Even the seasoned captains of the Deadliest Catch are wary of the Bering Sea Triangle.
The 70,000-square-mile area in the sea they fish has taken more than 200 boats, many of which vanished without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle’s colder cousin. In Tuesday’s all-new episode of the Discovery show, the captains recounted their scariest memories of fishing within the triangle.
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“What they call the Bering Sea Triangle has a reputation of death and misery,” Saga captain Jake Anderson said. “That’s it’s reputation.
Sean Dwyer, captain of the Brenna A, called it a “worst case scenario,” especially when it comes to trying to navigate the seascape.
But they’re also unavoidable, especially when you’re fishing at a high level like these captains are.
Wizard captain Keith Colburn, with the assistance of some U.S. Coast Guard members, laid out some of the perils of the area — mixed seas, rogue waves reaching about 60 ft. and icy weather that can capsize a boat easily.
It’s not quite clear which of these perils has led to the statistical anomaly that has given the Bering Sea Triangle its name, but Colburn noted that many of the boats that went missing did so without warning or a trace.
“So whatever happened, happened really quickly,” he said.
Making the cast’s time in the Bering Sea Triangle even more nervewracking was the bad weather caused by the recent supermoon, Anderson told PopCulture.com exclusively ahead of the season premiere.
“Our tides haven’t been this strong in 150 years,” he said. “So everybody in the fleet had something new to deal with that they never have dealt with before and probably will never see in their lifetime again.”
He explained, “To basically explain it in layman’s terms, if the wave heights were said to be 19 feet, where I was at, I’d be about 30, 35-foot swells.”
The crew was also reminded of their own mortality regularly, passing by the site where the Destination went down in 2017, taking with it crew members Charles Glenn Jones, Larry O’Grady, Raymond Vincler, Darrik Seibold, Kai Hamik and Captain Jeff Hathaway.
“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?”
They don’t call it Deadliest Catch for no reason. Stay safe guys!
Deadliest Catch airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Discovery.
Photo credit: Discovery
