TOP: Tugboat captains think — and look — far ahead of their 300-foot- 

 long tandem vessels. Scanning the tide at a distant inlet, Captain Jimmy 

 Donnelly starts figuring the angles. 



BOTTOM: It's all hands in the galley for tugboat crews. Each man takes 

 his turn cooking dinner, and no one is accused of going hungry. 



Weather Woes 



Around midnight on our first night out, the 

 wind roars from the northeast, ripping free the 

 huge blue tarps that cover the steel coils. 



I hustle down a tall ladder into the belly of 

 the barge behind Hutson, freshly turned 21, with 



bangs that fall into his eyes. We 

 wrestle with wind-lashed tarps and 

 guy lines as clouds of rust dust 

 clog our throats and coat us head 

 to toe with a gooey brown slime. 



An hour-and-a-half later, we 

 wearily pull ourselves back up the 

 ladder and climb the metal steps 

 into the wheelhouse. Donnelly 

 flips on a 1,000-watt spotlight. 

 ""Sorry, fellas," he says, nodding 

 towards the barge. More tarps 

 have ripped free. We clamber 

 back down the steps just as the 

 rain comes. 



At sunrise the next 

 morning, we're making steady 



progress through the 

 marshes of 

 McClellansville, 

 S.C., with the Cape 

 Romain lighthouse a 

 distant smudge to the 

 east. We cross the 

 mouth of the Santee 

 River, then rum up 

 wide Winyah Bay. 

 The wind is blowing 

 30 knots, pushing up 

 four-foot-tall 

 breaking waves that 

 bash into the barge 

 and send tremors 

 through the tug, but 

 Donnelly is unfazed 

 by the rising wind. 



He tells me 

 about one particu- 

 larly hairy crossing 

 of the Chesapeake 

 Bay in the middle of 

 a big freeze, with the 

 blips from small 

 icebergs dancing across his radar. We talk about 

 the difficulties of shoaling in the ICW and the 

 pleasure yachts that seem to grow larger every 

 year. 



'They don't slow down — they think we're 

 so big that their wakes won't mess with us," he 



groans. "But some of their wakes are so big they 

 go right into our engine doors. They can break 

 the lines that hold the barges together." 



Around lunchtime I make my way to the 

 tugboat galley. It's a full-sized kitchen rucked 

 into the tug's warren of tiny rooms, outfitted with 

 a chest freezer, refrigerator, and cabinets packed 

 with $500 worth of groceries. 



When I arrived on Island Express, I 

 expected pork and beans. Instead I gorge on 

 Cornish hens, steak and collard greens. "You'll 

 gain 10 pounds on this trip." Litaker told me 

 ear lier. "Cooking is our primary means of 

 entertainment." 



In the galley, young Hutson sits in the 

 single booth, reading a love letter from his 

 girlfriend. Tugboating is hardly a carefree life on 

 the water. During my tugboat stowaway, I ask 

 each crew member about the toughest part of the 

 job. All of them speak of home. 



"Deckhands come through for a few days, 

 and it's not what they thought it would be," 

 Dingee explains. "Being away from home is the 

 hard part." 



Litaker frowned when I posed the question. 

 From the wheelhouse cell phone, he just had 

 given his 15-year-old stepdaughter a long- 

 distance talk about school. The schedule, he says, 

 "is tough on everybody." 



Donnelly works hard to keep fast the line 

 between home and the helm of Island Express. 

 That night he's back on watch in the wheelhouse, 

 with a small television set tuned to "Jeopardy!" 



Every night, he tells me, he watches the 

 show, and every night his wife. Alice, calls him 

 right after the "Final Jeopardy!" question is 

 posed. "We can be five states apart, but she 

 always knows where to find me." 



As if on cue, his cell phone rings. He grins 

 and picks it up. "Hey, there!" he says, then 

 pauses for a moment. "Nope. Slide rule. Don't 

 ask me how I remembered that." 



He chats for a few moments in a hushed 

 tone, telephone in his left hand, joystick cradled 

 between the thumb and forefinger of his right. 

 Then it's time for goodbye. "Til talk to you 

 tomorrow night," he says. "I'll be right here." 

 Wherever that happens to be. 



C o n tinned 



COASTWATCH 19 



