White Horses On The Bay

Force 12: 64-71 Knots - Hurricane

Force 12:  64-71 Knots

Hurricane

The air is filled with foam and spray.  Sea completely white with driving spray.  Visibility very seriously affected.

    Fisher, George and Jack headed out into the black swells of Twillingate Harbour on the auxiliary ship and made their way carefully toward the rocks off Burnt Island.  They soon reached the narrow passage of Main Tickle with the engines roaring full on in top gear.  George kept the bow pointed straight into the oncoming waves, which at times were taller than the ship itself.  The vessel pitched and rolled in the turbulent sea for more than an hour and only the flashes of lightning made it possible to distinguish the sea from the sky. 

    George posted Fisher off the starboard to scout for The Mary Bea and Jack off the port to watch for bergs.  The wave crests were at least 15 feet, the swells more than 25.  A bergy bit could easily hide in the trough of the next swell or slam right into them surfing the top of a rogue wave. The islands in the distance disappeared from view with each dip between the swells.  Every ascent created a spray off the bow, lit by the searchlight obscuring George’s view. For much of the time, he had to steer the ship blindly on instinct.  “Here, Fisher, take these and scan the shoreline for a sign of The Mary Bea when we get around this point,” George yelled shoving binoculars into Fisher’s shaking hand.

    “Aye, Aye, Captain!” Fisher said, surprising himself and George. It felt like someone else had said the words.  He was exhilarated and frightened, yet self-assured and he followed up with the more amateur version:  “I’m on it!”

      “Mary Bea, Mary Bea, Mary Bea, this is Coast Guard Auxiliary Twillingate. Over.” George pulled hard on the ship’s wheel with his strong right hand and yelled into the radio as they began to change direction in the trough of a swell.  The ship was now heading east, almost directly into the wind.   “Mary Bea, come in.”

    The radio crackled a bit as George strained to hear any voice at all.  Fisher held his breath and gripped the railing of the ship with one hand and the binoculars with the other. Pelted by the rain as the vessel pitched like a Styrofoam cup in the rough sea, the bow facing straight up into the black sky one second and violently down the next, he felt more alive than he’d ever felt his entire life.

    “Bergy bit off the bow, port-side George!” Fisher yelled.  A chunk of an iceberg the size of a Boston Whaler had suddenly appeared in front of them. 

    “I see it, Fisher.  Good eyes, Boy! Keep watching. Where there’s one there’s usually another.”

    “Anything on the radio, George?” Fisher yelled over the deafening sounds of the waves, the wind and the engines.

   “No, nothing yet.  Don’t worry, kid, we’ll be around the point soon.  Sometimes the signal’s no good through those cliffs; a hundred feet of granite there, B’y.  Keep your eyes open and watch for them pesky bergs.”

    The coast guard ship pulled past the sharp ragged rocks of Burnt Island and headed southeast now, toward Jenkins Cove.  At the instant they rounded the point, the longliner came into view for just a few seconds and then disappeared in the swirling foamy waves, like an apparition.

    “There she is again, B’ys, straight ahead!” George steered the ship out of its turn and motored due south toward the spot where he thought the distressed vessel was.  “Straight across the bay there.  I’d say she’s in one piece and upright.  That’s a good sign!”

    The ship’s engines roared as George kept the bow heading straight between the swells through the entrance of the cove at full throttle.  The ship began to roll from side to side and Fisher wretched a few times from the change in motion.  If he’d had anything to eat at all that day, it would have been tossed into the sea right then.  Fisher shook his head and tried to face the wind to battle his seasickness.  The sour taste of bile filled his mouth and he tried to fix his gaze through the binoculars on the horizon, the way he had advised Jenny to do earlier that day.   He searched for a line of land in the inky scene before him, but could only see the spray of the angry sea and the torrents of rain lit by the searchlight.  With every sideways rise and fall, every pitch of the ship, Fisher pressed his boots a little harder into the deck to keep from falling overboard. The effort to stay upright and on lookout for the bergs was a distraction from his churning stomach.