For an entire decade, there were no female swordfish boat captains in the United States.
That's because Linda Greenlaw — who broke down gender barriers in the commercial fishing industry 24 years ago when she became the only working female swordfish boat captain in the U.S. — decided to take a decade off from life at sea.
After 10 years of lobstering and writing in Maine, however, the siren call of the deep blue water drew Greenlaw back to the world of long-line offshore fishing. At 47, she signed up to captain the Seahawk, a rusty craft with faulty equipment and a small crew, for a 60-day expedition off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Seaworthy, Greenlaw's account of her time captaining the Seahawk,contains details about the major setbacks she faced during the swordfishing trip, including almost losing a man overboard and (briefly) spending time in a Canadian jail after inadvertently crossing into Canadian waters.
Greenlaw tells Fresh Air contributor Dave Davies that despite the setbacks and the uncertainty, she couldn't envision herself leaving commercial fishing again.