Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. 110 - The Perfect Storm Judy Reeves

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

Back in October 1991 the "Perfect Storm" or the 100 year storm or the Halloween Gale whatever you call it a very rare and powerful storm came to be in the late days of October. It was made famous by the book/movie that told the account of the Andrea Gale which became a hollywood blockbuster that starred Mark Walburg & George Clooney. Well Judy Reeves was on the Eishin Maru 78 a Japanese fishing vessel that got trapped in the eye of the storm. We discuss a heck of a lot more than just the storm such as surviving cancer, the meaning of life, the events that led up to the storm, general life on the ocean along with what happened while this storm pounded away at their vessel.  Let me know what you think     Text me! 587-217-8500

Hi, this is Braden Holpe. Hi, this is Brian Burke. This is Kelly Rudy. Hello, everyone. I'm Carlyagro from SportsNet Central. I am Jason Greger. Hi, this is Scott Hartnell. This is Quick Dick McDick.

Hey, it's Ron McLean, Hockey Night in Canada and Rogers' Hometown Hockey. And welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Happy Hump Day, folks. Welcome to the podcast. We got a great one today. I got to give a huge shout out to Judy for sitting down with me and rehashing some things that, you know, probably. probably, well, I know they're tough to talk about when you see something that she's gone through.

And we even talk about some of the recent things she's gone through. And it was just a very real conversation. I don't think it gets any realer than what we just chatted about. So this is episode number three of the Sean Newman podcast, Summer Road Trip. Before we get to today's guest, let's get on to our episode sponsors, road trip sponsors, Baker Hughes, upstream chemicals. When you need improved performance or productivity, your solution often exists in the proper application of specialty chemicals.

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and under Tracy's direction, Titus has remained loyal to Lloyd Minster and the surrounding community, continuing to invest in local charities and fundraisers. And I have personally experienced being in Tracy's office, Tracy's shop, is everything, and it is a lot of local products that he's supported in there. I mentioned last week, Andrew Mavridis,

the amateur MMA fighter, and then Brandy Hofer, obviously everybody knows the talented artist from town. Both of them have been guests on here for obvious reasons. And Tracy, once again, has searched them out, found them, and has supported them, and now he helped support me on my way westward. So if you're interested in finding more about Titus Tools, head to Titus Tools.com. Foremost, Mr. Lewis, they offer smooth walled grain bins. And you know, I shouldn't say just Mr. Lewis.

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blur of what you're thinking, and we'll make something work. We've got lots of different options, and I want to find something that can work for the both of us. Now, on to your T-bar-1, tale of the tape. She graduated from Lakehead University with a degree in forestry. She would wind up spending close to a decade on the ocean as a fisheries observer. During this span in 1991, she found herself on the Ishamaru 78, 150 foot Japanese fishing vessel during the perfect storm or the 100-year storm or Halloween Gale. It has many different names.

It's been made famous by a book or movie you may remember, The Perfect Storm featuring Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney, a story about the Andrea Gale that gets lost out at sea. While during the storm, Judy was caught in the eye of it with nowhere to go. This is her story. So buckle up, here we go. So believe it or not, and I know you probably at times wonder why anyone would drive halfway across the country to come find you.

Well, I really, really wondered that. I was like, why? Like when I told you I was going to be in Port Alverny, I thought you were going to go, okay, well, you know, next time. And you're like, okay, when are you going to be there? I was like, have you been to the island? It's not like to use this place to get to. I don't deter easily.

Doggedness, right? Hmm. Well, I... Good quality. It'll take you far. Doggidness. I hope so. I've been fascinated with your side of the family since a kid.

Oh, the Reeves. That sounds, you make fun of it. The crazy thing is, and I was saying this a bit last night, is when we come around the Reeves, there's just such interesting conversation, and I enjoy interesting conversation. Yeah, a lot of animation. Well, and just world experience.

You guys have been, have been, a lot of different places and have interesting stories. For me, absolutely, I want to talk about the perfect storm or a hundred-year-a-storm, whatever you want to call the storm. I don't really, I think it's... Well, I like the nobody's perfect storm because nobody's perfect. But I want to, I guess I want to start, I want to go back because, you know, I was talking to mom and dad on the way out. And you folks are older than I am. So I'm the young guy looking at you asking questions.

How old are you? 34. Jesus, you're older than my kids. Yeah. But I had my kids late, right? Well, I'm getting a late start on this. That's why when you say, oh, you're a journalist. I'm just a curious soul.

Do you know, I said that I wasn't a musician for 25 years. So I've been singing since I was two, but I started singing professionally in the 80s. Okay. And I used to say that too. Oh, no, I'm just a singer I used to say. I'm just a singer. Just a singer in the band. Oh, what do you play?

You know, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I don't play anything. And then about 20 years later, I don't know what happened, but I decided that I was a musician. Why am I not a musician? My vocal instrument is my voice. So I just decided. When people asked me,

was I a musician, I said, oh yeah, and what is your instrument? What do you play? I said, I sing. And it made such a difference. It was like a little shift here. Other people see you, whatever. It's how you see yourself.

that's important. Do you know that, right? It's how you see yourself. So if you see, I see a journalist, what do you see? That's up to you. Well, and I go back to a curious soul. I just, I like hearing people's stories. Right.

And so. But what is journalism if it isn't that? If it isn't the pursuit of the story, that is the essence of journalism. of journalism. So like think about it. Who are you? And if you want a career in this, that's my free suggestion. There it is. It's free. It's you who need to think about who you are. Because the universe will listen. It'll hear you and go, oh yeah, journalist. Bingo. Well, see, and you wonder why I wanted to come sit here and have a call? you this morning. Maybe I was just looking for some life advice. You know, aren't we all? Like,

have you figured it out yet? No. Yeah, no, exactly. No, I, uh, exactly. So we're all, like, on the same path, maybe in different wherever's, but, like, we're all going that way, right? You know, if I, if somebody asked, you know, like, what's podcast about, right? Like, what are you doing? I have a simple explanation I've been giving, but now that I start to look back over 100 episodes, I just listen to people. I enjoy finding what makes them tick and trying to extract some of their knowledge

and lessons they've learned, because I don't know if there's a single soul on the planet who's been everywhere, seen everything, learned every lesson. I think that's damn near impossible. See, you're looking. That's what I see. you're looking

you're interested in our stories but it's for you that you're looking you're looking for your place your meaning in life that's why you do this that's why I sang oh yeah people

you know I'm singing for the audience are you kidding it was all about me right it was all about me but you you know we have these conceits that it's about, you know, this and that. It's not.

It's our pursuit of our meaning in life. That's what you're looking for. So did you find your meaning in life then? I don't know if there's only one meaning. But I think that you live in stages, you know? You live in phases. And that every phase of your life brings you some kind of means. right because you know when I was in university that was a phase right and I was searching for

something I was quite young then I graduated when I was 22 and you know that I was in the bush and you know all of those things like when I was younger I didn't know that I was searching for that but that's what I was searching for that's what we're all searching for we're all looking for meaning to give our life meaning, to give ourselves solidity. You know, I look at pictures of myself when I was younger and I look like nothing. I look really unfocused. You can see that in a picture? Yeah, I can.

I'm not defined at all. There's no definition at all. I'm just kind of there. I'm just experiencing. It was until later I started to come into focus. It was really bizarre, you know, because I realized that one day, oh my God. You know, because I'm like you. I'm endlessly curious, endlessly curious about life and about people and about how things work.

I love to know how things work, especially science. I'm a science geek. I love science is good. And I love building science because I'm learning all the time, right? But in terms of the meaning of life, I would say you're never done. It's just layers. You know, you've ever seen Shrek? You know, the onion? The onion? Yeah. Everybody like Pauphé. Right? It's just, you know, you have layers of meaning and they change. So I just became almost, you know, not quite, but pretty soon I'll be an empty nester. So my children are leaving me. Is that a tough thing? Yeah. It really is. And you think that I would.

know better knowing that it was coming, it's bullshit. It's like, oh, you know, this is not this. Oh, you can learn all sorts of shit up here and you can be really bright and know a lot of stuff, but it doesn't inform you like this does. It's like the heart. Yes. It's your heart. That's the information. So yeah, I'm all, yeah, oh yeah, this is all happening. Here I'm going, ooh, Ooh, this is strange. What am I going to do now? That's my next thought. It was like, what am I going to do now? How am I going to reinvent myself now? Because that's how I feel. I feel like I'm on the cusp of reinvention. I don't know what's going to happen, where I'm going from here. But, yeah, something is happening. So there's, so my meaning in life was to raise my children, to keep my family together to create a universe that I wanted them to live in, to believe in the universe. So you can't, sometimes you can't create something unless you believe in it. Hence back to the journalist. Believe it. Create it. You can't create it unless you believe it. So,

you know, I created a life for us in a place that didn't suit me. You know, as a, as a rural person who really is at home on the ocean or the bush with nobody. I mean, solitude, it was always my thing. Always, I'm a loner. All of us are loners, by the way, the Reeves is. Yeah, big time loners. But so now that that's kind of, that's kind of, I'm transitioning. it's really a little bit scary.

Like, what can I say? And I'm old. Or older, so that I don't have that, you know, that sexual currency anymore. That's gone. People don't even see me anymore. If I tell people that I'm retired, their eyes just glaze over. Really? Yeah, there's a weird thing.

You're, all of a sudden, you've lost your value. Like you're not valuable in the world somehow. It's really quite, it's been quite interesting. Even the age thing, a lot of people my age are old. How old are you, you doing? 64. 64, same age as my parents. Right?

Well, yes. I'm not quite 64. I'll be 64 at the end of this week. But your dad and I were born two weeks apart in the same year. So that is really, like I've always been the kind of, I've always been really alive, really vibrant, usually bigger than life. People remember me, you know. And now I'm almost invisible.

Not yet, but almost. So it's a weird thing about age, gender, and value. The world is so interesting, Shane, and you never know, Sean, you never know what's going to happen. until you're there, you know? And so, you know, I've heard all these stories, but now I'm there and I'm going, oh my God. When I meet people, they always say, ah, you're not that old. My God, you're so alive, blah, blah, blah, you know, go on and on. And so maybe I'm, but I think about other people. So maybe I'm atypical, but I think about other people and how they experience life and how it's like for them.

how it's like for women who are no longer bearing children the children are gone they're you know like who are they anymore like i'm not a volunteer i'm not going to go and volunteer and that's going to you know fill the void in my heart no you're not going to go bust a song down at the local state oh that might that might happen but that's not going to be the soul that's not going to be the the soul thing that that's going to get the juices. Like that's the thing, you know, if you're juicy all your life and all of a sudden you get to the place where you see that the juice is running out in people, that's really when you get old. It's when the juice runs out. That's what I think. I don't know. What do you think? I think for a lot of people, the juice runs out very early then. Because, you know, I watch,

I watch yourself Vibrant at 64 63 and two weeks away from 64 For a lot of people The juices run out And at 35 They kind of just kind of mosey through life I know a lot of times they give up

I've never I've never Yeah I've never quite understood it No me neither I don't know I You know you mentioned Do you think that's about About how you were raised? Like is that part part of who you are of course is because of who your parents are?

Well, I would think part of it has to be that. Yeah. Part of it has to be some of the life choices you make when you're young and you don't realize the consequences. That's right. That's so true. It's luck. Come on. I hate that though.

I hate that. But it is luck. So many successful people that read their books talk about luck all the time. friggin luck. Why do you think I'm not... You still have to put yourself in the position to grab that luck. Yes. Yes. And you still have to, you still have to risk. Risk is a huge part of success. I'm sure Jimmy Patterson will tell you that. And if he doesn't, it's because he can think of it. It's risk. Huge amounts of risk. You're putting yourself, not only money. You're not just risking money. A lot of people think that risk is only about money. It's not. It's about risking your

reputation. It's about risking the possibility of something different. If you do this, then you might not be able to do this. So you have risked the opportunity to do something else by choosing to do this. So there's risk inherent in every choice that you make. But some people refuse risk. And those are the people, I think, that have that downward trajectory, you know? Well, I would say they're clouded on that because every day there's risk. There's risk in doing the same thing over and over and over again. And you know what?

That is so true. That is, and that's a big, I think that's a, I think that's a really salient point because it reminds me of a naturopa. have a naturopath and I've had an injury ever since I had Solomon it's a ligament injury because I have I have I'm hypermobile and when you're hypermobile you have loose ligaments anyway so all your ligaments are kind of hypermobile you you can do all sorts of weird um ambidextrous things with your limbs and you know you can like I can still do it with this hand you know oh yeah you know the weird things you know

the listeners are going yeah what's that I can bend my my thumb right back to my right to my forearm right I'm not even remotely close no exactly so you see the hypermobility so in any case

what were you talking about we're talking about risk oh shit I forget now I'll come back to it in a minute but hypermobility is something that Oh, yes, that's right. So when I had Solomon, I lost, your hips widen. And so when you're pregnant, there's a hormone that's released that actually lets your ligaments get loose so that your hips can open for childbirth. So there's this whole thing because you're really tight. Like, how's that baby coming out of that two centimeter hole, right? Well, You've got to have some width in there so the baby can come through the canal, the childbirth canal, and through the pelvic opening.

So what happened to me is that that happened and then I herniated a disc in my back while I was pregnant. And so I really injured this, it's called the SI joint, sacrioleic joint. Anyway, long story short, 13 years later, somebody suggested that I have prolotherapy and they'd had it and it worked really good. And I refused. I thought, oh, that's hot. I'll bullshit. Anyway, I did that.

I just got to the point where I had so much pain and suffering. I'm a fitness instructor. Every three months, I'm out of commission. I can't move. I've got like a knife stab. So anyway, I went and I had this proliferation therapy. And it actually worked. I still can't remember the point of the story, though.

You know, just hopping on to that, though, I love that. Looking back, you know, you've got different stages, different times. At different times in your life, you've looked at something, I went, man, that is complete and utter bullshit. Yes. And then been proven wrong about that. Well, and then allowed myself to say, well, listen, what's the worst thing that can happen? What's the worst thing that can happen?

Right. It doesn't work. Oh, that's right. Okay, here's the point. So I went to see Jonathan, who is this naturopath, used to be a doctor. And he gave me a sheet of paper to fill out to sign, you know, the standard liability. You know, big old honk and needle going into your back. Anything could go wrong here. You can be crippled. Never walk again. You know, infection. But what it did say, that I'll never forget, except for I just did, you know, but whatever, is that what are the risks if you don't to do this?

Here is what you'll have, continued pain, continued worsening of the situation, continued depression, blah, blah, blah. And I remember thinking, wow, that was the first time I'd ever actually read something like that instead of yeah this might happen you could have infection you could this is what's going to happen if you don't do this we don't hear that enough well actually that could probably be you know you could take that same document take that same line about what's the word what's the worst that happens if you don't do this and put it to a lot of things in life a lot of things in life yeah you could but we don't we often so that there's two things that motivated you're

us fear and love i personally believe that's it other people will have uh sex thrown in there and or but i believe there's just fear and love so choose what do you want choose standing in the light or standing in the darkness i prefer to stand in the light i know that when i'm in the light i'm in the pocket. Everyone knows when they're in the pocket. As a musician, this was something that you really wanted and you hoped for, but it sometimes didn't happen. You do a gig and you were professional and you did a really good job, but you weren't in the pocket. But if you're in the pocket, you know. Elaine would say you're standing in the light of God. You're channeled in the in in God's hands right that's so the pocket is the light you know when you're and you know when

you're in the pocket like right now right just feel it just everything you're and you wonder why I travel halfway across the country well I don't know why you travel people have different ideas about what they're finding like I don't know what you're looking for huh you're do somewhere in there you do what are you looking for right this is what you're looking for obviously like but we're all looking for that right and some of us are better listeners than others i don't meet very many people who can inform me about my path um so i have to rely on myself who was the last person that you met that could inform me on your path the last person?

Or maybe the most influential? That's funny, you know, because I've been thinking about this same question. Somebody in my Facebook page asked that just recently, right? Who is the most important person? Who is the person who changed your life? That kind of a person? Yeah. And I don't know if I really have an answer.

It's been a tough question, then. Real tough question. There have been people who, who have made a difference and are making a difference as we speak. But often, you know, I mean, I could choose the easy answer, which is my husband. Because he makes a difference every day. Every day. But they're not, like, those are cumulative differences, right?

You know, they kind of build up. That's a merit, right? It kind of builds up and builds up and tells us. really big. But it's not like, it doesn't punch through. It's not like a crack in the universe. And the sun came down and the, you know, the rays and you were, oh, you know, that kind of a moment, right? It's not that kind of a moment. My first boyfriend out of high school made a huge, huge impact on my life, changed the trajectory of my life. So if I were to think of, he's the the only one that I can really, really immediately go, oh, that was Tom. He was an older kid. He

he gave me, he loved me so, and I didn't love myself. So it was the first time that I was able to feel that I was lovable. Right? And the, you know, that changed my life. Because that sets you up for self-love, which is the only love that you need. In fact, yesterday I was on the site, and I wasn't feeling good. And in fact, I was really not feeling good.

And I was sitting and watching the guys do this huge, you know, forklift and I was breaking up the walls, and it was moving the walls and taking them on. Like it was like a big operation and it was kind of scary. I'd never seen it before. I'd never done it before. I didn't know Andre was even capable of all this. And I was useless because I had really, I don't know what happened,

but I was in the pit and I got overheated. And I just, I felt really, really, really awful. And I just thought, you know, if only they knew, how ill I am, right? And I felt sorry for myself. I thought, oh, geez, you know, here I am. They're doing all this stuff. They have no idea that I just actually, you know, threw up.

I was really that ill. I drank some cold water and it just, I'm on some pills that are upsetting my stomach. And then I thought, well, what do I need them for? I can love myself. So they don't love me in this moment. They're not even thinking of me in this moment. They're so focused. But I can love me.

I can, I'm not unlovable. So it's that moment-by-moment thing that you can rescue yourself. You can save yourself from these little, like I was feeling sore for myself, you know, because nobody was noticing me and I wasn't feeling well. That inner voice at times can be a real bastard. Oh, yeah, it can be. you have to I always say the Newman's out of the family

we don't do well when we don't talk to people I'm I just use myself as a if I go I don't know 72 hours I'm a complete opposite you like being alone I don't like being alone I get a

I will come out of this and I will want to fly I love talking to people love it it's one of the surprising things whereas Dustin in fairness, Dustin, when we did the bike, we did around, had Lori on, and the three of us talked

about biking candidates. We talked about that. It was fun to relive it. When we came out of there, I was just chatty Kathy. I was excited. That was a lot of fun. And Dustin was tired. He came out, and he just like, I just can't talk to people for that long.

It drains me. But on overall, the Newman side, if we go along periods of time without talking to people, that voice inside your head you talk to it too long and don't keep it in check it can lead you down some dark paths the rabbit hole yeah oh yeah yeah get out of your head that's why i do yoga that's why i that's why i use breathing techniques get out of there get out of there yoga i wish you know as i say this i go you make time for the things you deem important yoga is the first an only time I've ever experienced, I don't know, we grew up going to church. So I always grew, I always was looking for that moment when God talks to you, right?

And, oh, that's right. The sun comes down and you sit there and you have this supernatural conversation. I know, it's like, Mr. Bean. What was that? Yeah. Went to yoga for the first time. Had no idea what I was walking into. Mel was in prenatal yoga with Shea, our first.

Okay. And so she's like, going to come to yoga. There's some beginner classes. Yeah, sure. I mean, I always go. What's the worst is going to happen? Yeah, that's right. I was going to try it.

And the first time when they just kind of talk and they got all these things going on and it's just soothing, I was like, what is this? This is something else. Like, this is something else. You know, I taught yoga. I'm actually a yoga teacher. And when I first started taking yoga, it was about 20 years ago, I used to tell people, oh, no, I don't do yoga. I'm too hyperactive like I'm an aerobic girl right or we're cardio well that's exactly why I should do yoga because I'm like the cardio girl right it's like well no no no and what I what I learned was the same

thing maybe that you experience is that oh my god this I'm missing this this is like good this is really good like I don't need to the high anxiety is probably going to kill me I have a heart attack who knows high blood pressure the whole nine yards. It's the ability to get out of your head. That's why I like yoga. Because in yoga, there's so many things. It's all about your body, but it's about equality, really. It's about equality.

And so when you're trying to equalize your body and create that equality in your body, you know, you think your brain isn't part of your body, You think your heart isn't part of your body? You're all one organism. So all of that. It just flows through you all of that. Breathing, learning how to breathe properly has been really good for me. When I got cancer and I was freaking out, you know, you freak out when you get cancer.

Right. Honestly, you can't even say the C word. Well, that was a whole other experience. Jeez. Cancer is like, that's a kick in the pants. But it's a, you know, I have to say it was a good kick in the pants. Oh, so? It, like anything, you don't know what a situation is like until you're in it, right?

So you don't know what like babies are like until you have them. You don't like, you don't know when they leave what it's going to be like, until you're in it. hell it happens to you. Like you really don't know. You can see and understand and you think you know, but you don't know. It's like the theory, let's get a dog so we can know what kind of having a kid is like when it's not even remotely the same thing. Not even remotely. When you get a dog, you think it, you actually think it. You're like, yeah, we got a dog. We got some responsibility. We kind of know what's coming at us. Not a chance. That first week is an eye opener. That first night is an eye opener. Right. So cancer was like that. I

got cancer and I had to navigate the cancer world from my point of view from who I was and what I found was that it's a very it's a very sobering fearful place love and fear it's all about fear it's just fear and everybody's afraid everybody everybody you're what you go into the the breast health center the can the oncology center it's all about fear right it's it's honestly it's just palpable you could cut it with a knife so here i am you know going well this doesn't feel good like this all this fear is just so awful it's It's horrible and it's like all sorts of bad things happen when you're afraid. Like bad things happen to your body.

So fear affects your body and your body affects your brain. Like everything affects everything if you know what I mean. It's just like you're like an amoeba. You're just like, you know, everything that touches you. So I had to learn how to protect myself from the fear that was so permissive, right? It was just everywhere. And I had to choose love. Huh. I know that sounds easy, but it isn't. I had to choose it. I had to choose positivity and it's not about battling the cancer. I hate that. Oh, they battled the cancer after a

brave fight. It's like, what the fuck? You've got cancer. Of course, you're going to battle it. You're going to battle it if you have heart disease or diabetes or Alzheimer's or arthritis, systemic, this and that. Like, there's a lot of crappy shit out there. A lot of bad stuff. I used to work with all those people. So cancer, it's like the king of diseases. It's like, cancer, cancer, you know like everything revolves around cancer the money goes to cancer people are so afraid of it that the deference that it's given to you unbelievable all I had to do is play my C card

and I got anything I wanted and I thought I really thought about that and I thought well this is kind of unfair isn't it what about all those other people who have MS or Parkinson's or Lugarig's disease. Do they get that? No, they don't.

Cancer has this weird, sexy cachet. I know that sounds a little bit, you know, but you know what I mean? I know what you mean. Do you know what I mean? And I didn't like it. So I was like the anti-cancer, cancer patient. You know, I'd be like, I'd be cracking jokes.

like oh it's like oh god we're all here let's like let's you know laugh a little or you know just self-depreciatory kind of humor you know and so I chose actually I chose this one woman who is a plastic surgeon I never thought I would have plastic surgery see never say never well I'm going to have plastic surgery I have a false this isn't my own breast. They took the breast and they put a rack in and I call it the rack. It's actually an expander and they pump it full of liquid saline and then they push the skin out. And then later on, when the skin is, then they slip in a little breast implant. Right? What has that been like? Always been really bizarre. Really so bizarre. I could write a book. I really should write book. No, I could write a book. Anyway, I choose, I choose Erazu Astani, simply because she was the most

alive person in that clinic. That she, she was bright and she was like, she's like, she was like a bright penny, you know, and just full of life. And I chose, I said, oh, that's it. I'll just, I'll do that. Because I needed to be with her. I needed that. Yeah. Right? I needed to. And, and, and, And that's a lot of life Who you surround yourself with Oh you've got to surround yourself with life With love Or you can choose fear

You can still survive through fear But you know I want to live I don't just want to survive Right survival in living These are not the same things right These are not the droids you're looking for My little Star Wars you know I have a lot of those, right?

But no, cancer has been interesting because of the way people treat you. Well, they treat you like your kind of a rock star pariah. Like they don't want to touch you because they're afraid they're going to get it. And yet they think, like you can have anything you want. Yeah, everybody understands cancer. It's a very... They think they understand cancer. everybody it's a very cultural word like everybody understands what cancer is to a point

shitty it's shitty that's what they understand that's what they equate it to yeah and then chances are you're not coming through a lot like there's yeah there's you know poor outcomes but is there do they fully understand no most people don't want to fully understand I didn't even tell I didn't tell people I had cancer I only told you didn't tell you didn't tell people. I've been really curious about that. I know I'm assuming you didn't want

you'd mention your father and that you want to kind of keep him I wanted to spare him the terrible But now I'm curious If one of your sons or your husband ever had anything like that wouldn't you want to know? Yeah I told

my family but I didn't tell outside of my family I only told a couple people who who I knew I was safe with. So safety was paramount for me, because I had to fight and I had to survive and I had shit to do, like it's not like the prettiest thing. I had three surgeries already, and I got another one coming.

And the outcome wasn't known, right? So really, so many unknowns, right? So I chose safety over sympathy. Not only that, people when they find out you have cancer, they practically start crying. Like they need you to comfort them. Oh my God, you have cancer? Oh my God. Are you okay?

Can I bring you a casserole? You know? Or 10 casseroles? And you're like, it's like, I'm going to be all right. Why are you here at the gym? Because haven't you heard anything I said in 20? 22 years. Yeah, I got to keep fit, baby. Why do you? Yeah. You know. But you got to love some casserole. Yeah, I got a lot of casseroles. But no, I couldn't, I didn't have the energy to deal with them.

It's it. The safety over sympathy. That's an interesting. So I chose to, to conserve my strength for me. Because I knew I really needed it. I needed my strength. my resolve and my, yeah. That's been a really interesting thing that's gone on in the world now with social media. You get that, I don't know, is there such a thing as fake sympathy or fake whatever? Yes.

The like the whatever it is on. Absolutely. It's just, it's just not real. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's just form, good form to say, oh, so sorry, or blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just good form. Or just to chase the likes or the... I don't get it.

Reaction off of social media. I just don't get it. But then, you know, I don't use social media for that. I use social media in a different way, but I guess that is a way to use it. I think it's a way people connect. Listen, we're human beings like to be, like to connect, like to be around other people, like to have somebody like them or like them back. Yeah, they do. We're social beings.

Yeah. And so... Yeah, we do. Time goes on and people more stare into a phone or what have you. They connect through people through text or through liking something, through reading their story, their blog, you know, because that's the way we, that's the way language and everything is slowly changing.

We're just, we're getting to the point where instead of, you know, people are going to think I'm nuts for driving this far and for hopping on a ferry and coming all the way. But this really, to me, this is something special. Something that, you know, a year ago, I thought, ah, I got five years. And then you got cancer. I don't know if I got five, you know, like, but that, I don't mean that in a dark way. I mean, me driving over here, hit one drunk driver.

I mean, that's all she could put. It's true. You only have the moment that you have. That's right. That's the only guaranteed moment that you have, nothing. There's no guarantees. So for me to come and sit, one of the things I love about this journalist gig is, getting to sit across and connect with somebody over and over and over again,

and interesting people that I think are interesting. Because it's so much more, like you can't get that on your Facebook feed. You just can't or your Twitter feed. You can't get the depth. So maybe you get the surface and then you can look deeper, right? But you can't get the depth. I don't think you can get the depth. We haven't had a media, in my opinion.

and maybe one of the reasons, and I should have looked up the definition of a journalist, when I hear media, I always think cut, chopped, looking for clickbait, clickbait, keywords, you know, you find something negative, that sells a lot of papers. Everybody has, right? And so to me, I'm not that, like, I'm completely opposite of that. I like, listen, when this airs,

to whoever listens to it, They're going to hear everything. They're not going to hear... Everything? Yeah, I don't go through. It's raw. Uncut. Right?

It's not going to be bleeped out. You swear, you swear. You talk about this, that, and everything. And I, the first time I ever heard that was, you know, and I know a podcast has been around for a while. But I only heard it like two years ago. I heard my first one. And I went, what is this. So unedited is what you're saying.

Unedited. Yeah. And I think it's wonderful. Well, you know, I was a live musician. I wasn't a recording. recording artist. Right. And there is a difference.

Oh, yes, there is a difference. I have done recordings and I have done recordings for other people. I used to do a lot of backup vocals when I was younger. But live is so, I mean, you screw up, you forget your lines, you improvise, you transcend. You're real. Everything happens. Yeah.

And I used to hate recordings. I don't want to hear myself because my feeling of how I performed or what happened in that room is more important to me than some recording. I don't even know. It changes how, like you go in and sing. I never sang. Oh, and I'm a Virgo, but so I'm highly, highly critical of everything. I have to, so I'd be like, oh my God, and then that, and that's a little flat. and then so-and-so didn't come in on time.

And, oh, that's a horrible ending. And, you know, like, I would be like that. I'd be critiquing the freaking thing. So forget that. I just want to remember what I remember. But when you go in, and I've never saying in a club or anywhere, but when you go in and experience something in the moment, your brain logs that.

Like, ooh, that feeling, that was a great night. Yes. Now, if you had video of that same night and what you did, you might go, oh, I was like a complete a-hole over there. Yeah, no kidding. Or what happened to my hair? And it would change your entire memory of it. Yes, and so experiential things, I'm really into that.

I'm really into that. And music taught me that. It really taught me to be that experiencing something rather than reading about it. These are two different things. Well, and this brings me, you probably didn't realize that was going to bring me to this. 1991 and the perfect storm, the 100-year storm, the not-so-perfect storm, you can read about it.

You can watch documentaries about it. I read the book, and I read his part about you, and I was saying to this before we started, that the best parts of the book are the facts, not the hypotheticals. It's the things. And to have it in your words was very powerful, to read, or I believe your words, right?

I assume he's quoting it. Yeah, no, he quoted me. But to have you talk about it, I think, and you know, I interviewed Theo Flurry a while back, and he's a man who's experienced some serious trauma in his life with child abuse and stuff like that. And he talked about how talking about it is reliving it over again. And so I come in here very, you know, you talked last night about, you know, I probably won't sleep that well.

I don't sleep that well when I, because I understand what I'm asking of you. I understand that this is going to bring up some, some, some memories. If you're in the pocket, it does. If it's just a story that you're recalling, like if you tell something, if you tell your story long enough, it can become fiction. Right, it can't. just can become a fiction. Fictionalize account. Like I've,

talk to politicians. They just sell the same thing over ad nauseum, right? It's not real anymore. It's only when it's real that you, that you will have the emotional connection to back to the day. That's right. Well, I'd like to talk about it a little bit.

I'd love to hear about it in your words. Well, you just ask me questions. Sure. And I think that would, that would start. because it's, you know, like where do you start? Okay, well, let's start here. You graduated from U of A with a forestry degree?

Um, no, Lakewood. Oh, Lakewood. Lakewood, Thunder Bay. Yes. I did not know that. Yes. Okay. So you graduated from Lakewood.

Jeez, I did not know that. All right. Well, I say that because I played three years in Dryden and I was in Thunder Bay all the time. All the time. All the time. Yes. The Terry Fox Monument over there. Well, and Dustin and I rode by.

and everything else, beautiful city. Some interesting parts in there. Oh, yes, I bet there are. I'll interview you later. Well, how does a girl from a forestry background end up on a ship doing fisheries work? Yeah. Yeah, how do you connect the dots, right?

So I graduated, I mean, I worked in forestry's. street in British Columbia. I actually, I graduated in Northern Ontario. I worked in Northern Ontario, started in Manitouge, which is just above a white river on the head of superior. I worked there for a summer, and then I went out west and got a job on Vancouver Island. That's when I was the first forest ranger and all of the first female forest ranger.

In all of Vancouver Island, that was hired. You were the first woman to get hired. Yeah, as a forest ranger. Really? Out of Port McNeil. And in any case, it rained 325 days that year. I think I told you that last night. And I thought, oh, this is gross.

I can't take it anymore. So I moved to the interior to the Coutney area, started my own forest company. I had my own company with my boyfriend at the time and an engineer, and we worked for about another two years. And then in 1981, the IWA went on strike. It's the largest forest union in probably Canada. And they went on strike and there was no work.

And they shut down everything. And so I decided, coincidentally, I left my boyfriend at the time and decided I was going to go and visit a good friend of mine in Chester, Nova Scotia. And so that's what I did. Another friend of mine, we traveled across Canada, and when I got to Nova Scotia and I saw the ocean, I knew the ocean. Like I knew it. I was like, yeah. DNA memory or whatever. I knew this place. So it was so incredible, such a strong draw. The ocean really talked to me. And, you know, I kind of feel like the ocean said, hey, no, you have

stay here. This is, this is for you. Stay here. So I did. And I worked in forestry for a while. The forest industry in Nova Scotia is a little different than most of Canada. Most Canada, 80% of the land is crown land. But in Nova Scotia, 80% of the land was privately owned. Only 20% was crown land. So any of the forestry operations that were happening are privately owned. and so it was really much more difficult to get a job there and I was a woman in the early 80s there was still a huge stigma against hiring women in the bush and probably any non-traditional

job yeah occupation right occupation so my boyfriend at the time there I had an accident and he was out of commission for like almost a year. And so I had to get another job to pay the bills. And it was engineering. That's when I worked Geotech on the roads. So I was working on the roads at the time, and that's when my good friend suggested that I drive him in for this job interview, for this international fisheries observer job.

And the money was really good. Like we made $250. day back in 1980. Did I start? 85? Yeah. So that was like big money, right? And so I drove him in and got the job. So I had no idea what I was getting into. First of all, I wasn't even looking for the job. It wasn't a job that I was on my radar. I had pretty well no idea of what I was going to do and how I was going to be, but all of a sudden I was at sea. Yeah.

Had you ever been on sea like that before? I had. When I worked out of Port McNeil, we used to take a boat launch across Johnson Strait, the Queen Charlotte Strait, to the mainland. So I was on a boat for the first time and big sea and heavy sea.

But it was still, it's still the East Coast. coast of the islands, the west coast, right? So it's still, you know, protected through the channel, right? When you say, I'm a guy who grows up on the prairies. Like I just, I don't even understand the ocean, right? Like, yeah. When you say big and heavy sea, what do you mean? Okay, well, so the west coast has an unbroken, like there's no land between the west coast of Vancouver Island and Japan. So there's a lot of water. So what happens if you know anything about physics and terms of wind?

What happens with water when there's a lot of wind, right? The water moves very quickly and picks up speed very quickly. So the kinetic energy of the water increases and it becomes heavier. And so heavy sea is, okay, I guess I have to think in terms of size, right? Between three and ten meters waves. So heavy sea, choppy sea is when the waves are close together. A heavy sea or a heavy roll or a swell is when they're really far apart. But the ocean always has movement.

The ocean is never still. Yeah, still. Never glass. Right? So now juxtapose that with wind on land. What moves on the land? Does the land move? No, the land does not move.

The trees, the houses, anything that sits on the land will move. but mostly, unless you're in a desert, you know, or a dune or whatever, the land doesn't move, but water moves very quickly, boom, right? All you have to do is like blow on your cup of coffee and you can see the water move. Right away, but the coffee cup isn't moving. So heavy sea is open ocean. So now the question. becomes, do you remember the first time you ever went into heavy sea and what that was like?

Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. We had to jog. So when you're, so I was working on a, so I went, when I got this job as Fisheries Observer, I had to learn marine biology. That was the first thing. So we had a whole course in marine biology because I had to learn what we were going to be doing with the fish. Are you a marine biologist? No, I am not.

No. Just taking courses on it. Yeah, no, I had to, but I had to know. I had to know what a marine biologist would be looking for. Okay. Because the fish, we were really studying the fish and the art of fishing and where the fish were being caught and who was catching them and at what depths and what the fish were eating

and what shape they were in and what sex they were and how old they were. So I had to learn that. Okay. That wasn't hard. I mean, you know, really. It's not that hardest biology. I'm a I'm biologist I love I love sciences

Like when I took when I went to university What did I take? Climatology Biology Botany Antomology Bugs Dandrology

Trees I'm trying to think Dirtology Dirt But it's not It's not dirtology I just can't read No

Geology is land So, but I took all of these sciences. Wait, you're saying there's geology and then there's another one? Yes. The science of... The study of soil. Soil. Yeah.

Very important to, uh, for a forester to understand soils. Yeah. Okay. Right? Yeah. So, I mean, I love sciences. So that was, that was, that was, I was really primed for that. I was primed.

Maybe that's why I was hired. It was like, that was nothing. Getting used to being. at sea and a heavy sea in an open ocean on the Atlantic. That was something I wasn't sure how I was going to do because a lot of people get sick. A lot of people can't handle working in that kind of environment. How long did it take you to get over? One trip. One trip? One trip and you're good with it. Yeah. I didn't feel too good that whole trip. I can tell you that. I didn't feel good. And fish stink, especially guts. Like,

fresh fish don't smell. They do have a smell, but it's not a nasty smell. But guts, fish guts smell. So if you're the least bit seasick and you're in the hold and you're working in the fish, you can, it's not good. It is so not good. But Gravall and I became very good friends. So, you know. Yeah. So, no, I was lucky in that I adapted fairly quickly, fairly well to the sea life. Yeah, to being at sea, to working at sea. Was bad weather just, you knew going out you were going to get bad weather?

Yes. It just happens every trip. Yes, generally every trip. And even when it's not bad weather, when you're steaming, you're moving at speed through the water. So we used to steam from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. This is back when we sail a cod fishery. Okay. So we used to fish off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

So we would steam for two and a half days. So when you're steaming, you're at speed. Oh, I don't know what the speed would be. You're over 20 knots. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Right? On the Atlantic. So even if it's not bad weather, you're still moving.

You're still hammering. Oh, hamming, oh. hammering. We used to call it pounding. You were pounding because that and the in the boats I was on they weren't really the best when they when the hold was empty. When the hold was empty they sat high in the water. They're draggers right later. Later on when the when the hold is full then you sit nicely in the water and you don't pound so much right but you know so a couple grovels and you know I'd be Fine for two and a half days. I used to read a lot. You used to take tons of books?

Tons of books. I would bring a sea bag full of books. But the Russians, when I started working on the Russian boats, they called it my bibliotecu, right? My library. And I'd be like, that's right. They try to pick it up, right? We'd be like, well, books are heavy, right? This was before Cobo. I have a cobo now. I've got a lot of books on it, but it's really tiny.

Do you like reading that on a side note? I love it. Do you? Reading off the screen? I love it. I'll tell you why. Yeah. I never had really good eyesight.

I had an accident when I was in grade four. Yeah, grade four. And I broke some bones in my forehead. What did you do? do. I was tripped and I hit a marble wall and blah blah. Anyway, I've had eyesight problems ever since then so I don't have good eyesight and the covo is backlit and it's so easy to read for you. Oh my God and I can adjust the font

so I've been reading my whole life tiny little tiny print like holy shit right and I can I can I can make the want really big and it's really great. I love it. And you turn the pages the same way. You just turn the pages like that. And also too, it's so light. Like I'm reading a book right now. Oh, it's a fabulous book. It's called, um, um, oh, where is it? Just, oh, no, give her, give her. Well, it's by Stephen Price and I just can't remember the name. Just give me a second. So it's, it's by Gaslight by Stephen price. It was shortlisted for the, or long listed for the Giller Prize. So if you know anything about books, the Giller Prize is a prize for literature. In any case, I'm at 1,8473 pages and it's 4,477 pages.

So, how thick do you think this book would be? How heavy do you think this book would be if I I was holding the book. Well, it'd be a big book. A big honker. Right? A lot of pages. So, there's my book. And a tiny little, and look at my font, and there's my backlet.

And here's the other thing I really like about it. If I don't, so this is set in London in 1885, and it features one of the original Pinkerton. Okay. Detective. So it's really a detective, kind of a detective story set in London. Oh, yeah. It's really fascinating, fascinating, and really well written. But some of the language is old.

Yeah. And you don't know. You can't understand. You can't understand it. It's one of the best things about reading is when you come across a word and you're like, what on earth does that mean? Yeah. So what I do for example. example. Let's just find something here. Okay. I see something. Oh, okay. It says, uh, those berserkers,

they cut up, they cut their own tongues out to stay quiet. A mall's, a mall swap. I know. She told me them berserkers, keep hordes of rats, heard them like sheep. So what's a berserker? Say I don't know. You can click on it and I don't give you the destination. I touch it. and berserker, an ancient Scandinavian warrior frenzied in battle and held to be invulnerable, or two, one whose actions are recklessly defiant. So, or I actually want to know at Malswap, no definition. So sometimes you don't get a definition, sometimes you do. It takes the effort.

For you, it is an easier read. It helps me understand the story as I'm reading it, rather than, you know, I used to have a dictionary with me. Yeah. Like I used to... Well, an actual dictionary. A book. You know, imagine that.

But before, you know, that is life in general now. In order to drive from Lloydminster, Alberta, Saskatchewan, to Port Elberney, we would have packed a few maps. We would have, I don't know, sent you a call when we're leaving, maybe called you in Vancouver. You would have mapped out your journey. Before you left. But we would have called you the day before we left, said, we'll roughly be there around this time. And we would have showed up.

Yes. Instead. You texted me. We text and we put it on her phone and we GPS. I love a good, I listen to, I drive a lot for work. So I listen to a lot of audible books. Yes. Which can be good and bad.

Andre does too. It can be good and bad because there are some that are fantastic. And you can't, it's like a good book. you can't put it down. Well, you don't want to get out of the truck. You're like, well, what do I do now? Right? Like, this is high.

And then you get some and they get the old voice and you just kind of draw on. Andre puts them on like triple speed. Yeah, double speed. I'm like, oh, how can you listen to that? It's crazy. When I started researching people before I come on, I go, like I could sit here and listen to them at average speed or I can take it like I'm trying to compress it so I can learn as much about them as humanly possible. So on an

audible book or a podcast, they've done a lot of podcasts, you put it up to a speed and a half or two speed. And if you're just listening to learn, I think it's very doable. I never thought that like two months ago. If you're listening for enjoyment, nothing beats just on regular speed, just listen as it goes. Well, I listen to CBC. I'm a CBC girl. When I was at C, that's all I could get.

With CBC? Yeah, I used to sneak up a wire up the tallest tower yeah antenna that I could and I'd have to I'd have to get it into my into my cabin which was always on you know

the port of the starboard side of the boat right and and so sometimes it was not like the easiest thing to do it was quite people would be like what are you doing oh nothing and because they all spoke Russian right or Japanese or or Spanish

They are Cuban boats. So, you know, very few people spoke English. So CBC was my, was my connection to my Canadian, to be in Canadian, everything. So I listen to CBC. Like I know, you know, CBC was my go-to. So I still listen to CBC. I listen to podcasts on CBC. I listen to, you know, I love, I just love the stories. I love Q. I've listened to Q forever. And as it happens and that kind of stuff, I was interviewed for as it happens, by the way. Have a tape somewhere. Somewhere. You know, you can't find any of those interviews. Michael Enright.

He's dead now. You can't find any of that online, or at least I couldn't. Yeah, I have Michael Enright. He interviewed me. They called me when I got back from C and said, you know, they really wanted to do an interview on as it happens, right? And I'm like, I have been drinking. because I'd just gotten home and all my friends had come over to my place and we were just all sitting around drinking whatever you know and I said are you sure I've been drinking and he said yeah no if you think

you can do it let's do it so we did do an interview when I listen to it now I sound fairly normal but I was out of it as I had to be right going back to see you mentioned uh Russian and I know during the storm you're on a Japanese boat. Yes. Was that all? So you were going, was that part of the job then? Yeah. Was to go work on foreign boats?

Yeah, mostly that's what I did. I very rarely worked on Canadian domestic dragers. I generally worked on foreign nationals that were within the 200 mile limit of the Canadian. So, yeah. Because every foreign national boat that is within our. a 200 mile limit has to have a fisheries observer on board. If they're fishing in our zone, they have licenses, they have licensing requirements. That's part of our job to make sure that they're good boys and girls.

So what is it like getting on a boat? You know, I know what it's like to go to a foreign country and be by yourself and have very few people, if any, that can converse with you in English. and so it's an interesting um dive dive into oneself because you know I just we just talked about you know talk I love talking to people well imagine how I was

when all I could get back was eh or a few kind of things in sign language or whatever else right what was like how long would you go to see with these boats and then how did you deal was it just reading and listening to CBC that's how you passed the time I'd go to sea for generally speaking 30 days. 30 days. But sometimes I've been to see, the longest I've been at sea is 68 days.

68 days with no land. That's right. Yeah. But these guys have been, like the Russians and the Japanese, go to sea for six months to a year at a time. So, you know, yeah, they were away from home for a long, long time. I'd go for a month to two months, okay? Two weeks for the Canadians, like about a month for the foreigners. And how would I pass the time?

I was busy. I worked 24-hour days. So I worked around the clock because they fished around the clock. If they're fishing, I'm working. So I would observe about 98% of the hallbacks. and work in the fish during the day. So I had a lot of different jobs that I had to do. So I had to monitor the bridge, all of the log books,

make sure that they were where they said they were, right? Because they had to write in their logbooks, what their locations were, where they were fishing, blah, blah, blah, you're going to make sure that they're not screwing with you. Because they would really like to catch Haddock and Pollock and cod. but we don't want them to catch that because that's not what their license says. Their license says you can have silver hake which Canadians don't eat. So you have to be on the ball.

You have to be in the hold. These are 350 foot ships, massive factory freezer trawlers. And going in the hold is the scariest thing you've ever done because it's really cold down there. and there's and it's vast and uh you can freeze to death in oh half an hour on the japanese boats blast freezers they have blast freezers they freeze a tuna solid in 15 minutes so and the japanese don't like you they don't want you on their boat and they definitely don't like you if you're female because it goes against their religious beliefs. A woman is bad luck on a boat. So I would never go in the blast razors. I went once, once, one time only. And my first thought was,

if somebody shuts that door, I'm going to be dead in 15 minutes, so I never went back in. But I made sure that I measured every single fish that ever went into the hold. So I didn't have to go into the hold. So for example, you're eating, and they haul back and they catch a fish and they put them in the blast freezer, right? So you've got to go in there and you've got to measure that fish, you've got to sex that fish, you've got to identify it, blah, blah, blah. So I would just tell them, you leave these fish on the deck, right? And you can tell when they're hauling back, the sound of the motor changes, right? Oh, there's just a real different sound. You're attuned to that. So I never had to worry. But no, I didn't like going in the holes. The big boats, the big trawlers, like I said,

350 feet. Big, massive, floating, you know, factories is what they were. Right. Very bizarre. But there was always somebody who spoke English, but not very good. Like, there was always someone who was trying, and they wanted to practice, too, their English on you. And that's fine, except for sometimes you just want to hear fluent English, don't you? And that's what CBC was for me. And then I brought music with me and I would practice music and learn music and listen to music. When you had free time and weren't measuring fish. Yes.

But you see, I worked 24 hours a day, so I had a lot of time during the day. I just worked a full day, right? So I'd have two hours here, three hours there, right? Yeah, spurts. One hour, yeah, and I would sleep in between because I had. have to get up in the night when they haul back. Because if you don't get up when they haul back, then they can say, oh, we caught this much. How many fish would they catch at a time?

Like, how many fish are you measuring and getting the sex and age and everything else? When I first started, we were catching big. The caught end was like we're talking 20 tons, 30 tons. Like a caught end that was floating on the water as they were hauling it. back you could see it floating out on the water just full of fish but how how much is it how many fish in a ton like i understand the the weight but i can't remember like we're talking hundreds thousands thousands of fish and you have to measure them all no you have to estimate them you have to estimate them you have to get really good we used to call it guesstimation well and not only that but they

haul the, they haul the cod end up. They come in, they have this huge 5,000 pound doors. So that's keeping the cod end open in the water. These are pelagic tralls. So the caught end is open. It's like a big sock, right? And it's being drugged through the water and the fisher are, are swimming into it and getting caught, right? And then they can't get out because of the force of the water, right? Because as long as... Yeah, as long as it's pulling. Right, there's water pressure. So when they pull it up, they pull it in, and then they empty, they empty, empty, they have the big, huge cables. Really dangerous. Frigging dangerous. People have died instantly when these cables give, right? Cut, cut people's people's heads off, like legs off, like really, really dangerous. And they're not, you know, all that well maintained to say that, especially the Russians.

Like they were rusting metal hulks is what they were like from some goddamn, you know, the cold war, whatever, whoa, and I'm going to be in. This is your cabin. And the water used to pee out. Like you have to have a shower, right? It would just pee on top. Anyway, so the cotton comes up. And as it's being dropped into the hold, a big door opens up in the floor and the fish are being dropped into the, the into the hold of the ship, you're estimating. You estimate how much by how long it takes,

basically, right? How long it takes to drop it. And you're watching to see what kind of fish are coming into. So is it mostly hake? Is it mostly this? Is there a few haddock? Haddock was a a prohibited species. So they had 1% bycatch limit on that. So they had to be really careful that they weren't catching a headache. Or they get kicked out of the zone. They caught too much. So, you know, you watch as it goes down. You get a pretty good idea of what's in there. Then you go down to the hold and you start, they start processing. Because it's a factory freezer trawler. So they're freezing them. They're gutting them and freezing them as, and, and and putting them in the hold fresh, freshly frozen.

So you're down there, you just have to go down there and watch. What's coming in? And then there's a big hole with awful. So what's in the guts? Do you see any haddock in there? You know, they might want to get rid of those because they don't want to get kicked out of the zone. So there's always tricks, right?

So you get a pretty good idea of what, and then you go of what's coming into the ship, You know, and you do it, I did it for many, many years, eight years. And then you go up and every night the technologue would write in the logbooks what was caught. How much was caught? What was frozen? What was bycatch? What was fishmeal?

Fishmeal, all the awful goes to fishmeal. You could tell an awful lot about what was on a ship by the fishmeal. because you work backwards. It's just science, right? How much awful to make a bag of fish mail? You just figure it out. And if there was a lot of fishmeal and not enough fish in the log books, you'd say, well, hey, you know, something's a little bit odd here. You got all this. And not only that, but I would go and count the bags.

The bags were easy to count. I didn't like going in the hold because my hands used to freeze up. And I used to worry about, and I'd be there by myself in the hold. Fuck, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, and you had to climb up these cold metal frozen ladders to get out, straight up, right? And you're there by yourself? It's like, yeah, I kind of, I used to do it for like the first two, three years and then I wouldn't do it anymore. I just like, you know what? I was good enough at my job I could figure.

I don't have to go down and count the boxes. So did you realize, you know, I listen to all that, and I go like, when you can, you're understanding that you're in at times a perilous position, you're in a spot that is maybe not. Yeah. And you got no friends on both. Work safe BC would not like it.

They'd be like, you're not going down there without another person and you can have this, and you can only stay down for this many minutes, right? That's right. Did you ever, you know, you said you started that in 1985, 86, 85. So you're doing it six years before you ever get anywhere near the storm. Yeah. So you obviously enjoyed it. Oh, I loved it.

You talked about the sea calling to you when you went out there. You loved it. I loved it. It was hard. It was hard. I felt pride in the fact that I was really, really good at my job. I had pride in my job and my work. I like my own company, so I don't mind being alone. It's a privilege. It was a privilege to see the things and experience the

things that I experience. Very few people in the world experience those things. Have seen moonlight at two in the morning while you're hauling back and and and you know you're looking around and it looks like the little mushrooms all over the deck because their their hard hats would glow you know that's all you could see with little hard hats and maybe a couple of lights on the fish and like it was a privilege to see and experience something that, yeah, it's been with me my whole life. It'll be with me my whole life. I've written so much about it. So visceral, right?

So, so cool. I loved it. Yeah, I loved it. In the years preceding 91, was there any a time that you experienced anything remotely like that storm? I mean, you talk about going out every time there was a storm. Oh, yeah, there's always, there were gales. So a gale, you know, so there's a system of accountability in terms of what is a storm.

So it's called the Beaufort scale. The Beaufort scale goes from zero to 12. Right. So each graduation is a little bit different. And I actually had to do climatology. I took climatology. So I had to, every day, gauge, you know, I had like a sheet, and I had to estimate wind speed and how much rain had fallen

and what's the sea, what Beaufort is the sea, and what was the trough, you know, between the peak, the top of the wave and the bottom of the wave? what's the trough and how close they are together and uh so i used to do that every single day um so you get really good at looking at the waves and knowing what the weather is yeah you can just look right away you know are there are their white caps how big are the white caps how close are they together you know so because you know these are 350 foot boats that you're on so you're looking you're on the bridge is quite high up you're not like right down there at the water

water, right? So yeah, no, I've been, I've been in lots of storms. I've been in lots of storms and storms that were so bad that you couldn't fish. So when a, when a storm is really bad, so we're talking, you know, a heavy gale on the Atlantic Ocean. And I've been in, I've been in, like, I worked in the winter too, whereas ice, so that the whole. boat is covered on the windward side covered in ice just heavy ice like thick ice like you know so that the crew would have to take mallets and go out and bust everything all yeah they call yeah pound the ice that's when you're really glad you're a fisheries observer yeah i'm just staying here in the bridge watching them pound the ice because the whole boat is listing because it's so heavy

right so heavy with ice oh yeah but anyway bad bad weather we would jog so that means we can't fish and sometimes we would jog in the lee of of a piece of land like so cape brace in newfoundland is like a peninsula and we would we would sit in the lee of the wind and wait the storm out so just hide from it yeah you just wait because you can't fish anyway and sometimes you know the storm would come upon you and you'd be fishing

so you still have to haul back still got to get that net in right or you lose the net and lose a lot of money and people yeah you're not going to do that no so yeah I've been in a lot of bad weather so this storm then

does it when it's starting Or you even like You can see the water starting to pick up Right? You can see the waves you're going We got something coming I had no idea So in the Japanese boat

So it was a Japanese tuna trawler So they're a little bit different than The big boats that I used to work on So a tuna trawler is only 150 feet long And it sits The one that I was on The Ishameru was out of Hokkaido, Japan So they've been in

at sea for a year already. They just follow the tuna wherever they go. They don't go home for like a year, a year and a half. It's just brutal. Brutal life. They drank a lot, just so you know. They really like CC Canadian Club

Whiskey. I had a bad experience once when I was 20 so not for me. Even the bottle. Just makes me shudder. But so the 150 foot boat is not a big boat. boat, right? So you'd think that it wouldn't take a sea well, but it actually took the sea better than the big boats because it was a concrete hull. So they sit really deep in the water and they've got a lot of tuna in there, right? So the ballast is really, they're beautiful boats, beautiful seaworthy boats.

so they're not the kind of boats that you worry about when you're deployed to a Japanese boat you're like huh it's all good you know what you don't like is the Japanese just because the way you're treated because you're treated like shit like nothing especially even the guys

you're treated like you're an infidel like I'm not kidding so you're not Japanese It doesn't matter that you're female or male. You're not Japanese. And you were not treated with deference. Any other boat, any other foreign boat, you were treated like you were goddess. You were the goddess.

Anything you want, anything you need, you know, we'll bring it to you. But on the Japanese boat, they would just blink at you. You'd tell them that what you need and they just blink. So does that mean you got it? You understand. And remember, They speak Japanese, and you don't. So there's that communication thing.

But, I mean, I've been working at sea for a long time. I know how to communicate without knowing the language. I learn all the numbers and all the names of the fish and haulback and setting and high flyers, all the key terms, so you know. You could just use a piece of paper, and you can draw pictures. You can do like communication is not that big of a deal after you do it for a long time Because you know how to you know in any case the Japanese don't like you and they don't they don't want to be told what to do and they don't they don't like the the scrutiny at all So you're on this boat and I heard nothing because they don't tell you anything

They won't tell you anything unless you ask So you have to know how to ask. You have to know the right question to ask before you can get an answer. The first thing I knew about a storm coming is that they have weather, they have incredible equipment on these boats. Incredible. I mean, these people were into technology a long time before we embraced this kind of technology. their fishing technology was hugely advanced compared to ours and they were getting weather they had fax machines and they were getting weather reports and they got a weather report i wish i had to

kept it big storm just white right you couldn't even see the center so when you see that you know that is a very low pressure storm coming your way because the what do you call those lines pressure lines are very close together I forget what they're called I just read it and I can't think it yeah yeah but you know what I know so really really close together and you know ooh it basically looked like a hurricane that's what it looks like if you see if you if you if you watch the weather network now they'll show it they'll show it they'll show it they'll show you those pictures right and you're like oh you know it's bad you know like basically laura's coming into the florida panhandle soon i think probably hitting today or who knows it's scary looking

because you know it's packing a lot of wind so that was the first thing and they and it was called hurricane grace and was coming up from bermuda that's the first thing i knew so So I asked the captain what was happening and yeah, we're probably not going to fish. So that's the second clue. The Japanese will fish in anything. Money talks. Money, money, money. If they're not fishing, they're not making money.

And if they're not fishing, it's got to be bad. So it's a long line. It's about 120 kilometers long. And punctuated by high flyers that sit above the water. So the long line is in the water catching tuna, right? And so 120 miles of tangled line or broken line or searching for line. So if it's really going to be bad weather, they don't fish. But it's got to be really bad.

so that's when I knew it was going to be bad because they weren't going to fish they'll fish in anything I have been on the deck I've broken ribs on the deck just been thrown into the ice house door just oh and a long liner the the tuna comes up over the side it's not a it doesn't haul back over the stern so you head into the weather or head into and and the and the long and the long and the coiler is just coiling the ropes up as they come in and then the high flyers come in and they take them off unhook them and if there's tuna they unhook them and measure them got them freeze them yeah so it i mean the weather that comes and so there's a there's a board on on the starboard side that they take off you know like it just slots in so when you're still

teaming, of course, it's all good. But when they're bringing in tuna, they have to have a place for the line to come in and they have to, they have these pikes. They have to pick the fish up, I'm sorry, fish up with. Yeah, so the weather,

they, they, they fish in anything. And anything. Honestly, it's friggin' scary. You're out there with your survival suit on and they're all there in black rain gear. We've lost people in the ocean and they don't swim.

I was on a boat once that searched for three and a half hours for a lost sailor. Gave up. And then what happens? Then they go back to fishing. It's just a different world. Right? And you're worth nothing to them. You're worth nothing.

You're a thorn in their side. It's a very unsettling feeling to be on a Japanese boat. I'm not saying this because I'm a racist No no no no This is what it was like And they didn't like me at all Because I was Let's be very very clear here

Yeah I know the world we live in is Is different now than it was then But what you're saying there's no I don't get any racist from it all It's a very intriguing Look back Yeah

Yeah So I find it So The first thing you get is a weather report that Hurricane Grace is. That's right. Yeah. Then they say they're not gonna the fish. Fish. So what do you do? You haul and ask for the coast or? The truth is I was happy. The first thing is that you're happy because I worked 15 hour days. Yeah. No work today. 15 hour days for 30 days. You're gonna get to practice and singing, maybe a little of CDC. And you

start, they set all night. So they set the line at night and they haul back in the afternoon. So you work all afternoon, all night you go to bed in the morning. It's a long frigging hall. You're not talking, and they don't talk to you. Once again, I come back to, I can't believe you enjoyed this so much.

A lot of this just sounds, like you get this big grain on your face. Sounds like torture? Well, it just secluded, even though people around, secluded with foreign nationalities on this boat specifically, they don't like you.

So you got a bunch of people around that don't like you, don't speak your language, you're working all hours of the night, even if they aren't consecutive, you're still working all hours of the night. It's got to be one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous job on the planet.

It's pretty dangerous. It's pretty dang close. Yeah. So I'm looking at all that. And we're not even talking about how you get on the boat. You have to transverse. and ship to the boat to get onto the boat.

Sometimes it's even more dangerous than actually working on the boat. But anyway, we'll talk about that later. Hold that thought for a second. I'm around, so I look at all these things lining up on my hand, and I go, okay, so why would you do it? Money? Money was really good. Okay, so money is definitely a part of the equation. $250 a day.

So when you came back from a stint out there, you had money in the pocket. Flush. Yeah. Flash, baby. Let's party. How long would you come back to shore for? It depended on the season. So if we were in the fish, if it was the fishing season, you could come back for three days and you'd be out again.

Oh, you didn't have time to spend the money. You had barely time to get home and do your laundry. And then get back in again. But when the season was over, you had a month off, two months off. You earned it, though. I traveled. I was in Thailand and Australia and Malaysia and Bali and Australia or the Philippines. I went to, right?

I would travel. I had the money. Young, single, and tons of money. Yeah. And I was good looking too. So, yeah, I had it all. And, you know, a pocket full of confidence, right? Yeah, right there.

Okay. That makes sense then to me. So let's go back to this then. Actually, before we get to the storm, you're saying getting from the coast to the boat was sometimes the most dangerous because you're out in a smaller boat getting hauled out to a... That's right.

We would have to take launches. If the boats don't come into the harbor to... Usually, it used to be in Halifax, peer 21, peer 21, Pier 22. Yeah. You would have to, they would anchor out at Chibokto Head, which is the mouth of the harbor coming in.

And you would take a boat launch out to them. Or you would, yeah, you would take a boat launch out to another boat and then that boat would go out to the fishing grounds and then you would get off. Oh yeah. It could be very, very dangerous. In fact, I believe that that was the most dangerous. part of the job was getting on and off a boat. Think about it. Think about a 350 foot factory freezer trawler and you're in a tiny little lifeboat, a lifeboat and you're going to,

you have to get up and all you have is a rope ladder. So you got to wait and the waves are pounding against the boat. So the waves are smashing against the bigger boat, right? so the lifeboat is going like this. So what do you have to do? You have to have really good timing. You have to wait until that split second where you grab the rope and scramble up and don't lose your leg in the next smash, right?

And getting off of the ladder, actually that was easier than actually getting onto the lifeboat. It's easier to go that way than to go back because you've got to jump. It comes up and you, no! And there's a hole. in the lifeboat. It's not an open lifeboat. It's an enclosed lifeboat round, like the Russians have these rounded. In fact, my husband came to get me in one of these. That was the first time he met me,

was in a lifeboat. He was the navigator, and I was the lady. That was fun. He came to get me, right? He's like, who is this crazy woman? And they, yeah, so getting on and off the lifeboat, in fact, I have refused to leave a boat before. And then people are really pissed off with you. Because that's money. Money. If you're not getting off, then the other life, the other fisheries observer isn't getting on, right? But we're still getting paid, right, aren't we? We're still getting paid. But if the weather's too dangerous, you have to make those decisions, right? It's your life. Nobody else is. I learned very early on that you've got to look after yourself. And it's your responsibility.

It's no one else's responsibility but yourself. So you do learn to have a heck of an attitude early because you have to, you know, you have to have that confidence. You've got to make split second decisions. Do you miss that adrenaline rush? Oh, like I mean. Do I miss it? Yes.

You know, I talk about the money. Yes. But the adrenaline that you must have felt almost every single day. Not only the adrenaline, but the enormous confidence it gives you as a human being that you are able and you're smart and you're a survivor, right? I know I'm moving around, right? Just that whole, you know, this is what a lot of women don't, or a lot of women don't, or a lot of people maybe don't find you know it's when you're successful that you learn to trust yourself trust your gut you got a that's a big lesson in life is learning to trust yourself right and and only

yourself it was hard to get married really hard for me 38 and i had done this my whole life got into a place where I knew that if anything should happen, I could handle it. I could learn anything. I still feel that way. I could learn anything. If I have to learn it, I'll learn it. Yeah, so that, the confidence it gives you, that self-esteem, it's powerful. That's, that's the candy, right? That's the stuff you want. Self-esteem. Yeah, I missed that You missed that Yeah, I was on the site yesterday

And everybody treated me like I was You know, useless Totally freaking useless Because I don't know how to pick up a wall All I can All I can think of is a farmer analogy Is tits on a bowl Just useless

Yes So sometimes, you know, it's nice to be acknowledged that you actually have something. And so that's, yeah, so that's why this aging thing and retiring, I mean, I had hugely, I was a hugely popular fitness professional. I did. I was an expert. and I had the most fun, the most fun my classes were the most fun and the most rewarding classes. So I had a huge following. And then I was retired, and I was nobody. Just a silly question.

You ever thought of starting a podcast or something where you talk to people? Yeah, all the time. So why don't you do it? I think you'd love it. I think you were probably one of the, you know, we were talking about this last night, how easy it is to fall in a group. But this is, man, I came here wanting to talk about Perfect Storm and other things, right? I know.

I'm so sorry. No. But it's not like this is painful for me. This is quite enjoyable. Certain people just have the knack for it, sit across from somebody in. Yes, I'm very erudite. but because I'm so good at so many things is really hard for me to focus on one of them like truly right now I'm building a house so I'm okay last year I had cancer I had to get through that so that was my focus okay so this year we're building a house

well I got to get through that so next year is anybody's guess next year I'm hoping I feel like the world is my oyster who knows what I'm going to do I actually want to write a book book or several books. I actually have written already a book of poetry that I could publish today. Oh, you'd love my poetry. I'll send you some. You should send me some. Especially the sea stuff, right? Because that's when I started writing because that window, that unique window into that world, right? And I'm very good writer. I write prose. I write the way I speak, the way I am. I write that's how I write

how else can I write. Like I don't get that when people say you know you have to write what you know and I'm like yeah no kidding or else it just sounds like bullshit you know like a famous president who he won't name you know

but everybody will know who it is. They can't see my face right so it's so good because one time I did this documentary on the perfect storm. And did you ever see that? No. Called the Storm of the Century. Oh, I should look it up. Yeah, BBC did it in conjunction with Channel 9. You know, it's funny. I searched everything online. You tried finding any videos and I could find old weather like, I don't know. I got a ton of stuff I could send

you, but yeah. It's all good. Yeah. But in any case, I did this interview. I was pregnant with Solomon, I think. Was I pregnant with Solomon? No, it must have been Elijah. They flew me to Gloucester, Boston, in Massachusetts, where the Andrea Gale left from.

Left from. And they, I got to go in the pub, and I got to be, yeah, I got to be at the place where, the monument for people who died at sea, for those who go to the sea in boats.

So, you know, I came home, right? And a lot of them didn't come home. I got to go right there from where they left and they never came back. Why did they bring you there? I don't know. We did the interview on a boat and they blocked out everything in the boat, right? I don't know. Maybe they wanted, they wanted.

this, right? Maybe that's what they wanted. I know, but that's a... The feeling, it was tough. It was really tough because I don't, I, you know, I was, I'm the lucky one. I told you that before. I'm the lucky one. I survived. But I survived with a little bit of survivor's guilt. Certainly the cancer did that too, right? But there are people who didn't survive and I did so I can be blithe about cancer can't I that's easy for me I'm not battling right this very moment I'm gonna live a long life my dad's 93 there you go yeah but no I went to Gloucester and we did the interview there and um when my husband saw it

he said oh my god he said you're just like a monkey he said your face You're so hyper mobile, you know. Animated. Right. And then I watched it and I was like, oh my, I was just mortified. So I would rather people hear me rather than see me. Not because I don't like what I look like or I'm ashamed of who I am, but it's just, you know, we're all struggling to love ourselves completely. and I don't know anybody who loves themselves completely, completely all in.

And I'm, you know, one of them. Don't love that. See myself and go, gosh, do I have to do that? Apparently, yes. I hate to bring it up, but going back, you know, we've talked about different parts of working on the sea and your love of working on the sea and everything that came with it. Do you guys head in that?

Is that, you see the weather coming? You see they're not going to fish, so you're excited? We jogged. And you jog? We just jogged. So jogging means that you stay in one place. Oh, you stay in one place? You just stay in one place.

So you're going to jog it out. So you're just going to essentially. You're going to wait for the weather to come. come and then you're... So at what point does the weather come and you're like, oh, that was a poor choice? Well, you have... Okay, so when you're on a Japanese boat, you're not alone. There's probably six to seven other boats.

And we're all in a line. And we all fish in a line. So like parallel lines. Really? Okay. So they're all jogging too. Yeah. And they're all sitting out there, just jogging along. And they all have fisheries observers on them.

And we've all done this before. Okay. So this is, this is. Oh no, and I'm happy. I'm not working. Yeah. This is standard operation. Yay. I can read. I can sit in my bunk around. I can catch up on all the paperwork, right? I have to, you know, there's a crap load of paperwork. Crap load of paperwork. He's just always doing paperwork, right? Research paperwork and blah, blah, blah. So I'm very, very happy to not be going anywhere until the weather hits. And so basically I'm in my bunk sleeping when we lose the bridge. So it's really a shock and a surprise. It's not something that you think of is going to happen to you. You just don't imagine that you're driving down the highway and you're going to get hit by a car the next second. Do you? Do you anticipate that?

Because if you did, you might. you know. You wouldn't drive. Exactly. Or you'd maybe stop or the fact that you're jogging in six other boats or five other boats are jogging along with you. It says everybody just thought, ah, it's a storm and it's going to come and it's going to pass and it's going to be okay. So nobody knew how powerful the storm was going to be because what happened is that so the, so this hurricane forms off of Bermuda. And the warm weather's of Bermuda.

So it's, I think they called it a Hurricane 3 at that point. It starts to move up the eastern seaboard. It doesn't move on to land. Okay, so it just skirts land. So it's just gathering power. It does create quite a bit of problems. I mean, there's still a lot of damage in Massachusetts. and but what happens when it gets to it's about let's say i'm just thinking about 300 kilometers off

off the um yeah the the southern tip of nova scotia would be yarmouth down there and it and it starts to veer into the ocean so it's trajectory change changes and it starts coming towards us. At the very same time there was a low pressure system coming down from Labrador, Quebec. So cold weather, low pressure. So they met in the ocean about 300 kilometers. I was about 150 kilometers offshore, off the ocean shelf. This happened another 100 kilometers or 50, I don't know quite sure, but close. Out there. Then something something bizarre happened, it went retrograde. So which means instead of just spinning off into nothingness, it came back to shore. So this very rarely happens. So who could have predicted it,

right? It came back into shore. De Andrea Gale was on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, fishing swordfish. and they had had a heck of a catch and didn't want to leave. They knew this weather was coming, but they didn't want to leave because they wanted to fish. And, you know, those are the decisions that fishing boats make. Money. Money. Risk.

Or a broker. And a broker trip means you make nothing. You went out there and you came back and sometimes it's negative because you have to pay gas. Anyway, so they were coming back towards Gloucester. So they're coming back into Nova Scotia and the weather turned and just swallowed them up. And of course that and hit us at relatively the same time. So we lost our bridge. this was the middle of the night. I heard a big explosion. My cabin was right behind the bridge.

So I had a cabin right behind the bridge. In fact, right behind where the captain sits on the bridge. They have a small bridge in these boats and low. And I hit this explosion and we don't have doors. We have curtains. So I pull back the curtain and they're just water running down. the hallway, just water, you know, like a foot of water, sea water. I know what kind of water it is. And it's like, so I got my pants on, you know, my boots on. And I'm on the bridge and we've just, you know, it really wasn't a devastating hit. It just took out the windows of the bridge. So it was just a giant wave? That's right. And the windows on a Japanese boat are double pain. Okay. Double pain, small, like really strong. Just took out a window. That's it.

Blue the gyroscope. So the gyro is the compass, sea compass. Right? Took that out. And on the back of a Japanese bridge is electronics. Just a wall of electronics on each side. So here's the bridge. Here's the gyro here's the gang way these are the cabins okay right in the back is the galley back further are in a lot of high flyers gear is stored right so um just sparks and smoke and confusion and a little tiny explosions as the electricity as the electrical wires pop, right? A lot of popping. Yeah, so that was that. It wasn't a big deal. You said you're jogging with six other boats. Do the other boats get hit by this way? No. Just you guys. No, they got hit by the storm, but nobody lost power.

So do, after the first wave, did the other five boats are like, we got to now we got to start moving? You can't move. Can't move. It's a hundred, there's a, it's 120 to a hundred and 50 mile an hour winds. Where are you going? You can't outrun that. What kind of a powerful boat is going out of around? Okay, so... Could you turn and run with it? No. Okay, so when you're jogging, you have to head into the weather. Okay. Or you have to head into the weather because then you have some control, especially if you've got power. So you keep the nose into the weather. So you're up, and you're down, right? And you're up and you're down. What happens if you turn broadside? What happens? Wave comes over top. That's right. Broadside. So you never want to go broadside in that kind of weather.

Unless you can turn really quickly. But in a big boat like that, that would be non-existent? Well, not only that, but we were in the eye of the storm, which we didn't know at that time, but the eye of the storm is where there's a confused sea. so the sea wasn't just this way. You're getting slammed from everywhere. That's right. It was like a cork in a in a bathtub. You're just being thrown every which way. You're just like on the surface.

So there was no way to get back to shore. That is impossible. No, you can't get back to shore. No, that window's been closed. Escape is out the door. So now it's just hold on. That's right. hold on and

so anyway not long after this happens the captain actually on a Japanese boat the captain is not the captain on any other boat the captain is the highest ranking official

okay okay but on a Japanese boat the fishing master is the highest is the highest ranking official okay and the captain is kind of like the first mate for a second mate, right? They just run the boat.

Okay. But the fishing master, ooh, he's the big guy, he came to me. Observe a son. Come with me. Come with me. So we went down to the radio room. So they have a radio operator.

And the radio operator has his own cabin, has his own, just a wall of, you know, electronic equipment, sat nav on the side, blah, blah, blah. and they want me to call a May Day. That's what they want me to do,

because I'm the only English speaker on the boat. So I called a May Day. And May Day is when? May Day is the highest emergency alert that any boat can call. So it's May Day. I'm trying to remember now. Then it's Pan Pan. I think there's three.

Mayday means that any boats in the area, if they can, without putting their own cruise at risk. Risk. Come. Must come. Not come, but must come. You have to come if you can. And so were there any boats in the area? Did you have the other five sitting there?

Well, they couldn't come. They're just trying to bob and weave as best they can to. That's right. And so the, that's when, so I'm giving my May Day, you know, like, so you'll never forget that. May Day, May Day, May Day, this is the Aisian Maroon No, 78. The Aish and Maroon number 78, May Day, May Day, May Day. Does anybody read, you know, and you're just like, wait, day, wait, day. Does anybody read, right?

And nothing, nothing. Then I hear some traffic. I don't think it happened right then, but I heard a little bit of traffic. I heard the, I heard the Andrea Gale calling out. Calling out for help. I was probably the last person to hear them. That's all I heard.

I didn't even know who they were. I had no idea. I had nothing, no information. It was like a month later, you know, after I talked to Sebastian, he wrote the book. I don't know anything about them. I was just trying to get somebody to come and get us. So the Coast Guard in New York City heard me, picked me up.

New York City Coast Guard picked me up and patched me through. So they were the first ones to answer my call, my May Day. They patched me through to Halifax, Halifax Coast Guard. and Halifax Coast Guard broadcast the May Day broadband, right? And there were other fishing boats out there. There were Canadian trawlers out there. But they couldn't, in fact, I'm trying to remember the name. It's been so many years now, right?

It's almost 30 years. Almost 30 years? 29 years coming up. Yeah, 29 years. But I'm trying to remember. Anyway, one of the boats. I had actually fished on. And it wasn't the Cape Rath.

Anyway, one of the Cape boats out of Lewisburg, Nova Scotia responded. Oh, yeah, we're sinking. That's not my fault. The mic is sinking. Oh, that's my favorite commercial. Have you ever seen that commercial? We're sinking.

We're sinking. It's a, it's a radio operator in front of, doing exactly the same thing as I'm describing to you. And he's got the microphone on, just like he's got his headphones on. We're sinking, we're sinking. And the radio opera says, what are you sinking about? That's good. Andrea and I cracks us up every time.

Well, they're sinking, you know. What are you thinking about? But anyway, so once I got patched through to Halifax, and they sent out their general Mayday, the only vessel. So the Cape, I wasn't the Cape Rath. It was the Cape something. I forget now. They responded, but they can't turn Broadside to the weather.

That's the thing. The weather was so bad at that point. they can't turn broadside to the weather or they'll Yeah, they'll go under. So the only vessel that was able to come to our rescue was a tugboat. It was sitting offside the drilling platform of Sable Island. So Sable Island gas drilling platform was not operational yet.

They've been building it. And so, and right now my mind is blank. I can't even see the name of that tug in my mind's eye, but I will in a second. Anyway, so they were the only ones who could respond to us. Why could it, I obviously know nothing about boats. Why could a tug go out in that type of weather? Because they're built differently. Fishing boats are, remember I said?

They sit really high in the water and they're just, like little corks, I just can get smacked around, you know. But those big waves wouldn't do that to a tug? A tug. That's why you see tugs dragging huge barges in the ocean. They're just made to not. And they're really powerful. They have powerful, powerful, powerful engines.

And basically that's for tolling capacity, right? They don't need it for this tiny little tug. Yeah. They're not big boats, right? He was the only one who could come to our rescue. he was the only one who responded so he turned in my direction they were doing two knots in that weather and and i was talking to him i can't believe i can't remember his name but there you go i will shortly i'm slightly discombobulated at the moment um but like i'd be talking to him

and he's saying yes my dear he said uh we'll be coming out we're, you know, we're coming towards you, don't you worry. Like, that's what he called me, me dear. You know, don't know what my dear. He was probably a Newfoundlander. We're coming out. He said, but we're jogging only at two. You know, we're doing only two knots, and I'm like, he said, they're, they's all sick.

So he's the only one on the bridge. The whole crew is sick. because they are taking a beating they're taking a frigging beating just to do two knots right I guess the cookie had made a bunch of sandwiches nobody was eating those right

how long would two knots take them to get to you it took him it took him a day and a half took him about 30 hours 35 hours to get to us and the weather started to ease late the next day right this happened on the 30th yeah of october right they call it the halloween storm too yeah yeah they got a bunch of different names bunch of different names for it

but for 24 hours plus yeah he was demon towards us and you guys are out there yep at the mercy Oh yeah At the mercy So my I mean So So shortly after I called The Mayday

I got a call from the office Your bosses Yes sir Sea watch So I worked for an independent contractor Who contracted to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Right They called me

And wanted to know you know how I was and then and that I should be careful about anything that I should say over the airways did you say are you fucking kidding me that's exactly what I said for words because what had happened is that I had talked to

a radio station just before just before they called me a radio station called me. How did a radio... CKBW. Don't ask me. You've never asked them? Yeah, how they got it.

I know the interviewer. His last name is how. Anyway, I know the interviewer. We went to high school together in Germany. Really? Which was really bizarre. But I didn't know that at the time.

Anyway, CKBW calls me and asks me how I'm doing. So I have an interview. You've probably never heard that either of that. very candid i can tell you they're like how old are you and i'm like i'm 35 but i'm hoping to be 36 it's like what a stupid question but they called me and asked me about what was happening and i told them and i also told them that the japanese response uh had been to um downplay the situation in fact the the japanese did not want me to call me day

They wanted me to get a hold of somebody, but they didn't want me to call Mayday because Mayday means money because somebody's got to come in and they may have to pay for it. Isn't that messed up? Oh, they're cheap. Well, I tell you,

I've seen a man go overboard and they searched for three and a half hours and that was the end of that. We went back to fishing. I've rescued a person from the deck of a of a Japanese boat in a helicopter who had severe appendicitis, they would have let them die. I called it in.

I talked to the doctor at Victoria, and I called the rescue. And I coordinated the rescue. So anyway, I said some not quite flattering things about the Japanese response, and I was as candid as I am with you. I'm as candid as I'm always. That's right. And so I got fired in that. So, yeah, I would no longer have a job when I got back to land.

Yeah, I got fired and this is what I said. I said, you're actually telling me that if I survive, that I will no longer be working for Sea Watch. And that's correct. And I said, you guys just made a very... very, very poor decision. And I didn't say anything out. That was it, right? When I got back, when I landed at Pier 22, there was a scrum of television reporters and camera crews and there was a barricade and the whole nine yards, right? And guess who picked me up in a limo? Apparently I got my job back. I could have just, I could have really had a lot of fun.

with that. But anyway, they hired me back again. I still had a job. Imagine that, eh? You know, what happened? The Japanese embassy called the Canadian embassy in Ottawa after they heard the television interview. And they said, this has to stop. The Japanese called the Canadian embassy. The Canadian embassy called the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa. and they called the Department of Fish and Oceans in Halifax, and they called Sea Watch. Said no more. Yeah.

Yep, no more interviews. So, you know, it's bad enough that you're going to lose your life in the, you know, the perfect storm. But you're also going to lose your job if, in fact, you ever do make it back to, you know. You know, I've dwelled on the perfect storm and being right in it. I think everybody gets that it was. something very difficult to talk about and uh what happens after that did like i know you know from the book i get that you have a little bit of a cross country tour talking to some radio stations

because i'm assuming everybody would be um you know in the in the moment it would be a very popular thing to talk about uh 29 years later sean newman comes knocking on your door and opens up, you know, things that probably haven't been talked about in a very long time. And I appreciate you sitting down to be very candid and frank and talk about your life and everything else. It has been very, very enjoyable, to say the least. But that's good. What happens after you come? Because, A, you come back.

You make it through it. In my brain, I go, you know what, I wouldn't be surprised if you were living in Lloydminster with no water to be seen for miles away and just, nah, never doing that again. But here you sit at Port Albany, a stone throw from the water again. You went back and worked on boats again. That's how you met your husband. What was, like, I guess, why did you go back to the water? Why not stay away?

You'd just seen the absolute worst. You'd seen a hundred-year storm. That's not the worst. That's not the worst. No. What's the worst? The worst is the worst is being a refugee

and losing your life on the Mediterranean trying to get to a life. That's the worst. Look at the world. Look what's happening in the world. That's the worst. People with no hope.

Families with no food Syria Iraq Mexicans at the border right that's the worst I mean I didn't know any of that then

so my going back to see was a simple decision that that wouldn't beat me right I mean if I didn't go back to see

then I would have acknowledged that something profound had happened to me and had affected me and broken me. No way. There's just no way. That's just, that was never, that's just not my DNA, right? I mean, it's true. I faced it. You know, when people ask me, what does the, what did the weather look like?

and this is how I describe it to people. You're standing in front of a 10 meter building, or a 10-story building, right? 10-story building and you're looking up. That's the top of your wave, and you're at the bottom. So what do you do? You wait for the boat to come up to the top, and you pray to God that when you come back down again,

that you're going to come back up again. So that's what it's like, right? That's what it's like. But that is nothing compared to what people in this world are experiencing right now. I think about climate change and what's happening to our planet and why people are being driven from their homes and murdered. dying. And how can I feel that, like, that was a pinnacle of anything?

It's just something I survived. You go, right? You put it behind you. You're alive. You're breathing. You still have a job. Who-hoo! Right?

And the ocean is a, you know, is so unpredictable, macerical, fascinating, terrible, fabulous place. It's so everything. I couldn't give that up. I love my job. I just loved my job. And I went back to sea for three years until, actually. I actually was pregnant with my first child when I did a documentary for a land and sea on being a fisheries observer. Have you ever seen that?

Oh, I've got to send it to you. It's actually pretty good. It's not bad. I do the voiceover myself. Yeah, no. You send me all that. I'm going to have to take a trip back here and have round two. I know.

No, no, I think that we are too focused on our self-importance. on our own experiences as being everything. I don't think they're everything. I think they're part of everything. We're just part of everything. We're not everything. That's a conceit. I think it's a lie, actually.

I think it's a lie when we allow ourselves to be so focused primarily on our own well-being, even our family's well-being, that we refuse to acknowledge that we are part of something much bigger. And it doesn't make me feel small at all. It makes me feel connected. It makes me feel like I know I haven't done enough. I feel like I haven't done enough. But it just gives me more incentive to do good in the world, to be good,

to be true, to make a difference. I just, I feel really strongly that I'm going to make a difference. I don't know how yet, right? That's that next chapter thing. It's a weird belief to have. I don't mean weird in the sense of bad or anything. I mean weird, it's a strange feeling to know that you can do more or that you should be doing more or that you can do more.

or that you can do more. Well, you know, we all have to have a purpose, right? And as I said, your purpose changes, your reason for living and being changes. And so I feel that I've launched my family. Now it's time to launch the next part of my life. And what is that going to look like? It has to have meaning.

It can't be just, oh, I'm just going to Europe, I'm going to tool around. I could do that. right? I've earned it. I feel. I've earned it. But that's not going to fill the void. That's not going to fill a hole. Right? That's not going to put me in the light. I want to be in the light. Well, that's where we're going to leave it. I've really enjoyed this. I hope you enjoyed it too. I hope I haven't been too dug too hard on you. but I really do appreciate sitting across from you. That's good.

Thank you. Hey folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you find your podcast fix.

Until next time.