Sharkbait Ch. 36-40

"Fuck you," he said. I kept the pressure on, and five seconds later, he was limp.

I let him go and stood up, looking around the crew's mess to the shocked faces. "When he wakes, tell him if he ever touches a woman like that without permission, I'll break both his arms." Walking out the door, I slammed it shut and walked up the stairs to the main deck.

I couldn't face anyone, not just yet. I went to the rails and looked over the water instead, the quarter moon just rising to the east over the rolling swell. Tears came to my eyes as I thought back at what just happened. Today had been SO good until now. I felt like I was part of the team, doing what I loved. Was it all just politeness? Did the others resent me for being here like Brian did? Was I just kidding myself, thinking I was more than a pin-up girl?

I heard the bulkhead door open behind me, light spilling out and then going away again as it closed. It was Sally; I could scent her before her hand rubbed my back as she moved next to the rail. "Are you all right?"

I looked at her, and the tears down my face told the story. "This is all I ever dreamed of doing," I said.

She pulled me into a hug. "The rest of us don't feel that way," she said. "You work hard, you listen, and you don't complain about anything. You have nothing to worry about, Vicki. You belong out here, and you're doing the job you got hired for."

"You're not jealous of me?"

"I wish I had your body, but I can see you've worked hard to get it. I wish I had your drive and energy. I'm twenty-seven, and I haven't accomplished a fraction of what you've done in eighteen years." She let me go, and we went back to looking over the water. "I love it out here. I wish I didn't have to deal with people like Brian, but they are still out there. You handled him well."

I shook my head. "I'll have to deal with him for thirteen more days, and he hates me now."

"I don't think he will be a problem," she said. "What he did was not just inappropriate harassment, it was sexual assault."

I shook my head. "I'm not filing a complaint. I took care of it."

"You don't have to. Theresa and Dale are talking to the Captain and Doctor Holliday right now." I looked at her in shock. "It was unacceptable behavior, and the team is not going to stand for it. It wasn't his first time, but this time there were witnesses and proof."

I suddenly realized what she meant; the Discovery crew had cameras in the crew's mess recording all the time, so they had the whole thing on video. "This time?"

"Yeah. Theresa and I have dealt with low-level shit from him for years; 'accidental' contacts and lewd comments when we are alone. Going after you the way he did will end him. The University has strict policies on this, and he's going to get what he deserves. Finally."

"I've got to talk to Erik. I don't want that video to get out."

She started laughing. "Are you kidding? That scene is going to be ratings GOLD. You stood up to the bully, Vicki. You proved you were more than your tits, and you kicked his ass when he tried to take advantage of you. And I'm going to have a watch party and eat popcorn while I watch him get choked out by Shark Barbie."

"Sharkbabe is a nickname I don't like, but I've gotten used to it. Shark Barbie makes me sound like a ditzy blonde," I said.

"More like Shark Barbarella," she giggled. I looked at her, not understanding the reference. "You'll have to look it up." She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and dried my face. "You have a job to do, Vicki. Go up to the bridge, find your producer, and do it. I'll see you at breakfast, kid."

"Thank you." I walked to the outside stairs leading to the bridge, wondering what kind of reception I would get. All conversation stopped as I entered the room, and four sets of eyes were looking at me.

"Vicki, are you all right," Captain Merrill asked.

"I'm fine," I said. "Angry, but physically, I'm fine."

"I'd still like to have Doctor Goodwin check you over when she's finished treating Brian. Adrenaline can mask injuries, and I need her findings for the report."

"I'm filing a complaint with the University over the sexual harassment and assault I witnessed," Theresa said. "If you want to file criminal charges, we'll be witnesses for you there, too."

I looked back at the Captain. "What happens to Brian now?"

"He's confined to quarters while I collect statements. I've already called back to Woods Hole; they will send a launch out tomorrow with a replacement crew member. I'll need your statement as well, tonight, if possible."

"What about the fight? Am I in trouble for that?" I'd read the policies, and fighting was grounds for removal from the expedition.

"You reacted to a physical assault and ended it. Rather effectively, I hear," the Captain said. "I've not heard anything that would warrant punishment for you, although I still have to complete the investigation."

Erik looked at me. "We have no issue with your actions. My men were happy you defended yourself before they had to intervene. It's always better when the victim gives a bully his due."

I shook my head. "Any chance of keeping this out of the documentary?"

Erik laughed. "Sorry, but no. This footage is better than the sharks today."

"Wonderful."

"You're shaking," Captain Merill said. "It's the adrenaline dump wearing off. You should go sit for a while," he said as he walked me towards the port door. "Go make your statement, either handwritten or emailed. Erik's team will be back up here when you finish."

"We'll take her," Theresa said.

I let them guide me back to my cabin, and Theresa sat with me as I called my Mom and told her what happened. She was upset the incident occurred but satisfied with how the Captain was handling it. I opened my laptop and typed out an email with my statement; I sent copies to the Captain, Doctor Holliday, Mercedes, and my parents.

The taping tonight was all stuff that might be used in the show to set up the next day's activities. The film crew ran cameras as we looked at charts and tracking data to pick out the likely locations of other Great White Sharks. I asked a lot of questions, some simple and some more technical. As the host of the show, I represented the viewers, and Doc and the Captain were the experts.

When I finished and went back to the Crew's Mess, everyone who hadn't been on the bridge was waiting for me except Brian. I froze, wondering what was going on.

Leonard was the first to speak. "On behalf of the crew, we want you to know we support you and we want you here," he said.

"The same for us," Chip said. "What Brian said was mean, and it was wrong. We want you here because the expedition is better with you as part of it."

"Hell, we love filming you, Vicki," the lead cameraman said. "You make us look good."

"Thank you," I told them all. "I need to sleep, though. It's going to be a long day tomorrow." I got hugs and handshakes from everyone as I moved through. I fell into bed exhausted, but sleep didn't come easily. Brian's comments stung, and I was going to work twice as hard to show everyone how wrong he was.

Ch. 38

The next morning, everything was back to normal except Brian wasn't around. Doc had us deploying the baited barrels in deep water off the southern tip of Cape Cod, hoping to get the Great Whites during the heat of the day. The big sharks were more successful hunting seals in the morning and evening when the low light helped hide their shapes in the depths.

We'd tagged one ten-foot male, releasing him into the ocean again. "Vicki, the Captain needs you on the bridge," Leonard told me as I stowed the hose and pipe.

"On my way," I said. Today was warm and overcast, and I'd ditched the long-sleeve diving shirt for a logo tank top over my modest bikini. I wasn't the only one; the crew may not get paid a lot, but they didn't turn down free clothes and diving gear from Bodyglove. Theresa was rocking a tiger-shark-pattern one-piece, while Sally went with the bikini and long T-shirt. I smiled as I looked back at them; their dating prospects would not be hurt by how they looked in this documentary.

I got up to the bridge and looked around; the Captain was alone. "You needed to see me, Captain?"

"I need you to stay here during the transfer. I don't want any more drama." I could see a boat, a thirty-foot offshore fishing vessel with a Woods Hole logo, approaching from our starboard quarter. "I spent a lot of time last night and this morning on the phone, and the President and Provost reviewed the evidence I've collected. They agreed there was sufficient evidence of harassment to bring him before a student tribunal."

I looked out from the bridge wing, and I could see Brian walking out with his gear bag to the stern. The crew and staff were ignoring him as the boat approached. "I had it handled."

"Quite well on a personal level, but this isn't about just you. The harassment occurred on school property, in front of students and staff. It will be handled by the school, with or without your continued involvement." He didn't say anything as he pointed the big vessel cross to the wind, creating a calmer area for the smaller boat to approach. I could see a woman in her early twenties standing with her bags on the bow. She was wearing a floppy hat, sunglasses, shorts, and a Bodyglove T-shirt. The smaller boat bumped into us, lines held us together, and the woman came on board. A minute later, Brian was gone. "Go introduce yourself. There's a shark on, and we have work to do."

I went back down to the main deck and introduced myself to Bonnie, a tall redhead who was a first-year graduate studies student. To my surprise, she hugged me and thanked me. "For what?"

"Are you kidding? Theresa sent me the cellphone video she took and told me to call Doc and volunteer. I didn't make the cut weeks ago, but I was the first to ask. Ten minutes after I get the gig, an executive from Bodyglove is asking me my sizes. Now I'm here, and you've got another friend, and I've got a bag of free clothes to wear!"

"Fringe benefits," I said excitedly.

Doc came over and welcomed her to the crew. "Get into swimwear because you're going to get wet. You're taking over the shark hose. Vicki, you're taking the Shark Cam."

"And lots of sunblock," I said. Bonnie's fair skin would be burning quickly, even in the cloudy skies.

"Yes, Mom," she said as she went below decks to change.

I went back to talk to Theresa, who had taken over the camera spot for Brian this morning and would be returning to her job writing down the measurements. She assured me this was fine, as she was nervous around the big animals. She walked me through the process, which wasn't as simple as I thought. "You've got one shot to get it right," she said. "The camera activates when the mechanism closes, and it latches itself onto the fin, like a zip-tie. If you put it on wrong, it could fall off, or the camera shot won't show what we want. Place it a third of the way up the dorsal fin and as close to horizontal as you can get. Squeeze it tight and get clear. If you mess it up, hit this button to release it and wait for it to drop off, then try again."

I ran through everything in my head. "I've got it," I said.

"Don't be afraid to ask for help. Better to take ten more seconds on board than to lose the camera." We relaxed with the crew as we waited for the shark on the line to tire itself out. Bonnie was well-liked by the other students, and no one was looking at me like I did anything wrong.

The shark was a small female, ten feet long. As the davit swung the cradle onboard, I waited nervously with the camera in my left hand. I let the tagging guys get into place, since their job took longer, and leaned over the shark just forward of her dorsal fin. Keeping everything I learned in mind, I positioned the camera but didn't make the final squeeze just yet. "Theresa, this good?"

"Perfect," she said.

I squeezed the last couple clicks to make sure it was firmly in place, verified the camera light showed it was running, then stepped back. "Camera on," I said. Fifteen seconds later, the davit was moving again to return the shark to the water. I went to the rail to watch her slowly swim away.

We tagged four more sharks that day, but only two the next. I was up on the bridge the third night for my on-camera talks with the Captain and the Doctor, and they didn't like the forecast for the next two days. A storm moving up the coast would bring heavy seas; bringing sharks on board would be much more dangerous as the ship rolled in the waves. "We need to move inside the Cape; the question is whether to keep tagging Great Whites or shift to smaller sharks."

"Are we seeing or tracking Great Whites there?"

"Not often," Doctor Holliday said.

"They like having deep water nearby," I said as he nodded.

"Yes, and these wide, sandy expanses are better suited to other sharks. There are harbor seal colonies in these places that might attract some."

"Or we take a few days to go after smaller sharks with the cell trackers," I said.

The Captain agreed with me. "That would be my preference. We're having success out here, and the change would do everyone good. It's too rough to switch to the cages."

"Shallows it is," Doc said. "Let everyone know we're diving tomorrow, Vicki."

I almost ran downstairs, excitedly telling everyone hanging out in the crew's mess about the change in plans due to the storms. We'd all learned to ignore the cameras that were always in the background. Doc joined us a few minutes later, and I took the time to brief everyone on the shark trackers I'd brought and how they worked. "I prefer to use them on a pole while I free-dive," I told them. "I pick out sharks underneath, swim down from behind them, and push the tracker onto the rear of the dorsal fin. It won't close unless the edge hits the middle of the V-shape, so you've got an eight-inch window when you push it forward. It snaps into place, which releases it from the pole, and you both swim away."

"Why not scuba gear," Bonnie asked.

"You're in shallow water, and you are faster swimming without the tanks, and less likely to spook the sharks. The only good scuba strategy I know is to sit on the bottom with a bait box to bring them in, and try and tag them when they approach. You have to get them straight on or straight away to make it work, though. If they circle you, there's no change to attach it."

"The transmitters are coded?"

"They are numbered. You need to record the tag number and the length and species or any other detail so we can send it to the University of Miami registry at the end of the day. Here is what the tracking data looks like." I used the computer to go to the site, pulling up the map showing the Cape Cod area. "So far, there are over twelve-thousand trackers that have gone live. Two-thirds of the tagging activity in this area is coming from sport fishing, the rest bycatch from commercial fishing." The screen showed a mass of dots and tracks. "On the right, you can set it to display only the most recent locations or only a single species," I said. I selected the most recent Porbeagle hits; a dozen dots appeared, all located in the Billingagate Shoals. "Going after shortfin mako would be extremely difficult while diving. Here are the spiny dogfish."

"You've convinced me," Doc said. "I'll have the Captain head for the Shoals. If you are comfortable free-diving, pairs can try that. The rest of you will work off the Zodiaks or this ship, using scuba gear and bait boxes. Get some sleep, as there's going to be a lot of water time tomorrow," he said.

It turned out that only Bonnie had the gear and experience to free-dive with me, so the next morning, we took a Zodiak with a cameraman to water that was about twenty feet deep. We dumped a bait box over, basically a metal box with holes and chum in it to attract the sharks. The cameraman stayed down with us for thirty minutes, getting his underwater shots of us with the sharks. The rest of the time he stayed in the boat. He was leaving the rest to the fixed cameras he had on top of the bait box and the small cameras attached to our poles. For the next three hours, Bonnie and I dove the site repeatedly, tagging fourteen Porbeagle sharks, two spiny dogfish, and one Great White male that was about eight feet long. The cameraman pulled the bait box up, and we motored back to the Ocean Explorer for lunch.

The other three teams had much less success. With the need to change air bottles and rest between dives, their bottom time was limited. It was also more difficult for a stationary diver to see and tag the sharks. They had tagged fifteen Porbeagles, three Spiny Dogfish, and one ten-foot Blue Shark. The latter was a pleasant surprise to the divers operating off the main ship.

After lunch, all the divers headed to shallower waters, like we had been diving in. By five, I had run out of tags, and the Porbeagle population had more tags tracking it than ever before.

Ch. 39

With all of my tags in use, and the storm still sending high winds and seas into the outer Cape, we stayed inside the protection of Cape Cod overnight. On the bridge, I used a combination of recent sightings, satellite trackers, and a few of my cellphone trackers to propose a strategy. "There are Great Whites in the area, which we proved yesterday," I said. "The problem is the lack of deep water. You can see almost all the sightings are in the deep channel on the south edge of Billingagate Shoals, here off Wellfleet."

Doc looked at the charts, then back to my data. "The deepest water is near the edge here, just over fifty feet. This area where the depth changes quickly to less than twenty feet looks promising. Great Whites love the drop-offs. Back to barrel fishing?"

"I think it's too murky to use the cages. We'll have to tend the barrels when they blow up into the shallows, but we can use a zodiac for that and stay in deeper waters," I said. "The sharks will head for deep water when hooked, I'm sure of it."

"It's worth a try. The Great Whites found here will be feeding on fish and smaller sharks, maybe harbor seals. I don't expect to find big ones, but we need to tag the younger ones too. They are the ones just coming into maturity," Doc said.

"I'll anchor here for the night," the Captain said. "We'll have a short transit to the fishing grounds in the morning."

I walked back down to the galley, spreading the word about tomorrow's plan to the excited crew. Some had been hesitant to use my "cheap" tags but now understood that quantity had a quality all its own. A few people were playing with the tagging data from the University of Miami, which combined data from the usual tags with the new ones I'd gotten into play. There was far more data than they were used to, and a wider variety of species and broader expanse of sizes than before. "This is fantastic," Chip said as he explored Bull Shark sightings along the East Coast. The variety could tolerate brackish and even freshwater, often traveling hundreds of miles inland along rivers. "My sister would freak if she knew twelve-foot sharks are swimming the river she rows crew on," he said. I looked at the map; sure enough, data from a bull shark well up the Merrimack River near Lowell, Massachusetts. "She's at UMass Lowell," he explained.

"Yeah, probably best not to say anything," I said. I saw Dale return with one of the camera guys before he asked Chip if he was ready. "What's going on?"

"Interviews and background," Chip said.

"Nothing to worry about," Dale confirmed. "Reactions to the day's activities, questions, commentary to voice over video taken today." I must have looked a little surprised. "They aren't doing it with you?"

"Maybe that's what they are using the bridge time for," I said. Or maybe they are talking ABOUT me. With all the drama I'd caused, perhaps they were setting this up to be more reality show and less a serious documentary. I'd have to ask Erik about it tomorrow because I was tired from all the swimming. I went back to my cabin, talked to Amy and my parents for a few minutes on the phone, then went to bed.