I Left a Seven-Figure Job on Wall Street to Fish for Salmon in Alaska. My First Season Almost Killed Me

Maggie looked at the radio. Then at me.

“We need to run for the river,” she said. “Now.”

We hauled the net as fast as we could and turned the Solveig toward the mouth of the Naknek River.

The wind came first. Then the rain, sideways, so hard it stung. Then the waves.

I’d never seen water like that. Gray mountains moving across the bay, white at the top, coming at us one after another. The Solveig would climb up the front of a wave, hang at the top for a second, then crash down into the trough with a sound like a car accident.

Every time, I thought she’d break apart.

Kenji was in the cabin, white as a sheet, holding onto the bunk. Maggie was next to me at the wheel, calm as anything, calling out the waves.

“Big one at two o’clock. Take it at an angle. Don’t let her go sideways.”

Around midnight, a wave hit us broadside. The boat rolled hard to starboard. Water poured over the deck. The engine coughed.

For one long second, everything went silent.

Then the engine caught again.

Over the radio, a voice broke in through the static.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the fishing vessel Kittiwake. We’re taking on water. Two souls on board.”

Maggie grabbed the radio and asked for their position.

They were less than a mile from us.