The crew of the Coastal Star, a crab-processing ship, was unlike
the ones I'd worked with on my summer breaks during college, when
I'd head for Alaska to earn money on fishing boats. The Coastal
Star crew's favorite question those first few weeks in January
was not "Where do you go to college?" but "Where were you in prison?"
After spending the year following graduation as a volunteer
social worker in eastern Kentucky, I had moved back home to the
Pacific Northwest needing money and some direction in life. Again,
I headed for Alaska and landed a job with the Coastal Star. For
a reason still unclear to me (sheer stubbornness, pride or curiosity,
I guess) I did not quit but instead sailed through hurricane-force
storms in the gulf of Alaska, working 12-hour shifts seven days
a week to serve endless coffee and meals to this crew of about
80 ex-convicts, Montana ranch boys and a few hardy women.
We spent the first four months off the shores of Dutch Harbor
and then further out at sea near the crab-fishing grounds in the
Pribilof Islands, gazing out the windows at bleak seas and nearly
constant darkness, watching ice-laden crab boats unload their
catch onto our windy decks for endless processing.
In early May, we arrived for the last leg of our trip at the
uninhabited Saint Matthew's Island in the Bering Sea. When I stood
on deck for a brief coffee break, I could see green cliffs with
mist-shrouded peaks towering above me, sandy beaches, patches
of snow over lush spring growth. We were several hundred yards
off shore, tantalizingly close. After four months at sea, I could
literally hear this island calling out to me to come ashore.
Apparently I wasn't the only one feeling stir-crazy. As I finished
my 12-hour shift, someone yelled, "Get your coat, we're all going
sledding!" The captain had given about 25 of us permission to
ferry ashore for the afternoon on our small skiff. Suddenly I
was on land, running and jumping and sliding on the snowy hill
above the beach, digging my shoes deep into sand, holding pebbles
and shells, all of us glorying in this magical shore. We played
hard, like school children released to the first recess of springtime.
After a few hours, the storm clouds arrived. Within moments,
our blissful beach became a blizzard scene, with swirling snow,
sideways winds and steel-gray surf pounding into our skiff. A
couple of the deckhands tried bailing the water out of the skiff
to no avail, drenching themselves in the process. The skiff filled
with water, engines choked and useless. We were stuck on the island.
By evening, we all realized we could be here for some time.
Several of the men from Montana built us three impressive driftwood
shelters and three beach fires, small bright beacons along the
dark beach. We huddled together and tried to keep warm. Someone
from the Coastal Star motored out on the ship's remaining skiff
as near to shore as he dared and managed to float food to shore
in plastic garbage bags. We munched on white bread and chocolate
bars for dinner.
I noticed that one of the deckhands who had been bailing the
skiff was trembling with cold. Up until this point I had felt
buoyed by the exhilaration of being off the ship. But suddenly
I was scared for him, and angry at the others who teased me and
this big burly farm boy, ignorant to the specter of hypothermia.
I lay on top of him all night in the driftwood shelter, staying
awake in fear, asking him every time he seemed to drift off if
he could hear me. Finally he stopped shaking, and we both slept
during the early morning hours.
When we woke, I could see the Coastal Star through the fog and
snow, bobbing on the huge rolling waves. Later that morning the
foreman on board the ship managed, bravely, to motor through the
waves on the skiff, survival suit on, and jumped in and swam to
shore. The skiff driver had to return to the ship, unable to land
in such huge surf. The foreman brought with him a radio, as well
as the insane plan to have all of us put on survival suits and
climb over the mountain to a more protected shore and swim out
to the waiting skiff.
I declined the offer, but several of the crew did follow through
on this plan. After hiking through the snow and unknown terrain
in survival suits, they somehow jumped through the wild waves
into the skiff and made it out to the ship without drowning.
Back at the beach with radio in hand, we realized no one on
the Coastal Star had called the Coast Guard. Through testy negotiating,
we convinced them to do it, thanks in part to my friend Mariah,
who I think finally just picked up the ship's radio and did it
herself.
So the Coast Guard was on the way but would need 24 hours to
get a cutter out to our area. In the meantime, a C-130 flew over
late that afternoon and dropped us supplies by parachute. I ran
up and down the beach, watching the small packages plummet to
the ground from the noisy plane, noticed a fox curiously watching
these strange humans on his beach, and felt inexplicably happy.
That night we pitched six-man Army tents, rolled out sleeping
bags and divvied out Army rations for dinner. A hierarchy of power
had formed, with a couple of the outdoorsy men self-appointed
rulers and distributors of food and goods. One woman (I remember
there being only four of us) became hysterical, unable to stop
crying. Maybe I was in shock, but she made no sense to me. I slept
in a sleeping bag with my deckhand friend, oblivious to the continued
teasing, happy to be warm and thankful that we could protect each
other.
The third morning, we could see the Coast Guard cutter. The
storm had not subsided, so later that morning they sent in a smaller
boat with a rubber raft attached by a rope, and took it as close
to our shore as they could safely manage. Survival suits were
floated out to us in more plastic garbage bags. The suits were
all size extra large. On my petite frame, I could not even reach
the gloved hands, and the hood and neck area gaped open between
me and the suit, letting in salt spray and snow. We took turns
flopping into the raft to be towed out through the surf to the
larger boat. I waited until near the end, with the foreman and
my deckhand friend finally convincing me I had to go.
I dropped into the slippery raft, hating my huge Gumby suit.
The raft plowed through several huge waves, made it out about
50 yards, and then a huge wave flipped me out onto the sea. Cold
water seeped immediately down my neck and chest. I was floating
on my back, bobbing up and down on the Bering Sea, and could only
flop about helplessly. The enormity of the situation hit me with
a silent, thundering thud in my brain. I felt small and very,
very quiet. God was very, very quiet. Despite the storm's fury,
I was intensely aware of the huge stillness around me and in me.
I thought, okay then, this is it.
Maybe 10 minutes or so later, the thundering waves crashed me
right back onto the beach. I sat up and sputtered like a small
whale. My two cohorts dragged me further up the beach. I sat for
awhile on the beach, facing the waves, until I could stand on
my quivering legs. Somehow I got back into the dreaded raft, made
it out to the cutter, climbed the ladder onto its deck, and then
rode in a basket carried by a hydraulic lift normally used for
crab and clambered back onto the deck of the Coastal Star.
Mariah hugged me, we all warmed up, and the crew flew home to
Seattle about a week later, our long winter ended.
I once read a passage from the Bible in which one of the prophets
sits alone in the wilderness somewhere after a fire or some terrible
force of nature, and out of the wilderness he hears a still, small
voice. I did not hear a voice, but I recognize the stillness of
that passage and know that it remains a part of me. I learned
at 23 that I have no control over my mortality, but that I do
have some control over my own decisions and choices. Life is sweet.
I made it home from Saint Matthew's Island to later find a dear
husband named Matthew and bear a beautiful daughter. Our 3-year-old
Emma is her own force of nature, a tiny, joyful, strong-minded
one. At times we have worried over her inability to eat enough
and grow well, and sometimes I bribe Emma into eating by telling
stories. A favorite is "Mommy's Rescue." And in telling it, there
it is again, that pure joy of running on a desolate beach with
absolute delight in face of disaster.
* * *
Marianne Wells, who lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter,
is expecting a second child in February.
