© All Rights ReservedMahi-mahi bond for life. Once bonded, they will spend the rest of their five to six years swimming side by side through the yawing abyss of the tropical seas. At first you think that the sea must be teaming with life, near brimming over. That really isn't the case. Ninety-seven percent of all life in the ocean is found within two-hundred nautical miles of the shore. One percent are creatures that lurk deep in darkest parts of our mind and seas. The remaining two percent fight for existence in the barren waste-land that scarcely supports life. Mahi take this chance. With its partner by its side, Mahi roam the heavy heaving desert of sea reaching speeds of 50
knots (57.5 miles per hour to the lubber). They’re gorgeous, flaming rockets of crimson and gold with electric green currents chasing along their sides.
The simple fact remains that you’re more likely to catch a glimpse of the Pope’s private yacht than a Mahi. We went three months without sight of land or vessel, nothing but the endless drone of horizon spattered by the brooding temperament of the skies. For three and a half months, our world was bound by the wooden planks and steel hull of the SSV Toronto Star, 134.5 feet in overall length, 250 tons, 14 feet of draft, 2 masts, 11 sails, 34 souls. We were assigned a shoebox-shaped coffin, 6 feet, 3 inches in length,to stow our gear and stash our bodies when not on watch. For three and a half months, we clutched our duffels and sea bags against our sun-ravaged skin like spouses or once ago lovers. For three and a half months, we hid our secrets and flaws, hoping they wouldn’t spill out of our bunks when we heeled over.
We were scientists. We were students. We had projects to be developed and theories to be tested and egos to be soothed. We had stood on shore a season prior in the conference hall and explained how we would better the scientific community through our arduous endeavors across the Pacific. We extrapolated, and pontificated, and inflated just as much. We came from New England upper crust, and donated to Green Peace every year. We were known by name in the labs back home and were expected to bear doctorial titles within the decade. We were the hope of the future. And then there was Danny. Danny DeMio.
He stood in front of us wielding a yard-stick like a broadsword. He jabbed at a picture of a fish drawn on the chalk board, and then traced the bold bubble letters: SAVING THE YELLOW-FIN TUNA.
“So, I intend to prove that there are fish in the ocean.”
We paused.
“I mean, I’m going to fish for yellow-fin tuna, along our cruise track, and
then I’ll plot where I find them and at what times of day and stuff. When I’m done, I’ll be able to know what the popular areas are for the fish -- showing that there are fish in the ocean still.”
Georgia, who had strangely sharp and dazzling teeth, raised her hand.
“So… what are you going to be accomplishing for the scientific community?”
Danny let an absent-minded hand fall below his waist and stroked himself.
“Once we know where the fish are, we can let commercial fishermen know, and that way they will be able to stop over-fishing.”
We paused again, as if waiting for some hidden punch line. It never came.
Veronica, who was top of her class in cephalopod biology and reproductive technique, chimed in,“You’re going to save the fish by killing them?”
We all chuckled at her jab.
“No, I’m going to, you know, sample them.”
“On a plate?” said Justin, who loved to surf.
Danny started to look angry. He charged at each question and missed each one by a fraction of an inch. Most of us took a stab at him; the rest cheered us on. Then came Greg, whose large nose was frequently dabbed with crumpled Kleenex produced from some hidden pocket.. He came striding into the conversation like the matador toying with the broken bull, smiling at the ladies.
“So you’re going to fish for three and a half months?” he asked, his voice like burned sugar.
“Yeah.” responded Danny.
Greg side-stepped the first charge.
“And then you’ll spend your down time taking advanced readings of the biological construct of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone?” He fluttered his cape.
“Well, no.”
The sword came out.
“I guess I just don’t understand the purpose of your project.”
“To stop over-fishing in the ocean.”
“Are you going to stick a Budweiser on the hook and pull the fishermen out of the water?”
We all held our breath.
“Or are you going to stop the rape of our sea by pulling the fish out and relocating them to the projects?”
The room erupted.
We crept across the Pacific at an agonizingly slow four knots. The sun lashed our backs and broiled the deck. We prayed for a night watch; any of the four hour shifts that were served between 1900 and 0600 gave you a chance to balm your burns before returning to one of the brutal six-hour day watches.
Everyday when not on watch we would sacrifice ourselves on the altar of science. Those of us who were interested in probing the depths on the sea would be present four times a day to lower the 250-pound Conductivity Temperature Depth scanner and her twelve sample bottles. We would heave-to, winch the carousel out, and drop the CTD down 4000 meters. Others would be counting copepods under the microscope or probing spoonfuls of sea snot with a steel toothpick and looking up every third organism in the NOAA manual to ensure we had identified it correctly. Others still were preserving squid gonads in formalin every thirty
minutes.
The lab was below deck, tucked alongside the churning generators and oil lines like the boiling stomach of the ship. Constantly heaving and rocking, and reeking of chemicals and squid, the lab was relentlessly barraged by the four-second throb of the depth scanner that constantly checked in with the carbon on the ocean floor.
Danny remained on deck. When he ventured to the lab, it was to pick up a bucket of chum for his hooks. Greg, who was seasick for the first week, once vomited in the bucket of chum before handing it to Danny. He dabbed his behemoth nose with a rag as he handed it over. For two months, Danny lounged on deck watching his line. Nothing came.
“Of course he’s not going to catch anything,” Veronica said one day when the heat was heavier than usual. “There are no fish this far out. He’s just fucking off up there.”
“He’s getting really good at baiting a hook.” said Thomas, who didn’t say much.
“Yeah, he’s a real master baiter,” said Greg, casting invisible dice in the air next to him.
We all paused from our quest to better humanity to laugh.
“You hear the Cap’n calls him Santiago?” he said through his nose.
“Santiago? If Hemmingway knew, he’d kill himself again,” spat Georgia.
At that moment, Danny pushed the hatch open and came in with a bullish look on his face. When he caught sight of Greg, he puffed up.
“Hey, I need more chum.”
Greg spat on the sole and then handed Danny the scalpel he was using to dissect one of Veronica’s squid.“Here, I suggest using your temporal lobe, it’s for higher functions.”
“What?”
“Your temporal lobe. For chum. I figure you should use it at some point in your life.”
Danny held his ground without letting his gaze falter from Greg.
“Still nothing, Santiago?” asked Justin, who hadn’t stopped talking about surfing since we cast off.
“If you can tell me what book that came from, Santiago, I’ll give you this squid testical.” Greg produced a small marble from the longest of the squid’s tentacles. “Think of it like a worry stone, so that you don’t have to keep touching yours.”
Danny recoiled his hand from its native position on his groin. He shifted from foot to foot and then spun to leave.
We herded him around the ship. There’s nowhere to hide on a ship and the 134.5 feet of his paddock began to cinch around his neck. We would mock falling on swells too small to note and cow him into bulkheads as we caught ourselves, or grumble “Santiago” in greeting as we passed. The golden key to his freedom swam hundreds of knots away, disinterested in his single piece of chum dangling behind the Toronto Star.
And then it happened: under the most oppressive of days, when the air refused to whisper the faintest relief, Danny’s pole dipped and broke. He was there to grab it as the line raced deeper into the dismal depths. The bells sang out and the pulse of his excitement spread like a drug through the veins of the ship. We all rushed to the quarterdeck. With the pole broken, Danny had pulled the coil of line from its spool and was holding on with his hands. As we watched his shoulders ripple under the strain of the fight, his palms wept crimson tears onto the parched planks of the quarterdeck. The sea heaved with discomfort beneath us and Danny had to grab at the rail to prevent following his prey to the depths.
The third mate (who was arrogant and boyish) leapt to Danny’s side and helped him coil the line. They thrashed and tugged, cursing heathen prayers to physics that the line would hold. Danny was heaving still, as he had been from the start, when at last we saw it. Beneath the water shot a bolt of color like a rocket. First it bolted away from the hull at what must have been 40 knots, and then down again towards the darkness. We watched the line sigh and sing under the force. Danny raged vehemently and planted himself with each new attack. The line suddenly gave the most imperceivable of movements and seemed to slack. Danny dug in. The fish soared on deck.
Forty pounds of fury thrashed and spurred. The third mate straddled the four feet of gold and crimson that mauled mauled the planks with color and rage. From some secret spot, Danny produced his deck knife and plunged it into the Mahi’s skull. Its flanks blazed to life with wildfire and sunsets. Its eyes sought wildly for its attacker. The knife bored deeper; squelching sounds assaulted us with each twist. The Mahi’s open mouth let loose silent gaping screams as she flared even brighter. There was a sickening twist and a pop. The Mahi went limp and the color in her flanks faded, starting at the tail and bleeding upward towards its own blank stare, and finally leaching out at Danny’s knees. We saw the color pour out with the blood that ran into the hawseholes and back into the sea. The fish that remained behind was a slate grey and still as stone.
The only sound was Danny and the third mate slapping one another and laughing. Slowly, we tore ourselves from the scene and returned to our duties.
Justin was the first to notice the fish that bumped into the side of the ship. He was watching Danny and the third mate cleaning the Mahi and chucking the innards back to the sea when he caught sight of the second Mahi. From the slope of the forehead, this one was clearly recognized as male, and he trailed along side the ship, rising to the surface and casting searching glances up, but finding only chum and the silence of an alien world.
For four days, the dead fish’s mate slowly swam by the side of the SSV Toronto Star, waiting for something to drop back from the sides of the ship and return. Day and night he kept his vigil, sometimes patrolling the starboard side, other times trolling along the port side. Veronica had trouble sleeping at night because she could hear it bumping against the hull along her bunk. By the fourth day, its dazzling crimson had begun to fade. On the fifth it took the hook Danny single-mindedly dropped in front of it. No one watched as he bled the color dry.
© Capt C Staudinger 2006
