The waves of the Bering Sea tossed The Nina Marie violently.  It was nothing new for the Nina though; she had been working these waters for going on two decades now.  The ice-building spray was an old adversary to her.  The countless tons of salt water ice that had been beaten from her deck had left scars but they gave her character.  The monster waves she encountered over the years were nothing to her anymore, being covered by them from bow to stern was as ordinary for her as it was for her captain to slip into his trousers as he rolled out of his rack.

The best months for the work the Nina does are the frigid weeks of December through February.  She had seen the sub-zero temperatures that were the norm this time of here in this part of the world make many a green deckhand into someone completely different than the man that had boarded her at the start of the season.  Sometimes the changes she saw were subtle.  Other times they were as drastic as when Dr. Jekyll changed into Mr. Hyde: scary transformations.  Yes, in some way or another every man was changed in some way by the harshness of the environment, the work conditions, or the other crew members.

Through all the Ninahad seen she had remained nearly unchanged.  And utterly reliable.  She had faced fires, rogue waves, and more dents and scratches than a man could count.  But her engines were strong, her steel skin tough, and her screws amazingly straight and true.  Her captain and crew knew they could depend on her.  And she knew that they were trusting their lives to her care each day, indeed, every second, they were on the water.  If she failed them the cost would be high.

This day for the Nina and her crew started out an odd one.  The weather was abnormally calm; it was the height of the storm season.  The crew were well rested, for fisherman anyway.  The spray was causing no ice to build on her railings or deck, or on the stacks of pots.  Though the crew, and even the captain, were enjoying the calm winter day, the Nina knew something wasn’t right; she could feel it in her keel.  And it wasn’t long before she was proved right.

The guys were pulling in the second string of the day.  The catch had been good.  Everyone was in a jovial mood due to the good fishing and fair weather.  The deck boss had finally flashed a smile to green horn.  He was doing a fine job, like a seasoned fisherman already, and deserved some acknowledgement for it.  As the boss watched the line coil as it came through the block he saw the pot begin to surface.  He swung the crane out to hook onto the full pot.  From the green horn’s perspective, the crane with the stuffed crab trap dangling out over the sea appeared as some abnormal appendages on a mechanized beast in a sci-fi movie.  His thoughts quickly came back how much the catch inside would be worth to them as it began to swing over the rail.

It happened so fast, with no warning what so ever.  Suddenly everything went snowy, then black.  What was happening?  No!  It couldn’t be that, could it?  It was. It was the worst possible scenario – the video tape had run out!