Swordboat captain tells of singular life at sea

THE HUNGRY OCEAN: A SWORDBOAT CAPTAIN’S JOURNEY, by Linda Greenlaw, Hyperion, New York, May 1999, 263 pages, hardcover, $22.95.

Linda Greenlaw first came into the public eye with the release of Sebastian Junger’s “The Perfect Storm.” He devoted a section to her as captain of the 100-foot Hannah Boden, sister ship to the Andrea Gail, the swordfishing boat whose loss at sea Junger chronicled. He referred to Greenlaw as “one of the best sea captians, period, on the east coast.” She and her crew routinely bring in the largest and fastest catches of the swordfishing fleet.

Now, Greenlaw, the world’s only woman swordboat captain, makes her own foray into writing with “The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain’s Journey.” If you ever wanted to know exactly what it is like to work a 30-day shift aboard a longliner, don’t miss this book. Here, Greenlaw describes the day-to-day rigamarole “of a real, and typical, sword-fishing trip.” She starts at the dock, with the hurried and stressful task of “turning the boat around.” That is, getting the Hannah Boden ready to return to the fishing grounds within a mere day or two of delivering the catch. Then she moves chronically through the trip, detailing the extreme unrest of her five-man crew for the days it takes to “steam” to the fishing grounds out around the Grand Banks; and then the shift to the almost constant labor of daily setting out and retrieving 40 miles of line and gear, hauling in and cleaning the 100-plus-pound fish, all with only three to four hours’ sleep a day.

However, this is not just a diary of daily life at sea. Greenlaw’s tone is conversational and relaxed as she examines her love of the sea beginning with her childhood on the island of Isle au Haut. She first went to sea as a cook at the age of 19, and, much to her parents’ disdain, she kept going back. “Nights are breathtaking at sea,” she says, “Luminescence sparkled only where the surface had been agitated by the boat, a reaction of some sort, brief and bright flickers of light the color of the stars.” Sometimes she is lonely and longs for a family of her own. But these thoughts are quickly pushed aside by her work, which she is extremely good at, and she is well respected by her crew, her competing boat captains, and her boss, the boat’s owner.

The flow of the book bogs down somewhat as Greenlaw describes the intricacies of modern navigation, details the process of monitoring water temperature gradients to find fish, and explains the procedures for baiting, setting and retrieving line and fish. Still, it is these details which make the story of her life’s work that much more intriguing.

Unlike the taut drama of Junger’s tale, “The Hungry Ocean” presents Greenlaw’s greatest difficulty as “crew problems”: She puts up with strange sickness, restlesness and racism before it’s all over. Between chapters she segues nicely into “Mug-ups” where she describes some of her other experiences with bad weather and bad crew.

Although she explores the topics of “luck” and “fishermen’s superstitions,” readers will come away knowing that it is much more talent, skill and experience than it is luck that makes Greenlaw so successful. “The Hungry Ocean” is bound to inspire awe in anyone who has ever had an interest in the life of a mariner.