F/V Black Sheep in the GD Times

Back in June the Gloucester daily Times (affectionately known around here as the GD Times) expressed an interest in doing a story about Mark's book. It came out yesterday. The writer, Gail McCarthy, has been a staff writer there for awhile and did a very thorough job in my opinion. It made the front page and I am reprinting it, with photo, here. Mark says he looks like a dead haddock in the picture. Enjoy!

Local lobsterman writes about life on the water and in Gloucester
By Gail McCarthy
Staff writer

Late one fall afternoon about a decade ago, a soaking wet Mark Williams entered City Hall with a bag of "goodies" - pizza, rum, Coke and ice.

Williams stood in the stairwell, dwarfed by the list of names that cover the walls. He knew, though still dazed with shock and chill from the North Atlantic waters, how close he came to becoming one more name on the list of 5,000 Cape Ann fishermen who have been lost at sea.

As he sipped the rum to numb the pain and warm his body, he read each and every name stenciled on the wall.

"I've been in the water all my life," said Williams, who grew up near Good Harbor Beach, spending his days in the tidal creek behind his family home and who had nearly died alone in the water that day, when a trawl line became wrapped around his leg and dragged him overboard a mile or so off the beach.

Now, William has written about his experiences on the water and in Gloucester, in a memoir, "F/V Black Sheep," the name of his lobster boat.

Floating memories

As he clung to the vessel, memories raced through his mind from when he was a boy shooting rats on the waterfront to scenes of his adult life as a lobsterman.

Those thoughts quickly disappeared when the lobster gear gave way, pulling Williams to the bottom of the ocean. Williams' physical strength and commercial diver training would help him win his race with death in the next few minutes.

It took a couple of years before details of that afternoon began to surface in his memory. On a whim, he began to jot them down. Over the course of the next few years, he filled 23 notebooks with stories of his life and the near death experience.

In a book he self-published, Williams shares tales of Gloucester lore past and present. Writing in language both gritty and prosaic, he unveils the warmth of close friendships and the violence of barroom brawls. He writes in frank language about everything from his first job working for his father to seeking the erotic charms of local women.

His stories are funny as well as sad. He described his first meeting with the late David "Sully" Sullivan at a local bar. Sully died along with the rest of the crew of the Andrea Gale, the subject of the book and film, "The Perfect Storm."

The book's dialogue brings to life his opinion on everything from the politics of the government's fishing regulations to his view of the New York "yuppie" who tried to rent his lobster traps for the movie version of "The Perfect Storm," when it was filmed in Gloucester.

Gloucester bred

Williams, the son of Ted and Elizabeth Williams, was one of five children.

He attended Gloucester schools before attending St. Peter's High School, where he played both football and baseball. After he graduated in 1970, he went south to study at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. An all-star baseball player in high school, a shoulder injury put a stop to a baseball career.

His father, Ted Williams, and brother Jeff Williams, both played professional football. His father, after his football career, worked at the Empire Fish Co., where he was foreman, for more than 30 years.

Mark Williams, 54, also has the build of a football player - broad shoulders and a stocky frame. His brawn, as well as his knowledge of staying alive under the water, played a role surviving an incident that would have killed others.

He credits the memory of his father, his tough love and training to "always think before acting," for helping him endure the pain and find a solution to the death trap in which he found himself. He said thoughts of his father helped him find the power to free himself under water.

Finding a career

After college he returned to Gloucester, where he bought and refurbished houses for a spell in the late 1970s.

Then he entered the world of commercial diving. He trained at the Commercial Dive Center in California, after which he traveled to Aberdeen, Scotland, where he worked at Sub Sea Off Shore. He also worked in the Norwegian fjords. Then he returned to Cape Ann when he landed a job at the Atlantic Dive Co.

"Like everyone else born in this town, they can't wait to get out. But after a while, they can't wait to get back here," Williams said. "People say 'Why don't you go over the bridge?' I say I did for a decade, and I don't want to go anywhere else now."

When the Gloucester dive company closed, Williams needed to find a new job. He decided to try a new venture and bought a lobster boat called Chassea.

"Stumbling at first, I learned the world of the inshore lobster man," Williams said. "When people ask what is the best part of lobstering, I tell them 'the trip home.' If you don't get along with yourself, you better find something else to do."

The vessel eventually sank after it became disabled, and the Coast Guard plucked a freezing Williams from the ocean in the mid-1980s.

He then purchased The Black Sheep.

In all, William worked 17 years at the back-breaking trade, quitting the business around 2000. He sold the boat about three years ago.

The memoir

Williams approached editor and writer Kathleen Valentine in May 2004 after her name was recommended.

"He asked if he could drop off a chapter for me to look at, which he did," Valentine said. "As soon as I read the manuscript, I knew he was very talented. His spelling and grammar needed work but, despite that, his writing was so powerful that I called him and suggested we meet."

After lengthy discussion on publishing options, Williams decided he wanted to publish independently.

"He's a Gloucester fisherman, what did I expect," Valentine said. "So we set about preparing the manuscript and designing the book."

Williams said 99 percent of the book was written just as the accounts happened once the repressed memories began to seep into his consciousness. He said he can't remember what year his near-death experience occured, which he tried to block from his memory for years. He thought he could never tell his story.

"By a miracle I lived through the afternoon. It was only later that I began to write down the long-forgotten stories of my life that had flashed that day before my eyes in incredible detail. The result is this book. I wrote this almost verbatim as parts of my conscious brain kicked in that I never felt before," he said.

The result is a 31-chapter book, dedicated to the more than 5,000 fishermen who sailed out of Gloucester Harbor but never returned.

One chapter describes an incident in the late 1990s when he and many others fought through a 25-foot rogue wave known among Gloucester fishermen as the "10:21 wave."

In chapter 22, he writes about other dangers.

"Lobster fishing is an inherently dangerous endeavor practiced in what is most assuredly a hostile environment," he wrote. "... Probably the most common way for a fisherman to die is the simplest - you fall overboard and you drown. Yes, most lobstermen can swim. However, clad in rubber overalls and boots, swimming is impossible. You sink like a rock."

Fellow Gloucester lobsterman Harrison Golden of Magnolia was the first fisherman Williams had read the 338-page book.

Golden knows firsthand how quickly a lobsterman sinks.

"I went overboard, but I was with someone. A trap wrapped around my leg, and when I went over, I went down about 25 feet. The fellow with me was quick to respond. He didn't know if I was going to come up and where I was going to come up. I was down 15 to 20 seconds. He hauled me up like a heavy trap," he said.

Golden, who also teaches English at a New Hampshire prep school, has known Williams for about 25 years.

"You don't lobster very long without experiencing some of the things that Mark writes about, even a run-in with another lobsterman," he said.

Jane Daniel, a former publisher and writer who read the book, described it as a masculine story, but one a woman can enjoy. The strength of his prose and his storytelling "ooze testosterone."

"It really shows you what the culture was among the guys who fish. These are tough hombres. It's foreign to anything in my life," she said. "It's a peek into another world for me now that I live in Gloucester. This book is about the culture of the city that has existed for hundreds of years. People from Gloucester will recognize all kinds of things."

Williams quietly promotes his book, which can be purchased at local bookstores or online.

"I give books to people and tell them if they like it, they owe me $20," he said. "I find people are stopping to tell me they like my book and hand me $20 bills."