Perfect Storm, The - Preface
First Chapter
View of the Atlantic Ocean as the sun sinks below the horizon. Image online, courtesy NOAA.
I must go down to the seas again,
To the lonely sea and the skyJohn Masefield
Sea Fever
Maybe it's the sight of the sky when the sun sinks low. Maybe it's the thrill of the sea when the sky is black. Maybe it's the call of the swordfish 1500 miles away. Whatever it is, men bound for the Grand Banks fishing grounds have been leaving Gloucester harbor for centuries. Some of them never return.
At sea for thirty days at a time, they have a way of life uniquely theirs. Often they cannot see land at all. When they can, they must be careful. Some of the islands in the North Atlantic are like icebergs: What you see above water is not all there is. Places like Sable Island, off the coast of Newfoundland, have a reputation: "Graveyard of the Atlantic."
The town of Gloucester keeps track of "men who go down to the sea in ships." Six names are on the 1991 list.
This story is about (and dedicated to) those six. It's especially about the ferocious storm that took their lives. The storm Bob Case of the National Weather Service called "The Perfect Storm" (which Sebastian Junger popularized in his terrific book of the same name).
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