Each pot had three, one Styrofoam buoy and two air-filled plastic buoys, all painted a painfully fluorescent orange and each with the boat's name and registration number lettered on it in sloppy but legible black paint. Finishing with the buoys, he set his shoulder to the pot at the end of the row and reached around for the line fastening the pot down.

"No," Kate shouted, "wait for the next swell."

"What?" His usually fresh face was exhausted and uncomprehending.

He bent to shove and she grabbed his arm. "No," she shouted again, "wait. Wait."

The word penetrated, and dumbly, he waited.

The next swell was a big one, the biggest one yet.

When she'd rolled as far as she was going to, the Avilda's portside gunnel was again awash, the water boiling over the railing. She hesitated there for a long, long moment.

Kate knew enough of the old girl's construction to know that they'd loaded enough crab so that the Avilda was carrying sufficient ballast. Kate hoped. Just the same, she strained against the list of the deck, as if by pulling hard enough against the pot she could right the boat by her efforts alone. It was entirely involuntary, a human rebellion against this unnatural tilting of the world, and if she'd been able to took around she would have seen the rest of the crew, their faces screwed into similar fearful grimaces, straining just as hard against the nearest available surface.

The Avilda hesitated a moment longer, and then the swell passed beneath her keel and she heeled over with a rush. "Now!" Kate shouted. "Shove! Hard!"

Together, she and Andy shoved, hard, and the pot screeched across the deck, to be caught by Seth, who in a few deft movements had it attached to the hoist.

He raised it to the pot launcher, Kate fastened off the shots of line and Andy lined up the buoys.