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met. A natural comedian, Machado reminded me of Jackie Gleason. Genuinely satisfied that he was the man for the fish-butchering job, as we pulled away from the dock I was able to forgive his tardiness and the fact that he’d skipped the preceding week of backbreaking and filthy work we’d had to conduct without him. Levity thrown in at the right juncture to help in a heavy situation can be as valuable as light-footedness.
    I cast a glance in the opposite direction from where the last dock line had come. Somewhat forlorn-looking, Simon gave me a shy, crooked smile and half a wave. I thought I sensed a shaking of his head, as if he were wondering what I could possibly have been thinking when I agreed to take the Seahawk offshore for two months. I shrugged my shoulders and mouthed, “I know.” The only slight opposition I’d received with my announcement of returning to this world had been from Simon. He had asked what I was trying to prove. Although I’d answered, “Nothing,” the question haunted me a bit. When I first began fishing at the age of nineteen, I was told that all I needed was a strong back and a weak mind. That proved to be true for many years. Now, at the age of forty-seven, I have a stronger mind and a weaker back. Was this the question I needed to answer?
    I’d been here before, feeling bad about leaving someone special on the dock. But I would never turn back, as I knew from experience that the misgivings and doubts would be promptly upstaged by the nerve-soothing activity of work that had become second nature. Once I had broken the visual connection with Simon, my eyes, my thoughts, and my energy were all focused ahead and into the future. Five hundred miles, sixty days, tons of fish . . . There are many ways to mark time at sea. And it was all ahead of us. There was nothing to look back at. This is what I do, I thought as I steered the Seahawk through the narrow slot in the hurricane barrier that embraced the port exit shared by Fairhaven and New Bedford, Massachusetts. And this was the easy part. The week leading up to our departure had been pure hell. To be free from the dock and what it represents is liberating.
    Shortly after the call from Jim Budi, I had flown to Florida to attend the “turtle release” workshop and returned to Boston’s Logan Airport fully certified and raring to go. Three of my four crew members—Archie, Dave, and Tim—met me in Beantown with a rental car. It was late at night, and everyone was tired. The guys had spent the better part of the past week working long hours aboard the Seahawk and seemed happy and relieved that their captain had come to join them in preparing our boat for sea.
    The one-hour ride to Fairhaven was filled with fast talk from all three trying to bring me up to speed regarding the condition in which they’d found the boat, the work (mostly dirty) they had performed, and what needed to be done before we set sail. The list of needs was indeed lengthy. But I was confident that this team could burn through it beginning first thing the next morning. For now, I thought, sleep was critical. I knew that the four of us had two adjoining rooms to share at the local hotel, but before we turned in for the night, the guys thought it necessary to show me the boat. “We want to make sure you can’t sleep either,” said Tim as we climbed out of the car at the dock. They all laughed. I knew that nothing could be bad enough to rob me of this night’s sleep.
    The tide was at the right level for me to make an easy step from pier to deck through the fish door, a square opening cut in the hull through which swordfish are dragged from the water. The first thing I noticed was that the boat was port-rigged—set up to haul the fishing gear aboard on the left-hand side. This would be a tiny obstacle, as I had always worked boats that were rigged on the starboard side. Not much in the way of ambidextrous, I