A. Ben Cabal, Part 1: Man Overboard!
By A. Ben Cabal, edited by Jonathan Atleson
MAN OVERBOARD!!
Everyone stopped what they were doing immediately. The only thing that mattered now was getting that man back onto the boat as soon as possible. A few minutes too long and he could die of hypothermia.
Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs you can do. The halibut in Alaska get huge, as in one to two hundred pounds. And they’re strong too…so strong that when they’re flopping around on deck they can break a leg.
The year was 1985. The halibut were in Kodiak, Alaska. The vessel was the Eskimo Princess, ranked number two in the world for halibut fishing.
The skipper was yelling his head off the whole time, but he knew what he was doing. A Norwegian, he found me one day and said, “Do you wanna make some REAL money, Ben?” We connected immediately. Together with his two sons, we worked together on the boat and developed a whole new system for commercial fishing.
MAN OVERBOARD!!
I wasn’t even thinking of the risk of death by hypothermia. All I could think was, Don’t leave me.
And, Get me back onto that boat.
I can see myself in the water as I replay the movie of what unfolded that day. I can make a list of all the things I could have done, or should have done.
We should have used the crane and hooked up the halibut so we wouldn’t lose it. That’s the number one thing on a fisherman’s mind. To lose such a big fish…500 pounds times, say, 10 bucks…we’re talking somewhere upwards of $5,000.
We were in what’s called a “twenty-four hour halibut opener”. That means we were fishing for twenty-four straight hours. Every ten seconds a halibut would come on board, alive and kicking. Massive hooks on poles, called “gaffs”, were flying around everywhere as men struggled to secure the giant sea creatures and pull them on board. I was one of those men.
I would gaff it, pull it on board, and (de-)horn it, which means to pull out the gaff hook. You had to be strong, and I was. All the while my attention was looking for the next fish coming up. It was nonstop adrenaline-fueled madness.
So I saw this fish coming up…it was as big as a barn door. I gaffed it perfectly right between the eyes. Holding on for dear life, I yelled Gimme a hand!
The other crewmembers came running up, but instead of giving me a hand, they just slapped the halibut. This had the undesired effect of causing the fish to perform an instant backflip. Only problem was, I was still holding on to the gaff. And the gaff was still stuck between the softball-sized eyeballs of the 500 pound halibut.
As I flew by the halibut, I could see it’s purple face, unconcerned about my impending doom. I let go of the gaff as I entered the frigid Alaskan water, my gear gradually getting wetter…slurp, slurp. I was a good swimmer, and I was paddling like mad, yelling, Don’t leave me!
The crewmembers reached out, grabbed me, and threw me on board. I had hypothermia, so they stripped off all my clothes and wrapped me up in warm blankets.
Swaddled in my blankets, I was sitting in the wheelhouse with the skipper. He was yelling at me, Do you know how much money you just cost me?? I just laughed and told him to fuck off. I hung out there with the skipper for a short while as we talked and laughed.
He said he wished he had a camera to get all that on tape. Both the tragedy and the comedy of it. Selling the recording could easily make up the difference of the lost halibut.
So after about 20 minutes, I suited up again in warm clothes, boots and everything. Then I went back out into the fishy, salted air and start kicking ass again. Gotta continue fishing. Our 24 hours weren’t up yet!
Listen to an AI-generated song version of this post! Created with the Suno app from a poem rendition by ChatGPT (same lyrics in both):
The Ballad of Ben Cabal
Man Overboard
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