boyutpedia Chapter 1625 A near miss
Chapter 1625 A near miss
Chapter 1625 A near miss
Ye Yaodong listened to everyone's reports, and learned that most of them had started setting up nets or had already stopped working, which reassured him a lot.
It's best not to operate in this kind of foggy weather. Besides, everyone's fishing boats are not far apart, and each net can be hundreds of meters long. The visibility on the sea surface is too low, and the fog interferes with the signal, making it difficult to detect in time. If they get tangled together, it would mean the loss of two nets.
The loss of fishing nets is small, but the loss of fishing nets being unable to go out to sea for a month or two is much greater.
He thought for a moment and continued, "If I'm not around, you should discuss and resolve any issues yourselves. Safety comes first, everything else comes second. We'd rather not make any money than put safety first."
"receive."
"The fog is intermittent, and the signal is sometimes there and sometimes not. Don't worry too much if you lose contact for a while. Just do your job and the fog will eventually dissipate. Just remember that there are other fishing boats around you, and you don't need to worry too much."
They were all new to the deep sea, and apart from veterans who participated in maritime training, most people would feel uncertain.
The signal was intermittent, and replies were also intermittent.
Ye Yaodong has done his job of comforting them and explained the countermeasures. Now it's up to them to see what happens next.
He can't see anything right now; the detector images are all blurry, and the visibility from the searchlight is limited. He can only slowly move forward, groping his way out of the thick fog, hoping that the fog won't cover too wide an area.
After learning about the dense fog, all the workers on deck had already rushed out and stood on the deck, looking anxiously at the surrounding sea.
Some of them even turned on their flashlights, all quite worried, fearing something might happen, since the sea is inherently risky.
Some of the older passengers had already rushed to the cabin to pray to Mazu, asking for her protection.
The fishing boat sailed for quite a while, but the fog did not thin out; instead, the visibility became even lower, like a thick, water-soaked quilt covering the sea surface. The visibility shrank to the bow of the boat and became completely obscured.
The Dongyu No. 1 was like sailing in boiling milk, relying only on the faint light of radar and GPS to slowly grope its way forward in the boundless whiteness.
The deck was wet, with fine water droplets hanging from the railings and cables, and even the windshield in front of the cockpit was covered with water droplets.
Ye Yaodong had the wipers clear the fog, but the fog remained thick in front of the fishing boat.
He stared at the screen, listening to the intermittent conversations from other fishing boats over the walkie-talkie, his mind tense.
Some fishing boats are now covered by the fog, and some have not yet been hauled in their nets when the fog came in, so they can only hurry up and haul in their nets.
The walkie-talkie was filled with all sorts of chattering sounds.
In this kind of weather, the worst thing is unseen reefs or reckless boats.
The ship's horn is sounding, which can deter reckless fishing boats, but it can't stop them from hitting the reefs, since the radar signal is very weak now and can't detect anything.
Suddenly, a worker who had been standing on the deck exclaimed in surprise, pointing to the hazy white expanse outside the ship's side: "Look! There's quite a commotion underwater!"
Everyone crowded to the window, trying to make out what was happening. Although the thick fog obscured the distance, the seawater close to the ship's side was unusually active.
It was no longer the usual deep blue or dark green, but rather a strange, murky color with a silvery sheen.
Countless tiny bubbles rose continuously from the depths, bursting on the surface of the water with a dense "pop" sound, like a pot boiling.
"Wow, there's something down there!" the experienced fisherman exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "That's quite a commotion; it's probably a big school of fish!"
Before the words were even finished, an unexpected event occurred. With a sharp "smack," a gleaming silver figure shot out of the churning water without warning, tracing a short arc before landing solidly on the wet foredeck with a "thud!"
It's a half-meter-long Spanish mackerel!
It futilely twisted its shimmering silver body on the deck, its gill covers opening and closing rapidly.
The workers on deck had their eyes light up.
"Spanish mackerel?"
"Ha! The fish jumped up by itself?"
"This is possible?"
Everyone exclaimed in surprise and delight.
This seems like a signal.
Then, "Slap! Slap! Slap!"
One after another, several more fish of varying sizes—including mackerel and trevally with shimmering blue-green scales—leaped out of the churning water like runaway cannonballs, scrambling to jump onto the boat.
Some fish crashed onto the deck, some hit the ship's side and bounced back into the sea, and some, less fortunate, fell directly into the empty fish baskets piled in the corner.
The tense atmosphere on the deck vanished instantly, replaced by laughter and exclamations.
Ye Yaodong and his men also noticed the commotion on the deck, and he asked the captain to go out and take a look.
The captain returned shortly after leaving, with a relaxed smile on his face, unlike just moments before when he had been frowning and looking serious.
“There were fish jumping onto the boat, and they were all big fish. They are picking them up from below. There are mackerel and tuna. I think there are quite a lot of them.”
"That's good, so that everyone can't help but just stand there anxiously. But we have to tell them to watch their step, it's slippery."
"They were instructed to be careful when picking up the fish, so that they wouldn't get slapped in the face by the fish."
Ye Yaodong looked out at the white world through the blurry porthole, then at the occasional flashes of silver light on the deck and the crew members bending down to pick up fish, and shook his head.
"This awful weather must be making the fish feel stifled; they're probably trying to come out for some fresh air."
Although the dense fog over the sea was annoying and added to the sense of danger, the unexpected arrival of fish from the sky actually made everyone feel much more relaxed, as if they had been given a shot of adrenaline, sweeping away the previous gloom.
Laughter and shouts occasionally drowned out the foghorn's call.
However, it only lasted for about half an hour before stopping. Ye Yaodong guessed that the fish below had moved on and the sea had returned to calm.
The captain was also a little puzzled. Why had everything suddenly stopped moving? He said, "No fish left to collect? I'll go check. I'll watch this place for you."
"Ah."
Sure enough, the surging silver light and the dense "pop" sounds outside the ship's side had subsided, and the sea surface had returned to the thick, viscous calm that comes with being shrouded in fog.
"I took a look and picked up two baskets. The animals were quite large, with each basket weighing around 200 jin (100 catties). Each animal weighed over 10 jin (5 kg)."
"Only 200 jin? I thought it was a lot more."
"It's just that there are more of them and they make more noise. There are more of them than fish, so it's good if they can even pick some up. It's only because the fishing boats are full of cargo and have a deep draft that the fish jumping up would be blocked and go back into the sea."
"After they've collected the fish, let them go back to the cabin. They can't help much just by standing on the deck. I'll let you know if anything happens."
"They've already taken a few fish they just picked up to the cafeteria, saying they'll cook them for a late-night snack. Anyway, they have nothing to do right now, so they can only watch helplessly."
Ye Yaodong nodded, "That's fine too. We don't know when the fog will clear up, and we need to stay alert at night. We'll each get a bowl of the midnight snack we've cooked."
"it is good."
Time seemed to stretch out in the thick fog.
Ye Yaodong stared at the radar screen, glancing occasionally at the red dot on the GPS location as it moved slowly; sometimes it would disappear due to poor signal.
He lit a cigarette to perk himself up, and the smoke curled upwards in the enclosed cockpit.
"This ghostly fog just won't stop."
He mumbled, his voice hoarse with a hint of weariness.
The captain replied, "Yes, I don't know when the fog will clear or when we'll emerge from this foggy sea area. Several hours have passed, how many nautical miles have we sailed?"
"How many nautical miles? Not even ten nautical miles, that's about the speed of a tortoise."
"I wonder if the other ships are covered by the thick fog now."
Ye Yaodong had VHF radio and walkie-talkie on. At first, you could hear some noise and intermittent voices, and you could make do with it and guess what was going on.
After that, it stopped working, and all that was left was the crackling sound of the signal being interfered with.
He complained about the noise, but he just turned the volume down a bit, so that if the signal improved sometime, he could call out to someone if anything happened.
Three hours have passed, and it's almost midnight. He felt the signal was a little better, so he picked up the walkie-talkie.
"Attention all ships, if you hear this, please respond and report the current situation."
"Ship No. 1...dense fog...slowing down..."
"Number 2... same... heavy fog..."
The sound coming through the microphone was muffled by the boundless fog, but at least some intermittent sounds could still be heard, which reassured him somewhat.
After finishing his late-night snack, he couldn't help feeling sleepy again. When he realized it was almost 2 a.m., he had to drink another cup of strong tea to keep going.
I don't know how much time passed; it could have been an hour or two.
The captain, who had been staring at the thick, impenetrable "white wall" in front of him, suddenly rubbed his eyes and blinked hard.
"Dongzi, why do I feel like it's almost dawn?"
Ye Yaodong's body trembled, and he instantly became alert, staring wide-eyed ahead.
Is it getting light?
really!
It was no longer that lifeless, opaque milky white.
The black fog ahead seemed to have thinned out a bit, revealing a... hazy, grayish light.
"It's good that it's dawn. The sun is rising and the fog is dissipating. Moving around so slowly all night, I was on edge the whole time. I'm exhausted."
The captain was also very happy, "After a long night, we're almost through it, that's great!"
"As soon as it gets light, we'll speed up our journey; we've already wasted a whole night."
"Okay, when you hand over the work later, tell Lao Wu and Xiao Xu what to do."
Ye Yaodong stretched out a big yawn, and as he watched the sky outside getting brighter, he felt relaxed and couldn't sit still any longer.
"I'll watch over this place for you, I'm going out to take a look."
"Ok."
As soon as he stood up, he felt his lower back was aching, and he could only walk out by twisting and turning, supporting his waist with his hands.
As dawn broke, the thick fog ahead no longer obscured the sun; instead, some blurry, flowing shapes became visible.
He then shouted into the cockpit, "Keep an eye on the signal source. If you can clearly contact a few ships, let me know."
"receive."
The ship continued its journey.
As the red glow on the horizon appeared and disappeared, the hazy fog gradually thinned out.
Suddenly, the fishing boat seemed to emerge from the fog, revealing a vast expanse of sea and sky.
The sky was misty, with an orange ribbon hanging on the horizon, surrounded by green mountains and azure sea.
Behind them, the thick white fog that had haunted them all night was still there, not dissipating, but slowly receding, the cotton wall getting farther and farther away from them, clearly defined, stretching across the horizon, churning and surging.
He immediately returned to the cockpit. "Have you made contact with the other fishing boats?"
"Our signal is back to normal, but the other fishing boats are having intermittent signals, so we may have to wait a while to get in touch with them."
"Let's take it slow then. The sun will rise soon, and once it shines, the fog will disappear."
"When the fishing boat ahead was reporting, it seemed like there was some kind of situation, but I couldn't hear it clearly."
Ye Yaodong frowned. "What's going on?"
He asked a question and tried to contact them again, but there was still only background noise on the other end.
"Forget it, let's speed up our return trip first. We can still make contact using VHF later."
"Okay, we've finally made it through the fog. I was worried sick all night."
"You should rest. Also, call someone to take turns. I need to get some sleep too. I'm not young anymore, I can't stay up all night."
"Hehe, I'll go have some breakfast first, then call someone and bring you another serving."
"Okay, take those two bowls of yesterday's midnight snack with you."
Early in the morning, seagulls appeared out of nowhere, circling and calling out around the mast, before flying to the stern for a "buffet."
Looking at the clear sky, Ye Yaodong felt better.
After a quick breakfast, I handed over the remaining tasks of the voyage to the first and second officers and went back to my cabin to sleep.
He woke up in the afternoon.
He only found out when he got up that his elder brother's boat had collided with his No. 3 boat when the fog rolled in during the night.
However, neither boat was moving fast. When they collided, the fishing boat rocked violently, and the workers standing on the deck fell to their deaths, but they were not seriously injured, at most suffering minor scrapes.
The fishing boat only suffered dents where the bow and the side of the boat collided; there was no serious damage.
This is a stroke of good luck amidst misfortune; the fishing boat only suffered minor scratches on its exterior and its usability is not affected.
Ye Yaodong frowned. "Aren't there ship horns at sea? How did we run into each other? Both sides should be on alert when they hear the horn."
"They said they were not far from each other, in the same sea area, and when the fog rolled in, they turned on their horns. At that time, you could hear several horns around them."
"Then it's impossible to guard against when they suddenly get close. You think they're still far away, but by the time you see the outline of a fishing boat, it's too late to dodge."
"Fortunately, the losses were not significant and no one was seriously injured, which is a relief. However, your older brother seems to be worried and hesitant about whether to come back first."
Ye Yaodong also felt that his older brother seemed to be having some bad luck.
He said, "Go back? It won't affect the trawling net. Let's make money first, otherwise we'll have suffered for nothing. We've already come all this way, we have to make up for the losses. If we're scared, how will we survive in the deep sea in the future?"
"This is just a simple foggy day; we haven't encountered any other worse special circumstances or worse weather yet."
"If you're going to back down now, you might as well sell the boat as soon as possible and just stay in the coastal waters."
"With so many fishing boats surrounding us and looking out for each other, we are already quite safe."
"Let me contact him and see if he's returned yet, right?"
The captain said, "No, that's what I told him too. The fog has cleared up now. Why go back instead of setting up the nets and making money?"
"Yes."
"He said he was just upset about the damage to the new boat and was worried that something might be wrong, so he wanted to sail back and check it first. We told him to check it himself first. If there were no problems inside, then it wouldn't matter if it was just dented on the outside. We could just repair it when we had a return trip."
"Yes, he was indeed unlucky on this trip."
After Ye Yaodong finished speaking, he pressed the VHF button, "Dongyu No. 1 calling Ye Yaopeng, please respond if you hear me."
"I heard you, Dongzi."
"I just woke up and heard about it. How's the fishing boat? Is it badly damaged? Are you still able to trawle normally?"
"Yes, I was just too panicked. I'm fine now. I've already done one net this morning, and I can get the net up again in two hours."
"Be careful. It's just the exterior of the boat, nothing serious. We can fix it when we get back. How was today's haul?"
Ye Yaopeng chuckled, "It's more than just okay, it's absolutely overflowing! Every shipment is packed with goods, there's just too much to handle. It looks like we'll need to hire two or three more people when we get back."
"Okay, let's talk about it when we get back. It's good that everything's alright."
"It's okay, it's okay, I'm fine."
The fact that he can still laugh means that nothing really happened.
After checking on his brother, Ye Yaodong asked how many nautical miles he had traveled during the half-day he had been sleeping, and how long it would take to arrive.
Last night was a waste of time; we didn't drive very far at all, but thankfully it was a close call.
They arrived safely at the dock at four or five in the morning two days later, and along the way they also contacted a cargo ship that was going out to collect seafood.
The dense fog of the past two days wasn't just at sea, but also in the nearshore areas, though it disappeared from the coast to the shore.
The sudden dense fog caused significant losses to fishing boats in the nearshore area. Many boats were involved in collisions, ran aground, or had their nets entangled while operating at night, resulting in heavy losses.
So much so that when he returned, people on the shore were still discussing that the shipyard had been extremely busy these past few days, unable to repair ships and having to wait in line, which would probably take a month or two to complete.
The time they arrived was inconvenient for unloading; his father had probably just finished delivering the goods a few hours earlier.
Putting aside whether they've had enough rest, the previous batch of goods has just been delivered, and if they were to deliver again, it would have to wait until at least the afternoon or evening, when their workers are probably all resting.
After the fishing boats docked, he only kept the workers in the hold who were processing fishmeal on a rotating basis. He told the others to go back and rest, and to come back at noon to unload the cargo after they woke up.
These days, fishmeal is being processed 24 hours a day without interruption, and the ship has already accumulated more than 20 tons.
Adding to the cargo brought back from the last trip, the total is about forty or fifty tons. Once we finish dealing with the cargo on the ship, we can start looking for buyers to sell it.
Ye's father got up around eight or nine o'clock, only to hear from the gatekeeper that Ye Yaodong had returned early in the morning.
He didn't bother them, but instead took the workers and his grandson to the dock to unload the cargo, already acting as a qualified servant.
By the time Ye Yaodong woke up, most of the cargo on the ship had already been unloaded.
As soon as Ye's father saw him, he immediately asked, "How's your eldest and second eldest brothers' fishing trip at sea? Did the heavy fog a few nights ago affect your area?"
"The losses in the nearshore area are huge. The fishing nets of Zhou Da and his brothers' boat got tangled with other people's nets. There was nothing they could do but cut them off, and the cargo and nets sank to the bottom of the sea together."
"The same thing happened on other ships. The two sides argued all night and almost came to blows at sea. Luckily, we had more people, and the other side slunk away."
He had just woken up or had just heard about it.
"His boat is a few years old, so he should have spare fishing nets, right?"
"Yes, it's heartbreaking. All the online sales have vanished in an instant, like they've sunk to the bottom of the sea."
Why do we always hear about sea turtles getting tangled in abandoned fishing nets at sea? It's not that fishermen intentionally throw the nets into the sea; it's all an accident.
"Losing a little money to ensure safety is not a big deal. We also encountered heavy fog at sea, and my brother's boat collided with one of my boats, number 3..."
Ye Yaodong gave his father a brief explanation.
"Your older brother's luck is a bit bad, isn't it? So many happy events in the first month of the lunar year, but none of them have brought him any luck. I was hoping they could bring him some good fortune."
"Who can predict the weather? Maybe we were just lucky, which is why it was just a simple collision without any other damage."
"You're the one who thinks more."
"Thinking about it from a different perspective can comfort you."
After finishing his sentence, Ye Yaodong changed the subject and asked, "Have you removed my fish powder?"
"It's already unloaded. The goods that are to be transported to our own factory have been unloaded and sent there first. The remaining fish are being inventoried and sent to other processing plants. You have a lot of fishmeal, which fills up the entire warehouse in the factory. It needs to be sold as well; it's taking up too much space."
"I know, the reason I'm asking this is because I want to unload the fishmeal and sell it as soon as possible."
There's no need to look for anyone else; just contact the marine fisheries company that bought his tuna. They still have Jiang Dacheng's contact information.
"Dad, I'm handing over the unloading here to you. I'll go back and make some contact. It's already afternoon, so I need to confirm things today and sell the goods tomorrow."
That way he can make it to sea tomorrow night; otherwise, he'll have to wait until the day after tomorrow.
There were too many fishing boats at sea, so he didn't dare linger on shore for long, fearing that if he stayed a day or two longer, there would be even more cargo, and he wouldn't be able to transport it all in time.
Now we have to race against time. Being able to get ashore and get a good night's rest is already a blessing. Other fishing boats at sea don't even get this treatment.
After contacting them, he still had to wait for them to come and inspect the goods before he could discuss the price.
Fortunately, practice makes perfect. I had dealt with Jiang Dacheng before and had asked him about fish powder.
It's only natural for him to bring it up again now, but he can't come right away; he has to wait until the next day.
He could only wait patiently. He would send the fish meal for testing first, and then he could get the test report the next day. He was in such a hurry when he came back last time that he didn't have time to send it for testing and he forgot. So now he could only do it now.