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The Atlantic Ocean is usually viewed as a friendly ocean by recreational boaters and swimmers, in spite of the shark attacks in the South and the uncertain weather conditions in the North. The fishermen, the people who work the ocean for a living, view it with suspicion at all times, for they know a split second's carelessness can start a sequence with only one possible ending - death.
This is the true story of what happened to Bob Allen. He is an all round outdoorsman, fishing lobsters and digging clams, stalking the small coastal streams for brook trout and the cedar swamps for deer. He doesn't have a lazy bone in his body. Whether he is fishing for his own table or pulling lobster traps to provide income for his family, Bob loves what he does.
He fishes the coastal waters from an open sixteen footer with an outboard and the waters of November make that a hard, cold proposition. I remember going out with Bob and our friend Doc after sea ducks, and we only got a couple but that was fine. I was a cold day and when the salt spray hit it froze. Doc ventured that a couple of lobsters would sure go good with those ducks, and Bob said, "Sure thing, you guys pull 'em."
The cold from that pot warp had to be felt to be appreciated. After hauling up just a few feet the fingers felt like they were filled with cold needles. By the time the trap was up, the hands had to be warmed under the arms because they could no longer function. When two traps produced no shellfish we decided wild rice would go very well indeed with the birds and headed for shore. Bob allowed that we'd had a pretty good day. Two week later he had one that was not so good.
Bob and his son Bobby went out to pull traps in earnest. A lot of people like to have lobster on hand at Thanksgiving, if not as the main course at least as part of the festivities. The market was assured and Bob figured he should net enough from one good haul to get his Christmas shopping done early for a change. Bobby, being sixteen, had visions of taking his girlfriend to the movies as well as saving some to buy his own car.
Their run through the southern end of the big cove was great, with lobsters in every trap and most of them legal. They only had to through back about a dozen, which is good for that area. Coming back past the jetty and into the northern end of the cove the sea was heavier, for there is no island to protect it from the offshore swells.
The boat required careful handling here, for Bob did not want to be caught broadside when pulling a trap. The spray was really freezing one, and if they stayed out too long they would have to pound it off with a hammer.
Neither one of them could later be sure of exactly what happened. Somehow a whitecap hit just right on the bow to make the small boat gee a little bit at the same time a trap was being slid back into the water. That icy line held its shape long enough to catch up in the prop and the next thing you know, the boat was upside down and the two men were in the water. The hull was iced so badly a hold was impossible so they did the next best thing and grabbed onto a lobster buoy. That buoy was not big enough to hold them up without a lot of feet kicking, but that was okay - if they stopped moving they knew they would soon be dead.
They did a lot of hollering and hand waving, but who stares out at the ocean on a gray November day such as that one? An hour went by, and Bob realized they might not be found. He had Bobby climb up on his back, ostensibly to give him a higher perch to wave from. Actually Bob thought the boy might survive a while longer if he were atop his father's dead body.
There are tables that tell just how long a man can live in waters of certain temperatures. They claim to be accurate to within one minute. What the tables don't take into consideration is the will power that lets some men do impossible feats. Bob is such a man. When he makes his mind up to do something it takes one hell of a lot to change it. Stubborn, his wife calls him, and in his case that just might be a good thing.
At two hours sheer will was keeping Bob awake, for he had to keep telling his son to raise a ruckus. The lad was deep into hypothermia. Luckily he was roused to wave that one more time.
For an old man was walking along the slabs of granite that stopped erosion on that end of the cove. He walked here daily regardless of weather, for he had lived his life on the sea and in retirement he loved it as much as he did when a child. That last arm wave caught his eye. At first he thought if was a fish, but what kind of a big fish be doing here at this time of year? Uncasing his binoculars he looked and saw what the problem was.
He didn't panic or look for someone else to help him; he headed straight for the back door of the net shop and started shouting orders. In minutes the Boston Whaler belonging to that company was in the water manned by a very experienced crew. While they made the rescue another man called to have an ambulance waiting at the shore.
It was done just in time. Both Bob and his son suffered hypothermia and went to the hospital, but they were able to return home the next day. The boat was rescued without its cargo, but at that point nobody really cared.
"If it hadn't been for Bobby, I would have given up long before," he later told me. "The pain was just too much."
I looked at his face and saw that he wasn't kidding. That day had been indeed as close as they come.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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