John pushed the old wooden door open and was greeted by the light and sounds of the bar. He made his way to the bartop and ordered the only beer option in town which was very strong but the old fishermen had grown used to the sour bite of the alcohol. He sat down across from an especially older fisherman who was silent.

“Hi my name is John, I’m doing a research project on Alaskan folklore, do you know of any good stories you could tell me?” John asked the old man, not knowing how much time the conversation he just started would take.

“I know a few. Come back to my boat and I’ll tell you some stories.” The old man responded with a rasp in his voice as if he hadn’t spoken in a few days.

They went back to the old man’s boat and sat down.There was one flickering light bulb providing most of the light, besides the slight glow from the dock lights coming in through the windows.

After a little bit of small talk, John flicked his recorder on and the captain started to talk. “This story happened about 12 years ago when a camera crew came here to document some alaskan wildlife.”

When they arrived, the crew of four didn’t think much of the little town the had stumbled across along Palma Bay, but they had come here to document Alaskan wildlife and this was the closest town to the Glacier Bay National Park, where they would be filming. There was one hotel that survived off of how many drunks in the town there had either angered their wives or had nowhere else to go for a good night's sleep. They had reserved two rooms for ten days while they got footage. For a few days, they kept busy trucking their equipment to and from the national park to get some great shots of the bears, moose, wolves and other wildlife that reside in Alaska.

One day when they were driving back into town they saw a banner advertising offshore fishing trips and whale watching. Even though their main goal was land animals they figured they could get some marine life footage too. They called the number printed on the banner and booked a trip. The next day the went to the marina. The boat was called the Alaskan Beauty and looked like it had seen better days but still had plenty of time before it had to be scrapped for parts. The captain was about as old as the boat and had a lot of experience on the ocean. They got on and made their way out of the harbor.

A few of the cameramen were starting to feel sea sick and Captain Bill told them to puke over the side so they wouldn’t get the decks dirty. The captain also advised them to eat something so they might feel better later. Everyone who wasn’t sick were enjoying the beautiful summer day or talking to the captain about fishing and if they would see a lot of whales. They caught a few albacore and saw three humpback whales breach, which kept the good feelings alive. Everyone had adjusted to the rough seas and so they were all in a good mood. There was a storm that looked a good few days away so they would be able to get home before it hit. Then one of the camera men noticed something that worried him.

“Hey Bill, where’s the radio in case we get in some kind of trouble?” Greg asked Bill. He was hoping for a different answer than the one he got.

“Actually there isn’t a radio on board.” Bill said “I have a full emergency tote with everything we could ask for, but I don’t like having loud radios on board, they scare away all the fish within a mile.”

Everyone else on the boat saw Greg staring off in the distance with a scowl but the success and high spirits of the trip caused them to overlook his worry.

An hour later, when they had reached their farthest point from shore, they turned around to go back home. Greg heard something odd near the back and saw something that got him to panic. He rushed to the cockpit to talk to Bill.

“How much gas do we have?” He asked in a worried voice.

“Well my gas gauge has been broken for awhile but we should have enough  to get back home.”

Right as he finished his sentence, the second of the three engines sputtered and died. Everyone fell silent as they began to realise what was happening. Their boat was running out of gas out of sight of land without anything to contact the land with.

The last engine ran out of gas an hour later. The boat which had jumped so freely over the tops of the waves not three hours ago now sat wallowing in one spot. Bill knew this was his fault because he was too tired to check his gas tanks and fill them up before they left port. Now he was responsible to for this group of five camera men from a city that had never been on the ocean until today.

Bill left the group and went below to make a catalog of all the food and drinking water they had left so that he could start to divide out rations for everyone so they could have ample food for as long as possible. Luckily, they had plenty of fresh fish and were close to some good areas for bottom fishing so they could get even more food that way.

Greg and the rest of the crew saw Bill go below with a worried look on his face and began to panic about what they could do while they were stranded, so they started trying to pool their knowledge about everything because they didn’t know what would be useful. None of them had any experience fishing or living off the ocean and had never been forced to survive like this. They were all just milling around, trying to think of something for them to do but the captain was still below decks doing whatever he was doing. Greg decided to go down below and talk with Bill about what they should be doing to help while he was going through all the food.

¨Hey man, everyone's kind of panicking up there, do you want us to be doing something to help out or should we just try and calm down while you do whatever you’re doing?”

Bill knew that the only way for them to calm down would be to have something to keep their minds off of the situation he had put them in. He would go up there soon to talk to them about everything but for now he had to calm himself down and think about what he was going to say.

“Just try and get everyone calmed down for now and bring in the fishing lines. Also if you could start putting things away and tidying up the deck that would be a huge help.”

Greg went back up top and told everyone that they needed to get the boat picked up. They reeled the lines in and put the fishing poles away. After they finished, that Greg had them pick all the random ropes up off the deck and coil them up. Just like that, they went from one job to the next for about an hour and cleaned the boat up. Then Bill came back on deck. He looked a lot better than he had when Greg had went down to talk to him and seemed much more collected.

“Everyone, we are stranded out here until we either drift back to land or we see a boat that can rescue us. It’s as simple as that. We only have so much food and drinking water so I set up a ration system to keep us going for as long as possible and we can also catch fish. I know that most of you are from the city but can you raise your hand if you’ve ever done any kind of fishing before today.”

Two people raised their hands, Greg and another camera man named Alex.

“Great. Now, besides food and water we’ll also have tough out some rough storms and we’ll have to battle the cold. From what I can see, you all brought nice and warm jackets which is a must out here. I have a kit on board that is for emergencies just like this. It has two very bright flashlights, extra batteries for the flashlights, life jackets, and a flare gun with five flares. Another thing, one of the ways we can get rescued is from any other boats that we see so we’re going to have install a rotating watch, day and night. If anyone sees something that looks like a boat, come wake me up before you try to signal them so I can make sure it's not just your eyes playing tricks on you.. I will have the first watch starting now. Each watch is three hours. After me is Greg, then Chris, Alex is after Chris, Logan you will relieve Chris and Theo will finish off the cycle. If anyone has a problem with that order, please bring it up now.”

Everyone looked around but no one raised their hand, they were all still too scared to be thinking straight.

“Good. Now we were lucky enough to end up right over a good halibut fishing spot and we need to get some lines in the water and hopefully catch some fish to eat.”

Everyone went over to where they had to put the rods away and grabbed one each. Bill set them all up with bait that had been in the freezer for a few hours and hadn’t begun to thaw yet. He had everyone find a good spot on the rails where they could be comfortable while they sit and wait for a fish to bite. He showed them what the difference was between weight bouncing on the bottom and a fish actually biting the bait. He told them that when they felt the fish biting the bait, they had to wait a little bit until they think the fish has swallowed the bait to pull the rod up and set the hook. Then they all dropped their weighted lines into the water, let their lines bounce on the bottom and then reeled them up a little above the sea floor and waited.

For three hours they just sat on the boat, every now and then someone would get a few nibbles on their bait and, forgetting what Bill had taught them, would tug on the line and, because the fish was just eating the side of the bait, would scare the fish away. For three hours they failed over and over, causing a sense of doom to fall across the boat as they all wondered if they were ever going to be able to catch anything to eat. How long could they live without food until they starved and died?

Then Alex, after bringing up too many empty hooks he began to get frustrated and thought about what he was doing wrong. He remembered the advice Bill had given them. He waited until the fish had had enough small bites and swallowed the bait. Alex threw the tip of his pole upwards and watched the rod bend until it looked like it would break. With a cry of triumph he reeled the line in as fast as he could while keeping the bend in his rod so the fish was forced to tire itself out. Alex had gone fishing with his dad as kid so he knew that he had to let the fish run until it was tired. He let the line out grudgingly as the fish fought him to save itself but Alex was determined. When the fish started to slow down again and the bend in the rod lessened, he reeled in his line and gained what he had lost in the last run. The fish felt it coming closer to the surface and made another attempt to run. Alex let it run again and the fight continued for another twenty minutes until the fish had run out of energy. Alex brought it up and when the fish saw the boat it made one last desperate run, but that was the last bit of fight it had left. By this time everyone had left their poles and was watching Alex perform this seemingly impossible task of actually bringing a fish into the boat. Bill came to the stern with a big gaff where Alex was bringing the fish to the surface. He used its menacingly large hook to drag the fish out of the water and onto the back deck of the boat. Everyone saw how the line was coming out of the fish’s mouth and down into the broad, flat grey fish and understood what Bill had been saying earlier. They went back to their separate lines and soon enough everyone was hooking fish. They had finally learned how to fish and caught five more fish so they had 100 more pounds of food. The next problem was finding away to get freshwater.

Six days had passed since they ran out of gas. They had run out of bait to catch halibut and had started to put chunks of salmon on the line, hoping that they would be able to catch something but they had only caught four fish total since their first day. Everyone was adjusted to the idea of not being able to see land and had started to just hope and pray that they were heading in the right direction. There was a storm building up that looked to be a few hours away so everything on the deck was being put away. They only had 20 gallons of freshwater on board, which  could keep everyone hydrated for roughly one week and a half. They need to plan on being out for at least a month. To try and collect rain water, they were laying out shirts and towels to ring out into buckets after the storm. Also they were using below decks as a storage place for some extra things on top and so they could only fit two people down there to wait out the storm. The rest would have to tough out the rain, heavy seas, high winds and intense cold that Alaskan storms bring. Bill had decided to stay on top so that he could give help if it was needed to Greg and Theo who were also going to be on top.

Then the first rain drops started falling and they skies darkened and were only lit by lightning arcing across the skies. Bill had Alex, Logan and Chris go below and handed Greg and Theo ropes that Bill had tied down earlier to prevent them from falling overboard which means death unless there is some kind of miracle and they find a floating log to hold onto. The small boat began to rock and the wind howled with an intensity that only the captain had experience with. All around them, there were howling grey skies and intense ice cold rain. Greg and Theo looked terrified and Bill was focused on the sea, trying to predict where the next bus sized wave was going to come from. Suddenly, one of the more violent waves took the small fishing boat and dropped it down the hump of the wave. They were picking up speed and then were slammed into the trough of the next wave. With a shudder, the entire boat shook violently and Theo lost his grip on the rope. Bill shot his hand out to grab Theo and help him recover but he missed his wrist and grabbed at the air. Bill watched in horror as Theo fell out of the cockpit and toward the bow never recovering his balance. He fell over the railing and into the grey, heaving ocean.

For two more days, the boat bucked wildly as it was thrashed by the sea. Bill and Greg were wet to the bone, despite their heavy weather gear. They were numb with cold and with the loss of Theo. Down below, Alex had been serving out the rations to everyone. They only had enough food to last them another two weeks, excluding the halibut they caught before the storm came. Chris and Logan were just trying to find things to do while being trapped below for such a long time. There was an old deck of cards, but they only knew three card games between them and you can only play the same three card games for so long until they become tiresome and boring. Bill and Greg had spent a day looking for Theo after he fell overboard but they hadn’t seen anything that could have been Theo.

On the third day, the storm had exerted its energy and dissipated. The seas calmed down and everyone came back on deck to get some much needed fresh air and freedom. Because the storm had thrashed the ocean, nutrients had been brought up from the depths, sparking a truly magnificent event all around the fishing boat. Everywhere they looked there were groups of sea lions eating from massive bait balls. There were whales twice the size of the boat jumping out of the water and hitting the water using their cavernous mouths to eat tons of bait fish in a single gulp. Bill had everyone trying to catch any fish they could but there was a lot of competition between the sea lions and whales to catch any fish and actually bring the fish all the way to the boat. At the end of the day, they caught 8 salmon. Enough food to last them three more days, three weeks in total, after that, they would have to get creative or starve. They got another 10 gallons of freshwater from the storm and could live for another week and a half off of what they had right now. Three more days passed and their food supply became more and more limited. There weren’t any more fish to catch but Alex and Logan were fishing just to stay entertained but they hadn’t caught anything for a few days. Just when they lost hope of catching anymore fish, the fish came back.

The fishing rods, like so many pins coming off of the pincushion that was the boat, dipped everytime a fish hit the bait and the line flew off of the reel with a whine as the fish fought to eat and the survivors fought for the very same thing. Everyone on board began to pump and reel and bring in food to eat. Most of the crew were starting to believe that they would be able to make it through this situation without losing anyone else. Then Chris said he didn’t feel good and went below to lay down.

He had been developing a minor case of the flu for a few days without knowing it. It started with the cold sweats that he thought had just been from the cold of being on the ocean. Then he went below and never came back up on his own power again. He had a fever and intense vomiting that only weakened him more as the days went by. Unfortunately there weren’t any doctors or any medical equipment other than a first aid kit on board. Bill was doing his best to keep Chris comfortable but there was only so much he could do. He had some extra jackets to keep him warm and a damp towel on his head. Bill was worried about Chris and was trying his best to help Chris break the fever and turn the corner so he could get better. Chris was too sick to notice anything other than his body aching and how little energy he had. He kept fighting for another two days until the flu overcame him. They wrapped Chris in the blankets that they were using to keep him warm to keep his remains for his family to decide on what they wanted to do.

Another day passed and the air began to feel charged. The first time, Bill had been the only one to notice this but now that they had experience with these conditions, everyone on board knew what it meant. There was another storm coming.

Bill knew that he would have to do better this time to not lose anyone to the high seas like he had lost Theo. Now that they had eaten more food and unfortunately lost some of their crew, there was enough space in the cabin for everyone to stay below and stay safe. Bill however wanted to stay up top and watch the sea. He wanted to see everything going on around them and if there was some kind of miracle that would save them, he wanted to use it to his full advantage without anytime wasted.

The storm hit hard. The air went from a slight charge to feeling like the air had been replaced by pure energy and then the rain started. Freezing drops that felt like little knives stabbing you every time they touched you. The wind only made it harder to find a place to stay out of the rain. It seemed to drive the rain anyway possible just to make sure you were cold, wet and miserable. The oceans were massive and the little boat was tossed around like a toy by waves twice its size. Everytime that a wave had the right timing to crash on the bow, the boat shook all the way and down and sat stock still for a second as the water from the wave, weighing her down, was drained out through the scuppers. The lightning flashed all around and lit everything as if you were standing inside of an LED flashlight that was flicked on for a split-second. The thunder claps that followed were strong enough to knock the air out of you, leaving you gulping and striving to get that air back. Bill stood through all of this and kept his watch. Looking for anything on the horizon that could hint to land or boats nearby. For 12 hours he searched tirelessly while riding the seas like a bull at a carnival. He saw nothing except for grey skies and a heaving sea. This storm was much more ferocious than the last one but expended all of its energy quickly so it only lasted for a day. They had been at sea for two weeks without seeing any other people than the ones that were on board, one of which had fallen overboard and another who died from sickness.

Greg was the first to come out from below deck. As he came up, he saw Bill who looked exhausted mentally and physically and in need of a cup of coffee or a nap. Greg had been scared even in the cabin and couldn’t begin to realise how much worse it was without knowing he couldn’t fall off the boat. Alex and Logan were scared too but Greg remembered what it was like when he was up top with Bill and Theo during the first storm. Holding onto the rough rope and his knuckles popped and turned white because of how tight of a grasp he had on the rope. He knew that if he let go he would go into the freezing grey water and never be heard from again just like what had happened to Theo. For Bill to be able to handle all of those pressures by himself for such a long time and still be able to make reasonable decisions, he had to be very experienced or used to storms like that. The raging energy from the storm had also done something very important for the survival of everyone on board.

Logan looked around the horizon and saw something he hadn’t seen for two and a half weeks.

“Bill! I see land! It’s right there on the horizon.” He yelled out of excitement and relief that they had been going in the right direction all this time.

Everyone else, hearing his cry, ran up to the deck to see the land that Logan was yelling about and make sure it wasn’t some kind of messed up joke. There wasn’t much, just an outline of the hills and the forest but it was enough for them to get so excited that everyone started to whoop and cheer that they had made it through these long weeks at sea. Finally they had an actual image to help focus them and spur them into action.

Everyone but Bill seemed to think that just because they had seen land, they were saved and didn’t have to worry about anything other than what they were going to buy as soon as they got back into town. Bill knew that, because of how slow the boat was going, they still had another two days until they would be able to get to shore. He called everyone over.

“I know that we finally have a chance at getting home now that we have seen land but that’s all this is. A chance to make it home which we can only accomplish by staying in the same mindset that we’ve had for the past two and a half weeks of doing hard work so that we can get back home without losing anyone else. We still have at least two more days until we touch ground and even then we’ll be extremely lucky to land anywhere within five miles of any kind of civilization. We have to be prepared to march through the forest for a good couple miles until we get to a town.”

With that, everyone began to realize that even though they were close to land, they still had a lot of work to do if they wanted to make it back to their families. They searched the boat for anything they could use once they got back to land. They found a three person tent, a hiking backpack, a box of matches and a smell proof bag he bears out of the food. Then they sat and waited and watched the land grow larger by the hour as they got closer and closer to reaching their last step in getting back to safety. There was a little bit more excitement when, as they got about three miles offshore, Bill got out the flare gun and shot a bright streak of red into the sky. Nobody must have seen the flare because no one came speeding towards them in a boat, ready to get them home. Then they finally ran aground.

The spot they were headed for was a rocky bit of shore but it looked like they would be able to hike up into the surrounding woods after they made their rough landing. The boat hit the rocks with a thud and a creak as the rocks bounced and carved in the fiberglass hull. Bill shuddered with the thought of losing his most prized possession and had to keep himself from looking at how much damage his boat had sustained. He knew it was his fault that they had gotten stranded and it was his fault that Theo and Chris died. He was responsible for the death of two people all because he was too hungover to remember to check his fuel tanks before going so far out. Once everyone was off the boat with all the supplies, Alex and Logan had decided they would take the burden of carrying Chris through the woods while Bill and Greg carried everything else, they started their trek. The little group headed south because they didn’t know where they were and they needed to have some kind of purpose. They didn’t have any real reason to walk this way other than it got warmer and Bill knew that this region was more populated south of where they had left from. The more populated a place is, the more likely you are to find a town with a port big enough to take his Alaskan Beauty back in for repairs before he could go home. For six miles they hiked south between towering columns of pine and alder until finally they stumbled onto a dirt road that lead to a very small canadian town on the coast where they all went their separate ways. Alex, Logan and Greg took Chris back to his family, who had a funeral for him and buried him back in Iowa where he was from. Bill spent a few hours talking to fishermen and trying to get them to tow his boat back and finally found a captain willing to help him.  

“And then after I got this old hunk of junk fixed,” The old man had gotten very nostalgic and John had a crazy thought, “I brought her back into her home port after being gone for a very long two months.”

John then realized that the old man he was talking to right now had been on the boat for that entire time. He was the only one in the town who could have recounted that whole story without having to guess at any major detail. The old man that was telling the story was Bill.

“Sir, I very much enjoyed your story. I would love to write about the story of Captain Bill and his ill-fated fishing trip. I also have to say that I think you’re incredibly brave to be able to go through something like that and still go out onto the sea everyday.”

“Well I definitely have fixed this boat up a lot and made it a lot more modern and safe since then.”

“Would you be okay with me writing up this story for my research paper? I think that my professors will really like this and I could send you a copy when I’m done.” John asked.

Bill said that he would love to see his experience written up and would love to have a copy of that story. The two men walked up on to the deck of the fishing boat and John was replaying the story in his head, he was picturing what everyone looked like and what it had felt like to be stuck on this boat during a storm with the decks heaving and the wind howling all around and he could see how easy it would be to fall of like Theo had.

Two weeks later Bill got a copy of the story written by John Seymour. He sat down below decks where so much had happened to read it one night and was amazed how well he was able to travel back to those weeks and it was almost like seeing everyone again. He actually had a few of the crew’s phone numbers and he called them to tell them about the research paper. Greg was the only one who said that he might want to read it but Alex and Logan both got angry at Bill for dragging up old memories and hung up on him. Bill knew that they were afraid of going back to those days and understood why they should be angry at him. After all it was his fault for getting them into that situation. He had learned many things from that trip and he will always fill up his tanks before leaving port, no matter how far he’s going out.