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Sea faring is not the easiest thing a woman can do, especially if she goes fishing with men. Even if she gets a decent crew, there will always be one joker in the pack who has a death wish. Sometimes dealing with these jerks requires unusual measures, and so I bring you:
I signed on with a longliner called the F/V Harmony. The skipper was a nice enough guy by the name of Frank Richard. People who knew him had good things to say about him, so I was confident that a thirty day trip would go well. I didn't usually go out on boats that stayed out a long time. Crew members had a tendency to become grouchy and weird, making themselves very hard to live with if they were at sea too long. Shopping for groceries was an exercise in restraint. The Harmony had some bad luck under the skipper before Frank, and the owner could only wrangle limited credit from the ship supply store. I bought meat and vegetables first, checking my purchases against a running total. I had enough money left to get lots of flour and other baking supplies after I bought dry goods, milk, store-bought bread, and other basic essentials. When my shopping was done, the 10% discount on groceries the store offered with our fuel purchase let me buy a few fancy things for special treats. Peanut butter is a staple on most fishing boats when the guys cook for themselves. On my boats it always became a waste of space in the galley stores, since no one would eat it once I started cooking. No one on the Harmony bothered to explain to me that a guy named Chris was addicted to peanut butter and ate an entire jar every day with everything. There had been four jars left in the galley stores from the previous trip and I had thought they wouldn't be touched, or at most, one jar might be used up. Chris never found out I hadn't bought peanut butter until after we had set sail. He went ballistic and threw a tantrum that only an ogre mama could appreciate. He was a huge kid that carried a lot of extra fat on his frame. His pudgy face and beady eyes looked like they belonged on an ogre's face from the way he scrunched them up in his rage. Chris almost went up to the pilot house to demand that Frank turn the boat around so we could go back and get his peanut butter, but other crew members and I convinced him that it would be a futile effort. This upset Chris even more, and by the time he was through with his tantrum I had decided his new name would be "Ogre Baby." The ogre forgave me somewhat for failing to restock the peanut butter rations when I declared that the only four jars left on the boat would be his, and his alone. We had an unexpected break early in the trip when the skipper decided to move all the fishing gear to another favorite spot of his. I hadn't prepared any snacks yet because I had been helping on deck, and it would be a while until the next meal. One guy inadvertently started a fight by dipping into Ogre's peanut butter to make a sandwich. I was still working out on deck, helping finish up the gutting and scraping of our catch when Ogre Baby charged out of the galley in indignation. "Tell them!" Ogre shrieked, "Come in the galley and tell them that all of the peanut butter is mine! They don't believe me and I want you to tell them now!" When I arrived in the galley, the unrepentant peanut butter thief was laughing with the other crew members over the ogre's distress. After I explained to everyone about the deal I had made with the ogre, the thief offered Ogre his sandwich, which he snatched from his hands. As a peace offering to the crew, I took a blender and beat some honey and butter together for them to use as a peanut butter substitute. I promised to always keep honey butter and other types of sandwich spreads available for snacks and the crew promised not to touch Ogre's peanut butter. I still was not necessarily forgiven for not restocking the peanut butter stores. The ogre tended toward an ugly and vengeful nature, but how would he be able to defend his peanut butter against all comers if I suddenly disappeared? The sudden decline in the quality of meals, together with the lack of snacks that I set out for the guys between meals would cause predatory attacks on the limited stores of peanut butter. My life was safe only as long as the ogre had any peanut butter to defend. As it was, I made a point to hide all of the peanut butter, except for the opened jar that Ogre had moved into his bunk. No one would get any more peanut butter unless Ogre shared his. And if the ogre wanted more peanut butter, he had to ask me for it. Such was our standoff, I mean truce. Our skipper was what is known as a “grinder” in the fleet. He would work the crew for 48 hours and then let them sleep five hours. He gave them an hour to wake up and get ready to work, then it was back out on deck for another 48 hours. As the cook I wasn't actually required to work the deck, but I did anyway, filling in here and there to help things run smoothly. I was allowed to go to bed whenever I wanted and usually slept five hours a day, so I was getting twice as much sleep as anyone else and I served as their alarm clock. I would make sure the skipper was up and then go start shaking the crew. Nobody liked to get up, but Ogre took a special effort to awaken. When I had to wake the crew after the second sleep cycle of the trip, Ogre would not respond to my calls. I don't like to touch the guys when I wake them, unless I have plenty of room to maneuver. Some guys will take a swing at the person who wakes them up even before they know what they are doing. I finally decided to try a unique method of arousal. I stomped into the stateroom, whipped the curtain on Ogre's bunk back, and then I gave my best and loudest monster growl, “GRAWWRRRRG!” Ogre shot straight up in his bunk with eyes wide open in fear and stared at me. He nearly fainted afterward which made me wonder if perhaps I should take more care with my grooming. (I had not thought myself to possess a particularly frightening visage, but then I didn’t spend much time in front of a mirror or with a hair brush when I was at sea.) Then his face scrunched up into folds of pudgy ire and he started yelling at me. He was too late, as I saw him take a breath I scurried away. I was laughing when I came out of the stateroom. The rest of the crew wanted to know what had happened, it was pretty obvious by the invectives being hurled at me that Ogre was awake and royally ticked off. He came to the doorway and screamed at me, threatening to kill me, and then disappeared. Everyone laughed even harder then, and I figured I had better stay out of the bait shack that day, since that was where the ogre spent most of his time. It was a good day to cut fish heads or gut and scrape fish anyway. The weather outside was warm and sunny, and even though it was the middle of January it seemed like spring where we were out by Amchitka Island. I didn't want to be around Ogre when he had a fid (an awl used for separating the main fibers in a line) in his hand. Instead of baiting hooks or replacing gangions, the ogre might decide to stab the cook with his fid. Everyone was out on deck except me, because I had to clean the galley after breakfast. Ogre finally decided to go to work after the other guys had been working for over a half hour. He went out to put his rain gear on, but came back through the galley to get his gloves from his locker. Ogre Baby could not resist the opportunity to stop and vent his ire on me again. When he finished making all manner of death threats, interspersed with derogative comments about my femininity, I just glared at him. I was not the least bit intimidated by this big oaf. I told the ogre to go to hell and stop bothering me, or I would kick his ass. He told me he could do whatever he wanted to me and that I couldn't stop him. Unimpressed with the ogre’s attempt at intimidation, I lectured him about the unwise course he was choosing. “I don't think you understand who and what you are dealing with, Ogre.” I told him. “I am the cook, and right now I am surrounded by knives and other sharp implements, not to mention canned goods and skillets. I am in my galley, and therefore, I am in my territory and fully armed. Win, lose, or draw, you will get hurt, very badly hurt. I will be damned if I am going to stand around and let you beat me up, or kill me in my own galley, without first tearing your guts out of that fat belly of yours! So go right ahead, make me hurt you! Besides, I am the only one who knows where your peanut butter is hidden and you will never find it without me!” This last statement caused the ogre to hesitate, but before he could give me his reply Frank came down from the pilot house to get coffee. After glaring at the ogre, Frank demanded to know why everyone else was working and he was still putzing around in the galley? Ogre mumbled something about getting his gloves and ran for his stateroom while I ratted him off to Frank. “Ogre wanted to make a last death threat to me before going out on deck and we got into an argument about whether he could kill me before I ripped his guts out. That's why he's been in the galley so long. He's mad at me for waking him up. He didn't like the way I did it.” I blithely told Frank. “Oh really?” Frank said, as he turned to greet the ogre who was finally on his way out to the deck. Frank just glared for a minute stopping Ogre Baby dead in his tracks. It didn't take long for the ogre to start fidgeting nervously, and then Frank started bawling him out, telling him to never harass me again. “If the cook can't get you up the next time, she can come and get me! We'll see what you have to say about the way I wake you up! And believe me, you will wish she had been the one to get you out of the rack!” Frank informed Ogre, who then ran like the hounds of hell were after him to get to work. “Just let me know if he bothers you again.” Frank told me and went back upstairs. The bait shack was definitely a no-go that day since Ogre Baby might try a sneak attack on me. Yep, I thought, cutting fish heads would be a really wonderful way to spend the day! I finished up in the galley and went outside to work on the open deck under the watchful eye of the skipper.
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