Deadliest Catch/Awesome

Over the years, Deadliest Catch has accrued some truly awesome moments. Here's some of the best:

• Near the end of the '06 king crab season, the Time Bandit passes another boat and see a deckhand out chaining down a stack of pots in the middle of some 30-foot swells. One of those swells knocked the deckhand overboard, and the Time Bandit crew kicked it into high gear to get to him and pull him to safety.
• Northwestern's Jake Anderson during his first opie season making it through throwing the hook for a whole string under "Sig's Rules": every missed throw strips him of an article of clothing. By the time he'd finished the string Jake was down to his longjohns, a sweatshirt and his boots - but he'd gained a bit more respect from the crew.
• Deckhand Matt Bradley of the Northwestern making a Hail Mary toss of the hook off the stern of the boat to snag their buoy after Jake accidentally hooked one that belonged to another boat.
• An anecdote about Phil's dad (who's still alive), who was hit by a rogue wave that wrecked the boat, totaled all the electronics, and had everyone declared dead (Phil had left earlier due to injury and had the task of telling his friends' families that their loved ones were lost). They triumphantly returned to port eight days later, without any electronic guidance. Kind of eerie in light of Phil's own encounter with a rogue wave...
• Young Phil (who looked even less qualified for the job then Jake Anderson) being so determined to get into crab fishing that he talked his way into being taken aboard one boat after offering to work for a whole year without pay. Made even more awesome by the fact that after three months of unflinchingly doing every single crappy job a greenhorn could possibly do, one of the boat's regular deckhands broke his leg and Phil, in his own words, "went from no-share to full-share. And the next month, I made $130,000."
• Before filming one of the earlier seasons of After the Catch, Mike Rowe met up with Phil outside of the bar where they were going to shoot and all Phil wanted to talk about was the new Harley-Davidson motorcycle he'd just bought. When Mike says they'll talk about the bike Phil asks him how he can talk about something he hasn't ridden yet, tosses Mike the keys to the bike and tells him they'll talk when he gets back from his ride.
• Jake Anderson got two that were shown on July 12, 2011, though they occurred in separate episodes that were shown that night:
  • The first was when, during his first time guiding the Northwestern into a harbor, he managed (with Sig's help) to guide it into St. Paul, a harbor known among the crabbers as the absolute worst harbor to try to dock with (even the Wizard's Jerkass Captain Keith said, "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy").
  • The second came on the After the Catch episode that followed, where he revealed that he got his captain's license. Also counts as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when you see Sig beaming with pride and smiling at his protege's accomplishment.

Sig: <shaking Jake's hand> I am so proud of you!

• The fireworks shootout between the Northwestern and the Time Bandit in the last episode of the 2011 season. It looked like an honest-to-gods old school naval battle at times. Absolutely beautiful way to close out the opilio season.
  • You can check it out on youtube.
• Pretty much any time the Time Bandit crew play a prank on someone. The one that springs to mind is when they tied trash bags full of flour to one of the pot lines, put the new guy on the rail, and let him pull it up. Cue at least twelve bags of flour exploding in his face.
  • How about the time when the Time Bandit crew tied a bunch of lit Chinese lanterns, dimmed their boat and turned off their navigation. When Sig of the Northwestern saw these lights, he thought there was another boat, or a helicopter, but he didn't see anything on his radar. He was scared stiff!
• During the 2010 opilio season, one of the cameramen on the Cornelia Marie had the worst seasickness of any crew member to ever serve on the show. Lost fourteen pounds in two weeks just from constant vomiting, and still managed to drag himself out on deck in the middle of a storm for a five hour solid shoot of crab hauls. He ended up falling down the stairs in a delirious state when he tried to go back below deck, but he earned the respect of Captain Phil himself.