That explained why the VMS tracking equipment was turned off, observed Miguel-Angel, and also the limited clearance procedures that had been made with the harbourmaster at Puerto Banderas. A quick tour of inspection under cover of fetching a mug of coffee and a breakfast burrito for Carlos further revealed that the crew — as desperate as their capitan — had laid aside the long lines with which they could legally catch tuna and had instead brought up the last of the utterly illegal drift nets which they had hidden in a false bottom below the main freezer — and which now looked like their only chance of survival. They had found the nets floating at the end of last season while the boat that had deployed them was taken north to US waters by the coastguards and fisheries inspection officers, under close arrest. Drift nets made of the new polymers that had no smell or sonar signal, utterly invisible to every creature in the ocean. Drift nets so strong and yet so tightly woven that every marine life form from the greatest whales to the smallest tuna would get trapped within them.
Throughout the day, Pilar pushed north at her maximum speed of twelve knots — just under fifteen miles per hour. But that speed was on top of the north-running counter-current that ran up the coast inside the more powerful California current that was carrying Katapult8 and Maxima southward out in the deep Pacific. Twenty miles per hour might have flattered the old girl, but that was her effective speed all day. Or it was until she found herself vanishing into a blood-red sunset with a black wall of cloud along the far northern horizon fourteen hours — and nearly three hundred miles — out. Capitan Carlos gave the order to ready the nets and attach them to the big winch over the stern.
‘We will fish all night,’ he ordered, ‘as we run on north into the closed area off San Quintin. It will take many more hours to reach the San Quintin light, but when we do we will check the nets, begin to fill the freezers and ease out into the California current which will bring us home again — still with the nets out — and, through the grace of God, with the freezers full at last.’
As the night closed in and the wall of cloud in the north obscured more and more of the stars, Pilar sailed more slowly northward towards the restricted area south and west of San Quintin. Miguel-Angel went with the crew on to the aft deck to see how they jury-rigged the main winch there to ease out — and pull back — the long net. ‘It will be hard to bring that back aboard if you net a big haul,’ he observed. ‘Pilar is not designed for this sort of work.’
‘She is not,’ agreed the busy crewmen. ‘But we will find a way.’
‘Keeping control of the net will be a difficult task on its own,’ said the boy. ‘We will know where the near end is because it will be attached to the winch. But what about the far end? I could curl round on a rogue current and foul our propellers and we would never know until it was too late.’
‘The capitan has thought of that,’ said Hernan, one of the crewmen and ship’s cook. ‘Look. Here at the far end of the net, on the first float we will put into the water, we have secured a beacon. It will give a signal both by light and radio, telling us its location and the location of the end of the net.’
‘That is very clever,’ said the boy. ‘But still, if the catch is a large one you will have great difficulty in getting the net back in.’
‘We will bring it in a fish at a time if we have to,’ Hernan answered. ‘But things are not that bad. A section of the transom opens.’
No sooner had he said this than two of the crew did indeed unclip a section of the low transom. As they did so, the northern darkness flickered and the thick, hot wind brought a whisper of distant thunder. But the sound was almost immediately drowned in the wheezing rattle of the winch as the net went over the stern, feeding out through the open section with the beacon lashed tightly to its end.
The net was the better part of a kilometre in length, though it was only a part of the original. It was ten metres deep with its top attached to floats and its bottom tied to weights. It was designed to hang like an invisible wall across the upper reaches of the ocean where the great shoals of tuna ran, between the stern of Pilar and the little beacon flashing at the far end. As they eased it out, the crew debated whether it would be better to hang it parallel to the distant coast, along the north-flowing current in the hope of catching the tuna as they headed into the shallows to feed. Or whether it might be better to move Pilar out to the deeper water on the outer edge where the north-flowing current met its south-flowing parent, and hang the net from side to side across the northward current to catch the fish running up towards the US or down towards Puerto Banderas.
Miguel-Angel took this debate up to the wheelhouse and asked the capitan what he proposed to do. ‘I will hang it along the current to begin with, at least,’ decided Carlos. ‘I trust my instincts more than the fish-finder, which has never worked properly. And my instinct suggests that fish run towards their feeding grounds in the turbulent waters beneath the surf at the shore, then out into the depths to rest and play. It is not something I would normally discuss with the crew, but they would understand the logic in that. However, the decision is made simple for me in any case, Miguel-Angel, because of what I must do to keep control of the net. Pilar is not a proper trawler — as you have no doubt seen as the net went out through the transom. Even with the little beacon telling me where the far end of the net is — you see it flashing on the radar there? — in order to keep control of such a great length, which will act like a sea anchor, I must run fast enough to keep it streaming tightly out astern, a little like a kite in a strong wind. I can only do this if I run faster than the current. So we will ease out to sea a little until the California current is running southwards against us like a strong wind helping to keep my kite aloft, then we will sail north, and maintain the fastest speed the drag of the net will allow.’
‘But then we may miss the fish that are running with the current.’
‘True. Then let us pray that most of the fish in these waters are running across the current tonight. Now, I am hungry. Go below. When the men have finished putting the net out they will prepare food. Hernan has brought gorditas. Bring me two. One stuffed with egg and the other with fish. And coffee, though I will have to relieve myself soon if I drink too much. Then I will let you take the helm while I eat and work the stiffness from my bones.’
Miguel-Angel took the helm for the first hour of night while the old man ate his gorditas, drank his coffee and exercised in a series of squats and stretches. The wheelhouse became a place of low light and massive shadows, especially after Carlos decided that switching on the running lights would only invite trouble. Just as the disconnected VMS kept them invisible to the GPS tracking systems designed to alert the fisheries protection officers to the very thing they were in fact doing, remaining invisible to everything except the chance of radar or sonar contact seemed the best idea under the current circumstances, especially as someone official might yet pick up the signal from the little beacon behind them and grow suspicious enough to come looking.
Then Miguel-Angel went below and consumed his own gorditas — hungrily, for he was young, growing still, and had eaten little so far today. And in truth, Hernan made exceptionally good gorditas. Especially when he filled them with hard-boiled egg mashed through with finely chopped red jalapenos and served them with a salad of cilantro, spring onions and green peppers. The crew teased the boy over the matter of coffee when he requested a mug-full, asking whether he was old enough to drink such a powerful brew. But he did not mind. The teasing was good-natured, and was a sign that the crew were beginning to relax. Now, he thought sleepily, if he could get the capitan to relax as well …