Well, here you are staring at me like I’m some sort of relic or dinosaur while I tend to the repairing my nets. It was not so long ago that I was a younger man and I didn’t have all the technological crap you kids have nowadays. No, life was definitely not like it is now; it was a lot different back in ‘64’. Your generation has to invent things to do so you can create a little excitement and adventure in your lives. You hardly get away from that damn computer your asses are glued in front of all day long. Well, I guess it’s not your fault. There is not much else for kids and teenagers to do these days. When I was a young lad I worked on my dad’s fishing boat and when I became old enough, at eighteen, I had my own boat. Boy, I had some adventures on that vessel, but the scariest time I had was when I was twenty-four. I skippered my own fishing dragger the Rosemary Ann. Sit down, listen and maybe learn a thing or two.

All started out well, the morning was clear, calm, and the air fresh with the smell of salt brine. The sun had yet to emerge above the horizon and to the east the sky glowed a friendly pleasant magenta-orange. It looked as though it just might be a great day, and hopefully a profitable one.

But, that was the previous morning before the troubles began; it was two-thirty a.m. the next day when things started to go wrong. While we were making our way back to the Fisherman’s Co-Op in Stonington harbor I became aware of an eerie feeling, an uneasiness that had suddenly come over me. The air had become dense, heavy and obtrusive; I felt as though the firmaments forebode a warning of imminent hostility. Looking upon the water, a thought I could not shake possessed me, ‘A reflection of dark nothingness from the depths of a black abyss’. Above the sky was without the fisherman’s friend of a guiding star or moonlight; its mood was dark and brooding, like a heaviness beset upon a melancholy psychopath. Only the lights from distant shores and the Watch Hill lighthouse substantiated themselves as visible indications we had not slipped into limbo or another dimension. Two more miles and we would reach the passage though the reefs northeast of Fisher’s Island.

With the sea like a fluid black mirror Rosemary sled along, slicing liquid, disquieting the colorless tranquility of darkness, making her way towards the reefs and home. There was no sense of time other then the tick of a second hand progressing second-to-second within the clock mounted on the pilothouse bulkhead. If not for the altering relationship of lights along the shore to our changing position, we seemed suspended in a motionless void. As we approached the reefs the water was languorous, and with no markers or buoys to navigate the route, I debated whether to rely on dead reckoning, but without negotiable surf breaking on the reefs finding the deep water became an uncertainty. I imaged the sight and sounds of Rosemary crushing herself against the rocks; we would go around. The main channel, though adding three more miles, at least had buoys and the lighthouse. I thought, better safe then sorry. The barometer was still dropping. Jeff popped his head through the pilothouse doorway. ‘What’s up skipper?’ ‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘Just think we’re better off going the main channel.’ Looking toward the passage Jeff, nodded his head in agreement. It had been a long day and evening of fishing; I suppose he was anxious to return home. Having been with the Rosemary for almost a year, Jeff turned out to be one hell of a fisherman. Not many can make the transition from store clerk to fisherman, but Jeff proved to have the internal fortitude and desire the job demanded. I had gone through many a hand and most lasted only a short time. As the saying goes, ‘a fisherman is always cold, wet, tired and hungry.’ Many cannot take the hardship. But, individuals like myself, raised as a fisherman, feel fishing is work only when you’ re not making money. It’s like being a farmer, I suppose. Most grew up farming. Their families did it for generations. Myself, I can’t stand the smell of cow dung or the pungent odor of stored hay, but cover me with fish gurry and scales with a hold full of fish, I’m a happy man.

Ten minutes more, I could turn Rosemary into the main channel. Then it would be a straight run for three miles to the breakwater. Suddenly, we felt a slight breeze but it disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving us once again with the un-nerving quiet. Our clothes, soaked and heavy, we were uncomfortable and tired. The air had become almost insufferable; it was laden with moisture, and dampness covered everything. Droplets fell from our face as they would during heavy physical exertion, but it was only due to the soggy wetness, which permeated the air. Out in front of us I could see small cat paws, dancing their way across the ocean surface, little wavelets disrupting an otherwise quiescent sea. A moment later, the wind again changed direction. It now blew from the west with steadily increasing force. The channel entrance, identified by a red nun buoy, was now visible in the distance. A flash off in the distance lit up the night. A moment later I saw several strikes in the distance over Stonington village. I watched and studied the lightning, as its jagged forks and crooked bolts struck the village and the surrounding countryside. The storm seemed to be moving northwest. Though the direction was not a normal track for the locality, I felt that it would most likely miss us. I told Jeff. ‘Looks like it’s going to stay clear of us.’ He nodded his head and said. ‘ I guess so, you know better then I do.’ Jeff, as long as he had been with me still had not learned that my predictions of weather and sea were no more than a calculated guess.

As I turned Rosemary into the channel I think both of us felt reassured with the belief that we would not have to contend with the storm. The wind was steadily increasing in intensity, but was not much of a hassle as we approached the lighthouse. Suddenly, a brilliant flash, a loud piercing crack, with a resounding explosion, happening so unexpectedly I about jumped out my skin. For an instant, I saw the forestay glow a greenish-yellow but the brilliant flash had blinded me and I could not make out much else. As the thunder’s decaying echo dissipated, dispersing into the darkness of the night, I realized – we had been hit. Lightning, having struck the mast, traveled down the stays into the water. The storm had either circled, snuck up behind us, or had it been above us all along, and just now was breaking over-head. A semblance of my deck hand, Jeff, a pale white ghost, burst into the pilothouse. ‘Cap’n; we been hit!’ ‘You alright?’ I asked. ‘Yeah, I’m ok.’ He replied. Visible, were the pimply goose bumps covering both his arms. Standing with remnants of fright, his answer was nothing more than a pretentious assurance for my benefit. He was definitely shaken and having been almost struck, I can’t say I blamed him.

Before either of us had fully regained our senses, the wind had picked up and was blowing close to gale force. As we steamed toward the lighthouse the wind steadily continued to increase its intensity. The wind with its augmented supremacy howled like a creature calling for a pack on the prowl to join and combine numbers. We could see the wooden ratlines vibrate in the rigging and hear their angry buzzing hum, pitched like an aroused nest of bees taken to flight in protection of the hive. It was as if the vessel itself was in protest of the winds abusive ferocity. Continuing their growth, the waves crests were beginning to break, and I could see the white foamy peaks either side of the channel. Rosemary’s bow rose up meeting the summit of each wave, hesitated an instant at the apex, changed her upward inclination downward, and then plummeted into the troughs, burying her bow. The wind to our dismay again changed direction and was blowing with even more vigor from the northeast. Attempting to keep Rosemary off the rocks about the lighthouse to starboard I steered her a bit toward the breakers on the reef to our portside. The fury of this storm was not leveling-out. It continued to build strength and came at us like an angry charging animal. I pushed the throttle forward to gain power and speed on the upside ascent of each peak and pulled back to slow her descent while the vessel dove down the backside into the trough. Water rushed over the bow, rising half way up the pilothouse windows, creating for me that moment of fear and anxiety when it seemed she would keep to her downward journey and slip beneath the waves, straight to D. Jones locker. But, as always, along with a slight feeling of surprise and relief, she would as any seaworthy vessel raise her bow to struggle up the next precipitous wave. The waves continued to increase and the distance between them was becoming shorter. We were in for one hell of a ride. Rosemary was in the channel and I could not turn to open water for fear of grounding her on the shallow rocky shoals either side of the passage. There was nothing to do but ride it out and charge straight through.

And, the day had started out so well. We’d gotten ourselves a good day’s catch of flounder, nice big juicy black backs, but decided to stay out and hand line stripe bass off of the ledges southeast of Block Island. Fishing all evening, catching bass, many weighing between twenty and thirty pounds, we looked forward to a good profit when we returned. The weather forecast had predicted fair weather for the next three days and the marine radio had no warnings or predictions of any storms. But, when you make your living on the sea you come to know the unpredictable will happen and all you can do is to prepare for the worst. And, when the worst happens, hope for the best. Being a commercial fisherman can be what you love and what you hate, but it’s in your blood or perhaps in the genes. You cannot escape it. You may try a landlubber’s occupation, but the lure of fishing exerts its calling, gnawing, tugging, and eating away at you. Finally, as if you never had a choice, you find yourself giving in. I did quit for a year, worked construction, but the minute I had stepped aboard a friend’s vessel I was drawn back like a ferrous metal attracted to a magnet. Within a week I had a site aboard a scallop boat. She was little more than an old scow, but it was the first opportunity to come along, and I took it. It’s like a form of insanity, after all, any sane person would stay at decent a paying land job. So, there I was an insane man riding out an insanely violent storm.

The waves in the channel increased in elevation, their crests were now breaking, and the wind blew off the tops creating blinding spindrift like wind blown snow but of the salt sea. Their height seemed twenty feet, though they may not have been, but in such a situation things sometimes look bigger and seem worse than reality. Twenty feet or not I was worried. The channel had twenty-eight to thirty feet of water and Rosemary had a six-foot draft. This meant it was possible to strike the bottom while plunging into a trough. If this happened I knew we would not survive. The boat would be smashed into splinters. Rosemary labored heavily up toward the breaking peaks and each wave disappeared before she plunged down the backside. She dropped slamming into the troughs and was hammered by the next oncoming wave; the vessel was shuttering, creaking, and twisting under the strain. Rosemary broke through the peak of one large wave and crashed down into the trough. She did not have time to regain and ready herself. The next wave came crashing down on the bow and pilothouse. I’ll never forget the sound. It reminded me of a wrecking ball hitting the side of a building. Two of the pilothouse windows burst; glass and water became a flying deluge; the force knocked me back against the pilothouse bulkhead. I was cut on the right cheek and on the right forearm just above the wrist. Though, I was bleeding heavily the cuts were superficial. Later, I discovered that if the wound on my forearm had been one centimeter longer the vein would have been severed but fortune had been with me this one time.

Rosemary had survived such punishment before. She had ridden out some good blows in open seas but never this close to land. I was worried about our slippage; we were being driven toward the lighthouse. I continued to steer Rosemary toward the reefs on the opposite side of the channel lest we be blown onto the rocky coastline. This thunderstorm had become more than a squall. It was a wild entity, a living menace, whose sole purpose was destruction and we were caught in its grasp. It was one of the few times in my life I had the distinct notion that the anger and hostility of nature had but one purpose, destruction and the taking of lives. I conceived it some monstrous creature released by Poseidon other than a squall created within confines of the atmosphere. Perhaps the dragging of my nets across the ocean floor earlier that day stubbed his toe, infuriated him, and this was his revenge taken out against one lonely small fishing vessel headed for the sanctuary of a harbor. Nonsense! Focus, keep the mind focused, and pay attention, I had told myself. I was battling against fatigue. Both Jeff and myself were tired and only wanted to get home. Now it was questionable if we would make it.

Our situation showed no sign of improvement. The waves broke and came crashing down upon us. Water poured through the missing pilothouse windows. The bilge was filling with water and the pumps couldn’t keep up. Our only hope was to struggle our way on through. Once inside the reefs the sea wouldn’t be as brutal, but we had to get through and this monster wasn’t going to let us; it was determined to keep us from escape. Having only the lighthouse as a visual aid to starboard, I held the wheel tightly with my left hand, desperately attempting to keep us on course. I could not see passed the channel entrance; indeed, I could not see most of the time past Rosemary's bow. The seas came crashing down relentlessly upon Rosemary, pounding her; trying to beat her into submission. I was in a situation that no seaman who ever piloted a vessel wants to be in - a shallow channel with even less water on either side during a violent storm.

We were locked in conflict, in the midst of battle with nature at her worst, at a time when logic and calculation are no longer of any use. This beast had us locked in a life-death struggle by a matter of chance and circumstance, had the upper hand and was winning. A rush of adrenaline injected itself into my veins amplifying a moment of anger and insanity. I let loose, ‘Come on you bastard! - This all you’ve got!’ I yelled at the storm. From the focs’el, Jeff looked up, his eyes filled with fear; I believe he thought he was looking at a mad man. I was a mad man. I was deigning defeat, refusing to succumb to this cruel entity. It wasn’t bravery that drove me; it was fear, it was pride, and it was anger. Rosemary burst out somewhere near the crest of a wave and hung in the air like a dirigible. A second later, she was crashing into the trough. A towering wave came down, hammered us just as Rosemary was raising herself out of a trough. The force of the wave ripped the depth sounder away from the bulkhead. The engine cover tore free of its latches, rose to the focs’el ceiling, and came slamming down upon the old L-head six-cylinder engine. The engine came to an abrupt stop. Coming down the cover struck the distributor cap; now the cap dangled in the bilge, broken in two pieces. I jumped down over the four treads of stairs from the pilothouse to the focs’el and grabbed the two pieces, holding one half in each hand. As I stared at the pieces in disbelief, Jeff said, ‘We’re going to have to swim for it.’ I was not yet ready to jump, abandoning my vessel. I had too much time and money invested. I gave Jeff a hard piercing look and said, ‘Throw the anchor over!’ With a blank look upon his face he stared back at me for an instant and without saying a word turned and ran out through the pilothouse. I just fixedly gazed at the two halves of the cap. Jeff came back looking as if he had just seen some megalithic leviathan. ‘ I almost went overboard twice.’ He announced. I didn’t reply; I had no doubts of his account.

I could hear the line running out of the forepeak. I asked, already knowing the answer. ‘Did you tie off the anchor line?’ As I spoke we felt Rosemary tug violently against the anchor. All four hundred feet of line had paved out and the end of the line, which had been eye spliced onto a bullring, tugged against the eighth-inch steel of the ring. It will hold, I thought. But, along with the rest of our luck that morning with a loud bang similar to a pistol shot the bullring let go. It seemed our fate was now inevitable. We were going to have to swim for it. I recalled my father’s words. ‘If you make your living from the sea, you can expect at least once in your life to have to swim for it.’ But, to be so close to land, so close to home made the thought of defeat inexcusably bitter.

I have no reason or logical explanation why I did what I did next. Any fool would have known better, but I did it anyway. I grabbed a spool of electrical wire and with the pliers cut a length about fourteen inches long. I wrapped the wire twice around the two halves of the cap and twisted the ends as tight as I could. I placed the cap in position on the distributor, snapped the spring clamps into place, ran up to the pilothouse, and pushed the starter switch. The engine turned over, sputtered, coughed and with a puff of black smoke from the exhaust pipe by some miracle came back to life. I pushed the throttle full forward and turned the wheel steering Rosemary toward the channel.

Rosemary slowly struggled her through the channel entrance. The water inside of the reefs as I had expected was manageable. Upon the reefs that had in past history claimed many a vessel, I could see heavy surf like polished white claws of a giant beast. I was deciding whether to beach Rosemary on the sandy beach before Napatree Point or to continue on our way to Stonington. The sound of the engine was smooth and consistent. I decided to continue our journey home. I now took time to dress my wounds. To stop the bleeding of my forearm I poured salt into the cut, and placed a piece of gauze over the cut on my cheek. I yelled a bit when the salt hit the wound on my arm but it did the trick and the bleeding stopped. All the way to the breakwater the bilge pumps emptied the excess water we had taken on board. By the time we had rounded the breakwater and entered the harbor the storm completely receded and the air cleared. Above left no sign of the struggle only dim flashes of lightning off in the southwest were visible reminders of what we had been through. Above the moon and stars shined against a dark clear sky; the air had a crisp fresh feel and smell to it. It was the kind of early morning before sunrise that a fisherman knows he’s in for a great day.

I eased Rosemary into her slip and Jeff made fast the dock lines. I shut down the engine and said, ‘ let’s go below and catch a few before day break.’ Jeff looked back at me, ‘ I don’t believe it . . . Someone was looking out for us, that’s for damn sure.’ He had not spoken a word since he had returned from throwing over the anchor. Hearing him speak was a relief and his statement a bit of a revelation. I hadn’t given any thought to the event but I realized he was right. Perhaps something or someone divine, god, the creator or a cosmic universal karma had intervened and given us the help of its benevolent hand. Maybe it was just circumstance, a change of luck due to statistical probability, I don’t know for certain but this is the type of event that happens in our lives which make us ponder upon the possibility of something more.