat and through the center of the front windshield. The exact spot I sat to steer the boat. Had I not bent down to pick up the sandwich I'd dropped I would have either been killed or badly injured.
It was a long hard night. Billy managed to cover the open windshield with canvas so I wasn't battered with sea water and rain, but it was a major challenge to keep the North Wind off the rocks. The other skipper had more of a challenge with his larger boat, but somehow we all survived the night. By the time the sun rose the wind had calmed to normal and the waves in the cove flat. I rigged a new anchor and went to bed, as did my crew. The large boat's crew did the same thing.
Early afternoon I woke to my radio. The skipper of the other boat was putting out to sea, but was checking on us before he left. I was groggy with sleep and exhaustion but remembered our water problem, which I shared with him. No problem, he had plenty. I ran below to grab two five gallon water jugs then ran up on deck. It was the first time I'd been on deck since the storm so didn't realize how messy it was. I tripped over lose gear and nearly fell in the water. I did drop both water jugs in the water. The other boat's professional crew pulled a long hook from a convent holder and rescued the jugs, filled and returned them in short minutes. The skipper and I said a few words across the water then they left.
Billy and I stood on deck and watched the well put together boat and crew turn the point and vanish from our site. "I want to be like him when I grow up," I said. Billy, who I had never heard make a joke, said, "Wipe that thought from your mind. It'll never happen." He was right.