I know this is a short chapter, but I promise, more to come. Thanks to Soldier Heart for being my beta!
One Week Prior, in Seattle...
"Oh my God! You've got to be kidding me!" Edgar Hansen yelled, slapping his fist on the table. The crew was sitting in the galley of the Northwestern, waiting on a part that was to be delivered that afternoon. Nick Mavar, Matt Bradley and Jake Anderson were pretty much stunned into silence.
"Does it look like I'm kidding?! I went and asked that she not be assigned to this boat, but the guy just laughed me right out of the office! We're stuck with her," Captain Sig Hansen said, lighting a cigarette and looking around at his crew.* The guys had just had a month off and now it was time to make the ship ready to head to Dutch Harbor to start the king crab season.
Only one snag in the plans; the phone call he had received the day before, informing him that a trial run was being arranged, where every boat in the fleet was to have a paramedic assigned on board. And it wasn't just king crab, it was opilios too. He was then informed that his paramedic was a woman from the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
"So much for tradition," Norman Hansen said, leaning back against the wall of the galley. He was the quiet type, never had much to say, but when he said something, it was usually very pertinant and profound.
"I hear you. Anyway, we have to pick her up in Dutch when we are ready to head out fishing. One good thing, she's done some training with the Coast Guard in California and has had to perform other water rescues, so hopefully that prepared her enough to not be seasick." Sig replied. Why this was happening, he just was not sure.
"We can't leave her in Dutch?" Edgar asked, a mischevous gleam in his eyes.
"Uh, no. If we did, I think the Coast Guard would be bringing her out by Jayhawk. We have to go through with this. Just make sure that somebody bites the head off something before we set the first string," Sig repleied, resting his head in his hands.* This was going to be a long fishing season.
* The guys on the Northwestern (and all the other boats in the fleet as a matter of fact) are very superstitious. It is bad luck to bring a woman on board during fishing season.
*At the beginning of each season, before the first string of pots is off the boat, one of the deckhands, usually Edgar Hansen (Sig, Edgar and Norman are brothers), bites the head off of a herring for good luck. Nasty, but true.