Buddy Vanderhoop - Dead in the Water

 

 

Good evening. My name is Captain Buddy Vanderhoop. I'm a Wampanoag Indian from Gay Head, from the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah. I had the occasion growing up talking to my elders who were seafaring men and women. I listened to stories for years and some of the advice that they told me that the ocean is a playground. But you should always respect the ocean, because it can turn on you and harm you and even kill you. So, just respect the ocean, which I have always done and always kept this in the back of my mind.

 

One day. I had a tuna fish charter. My boat was broken down and was being repaired. So, a friend of mine lent me his boat, which was a 32-foot wooden boat. The escort, Charles Ogletree, professor at Harvard and head of the law department, was one of my clients. Dennis Sweet, another highfalutin lawyer from Mississippi, was one of his colleagues and friends was there. [audience chuckles] Charles' father-in-law was there who was 78 years old, and Jen Clark decided to jump on the boat as my first mate that day.So, we put all of our lunches and stuff in the cooler, got all the fishing gear on the boat, headed out of Menemsha Harbor. 

 

As we rounded Gay Head, the wind was about 10 to 20 miles an hour that day, and Charles' father-in-law started getting seasick. But if you've ever been on the boat with Charles Ogletree, it doesn't matter once you leave the dock if you're seasick or not, you're going for the day. [audience chuckles] So, we rounded Gay, headed down for the Dumping Grounds, which is 40 miles south of Gay Head, a place that was made famous by Frank Mundus in his search and quest for great white sharks. And we were in search of yellowfin tuna.

 

So, we get down there. It was a little bumpy going down, but it actually turned out to be quite a nice day. We were having a great day of fishing. It was beautiful, flat, calm day. This was late afternoon. We had 13 fish on the boat. It was 03:30 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon, we saw all the other boats heading north, going home. But we decided we'd be a little greedy, because we were catching so many fish. We stuck around for another round of fish. Charles hooked into the biggest fish of the day, about 04:30, quarter 05:00. It was about 120-pound yellowfin. He was in the chair reeling him in. 

 

All of a sudden, I look back. The fish is 100 feet behind the boat and he's got a 350-pound mako charging in on the tuna fish. I said, "Charles, reel, reel, reel, get that fish in." The mako hit the fish, took his whole belly out. I said, "Get him in. Get him in " So, he finally reeled him in, got him to the boat, I gaffed him, pulled him over the rail, got him on the boat. He only had damage to the underside of him, so most of the fish was still good. And just about the time that fish hit the deck, the motor died. [audience reaction] I said, “Oh no.” Here we are, 45 or 50 miles south of the Vineyard. I went up, turned the key. No clicks, nothing. 

 

The ammeter gauge was over below 9 volts, so I said, “Well, maybe if I give it a half an hour, 45 minutes, the battery will recharge itself or come up a little bit, enough to start the diesel motor.” And so, I cleaned the fish, cut the head of the fish off. There were no guts left, because the mako enjoyed those. [audience chuckles] I decided I'd put the tuna fish head on a hook to see if we could catch the mako that had the rest of my fish. [audience laughter] 15 minutes later, Charles hooks up to a pretty nice shark, about a 400-pound shark got him in, and it was just a blue shark. So, we pulled him in next to the boat. I cut the leader off and then I said, “Well, it's been about a half, 45 minutes. I'm going to try the motor again.” Hit the key. Nothing. 

 

So, the sun's going down. We're in a bleak situation right now. [audience laughter] We're drifting south. We're already 45 or 50 miles south of the Vineyard. I look over to the northwest and the sky's totally black. It was just a nightmare. 10 minutes later, we had a major thunderstorm over us. Lightning all around the boat. The wind's picked up to 25, 30 miles an hour. It's getting dark and then the thunderstorm's over. It's a little bit calm. The seas have built up to four to eight feet. We're dead in the water, in the slosh, sideways. It's just about dusk. You can just barely see the little piece of light where the horizon was, and I saw a boat on the horizon. 

 

Well, I had brought two 2,500-foot parachute flares with me on this trip as part of my emergency kit anyway.  So, I shot one up, and it lit up the whole ocean for a mile around us it seemed. I saw the boat turn toward us, and 20 minutes later the boat is pretty close to us. The two members of the lobster boat came out on deck and they said, "What's the problem?" I said, "Well, we're broken down, the batteries are dead, we have no way to get back to Menemsha. Could you please tow us back to Menemsha?" And the captain says, "Do you have any beer?" [audience laughter] Charles Ogletree said, "Yes, we have a six-pack of Red Stripe beer." As the mate said, "Yeah, man." [audience laughter] 

 

So, they throw a line over, we put the beer in a plastic bag, they pull the beer over, throw a line, we hook it up to the bow cleat. It's four to eight-foot seas. It's blowing 25 or 30 miles an hour. They start hauling us up north toward Martha's Vineyard. Well, the wind is increasing all the time. It's blowing 35 now. Seas are almost 10 feet tall. Waves are crashing over the front of the boat. All of a sudden, the line parts. Well, these guys are up in the pilothouse of their lobster boat drinking Red Stripe. [audience chuckles] They kept on going. [audience laughter] Their steering light's getting smaller and smaller. It's going down in the waves and finally it's totally out of sight. I said, “Oh my God, these guys don't even know that they dropped us.” [audience laughter] 

 

They're drinking beer and having a blast out in the wheelhouse, and here we are back in the slosh in these 10-foot waves now. It's critical. Finally, I see the port in the starboard light coming back to us. Half an hour later, they're beside us again. It's blowing 40 to 45 miles an hour now, and it's really, really getting nasty. I mean, scary nasty. They threw us a line again. They towed us for maybe a mile and the rope parts again. They this time knew that they dropped us, turned around, said, "Well, we can't help you anymore, because the rope's too short. We don't have anything any thicker. So, we're going to call the Coast Guard right now and we'll stand by you until they get here."

 

So, they call the Coast Guard. Here we are, it's blowing 50 miles an hour now. The seas are building 15 to 18 feet. We're sideways in this stuff. The outriggers are slamming into the mast. It's just a horrible scene. Dennis Sweet looks over at the other boat. They have deck lights on. They have lights on in the wheelhouse. He said, "I got to get out of here. I'm going to go to that boat. [audience laughter] I'm swimming." And I said, "Dennis, how are you going to get on the boat when you get over there? And did you forget about the sharks that we just caught about an hour and a half ago, [audience laughter] and all the blood that's been pouring out of the scuppers of this boat since we've been rolling here in the slop?" So, he aborted that idea pretty quickly. [audience laughter]

 

All of a sudden, Charles, his father, has been seasick all day long. He's huddled in the back of the boat. He's got blankets over him. He hasn't moved one inch in five hours. [audience laughter] Charles says, "Buddy, could you go over and nudge my father-in-law and see if he's still alive?" [audience laughter] So, I went over, gave him a little nudge, he grunted. He was in bad shape, because he'd been dehydrated for now going on 12 hours or 13 hours and he was alive. [audience laughter]

 

So, the boat's outside of us, the Coast Guard's on their way. All of a sudden, it's blowing 60 to 70 miles an hour. It's unbelievable. This is an unforecasted storm, and we're in 20-foot seas right now. All of a sudden, these two gigantic rogue waves-- I'm talking waves three and a half stories big, two 30, 35-foot waves. We go up this wave, come back down. The second one hits us so hard, it tips the boat up 90 degrees. The rail goes under the water. It seemed like the whole ocean came on deck at one time. We took on 5,000 to 8,000 gallons of water on that one wave. And I'm getting really nervous now. [audience laughter]

 

Everybody else, I said, "Okay, don't lose your calm. That was really, really bad. I know how bad it was. Everybody put your life jackets on. Here's a flashlight for everybody." I said, "If we get hit by another set of these waves, we're going to roll the boat over. Don't try to go over the sides, keep your wits about you, go over the stern, stay together, put your flashlights on, hang on to the boat." It was mind blowing how bad the seas were that night. The Coast Guard, I saw a boat on the horizon finally. 

 

I had one more of those 2,500-foot parachute flares left. I shot it off, went up, lit the whole ocean up around us. Half an hour later, the Coast Guard's outside of us saying with their little bullhorn, "We're going to pull up alongside of you." I said, "Don't pull up alongside us. We have a wooden boat. We're either going to smash into you and sink or you're going to smash into us and we're going to sink." I think these guys are all from Ohio or Indiana or something. [audience laughter] They'd been to the Coast Guard Academy and they're now doing real-time stuff. [audience laughter] They had forgotten their booklets I think that day. [audience laughter] 

 

They were so seasick they had all their deck lights on. You could see them barfing over both sides of the boat. [audience laughter] They were all so weak. I was out on the front of this 28-foot boat in 25-foot seas, holding on for dear life. I'm like a windshield wiper on the front deck, going back and forth, waiting for them to get a rope over me, so I could hook it up so they could get us under tow, which took over an hour. [audience reaction] I was so pissed off. [audience laughter] I couldn't even start screaming at them, because they wouldn't have done any good anyway. But they finally got a rope to us and we're under tow. We're in 20-foot seas. The waves are just coming totally over our boat, which was pretty scary in itself. We had no bilge pump, we had no electricity whatsoever. We couldn't even communicate with the boat that was towing us. It took 23 hours for them tow us back to Menemsha. [audience reaction] So, all in all, it was a 34-hour tuna fishing trip. [audience laughter] 

 

Finally, we got back. Nobody gave a shit about all the tuna fish we had. [audience laughter] Their loved ones were on the dock. Everybody's getting hugs, and tears, and everything is hunky dory because we were alive. I attribute this to my elders that gave me the advice that, and I'd like to pass this on to everyone in the audience, that you have to respect the ocean. The ocean's a great playground, but you have to respect it because it will kill you. Charles Ogletree still goes fishing with me. [audience laughter] He's my best client. Dennis Sweet, he will fish with me if I have two keys, which means you have two engines, so you can get back one. [audience laughter] Charles Ogletree's stepdad will never step foot on another fishing boat [audience laughter] as long as he will live. And that's my story. Thank you very much.