A Gale in the Gulf of Alaska

    While serving as a missions pastor in the Island village of Pelican in Southeast Alaska, I came to recognize the meaning of the apostle Paul’s words “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some”. If I was going to reach those hardy souls who manned the commercial fishing boats that frequented our small village, I would have to go out amongst them and do what they did. During our years in Pelican, I was able to work on both commercial Salmon and the Halibut trips as a deck hand, experiencing the long hours and tedious work so familiar to these rugged and independent men.  Although every time I went out on one of these ventures I came home with stories of weather, waves, and the wonders of God, one particular trip stands out above the rest.

            I had come to know an experienced fisherman named Ingmar who lived on a smaller Island just outside of Pelcian. Ingmar was a catholic man whom often attended our services and whom I had become friends with. He asked me one year to serve as deck hand on one of the longline trips where we would be fishing for Halibut. Another man named Ryan would join me as deck hand on Ingmar’s boat. There were several Halibut seaons every year, with each opening being restricted to forty-eight hours of commercial fishing. My work would involve spending about twenty-four hours on the docks baiting up the eighteen inch  “gannons”. Gannons are long heavy duty leaders with large hooks on one end and a clasp on the other. We would cut up fish for bait and then put the bait on each hook, and then stack them into large metal tubs. For this trip, Ryan and I would bait up several thousand gannons.

             We left the harbor in Pelican about twenty-four hours ahead of the scheduled Halibut opening. We would travel down Lizianski inlet to Cross Sound, a large body of water emptying into the gulf of Alaska at the northern end of the Southeast. From there, we would go out into the gulf were we would be ready to begin dropping the long and weighted “skates” of rope into the deep waters. Each “skate” was a mile of more long.  As the line would run off of a large spool at the rear of the boat, Ryan and I would stand down in a below deck level area that left our waists at deck level. As the line would spool out, we would alternately snap the “gannons” onto the line every couple feet.  The end of each skate would be marked with a boey that was then noted on the electronic navigating equipment. Once the time for the forty-eight hour period arrived, we began running out the three miles of skates we would fish the oceon bottom for Halibut with.

            Rolling out this much line while attaching gannons every few feet took us about twenty hours.  When we were done with the last skate, we made our way bakc to the beginning of the first skate to begin the process of bringing that line back on the boat. This included taking the many Halibut off of the skates as the line was spooled back onto the boat. Although this was the rewarding part of the work, it was also the hardest since we had all been working for over twenty-four straight hours, the last of those hours being on a boat that was pitching and roling with the rough waves of the Gulf of Alaska.  We were several hours into retrieving the first skate when those waters became increasingly violent.

            A storm had come in as the morning came that second day of the opening. Compared to many of the other boats that fished out of our village, Ingmar’s boat was at forty foot long realtivly small.  As the swells increased and the wind approached gale force, our boat pitched from side to side so much that just keeping our footing on deck required every effort.  We were still pulling in fish, but even that was quickly loosing its priority. The boat had only a curb high rail around its sides so as the boat pitched up as much as thirty degrees with the role of the swells, we would grasp onto the ropes and lines along the deck to keep oursleves from sliding into the sea.

            Still trying to make the trip a proffitable venture, Ingmar had us continue retrieving the skates until it became obvious that this was no longer possible. We were taking waves of “green water” over the top of the deck. This means actual waves were braking over the deck and not just the spray and foam. Before we even finished bringing in the second skate, Ingmar made the decision to give up retrieving our skates.  We would turn the boat towards land and try to make it back to safety.

            It was during this time that the extreme amount of water we had taken on board took our our electronics.  We lost our radio and even more important our “Iron Mike” which allowed us contact with the coast guard.  With the electronics out, our pumps that removed the excess water from the ships lower area also quit working. The last we had heard from the coast guard was a warning regarding the storm and that several vessels were in distress.  We would later learn that our Epirb, an emergency device that give off an SOS notifying coast guard of extreme distress, had also been activated by the waters that were by then were flooding the boat.

            With his experience fishing these waters, Ingmar estimated it would take us four to six hours to get back to Cross Sound.  In acutallity, it took us over twenty-four. Because our electronic compass was out, we were forced to navigate with a physical compass mounted in the wheelhouse. Each of us would take two hour shifts at the wheel while the other two would attempt to get some rest.  I don’t know which was more difficult. In the wheel house, you would feel the boat ride up the leeward side of a wave until it topped out on what had by then become 18-20 foot swells. Once it had crested over the waves peak, the boat would rush down the far side where upon bottoming out the impact would jerk the boat sideways.  When this happened, the man at the wheel would have to quickly wrestle the wheel, (often forty-five degrees or more), to get back on course. This was a continuous “wrestling match” for two hours each shift.

            Equally trying was the situation in the bunkroom, where water was almost knee deep. This left the bottom bunks continueally sloshing in water as the boat pitched and roled. The upper bunks were even more difficult to get any rest upon as the rolling of the boat continually pitched you either against the side of the boat, or off the bunk and onto the water below. Ingmar had rigged one small pump to work off of a spare battery so we were barely keeping enough water out of the bunk room and the hold to keep us afloat.

            I took advantage of my time at the wheel to pray!  We had been expereincing the wrath of that storm for enough hours that we had lost track of time.  Sometime during my night shift, where nothings but water breaking across the front of the wheelhouse could be seen, I prayed in a manner consistent with the severity of our predicament. It was as I prayed that night that I sensed the Lord’s presence come over me. I was crying out to the Lord to deliver us from what was looking like certain death.  

I did not hear any words of comfort or get signs of assurance as I prayed that night, yet I knew the Lord was comforting me. I could sense Him telling me everything was going to be alright. His “Spirit was bearing witness with my spirit”. Although I continued my physical wrestling match with the wheel as the boat slamed into the valley between each wave, from that point on everything changed. I knew we were going to be ok. I shared my assurance with my other two companions.  They may have believed me, but they did not have that same divine assurance I had recieved in the wheel house that night.

            It was late the next morning before we made it into Cross Sound, yet we were still eight hours from Pelican. From  Cross Sound we sailed into the comparitavly clam waters of Lizianski inlet and eventually to our home harbor. Once in Cross Sound, Ingmar was able to get a radio working. Our first radio call was to Ingmar’s wife letting her know we were ok.  We learned from her that the coast guard had contacted her about eight hours prior to our call with the news that our Epirb had gone off.  They informed her we had likely gone down in the Gulf. Ingmar’s wife had contacted Betsy with this same fatal news, so both our wives spent the next eight hours beleiving we were dead. 

            There is a peace that the Lord provides in times of trouble that is all but impossible to explain.  The Gospel of John describes it as “a peace which transcends all understanding”.  Several ships in the Gulf went down from that storm that year.  I am grateful the Lord spared our lives, but I came to recognize that they greatest miracle of that trip was not our deliverance “from” the storm, but that God had granted such a supernatural peace “in” the storm.