Exclusive: ‘Deadliest Catch’ Captain Jake Anderson Recounts ‘Scary’ Experience After Loss of the Destination

The loss of the Destination still haunts the captains of Deadliest Catch.

The crab boat tragically sank into the Bering Sea, taking with it the lives of crew members Charles Glenn Jones, Larry O’Grady, Raymond Vincler, Darrik Seibold, Kai Hamik and Captain Jeff Hathaway, in 2017.

The emotional aftermath of the loss was shown during last season of the Discovery show, and the current season opened with a tribute to the men who perished at sea.

For Saga Captain Jake Anderson, who found a mentor in Hathaway, the loss was particularly haunting while gearing up to venture out on the sea this season.

“It gets scary when you have to pass by that area,” he told PopCulture.com exclusively prior to the season premiere, revealing that once-in-a-lifetime bad weather put him about 60 miles east of where the Destination was found. “I was constantly passing it when I had to anchor up, [which] people will see. And when you’re running from weather and you’re around that area, it’s chilling, you know?”

In addition to being an eerie reminder of the Bering Sea’s danger, the site was a reminder of the loss of dear friends, including Hathaway.

“The funny thing is that everyone calls me a screamer, but my hero was ‘Hollering Jeff Hathaway,’ who was the captain of the Destination,” Anderson told PopCulture. “So it was a big hit for the fleet; it was a big hit for me personally, along with [the loss of] my good friend Larry [O’Grady].”

Anderson continued, “It’s really hard, because Hollering Hathaway … he was the first person to ever offer me a real job as a captain. … So I miss him dearly and the whole fleet does.”

For Captain Josh Harris of the Cornelia Marie, it was an interesting landscape to return to after stepping away from the crabber lifestyle due to the death of his grandfather last season.

In addition to the loss of the Destination, Harris returned to a year plagued with some of the biggest waves the Bering Sea has seen in 150 years due to the recent supermoon event.

“Well I picked one hell of a season to come back to,” Harris told PopCulture exclusively. “You know, we had this supermoon event and it caused all these massive tides, which in turn meant we had a lot of injuries and a lot of craziness, and it was hard to catch crab and all this random stuff that’s happened this year.”

But he wouldn’t trade being back on the Bering Sea for anything.

“It feels pretty good,” he added. “I’m just happy to be fishing again. It’s just a beautiful thing. I had to take some time off there, lost my grandfather, so I took all last year off, and yeah, that kind of sucked. But I’m back in the saddle again, I feel pretty good about it, and things are going well.”

Deadliest Catch airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Discovery. And don’t forget to watch Deadliest Catch: The Bait at 8 p.m. ET prior to the show.

Photo Credit: Discovery