From THE COMPASS ROSE

The traps were full of waving, crackling claws, scrambling legs, and stony, agate eyes sticking from rose-colored shells. Luke and Levin dove into the sorting box, hunched over the work, pitching crabs into the holding tank at midships.

The wind blew thirty-five by noon, and Burke worked in a fury of speed, fumbling crabs, pushing Levin to prepare bait faster. Luke shared in the sense of urgency and worked as fast as he could. Jason was tense in the cabin as he raced the boat from one crab buoy to the next. He talked back and forth with Rich, scanning to his left toward the horizon, his laughter edgy. Burke leaned his hand against the davit and his head against his forearm, watching the rope boil from the water. Oil leaked from the hydraulic lines feeding the block, mixed with the spray and showered Burke’s and Luke’s faces. Burke spit again and again to keep the oil out of his mouth. Their eyes stung so that they had to close them by turns, staring owlishly with one eye, faces turned from the full blast.

It was one of those days when you really earn your money, Burke thought. He was already drained from the fear-laced bar crossing and was a weary, mummified working shell as his hands moved.

The weather pressed down from above in an oppression and leaned from the south. The wind and swell clashed and created tall, pyramid-shaped waves that slammed the boat. Burke ran the block wide open, one arm sheltering face from the oily spray that streaked from the wheel. This was the fastest block in port, faster even than Rich’s and he was glad for it. Luke helped him tackle the traps and land them. His thin body strained to keep them on the boat until it was time to release them again. Burke kept looking to the horizon, haunting the swells with calculations about their height, wondering if they were building beyond the point where the Dawntreader could cross the bar and get home.

But Rich was out there, farther from shore and deeper into the swell than they were. Out past Rich, westward into the greyness of the day, a hurricane was coming. In seventy fathoms, the swells were already running like buffalo. If the wind came up to a hundred knots earlier than the forecast had said it would, and the swell closed out the bars, the Angela was beyond human reach. There was no way to get a rescue boat to them. Rich would just have to turn the boat into the storm, hold on and hope the Angela held together, that there were no leaks and that the engine didn’t lose power.