On September 7, 1982, there were some 144 fishing boats in the village of Craig, Alaska, population 800. It was the end of the salmon fishing season. Folks were cleaning their boats and prepping for the journey home. Then, at around 4:00 that afternoon, they spied smoke off Fish Egg Island, due west of Craig. In the fishing industry, where there’s smoke there’s usually fire.
Boats rushed to the scene at Ben’s Cove, a sheltered bay off the northern tip of Fish Egg. One of them, the troller Casino, was the first to call out the mayday. She contacted the Coast Guard again once she arrived on the scene. The boat was the Investor — the Casino’s skipper happened to know the vessel and its owner — and she was fully engulfed in flames.
Because the Casino had encountered the Investor’s skiff on the way to Fish Egg Island, moreover, they thought they had some firsthand information. They’d asked the Investor skiffman if anyone was on board the burning vessel. The skiffman had told them, “Yes.”
But at the scene, the Casino crew couldn’t spot anyone in the water which, given the heat of the fire, was their most likely escape. They then asked a smaller boat to circumnavigate the flaming vessel, to make a more thorough search for survivors. They too didn’t spot anyone. All were relieved.
Their relief was to be short-lived.
Caution: Video contains Graphic Images
The Investor burned for the better part of a day, then lingered into the next. Tragically, the village of Craig lacked fireboats and the on-scene vessels were ill-equipped to fill that void. The Coast Guard sent fire fighting equipment. That helped. So did a helicopter that dumped water on the smoldering wreck. The day after the fire, troopers used fire-fighting foam to finish the job.
The Investor was now nothing more than a blackened hulk, leaning into the beach off Fish Egg Island.
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2018). All rights reserved.
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