"Untie her and let's get going!" ordered Sig over the loudhailer.

Baylee watched from the wheelhouse as the Northwestern crew scrambled to untie the boat from the dock. Jack and Jake were showing Griffin the art of tying and untying a boat in the process.

She sighed and glanced over at her husband.

"You think he'll be alright?"

Sig smirked slightly as he shot his wife a loving, yet annoyed look.

"Hon you insisted on coming on this boat to insure that. I think with both of his parents on board he'll be fine. He's got two uncles on deck with him too, you know."

Baylee nodded, but chewed nervously on her fingernail as she watched the crew jump back onto the boat and prepare to leave the dock.

"Sweetheart," said Sig, when he noticed that she still looked very worried, "He'll be fine…I promise."

Baylee smiled and shook her head.

"I know. Maybe I'm just being overprotective again."

Sig raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement. Baylee pretended to be mad at him and hit him lightly on the arm. Sig clutched his "wounded" arm and pretended to be in pain while Baylee rolled her eyes at him.

Back on the deck, Edgar and Norman were joking around with their new greenhorn.

"So what'll we do to this one, Norman?" asked Edgar with a mischievous look in his eyes, "Bering Sea baptism perhaps?"

Griffin shot them a scared look. He glanced over at Jack, who was laughing at the sight.

"What are they talking about?" he hissed under his breath, "What are they gonna do to me? What's a Bering Sea baptism?"

Jack smirked as she remembered all the pranks the boys had pulled on her when she was new to the crew. This poor kid had no idea what he had just gotten himself into.

"Oh you'll find out soon enough," she said with a smile, "It's all part of being a greenhorn. You have to suffer like the rest of us did at one point in time."

Griffin shuffled his feet uneasily. He knew how crazy Uncle Edgar could be sometimes and he had heard numerous stories from Sig about the pranks he pulled on people. He even said Edgar used flame throwers to wake up the deckhands and bit the heads off of fish! He could only imagine what Edgar had in store for him.

"Great," he mumbled to himself, "Just great."

"Hey where's the new bait boy?" called Matt, standing below the wheelhouse, "Come here kid! You got work to do."

Griffin shot another look in Jack's direction. She smiled and motioned for him to go over to Matt.

"Better get started," she said, smiling in sympathy, "You got a lot of bait to chop up on our way out to the fishing grounds."



Griffin sauntered over to Matt and gave an uncertain glance at the bait chopper.

"This thing's pretty simple," explained Matt, "Just toss in some bait, keep your hands away from the blades, then fill the bait bags like this…and then you're done!"

Griffin shrugged, "Alright, sounds pretty easy."

"And you have to fill all of these up too," continued Matt, "They're bait jars. Sig uses them sometimes too."

Griffin's eyes grew wide with astonishment when he saw the numerous bags and jars that needed to be prepped and filled.

Matt gave him a pat on the shoulder as he walked away.

"Wait…where are you going?" asked Griffin, giving Matt a baffled look.

"Downstairs kid. That's where the rest of us will be until we reach the grounds. Feel free to join us when you're done!"

And with that, Matt followed the rest of the crew down into the galley.

Griffin shook his head and angrily began to fill another bag. Bait boy…that's not what he envisioned being when he begged to join the crew. He saw himself throwing the hook, pulling huge pots of crab, and maybe even taking some wheel watches, but this…this was not what he had in mind, not at all.

He mumbled irritably as he filled the bags. He felt a vibration begin to travel down the deck and realized that Sig had just hit the throttle for full speed ahead. It was a long ride out to the crab grounds and Griffin was going to spend most of it doing bait duty.

He grumbled mutinously under his breath.

"We'll see about that…"

PLEASE REVIEW!!

Okay, so I'm leaving for college on August 12 so I may have to write every other day, depending on what all I have to do to get ready. Just FYI!! : )