Read Online A Captain's Duty by Richard Phillips - Free Book Online
Authors: Richard Phillips
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“You’ll never be on another ship like this one.” He was right.
The Aleut Provider was heading up from Seattle to Alaska and back. We were scheduled to go through the Inland Passage up through Charlottetown over to Kodiak, through the Aleutian Islands, and then up to the Pribilof Islands in the Arctic Circle, hitting a bunch of tiny fishing villages where they process the salmon and king crab that the trawlers bring in. We would also be bringing supplies up to the Indian villages on a contract with the U.S. Government, but anythingwe hauled back at a price was pure profit. So the ship was loaded down with every kind of frontier product you can imagine: seal skins heaped in the cargo hold, salmon meat stuffed in the refrigerated holds. And piled on the deck, high above the gunwales, were trucks, empty beer kegs for refilling in Seattle, motorcycles, telephone poles, snowmobiles, and fire hydrants.
It looked like the Beverly Hillbillies’ Cruise to Nowhere.
I was a third mate on his first trip. I rarely spoke to the captain, that’s how low on the totem pole I was. My room was a tiny space with a wooden door, which would later be ripped off its hinges by a storm and be replaced by a wool blanket, my only protection against the arctic winds. I would wake up in the morning and there would be water flowing under my feet. I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
My third week on the water, there was trouble. The captain had logged (that is, reported) myself and the second mate for a minor infraction—not doing the tide report for our next port. We’d actually written the tides down, but then the chief mate had mislaid them, thinking our report was scrap paper. The chief mate went to the captain to argue our case, but the guy refused to hear him out. So the chief mate quit. The second mate quit in solidarity, followed by his wife, who was working as the steward utility. The bosun quit. The able-bodied seamen quit.
Everyone quit working and left the ship. Suddenly I, a glorified taxi driver, was the chief mate on a ship headed toward the Arctic Circle. We were so short of men we had to hire a couple of teenagers, one fourteen and the other sixteen, as able-bodied seamen. The captain didn’t care. All that mattered wasthat he believed everyone onboard was sober. The captain was an ex-alcoholic who’d banned any kind of liquor from the ship. But after hours some of the crew would get buzzed on Everclear grain alcohol. It’s very, very strong stuff and something about it and the weird light up there kind of made everyone a little crazy. So the captain would come out of his quarters once a day and shout at me, “Are those guys drinking, Phillips? I think I smell alcohol on this boat.” And I would say, “I’ll watch ’em, Cap, I’ll watch ’em.” Meanwhile I’d been drinking with the crew most nights.
I managed to coax everyone back on the ship. But after a couple weeks we pulled in to Pelican Cove, Alaska, which has a fish processing plant, six or seven houses, one bar, and that’s it. The captain ordered some extra work and the entire crew marched off the ship again. Everyone walked down the gangplank and headed to Rosie’s Bottomless Bar.
We walked in and the bartender said, “Hey, did you guys see any bears?”
“No, why?”
“Well, two guys coming from a ship the last time around were eaten by bears.”
So not only did I have to persuade the guys to return to the ship again, I also had to watch my back for black bears while I did it. It took me until the early hours of the morning, but I finally shepherded all the deserters back to the Provider .
The captain was standing on the bridge wing as I marched the crew back.
“I brought ’em back, Cap,” I said.
He just glared at us. Everyone went to bed, including the captain. We got up the next day, had breakfast, and got backto work. No one said a word. It seemed like creative chaos was the order of the day in the merchant marine.
But
The Aleut Provider was heading up from Seattle to Alaska and back. We were scheduled to go through the Inland Passage up through Charlottetown over to Kodiak, through the Aleutian Islands, and then up to the Pribilof Islands in the Arctic Circle, hitting a bunch of tiny fishing villages where they process the salmon and king crab that the trawlers bring in. We would also be bringing supplies up to the Indian villages on a contract with the U.S. Government, but anythingwe hauled back at a price was pure profit. So the ship was loaded down with every kind of frontier product you can imagine: seal skins heaped in the cargo hold, salmon meat stuffed in the refrigerated holds. And piled on the deck, high above the gunwales, were trucks, empty beer kegs for refilling in Seattle, motorcycles, telephone poles, snowmobiles, and fire hydrants.
It looked like the Beverly Hillbillies’ Cruise to Nowhere.
I was a third mate on his first trip. I rarely spoke to the captain, that’s how low on the totem pole I was. My room was a tiny space with a wooden door, which would later be ripped off its hinges by a storm and be replaced by a wool blanket, my only protection against the arctic winds. I would wake up in the morning and there would be water flowing under my feet. I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
My third week on the water, there was trouble. The captain had logged (that is, reported) myself and the second mate for a minor infraction—not doing the tide report for our next port. We’d actually written the tides down, but then the chief mate had mislaid them, thinking our report was scrap paper. The chief mate went to the captain to argue our case, but the guy refused to hear him out. So the chief mate quit. The second mate quit in solidarity, followed by his wife, who was working as the steward utility. The bosun quit. The able-bodied seamen quit.
Everyone quit working and left the ship. Suddenly I, a glorified taxi driver, was the chief mate on a ship headed toward the Arctic Circle. We were so short of men we had to hire a couple of teenagers, one fourteen and the other sixteen, as able-bodied seamen. The captain didn’t care. All that mattered wasthat he believed everyone onboard was sober. The captain was an ex-alcoholic who’d banned any kind of liquor from the ship. But after hours some of the crew would get buzzed on Everclear grain alcohol. It’s very, very strong stuff and something about it and the weird light up there kind of made everyone a little crazy. So the captain would come out of his quarters once a day and shout at me, “Are those guys drinking, Phillips? I think I smell alcohol on this boat.” And I would say, “I’ll watch ’em, Cap, I’ll watch ’em.” Meanwhile I’d been drinking with the crew most nights.
I managed to coax everyone back on the ship. But after a couple weeks we pulled in to Pelican Cove, Alaska, which has a fish processing plant, six or seven houses, one bar, and that’s it. The captain ordered some extra work and the entire crew marched off the ship again. Everyone walked down the gangplank and headed to Rosie’s Bottomless Bar.
We walked in and the bartender said, “Hey, did you guys see any bears?”
“No, why?”
“Well, two guys coming from a ship the last time around were eaten by bears.”
So not only did I have to persuade the guys to return to the ship again, I also had to watch my back for black bears while I did it. It took me until the early hours of the morning, but I finally shepherded all the deserters back to the Provider .
The captain was standing on the bridge wing as I marched the crew back.
“I brought ’em back, Cap,” I said.
He just glared at us. Everyone went to bed, including the captain. We got up the next day, had breakfast, and got backto work. No one said a word. It seemed like creative chaos was the order of the day in the merchant marine.
But
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