Description
The term fisherwoman does not exactly roll trippingly off the tongue, and Linda Greenlaw, the worlds only female swordfish boat captain, isnt flattered when people insist on calling her one. I am a woman. I am a fisherman. . . I am not a fisherwoman, fisherlady, or fishergirl. If anything else, I am a thirty-seven-year-old tomboy. Its a word I have never outgrown.
Greenlaw also happens to be one of the most successful fishermen in the Grand Banks commercial fleet, though until the publication of Sebastian Jungers The Perfect Storm, nobody cared. Greenlaws boat, the Hannah Boden, was the sister ship to the doomed Andrea Gail, which disappeared in the mother of all storms in 1991 and became the focus of Jungers book.
The Hungry Ocean, Greenlaws account of a monthlong swordfishing trip over 1,000 nautical miles out to sea, tells the story of what happens when things go right proving, in the process, that every successful voyage is a study in narrowly averted disaster. There is the weather, the constant danger of mechanical failure, the perils of controlling five sleep-, women-, and booze-deprived young fishermen in close quarters, not to mention the threat of a bad fishing run: If we dont catch fish, we dont get paid, period. In short, there is no labor union.
Greenlaws straightforward, uncluttered prose underscores the qualities that make her a good captain, regardless of gender: fairness, physical and mental endurance, obsessive attention to detail. But, ultimately, Greenlaw proves that the love of fishing in all of its grueling, isolating, suspenseful glory is a matter of the heart and blood, not the mind.
I knew that the ocean had stories to tell me, all I needed to do was listen. Svenja Soldovieri
Author: Linda Greenlaw
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 06/07/2000
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.52lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.20w x 0.64d
ISBN: 9780786885411
Language: English
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