Location: Underway to Nuku Hiva
“Somebody help! What do we do!!”
Far off the stern, plunging under Argo’s wake and surfing over the swell, a dark and lifeless shape flogged itself back and forth on the end of one of our seven fishing lines.
“Is that a fish??”
“How do we tell???”
The shape jerked itself violently side to a wave as the student at the helm got distracted and drifted off course.
Watch Team 3 was in a blind panic that morning. None of the people who knew what to do with a fish were on deck at the time. Normally, Mac would have been the designated fisherman on Team 3, but he was in the engine room with me that morning.
“Yeah, that’s a lot of seawater, all right.”
“That hose clamp is diagonal now.”
“Ah. That’s definitely how it got in.”
“All right, let’s drain it out again, I guess.”
“Okay, I’ve got the hose and bucket here.”
“Oh, I actually used a longer hose last night. It reaches all the way to the blue bucket.
“But I already have a hose, and it reaches the red bucket.”
“Yeah, but the one that reaches the blue bucket is in the hallway bilge.”
I paused.
“But I already have a hose and bucket.”
“Gabe, let’s just get the other hose.”
“I’m sorry, I just woke up, and I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
On deck, Watch Team 3 was scrambling to respond to the evolving situation.
“Penelope! If you’re down there, we need you up here now!” Sam and Molly shouted into the main companionway.
Donning her Type 5 lifejacket, Penelope ascended immediately to the deck.
“All right, everyone, what’s the situation?”
Penelope sprang into action, directing Team 3 to pull the shape, which was, indeed, a fish, all the way to the starboard aft pinrail at midships. Claire had run onto the deck as well. She unsheathed the gaff, and with one terrible underarm swing, she hooked the fish by its gills and hurled it onto the deck. Penelope was ready with the club, and with several strikes to the head, she humanely dispatched the quite handsome tuna from this world to the next.
“Bonk bonk bonk,” said Toby.
In the afternoon, we had Emergency First Responder class, and later that day, after finishing in the engine room, I made ceviche for everyone. I think they all liked it.