II[ToC]
THE NORTH SEA FLEETS
The North Sea, big as it is, has no great depth. Geologists say that not long ago, as geologists calculate time, its bottom was dry land and connected the British Isles with the continent of Europe. Then it began to sink until the water swept in and covered it, and it is still sinking. The deepest point in the North Sea is not more than thirty fathoms, or one hundred eighty feet. There are areas where it is not over five fathoms deep, and the larger part of it is less than twenty fathoms.
Fish are attracted to the North Sea because it is shallow. Its bottom forms an extensive fishing "bank," we might say, though it is not, properly speaking, a bank at all, and here is found some of the finest fishing in the world.
From time immemorial fishing fleets have gone to the North Sea, and the North Sea fisheries is one of the important industries of Great Britain. Men are born to it and live their lives on the small fishing craft, and their sons follow them for generation after generation. It is a hazardous calling, and the men of the fleets are brave and hardy fellows.
The fishing fleets keep to the sea in winter as well as in summer, and it is a hard life indeed when decks and rigging are covered with ice, and fierce north winds blow the snow down, and the cold is bitter enough to freeze a man's very blood. Seas run high and rough, which is always the case in shallow waters, and great rollers sweep over the decks of the little craft, which of necessity have small draft and low freeboard.
The fishing fleets were like large villages on the sea. At the time of which we write, and it may be so to this day, fast vessels came daily to collect the fish they caught and to take the catch to market. Once in every three months a vessel was permitted to return to its home port for rest and necessary re-fitting, and then the men of her crew were allowed one day ashore for each week they had spent at sea. Now and again there came to the hospital sick or injured men returned from the fleet on these home-coming vessels.
When Grenfell passed his final examinations in 1886, and was admitted to the College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons of England, Sir Frederick Treves suggested that he visit the North Sea fishing fleets and lend his service to the fishermen for a time before entering upon private practice. The great surgeon, himself a lover of the sea and acquainted with Grenfell's inclinations toward an active outdoor life, was also aware that Grenfell was a good sailor.