Ice breaker cuts a path as waters freeze

So Capt. Jeff Lill, of the state buoy-tender and icebreaker John C. Widener, set off from Annapolis just after sunrise yesterday with a crew of three for a 20-mile trip up the Chesapeake Bay. The temperature was negative 7 degrees, accounting for wind chill.

Comfortably warm on the bridge of the 73-foot-long Widener, Capt. Lill wore a sweatshirt, jeans, sunglasses and a broad grin as he piloted a course out of Annapolis Harbor, into the Severn River and toward the bay.

"When I was younger, this was kind of a fun, adventure-type thing," the 39-year-old said with a chuckle. "Now it's more of a job. But I still enjoy it."

His crew, engulfed in bright red survival suits heavily padded with buoyant materials, strode about the ship's metal deck, checking for water in the bilges.

The Widener, a 43-year-old veteran of the bay, belongs to the state Department of Natural Resources, one of three such vessels charged with maintaining the state's 3,000-plus buoys year-round.

Like its sister ships, the Widener doubles as an icebreaker between December and February. The Maryland flag flutters above the bridge tower and the ship's 525 horsepower engine can manage a maximum faltering sprint of 10 knots. At that speed, it would take more than two hours to reach Rock Creek from Annapolis.

The Widener almost made the journey Thursday afternoon, when Ed Sienkiewicz, the 37-year-old captain of the Shameless, decided to attempt a solo run through the ice barrier.

He calculated that his boat's fiberglass hull was strong and heavy enough to ride up over the ice and crush it - the same principle by which dedicated ice-breaking vessels, like those used by the Coast

Guard and Navy, operate.

"We needed to go to work," said Capt. Sienkiewicz. "Fishing for us has been poor and this mild winter hasn't helped us. The last week or so, things have picked up - we were catching fish and we don't want to stop."

And so, thinking of his bills, his two young children and his wife Kelly, a second-grade teacher at Fort Smallwood Elementary, he sallied forth to challenge the ice sheets.

As it turned out, the Shameless was able to pierce the ice at first, but couldn't break through the frozen creek mouth. There was a shaky moment Thursday when the fishing boat was trapped between sheets of ice.

That's when the Widener was nearly dispatched. But the Shameless was able to shake its way clear of the ice and return to dock for the evening. Capt. Sienkiewicz vowed to try again first thing in the morning - this time with help.

"I haven't had to call for an icebreaker since the mid-1990s," he said. "We had ice-free waters up until the storm. But it's tough even when the weather is permitting ... now it's the tail end of the season and we have to work."

Aboard the Widener, Captain Lill said he wasn't bothered by clearing ice for a single boat.

"It's a service that the state provides," he said. "I don't mind."

There have been times, he said, when the Widener has cleared a path through a frozen tributary for one vessel only to have another request from someone else the next day - when the ice fields have frozen over again.

Ship's Mate Bobby Heim, a former waterman who now works as Capt. Lill's second in command, was sympathetic.

"There's more risk and less profit in it every year ... since the (local) commercial fishing industry crapped out," he said. "But when you got that mortgage staring you in the face and kids and a family, you have to do what you can to make a living out of it."

In his case, he jumped ship - taking a job with the Department of Natural Resources, which landed him aboard the Widener.

"I have three kids," he said. "I needed something more dependable."

Halfway between the Bay Bridge and the Patapsco River, frozen chunks of ice - some clear and some still covered by snow - began to interrupt the previously free-flowing bay waters.

On board, spray from waves had turned to ice, encasing every object on the deck in a slippery sheath. The ship's crane, used to haul buoys aboard for repair, dripped with icicles.

Capt. Lill just shrugged.

"It's moderate for what we're used to," he said, urging his ship toward the frozen creek mouth with a spin of the helm.

Beyond a gleaming field of ice sat the Shameless, its crew waiting and impatient. It looked small. With no ceremony at all, Capt. Lill sent his ship on a direct course toward the fishing boat, almost as if he didn't notice the giant ice sheets between them.

As the Widener's hull struck the edge of the ice, a dull scraping sensation began in the bow and spread throughout the ship, making the floors vibrate. It worsened occasionally, only to give way as the ice crumbled beneath the bow.

Behind the Widener flowed a stream of dark green water, broken by shattered blocks of ice and ugly brown patches of silt and mud from coastal construction. The whole mix was churned almost to a froth by the ship's four-bladed propeller.

For the most part, the icebreaking seemed easy. But twice the ship had to stop when the ice refused to give way.

"It was tough," Mr. Heim said. "Any time you've got to stop that boat, back it up and hit (the ice) again, it's tough."

But even the harder ice sheets were defeated when the Widener moved forward again at higher speed. The whole process took roughly 30 minutes, at the end of which the icebreaker had plowed a slightly crooked line of clear water from the open Patapsco to the Shameless.

"There was about half as much as ice today as there was yesterday," Captain Sienkiewicz said. "It's hard to tell what a night's wind will do to giant sheets of ice. But I still wouldn't have gotten out without the help of the Widener."

Capt. Lill turned his ship around to follow the Shameless, side-by-side, out of Rock Creek.

"Ninety-six was probably the worst year," he said. "The bay was iced over from shore to shore and most all the tributaries were frozen in."

But even though the Widener didn't save the bay yesterday, it's a hero to Capt. Sienkiewcz, who has less than two weeks before the winter perch and whitefish season ends Feb. 28.

"We're definitely at the mercy of Mother Nature," he said.