True Stories of Crime, Skulduggery, and the Closest I Came to Being Killed
So this past January one of my former shipmates happened to pass by and visit, and we got to reminiscing and recounting stories of the misadventures of our crew, and it got me thinking that one of the most dramatic, filled with sculduggery and scandal, I don't think I've ever put to writing before. While I had livejournal even back then, I was very very busy and a lot didn't make it into writing. And my memory being what it is, even these memories might fade if I don't put them down before it's too late so... only 13 years later, I give you a true story of crime and mischief, plus also the slightly tangental story of the closest I've ever come to being turned into hamburger meat.
this not my ship nor off Coupeville but I feel like it captures the feel of the pleasant summer evenings there
By way of background: for seven months in 2010, April through October, I worked on a traditionally rigged sailing ship (ie looks like a pirate ship) the Hawaiian Chieftain. The ship's mission was education programs for school groups during the week and taking paying passengers on fun sails on the weekends to make ends meat. We were a crew of 12, mostly all exactly 27 years old for some reason. I could probably write a whole book about all the adventures, but I'd have to thoroughly scramble all the identities because most stories make at least one person look really bad.
Anyway, I like to begin this story arc in Coupeville, Whidby Island. It was an idyllic place, a cute seaside town in the Puget Sound at the height of beautiful summer weather (it being late August). The only thing particular of note for this story arc though is that at one point I got on the ship's laptop in the aft cabin to do some work pertaining to my duties (I was education coordinator / steward -- basically everything pertaining to bookings of either passengers or school groups went through me). I needed to find an email I had written from the official yahoo email address and the easeist way to do so was search my name in the email search function since my name was sure to be in the signature line of an email I sent. But when the results came back my name was only mentioned in the body of one email, and then I realized I wasn't in the ship's email but the first mate's own email.
The first mate (whom in a grudging concession to changing names I'll call uh Kevin I guess) had been with the organization for over a decade. He was actually more experienced than the captain and had been captain himself in the past but in a sort of counter-intuitive arrangement he'd been made first mate to support the current captain who was new to being a captain. "Kevin" had actually begun with the organization as an "at risk youth" before becoming a full fledged at risk adult -- notable for constantly trying (and often succeeding, it's fish in the barrel for the captain) to seduce any young women who came aboard as crew -- which I'll note is probably an abuse of his position but I digress.
So anyway in his email he was complaining about all of the ship's officers, saying we were all totally worthless with the sole exception of "James," the purser (ship's accountant). Now "James" was a likeable fella, an immenently likeable fella, in fact, an incredibly likeable fellow. I think he'd maxed out his charisma stat. At one point I believe he had slept with all seven female members of the crew, and on at least one occasion I was aware he had slept with a different girl for four consecutive days. And guys found him very likeable as well. You couldn't help but like the guy. Anyway, so that was that, we'll circle back to this.
At our next port of call "Kevin" got tired of our actual captain cramping his style and got him fired, thus becoming our new captain. This dramaz could of course be an entry all its own.
By and by we found ourselves leaving the Puget Sound in September and also developed a small leak in the bilge trough under the port side propeller shaft (the vessel had two propellers). Repairing this was a very tedious task that could only be addressed while we were in port -- we'd pump out the bilge trough entirely, to the degree that then we'd dry it with rags and blow dryers, to get it literally dry so we could apply some sealant that would only work on a dry surface. Because this involved working right around and under the propeller shaft, at first it was always made sure that both keys that could turn on the engines -- the one in the engine room and then one up at the con -- were out and in the captain's pocket. But as the problem continued into its third week of repair efforts apparently things got sloppy...
We exited teh Puget Sound and sailed down to a long inlet called Grey's Harbor which is named after a person but I cant' remember seeing it looking anything except extremely grey. At the back end of the inlet a river named the Chehalis (which I was told and thereon believed was local native american for "Stink of Death" but current google seems to refute this) enters the bay is the town of Aberdeen/Methlaberdeen/Aberdoom. Aberdeen was known as the "hellhole of the Pacific" by 1900 and hasn't gotten any more cheery since then. Aberdoom was the home town of Kurt Cobain which explains a lot. So in this cheery place I was doing my duty one day trying to dry the bilge trough near where it disappeared into the aft bulkhead of the main hold. There was a big boxy thing on the propeller shaft here, the purpose of which I have never really understood, but it made it uncomfortable and difficult to get to the area under the shaft. I basically had to wrap my body around it working upside down in extremely constrained space.
This being very uncomfortable, presently I extracted myself to stretch. And while so doing, to my absolute horror, the shaft began to spin. First slowly and ponderously for a turn or two but within a second or two of total elapsed time it was whirring around fast enough that the boxy part was a blur. I would have been absolutely ground into hamburger meat if it hadn't been that I was stretching at that moment! I darted up onto deck, probably white as a sheet, to find "Kevin" casually twiddling knobs on the con.
"What are you doing?? I was DOWN THERE and you've turned the propeller on???" I demanded
"What? It shouldn't be spinning the other key isn't it" (or something, I forget the exact reason he thought it shouldn't be spinning)
"Well it IS!! I'm taking a break" I said and rushed myself off the ship. One doesn't generally shout at the captain and I'm not a big fan of shouting at people when what's done is done anyway.
An hour or two later I was working on the ship's computer in the aft cabin when "Kevin" came in, and having forgotten what happened earlier he asked me with a tone accusing me of being skulking my duties asked "weren't you told to clean the bilge?"
I honestly didn't remember why I had aborted that task myself at first, and at first found myself at a loss to explain it, until I remembered and told him "Yes remember you turned the propeller on on me? I'm sorry I really don't feel like going back to that today." -- which again is not how you usually talk to the captain but he seemed to concede I had a point and retreated grumbling.
A few days later, still in Aberdeen, I was in the aft cabin until late at night reading, as I was wont to do. In a lot of ships the aft cabin is the captain's cabin but in our vessel it was a communal room and the ship's computer lived on the desk in the corner there. On this particular evening I was doubtless reading one of the later books of the Master and Commander series, until about 2am. Then in preparation to go to bed I went to the shore head (port-o-potties on shore in this case) -- I ascended to deck and disembarked, walked along the floating dock, up the ramp and onto shore. Coming back probably only five minutes later I remember, I distinctly remember, standing for a moment on shore admiring the ship. The night was dark, some street lamps across the river cast a warm sepiatone glow amid the fog, and moored just before me was this beautiful ship, the aft cabin windows still glowing with the light I hadn't yet turned off.
I quickly turned off teh aft cabin light and went to my bunk in the main cabin. About five hours later I was back in the aft cabin where we would have breakfast every morning. I immediately noticed there was a blank spot on the desk where the laptop should be. That seemed very odd, it had definitely been there five hours earlier. But maybe "Kevin" had taken it into his own cabin earlier that morning to do some work. When he came in I immediately asked him if he had the laptop "what? no?" ...the laptop was never found.
And here's the thing that really creeps me out. Whomever stole the laptop clearly had to wait until I went to bed. When I was standing there at the top of the dock in the dark and mists of night, someone with criminal mischief in the heart was almost certainly watching me from the darkness.
While the crime was never officially solved I feel pretty confident about what happened. Remember "James," the charismatic purser? He'd apparently been told there'd be a routine audit the next day, and he was leaving the ship himself anyway a few days later (maybe it's standard policy to do an audit just before a purser leaves?). In the coming days and weeks after he left a significant amount of money turned up to be missing, especially among the petty cash and tip jar fund ("the widows and orphans fund"). I strongly suspect that he sunk the laptop into the stinking mud of the river bottom to avoid being caught out by an audit. And to circle back to the very beginning, it's always amused me looking back on it all, that "the one good officer" "Kevin" held out for praise was in fact the one officer committing serious crimes against the organization.
Not our dock but one near it that I feel like captures the atmosphere of Aberdoom
(see also: as recently as 2017 I visited the boats again and there was just as much skulduggery as ever)