Wreck of the Martle

"Lt. Pete Johnson, United States Navy," he said, like he'd come to make the rescue.

"Uh, hi, I'm Steve." He put his hands on the rail and pulled himself aboard. Lt. Johnson hurried to the galley to see how everyone was doing. They were fine.

This photo of the Martle, high and dry at low tide in Alaska, hangs on the wall of the Sourdough Bar in Ketchikan.

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More About

• Ed Einarson
• Bellingham
• Pete Johnson
• Kingston
• U.S. Coast Guard

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I waited out on the back deck, unsure of anything, a bit numb, imagining all the different ways people could have lost their lives that day but hadn't, and questioning whether this was worth it, just to make a living. One of the guys from the Martle came outside. He seemed fine. He said his name was Jerry. I was smoking a cigarette, and he came over to me. He was wearing a shirt that I gave him. He said, "Hey man, got a smoke? Mine sank."

I had to laugh.

The Perfect Roast

We didn't make the TV news. The Associated Press ran a couple of sentences the following day about a 58-foot fishing vessel that capsized in the mouth of Hood Canal, saying that the three-man crew took refuge in their skiff until they were picked up by the Coast Guard. It wasn't exactly true, but it was close enough. I guess these things don't really interest anyone unless someone dies. A fisherman losing his boat doesn't count for anything. Whatever the case, the big story on the nightly news concerned the Ivar's restaurant in Mukilteo, where waves shook the floorboards and lifted them several feet. The patrons ran for their lives, many holding their drinks and plates. I heard, and maybe it's true, that a woman stood outside, holding a plate of Dungeness crab. Her eyes were wide, like she'd just come from a circus. "It was the perfect storm," she said, proud to have witnessed it, the butter dripping off her chin.

That night we continued on our way toward the following morning's fishing grounds, about seven miles down the canal, across from the Navy's Bangor submarine base. The roast I'd started that morning came out perfectly. I drank a beer.

When Ed last saw the Martle, her rudder rose like a shark's fin out of the water. He turned his head and let her go. The wreck floated ghostly like that for a while and then disappeared beneath the waves. She drifted back toward Point No Point, sinking. The crew of a fishing boat passing at dawn didn't sight her. It's guessed that the Martle rests on the clay floor of Puget Sound, somewhere in 200 feet of water, never to move, never to rise.

Her captain used the insurance money to buy another fishing boat.

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