Dead Reckoning
Navigating a Life on the Last Frontier, Courting Tragedy on Its High Seas
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
An action-packed story of adventure and survival in one of the planet’s most treacherous places.
This is the true story of a journey to a seaside town and the always unpredictable torrent of dark escapades that accompany a life at sea. It’s a story of a world peopled by those who often live on the frayed edges of society, who shun the world in which most people thrive. It’s a story in which college students and “fish hippies” work in canneries alongside survivalists, rednecks, religious freaks, and deckhands with damning secrets in dangerous waters, driven by the need to feed an insatiable appetite for adventure.
This is the heart of the world Atcheson found himself in at the age of eighteen. Having never even seen the ocean, he took his first job on the frigate Lancer with Darwin Wood, a man so confounding, so complex, and so frightening that it’s hard to believe Atcheson walked away from that job unscathed. Forced to buddy up with a murderer in order to cope, Atcheson began to question his deeply ingrained ideas of success and status. The resulting conflict would finally resolve itself fifteen years later, in the least likely of places: on the Bering Sea, aboard a boat in peril, during a night of terror that would reshape the lives of everyone involved.
Reminiscent of The Perfect Storm and Into the Wild, Dead Reckoning is not only an intimate look at life at sea but also an insider’s view into one of Alaska’s small communities and the myriad of upstarts, dropouts, and rogues that color its landscape.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In recounting his own story of life on the Alaskan waterfront, Atcheson (Hidden Alaska: Bristol Bay and Beyond) offers readers both a deep-sea adventure story and a fishing industry reality check. With short chapters that invite page turning, he narrates his adventures, alternating between his first time as a crewmember and a later experience that nearly ended in tragedy. Atcheson shares his background and what drew him to Alaska before discussing the ins and outs of seining. Ignoring intuition, he accepted a last-minute position on a ship with a captain who turned out to have a fiery temper. He reviews the hazards of fishing, what crewmembers do for entertainment, and what he learned in one short fishing season. After spending several years in work for the National Park Service, a retreat during which he focused on healthy living, he returned to the excitement of the fishing life. Once again, he finds much to complain about in his coworkers. The near-tragic culmination of a storm while on the Iliamna Bay in 1997 is narrated in short, in-the-moment thoughts. Atcheson concludes with thoughts regarding his new lease on life, revisiting old friends and acquaintances, with some surprising results. Recommended for those with an interest in the fishing industry or a love of the sea.