Man on the Ice Read Online Free PDF Page B

back and opened up the hatch to the fuel tanks and the rudder
     steering. Igot down, and right away I knew it was a fuel
     problem. I could smell the fumes and I could see that there had been quite a bit
     of fuel and water down there. The fuel line had somehow broken and the boat had
     started to leak, so gas was mixing with water.
    It was eleven-thirty at night and the wind was blowing quite hard from the
     west. The batteries were getting low and we had trouble keeping the pump going.
     There were no other boats in sight and we only had a CB radio rather than a VHF,
     so we couldn’t call the Coast Guard Radio Station in St. Anthony. We knew the
     boat would sink as soon as the battery was dead and the pump could no longer
     function. Our lifeboat, an old dory, would never stand up to the rough waters
     and heavy winds, and being three miles from the nearest land, we knew we would
     never be able to row ashore. We were supposed to be within viewing range of my
     house on shore, but when my wife Irene peered out, she couldn’t see us.
    She went out to my pickup truck where I had a CB radio. Just as she flicked the
     “On” switch, she heard the sound of Derrick’s voice. It was enough for her to
     know that we were in some kind of trouble. Denley and I were trying our best to
     prevent more water from getting in the boat. Irene called Mr. Harvey Compton, a
     Fisheries officer with DFO. He happened to have a friend and fellow DFOofficer visiting with his family for the night. Harvey had a
     small Fisheries boat for patrolling the small fishing towns from St. Anthony to
     Cook’s Harbour. Both Harvey and his fellow DFO officer headed out for our
     rescue.
    Meanwhile, Irene had called a local fisherman, Mr. Ross Peyton, who owned an
     under-35-foot longliner called the White Coat . It didn’t take long for
     them to reach us. I’m not sure if it was Harvey or Ross who gave us the battery
     to run the pump, but we were taken in tow by Ross and the White Coat , and
     soon we were safe and sound in the port of St. Lunaire. The fish was taken off
     and trucked to the St. Anthony fish plant, known then as Fishery Products Ltd. We
     worked through the night, off-loading the Sherman Elaine , which
     contained 25,000 pounds of codfish.
    We went home to rest and get ready to go back to Belle Isle and tend to our cod
     traps again. The phone rang, and my wife answered. It was for me. As I listened
     to the voice on the other end, I could feel a lump swell in my throat. “This is
     Fishery Products calling. We’re sorry to tell you we had to dump your fish. We
     smelled diesel fuel on it.” Boy oh boy, that was bad.
    There was no use crying over spilled milk, so with our fuel lines repaired, we
     went back to Belle Isle and everything went well. We got our boat moored up at
     Belle Isle and went out in our speedboat to our cod traps. Bythis time, the fish were starting to move offshore from the rocks and shoal
     water. We stayed for two or three days and only got about 10,000 pounds of fish.
     We came back to St. Lunaire and sold our catch. And then I received another
     phone call. This time they said it was “blackberry” fish, not good for fresh
     frozen fish, but they could split and salt it, which was fine, except the price
     was much lower. So, back to Belle Isle we went. This time we took our cod trap
     aboard the Sherman Elaine , returned home, and stored it away. With our
     recent luck, we decided to head to the Labrador around Black Tickle with our
     gillnets. The fish weren’t plentiful, but we made a very good summer out of it,
     especially considering all the trouble we’d had thus far. At the end of the
     season, we returned home and made our way to Flower’s Cove, where we put our
     boat on the slip, storing it away for the winter. Denley, Derrick, and I spent
     the next few wintery months in the woods to get firewood for our three homes.
     That’s a lot of wood, about fifteen