• A Speck in the Sea, Falling Off of a Lobster Boat In the Middle of the Night
    18 replies, posted
[QUOTE][IMG]http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2014/01/05/magazine/05montauk1/05montauk1-articleLarge.jpg[/IMG] [I]John Aldridge on the deck of the Anna Mary.[/I][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Looking back, John Aldridge knew it was a stupid move. When you’re alone on the deck of a lobster boat in the middle of the night, 40 miles off the tip of Long Island, you don’t take chances. But he had work to do: He needed to start pumping water into the Anna Mary’s holding tanks to chill, so that when he and his partner, Anthony Sosinski, reached their first string of traps a few miles farther south, the water would be cold enough to keep the lobsters alive for the return trip. In order to get to the tanks, he had to open a metal hatch on the deck. And the hatch was covered by two 35-gallon Coleman coolers, giant plastic insulated ice chests that he and Sosinski filled before leaving the dock in Montauk harbor seven hours earlier. The coolers, full, weighed about 200 pounds, and the only way for Aldridge to move them alone was to snag a box hook onto the plastic handle of the bottom one, brace his legs, lean back and pull with all his might. And then the handle snapped. Suddenly Aldridge was flying backward, tumbling across the deck toward the back of the boat, which was wide open, just a flat, slick ramp leading straight into the black ocean a few inches below. Aldridge grabbed for the side of the boat as it went past, his fingertips missing it by inches. The water hit him like a slap. He went under, took in a mouthful of Atlantic Ocean and then surfaced, sputtering. He yelled as loud as he could, hoping to wake Sosinski, who was asleep on a bunk below the front deck. But the diesel engine was too loud, and the Anna Mary, on autopilot, moving due south at six and a half knots, was already out of reach, its navigation lights receding into the night. Aldridge shouted once more, panic rising in his throat, and then silence descended. He was alone in the darkness. A single thought gripped his mind: This is how I’m going to die. Aldridge was 45, a fisherman for almost two decades. Most commercial fishermen in Montauk were born to the work, the sons and sometimes the grandsons of Montauk fishermen. But Aldridge was different — he chose fishing in his mid-20s, moving east on Long Island from the suburban sprawl where he grew up to be closer to something that felt real to him. He found work on a dragger and then on a lobster boat, and then, in 2006, he bought the Anna Mary with Sosinski, his best friend since grade school. Now they had a thriving business, 800 traps sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic, and two times a week they’d take the boat out overnight, spend an 18-hour day hauling in their catch and return the next morning to Montauk loaded down with lobster and crab. [B]...[/B][/QUOTE] [B]Read the rest of the story here:[/B][url]http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/magazine/a-speck-in-the-sea.html[/url]
This reads less like news and more like a short story.
Just read that, incredible. News doesn't have to be short and sweet mate... God what a situation to be in.
I know a few people who have gone fishing in the Bering Sea and have come back telling me stories about close calls they've had almost falling into the sea. One guy came back after an Opillio season up near the Aleutian Islands and said that he watched a guy get knocked overboard in extremely turbulent seas by a crane that its hydraulics fucked up on it and the crane swung around and was going just fast enough that it knocked him over the railing and into the frigid water. This was at like 3 AM, in the winter, with ice around. The guy was rescued after quick thinking from the crew and captain. If he had been in the water for more than 5 minutes, he would of been beyond saving as he would have probably drowned before the hypothermia killed him. Just goes to show how much risk these guys take and that they have balls of titanium steel to be able to face such dangers so we can enjoy a nice lobster tail or crab legs at our favorite restaurants/grocery stores.
What a survivor, i would have drowned before i hit the water.
[QUOTE=Angua;43408670]What a survivor, i would have drowned before i hit the water.[/QUOTE] ...What?
Drowning/Perishing in the ocean is one hell of a way to go.
Great story, goes to show, if your in a sea used for fishing and stranded, find a buoy and fast!
[QUOTE=Antonahill;43408707]...What?[/QUOTE] It's an expression. Basically means that he would have no chance of survival if he ended up in a similar situation.
is this the same as this? [URL="http://www.weather.com/weather-films/shows/alive/ep03.html"]http://www.weather.com/weather-films/shows/alive/ep03.html[/URL]
The excerpt in the OP makes it sound like he died.
[QUOTE=Scot;43409137]The excerpt in the OP makes it sound like he died.[/QUOTE] how so? the very first sentence pretty much tells you he survived
[QUOTE=Scot;43409137]The excerpt in the OP makes it sound like he died.[/QUOTE] how would the article knew what john knew. or what happened to john when everyone was sleeping in detail.
[QUOTE=jung3o;43411134]how would the article knew what john knew. or what happened to john when everyone was sleeping in detail.[/QUOTE] Haven't you heard about NYTimes new brain-information extracting device.
[QUOTE=dwt110;43408825]is this the same as this? [URL="http://www.weather.com/weather-films/shows/alive/ep03.html"]http://www.weather.com/weather-films/shows/alive/ep03.html[/URL][/QUOTE] yes
[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;43409997]how so? the very first sentence pretty much tells you he survived[/QUOTE]"This is how I'm going to die. Aldridge [i]was[/i] 45..."
[QUOTE=Jzzb;43413785]"This is how I'm going to die. Aldridge [I]was[/I] 45..."[/QUOTE] But this implies that he was able to look back, and to look back, he must still be alive? "Looking back, John Aldridge knew it was a stupid move."
[quote]For the people around him, though, things haven’t been quite so easy. Aldridge’s father told me that he still often wakes up around 3 a.m. and can’t get back to sleep. “It’s something that you can’t kick,” he said. “It’s never out of my mind. Never.” [b]A few weeks after his son’s rescue, John Sr. got a tattoo on his arm: a pair of big green fishing boots, and between them, the G.P.S. coordinates where his son was found. [/b][/quote] That is so amazing
i need to read more books
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