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"The Hungry Ocean" logs a
commercial swordfishing
trip to the Grand Banks |
The writing took a year, and the initial critical response is favorable. It was hard work, she admits, but she majored in English at Colby College and didn't need a ghostwriter. She has just begun a nationwide book tour and put her lobster-fishing plans on hold.
Her stint as author is a new direction for Greenlaw, who has been fishing for 19 of her 38 years. She began in the summer between her freshman and sophomore years in college, serving as cook and deckhand on a swordboat, as these vessels built for catching swordfish are known. Upon graduation, she shelved plans to go on to law school and began fishing year-round.
She fished from Brazil to Newfoundland, harpooning and longlining for swordfish, dragging for squid, tub-trawling for halibut and trapping lobster and crab. But what attracts her most is captaining a vessel that sets and hauls a 40-mile-long line of monofilament containing 1,000 baited hooks in treacherous waters 1,000 miles from home, and entails bloody confrontations in bringing in the swordfish.
"It's more of an adventure. You're going so far out to catch them. And it's more of a challenge, to find the fish and to stay on them," she said.
Junger's book tells of a fishing trip that went terribly wrong. By contrast, Greenlaw takes the reader on a typical 30-day trip to the Grand Banks, accompanied by her five-man crew who refer to her as "Ma," a name she tolerates because, she says, "I've been called worse".
One name the 5-foot-3-inch Greenlaw does not tolerate is "fisherwoman". Being the only female skipper in the Grand Banks fleet - and probably the only woman swordboat captain anywhere - is no big deal, says Greenlaw. She says she has never felt sexually harassed or discriminated against.
The trip on which "The Hungry Ocean" is based took place in September 1994; she chose it because her personal and government logbooks for the trip were available. It also fit her needs because it had the elements she usually encountered.
"Every trip has some kind of crew problem, some problem with another fishing boat and you always have the weather problem," she said.
On this trip, she had to defuse a conflict over a white crewman's racial slurs against a black crewman. The weather was blustery at times. In the end, she was disappointed because prices were low when she arrived in port with what should have been a lucrative catch.
After five seasons, and at the top of her game, Greenlaw left the Hannah Boden, based in Gloucester, Mass., to return to Isle au Haut, where she is lobstering for her third year.
"I was getting the sense that I was missing out on a lot. My nieces and nephews were growing up, and I was never seeing them," she said. The fact that the Hannah Boden was fishing for deep-sea red crab, not swordfish, made the decision easier.
She's philosophical about her proverbial 15 minutes of fame. "I know it's going to be very short-lived, so I've going to enjoy every last second. And when it's over, that's good, too. I'll go fishing." |
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