Shark fishing

This is my post for #freewriters 3 part prompt weekend hosted by @mariannewest

Prompt 1.... Touch my heart with courage, then sound the alarm...
I am so happy that our days of waking at 2:30 am are long gone, I look back on the hours we put in to have the money to raise our family and pay the bills. Hours before daylight we would be in the ocean, my husband driving the boat and me baiting hooks for 3 miles of longline.

We would put the line over then troll for kingfish and then pick the 3 miles of longline back up. This day started just like normal but by mid-day, it started blowing, it was the roughest we had ever been in and we are 10 miles offshore, it was blowing 40 knots straight out of the west. I touched my heart with courage, then sounded the alarm. I told my husband that he had to help me drag some of the sharks to the other side or the next time we roll we might just keep rolling.

Usually, I drove and my husband picked the line up, but because it was blowing so bad, he drove and I picked the line up. We caught sharks on the longline and I had so many piled up on one side of the boat that when it listed it would hesitate before going back straight.

prompt 2..... Beep, beep, beep, beep," coming from everywhere...

We got the sharks pulled around to keep the boat from listing. The wind was not letting up, the swells were huge. I was getting worn down but knew I had to keep going. We have never left gear in the ocean and we were not doing it now.

Beep, beep, beep beep, coming from everywhere. I yelled, "what is that?" It is the high water alarm the bilge pumps are either clogged or not keeping up, said my husband, we need to cut the line and put a buoy on it so I can fix it. I knew things were bad for him to do this, so I tied a buoy and cut the line.

I bailed water out of the boat while my husband worked on the pumps. He got them unclogged and working again. We started picking up the rest of the line.

Prompt 3... blood on the window....

I gaffed a shark to help me get it in the boat and the end came off of the gaffe sending the handle into my bottom lip which my teeth went through. There was blood on the window, blood running down my neck soaking my shirt. Now It is rough as hell I am tired beyond tired and hurt. But I kept going until the last hook was brought aboard.

Now it was time to start the long slow journey back to the dock. I was looking forward to getting back in the river. As it turned out the weather was just as nasty in there as it was offshore. We took waves over the bow all the way to the fish house.