I took the wheel without saying a word, unbuttoned my cotton shirt so the wind would luft my shirttail, and scanned the creek for the green and red channel markers. “Right on red returning” is the first rule of the road my dad ever taught me, meaning take the red marker on the starboard side of the boat when returning to port, and the reverse is true when leaving. That marks the channel, where the water is deepest. I eased Martha to the right side of the channel and headed for the red marker barely visible in the distance. I had stood in this very boat for hours at my dad’s side, yet today it seemed like a new experience as I tried to recall all the lessons my dad had casually bestowed. The first step would be to cut this right and left business. It’s port and starboard, I knew.
Vinnie stood with his arms folded under his chin and resting on the sill over the galley doorway, his eyes glued to the water, not in search of trouble, but because that was the magic: the mouth of the creek opening its arms to release us into the bay and the welcoming jacket of morning sun that stretched across the water, ready to warm the bow of the boat. That’s the moment when the spirits of the Bay settle into your bones, and for a lifetime, draw you back to the water. I waited some time before easing the throttle forward. Then felt the thrill as the wake lifted and spread out behind us like water over a dam.
“Vinnie,” I said, “what was that plumber saying back at the bar?”
“You mean about Jimmy?”
“Yeah.”
Vin was reluctant. “There’s been some talk Ned. I don’t know what it means. A lot of the boys think it’s strange about Jimmy. How it happened.”
“What do you mean, strange?”
“Well,” he began, “we just don’t see how he’d get his arm caught in that line.”
“But, you know Vinnie,” I countered, “I read a couple of years ago where that happened to some guy over at Ocean City. Catching tuna. Reeled him in for hours. Had a gaff on the fish. The big son of a bitch opened his eyes, saw the boat, and lunged for the bottom of the sea, taking the guy with him. It has happened.”
“I know it has,” Vinnie agreed. “I guess some of the boys just wonder, that’s all.”
“Well,” I said, “I wish they’d keep their ideas to themselves. Now Martha’s all broken up about it.”
“I’m real sorry about that,” Vinnie said. And I knew he was.
“Listen Vinnie,” I said, “if you hear anything else, let me know. But could you pass it to the boys to cool it. We gotta help Martha get back on her feet.”
“I’ll do it, Ned,” he said. “I surely will.”
I shoved the throttle forward, noticed the compass at 250 degrees, and figured maybe we could get lunch at Harrisons on Tilghman Island. The open water was easy to navigate. I watched for other boats while Vinnie kept an eye on the crab pot markers. He knew if we tangled the prop in one of the pot lines, he would be the one to go overboard, untangle or cut the line, and spend the rest of the day wet. My main concern was the shipping lane from the ocean up to Baltimore. I didn’t want to get in the way of a tanker, probably Liberian, carrying oil or containers and rising about eight stories above the water.
“You know how long it takes a tanker going twenty knots to stop?” Vinnie asked.
“About l0 minutes,” I guessed.
“Six miles,” Vinnie said, “however long that is.”
I didn’t see any tankers, just a few fishing boats and some sails gathering in the distance.
I let the sun and wind fall flush on my face, a breeze stronger than expected. Sometimes even when the sky is clear, the wind whips up the waves on the Bay and tosses the boat. The waves crest close in this situation, and it’s easy for a wave to catch the bow and throw the boat. Just for a moment, you lose balance and move your left foot to the side for better balance. The wind today was starting to pick up. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, and remembered the old waterman admonition that a good work boat should be at least 28 feet long, so the boat will reach from the crest of one wave to another. As a boy, I tried to reach two crests at once, but it never seemed to happen that way.
“Vinnie,” I said, “why is that boat just circling in the water?”
Vinnie looked dead ahead and squinted, but said nothing. I thought it was interesting, so I turned the Martha about five degrees starboard and headed for it. Finally, Vinnie ventured a thought.
“There’s a pound net out there somewhere,” he said. “Maybe he’s circling to see the Loons. Or maybe he’s getting ready to empty the net.” Loons and seagulls seem to sit on every part of the net, waiting for a free lunch of the fish that happen into the enclosure.
“I didn’t suppose they still allow pound nets,” I said.
“You mean because they take up so much room, or get in the way of boaters?” he replied.
“Yeh,” I said, “just figured their time had come.”
“No,” Vinnie explained, “but there aren’t many pounders still out here. There aren’t many small fishermen still out here. They have to get licenses and permits for the nets, and they have to come out every day to load the catch, often before they go crabbing. Then if some damn city slicker in a cigarette boat runs through the nets at night, the waterman gets sued. Not many left.”
“I forgot how it works,” I said casually, not remembering exactly how the nets collected the fish.
“See those sticks in the water, just to the left of where that boat is circling?” Vinnie asked. “They form a couple of leader nets that funnel the fish into a Hearth enclosure that catches the fish. See those sticks that run about two hundred yards west of the circle? There’s a leader net along those sticks. The fish swim into them, panic at the thought of being trapped, then turn to swim along the net until they reach the enclosure. There’s a trap door where they go in and can’t get out. Then the waterman comes along in his open boat, closes the trap door and scoops them into his boat with a dip net. Not very high tech.”
“Still, pretty ingenious.”
“There are probably better explanations of the nets,” Vinnie said. “But the result is the same. Fish of every kind swim in, can’t get out, and the fisherman in an open boat scoops them up. You’ll find everything from fish to human body parts in those nets, but they work.”
Vinnie hesitated, then added, “They been doing it since Jesus, and probably before.”
“No, I just read that some waterman in the 1800s invented the pound net, probably right here on Jenkins Creek.”
“Jesus was a waterman and he used nets,” Vinnie responded. Vinnie was a little defensive about his religion, and I let it pass.
“I don’t see anybody in that boat,” I said, moving my eyes from the pound net to the moving boat.
“Maybe that’s why it’s circling,” Vinnie said. “Those new boats have an automatic turn mechanism so if you fall overboard, it circles. Of course, the captain could be in the cabin banging his girlfriend.”
I kept on course for the boat, nosing the Martha Claire back after every wave pushed us off course.
“Over there,” Vinnie shouted. “He’s in the water. Probably drunk, or taking a leak.”
I couldn’t see anybody for the chop, and I momentarily lost track of the