Early the next morning Jonathan awoke to the sound of the phone in his wheelhouse ringing. Reluctantly, he got up to answer. Seeing that it was his friend Capt. Phil Harris calling he decided to answer. "What's up, Phil?" Not one for pleasantries, Phil got to the point. "One of my deckhands quit on me. Have you met anyone I could hire?" Phil's boat, the Cornelia Marie, was tied up at the end of the dock. Most people looking for work just didn't venture that far. They usually gave up long before. "Sorry Phil, haven't met many, and those few were too overconfident." Phil reluctantly hung up the phone. As he walked out on deck, he saw heard someone calling up from the dock.
Jennie rose early that morning, determined to find a job. She walked to the dock and started asking a few boats down from where she had left off. Over a span of about two minutes, she was told about 30 times in many different ways that she wasn't needed. Finally, at the end of her rope- and the dock for that matter- she came upon a teal and yellow ship. She almost gave up, but she figured that she might as well try. She screamed up to the boat in the hope that someone would answer.
Capt. Phil looked out onto the dock. There stood a scrawny-looking boy who couldn't be more than 20. "What do you want, boy?" Phil called. "I need a job sir." Jennie countered. Phil jumped onto the dock and said, "What makes you think I'll give ya one?" "Nothing sir, I work hard and learn fast is all. My name's Jen-Jason Rewalt." Not one to ignore signs- he had just said he needed a deckhand- Phil agreed. A greenhorn was better than nothing after all. After Phil explained that he had the job, "Jason" went to retrieve his bags.
About an hour after he spoke with Phil, Jonathan got a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong and he was going to find out just what. Jonathan decided to call Phil back. "Hey Jonathan, I found a deckhand- well greenhorn really, but he'll do." There was that funny feeling again. "What did he look like?" An odd question really, but he had a feeling he knew exactly who Phil had unknowingly hired. After hearing the description he knew he was correct. He thought about telling Phil but opted not to. The kid went through so much trouble to get a job, after all. *If he doesn't find out by the end of the season I'll tell him.* But Jonathan had a feeling that she couldn't hide it for long. However, before he hung up the phone, curiosity struck. "Hey Phil, what's his name?" "Jason Rewalt, why?" It was then that Jonathan remembered why her last name had sounded familiar. He used to have a deckhand by that name about 16 years previous. Then he went to Phil's boat, and then he left. Rewalt was a common name however. That was probably why Phil wrote it off. Jonathan then decided he would have to keep an eye on this girl.
That name would cause Jennie more trouble than she knew. For during his rebellious screw-up phase, her brother had worked on a crab boat. He had refrained from telling even his father that he had done it. The only thing that bid him leave Dutch Harbor was the divorce of his parents. He would be damned if he left his baby sister alone. So, unbeknownst to Jennie, she had found work on the boat her brother had toiled on for 5 years. And also unknown to her was the fact that some of those deckhands had worked with her brother. This would be an interesting trip indeed.