Awesome / Deadliest Catch

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 sees a deckhand out chaining down a stack of pots in the middle of some 30-foot swells. Unfortunately, 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.
  • Doubles as Heartwarming for the interaction between the saved sailor and Capt. Johnathon Hillstrand, who was clearly still remembering a similar situation where the person they pulled from the sea had just died before he could be rescued.
  "I pulled a man from the sea and he told me he loved me."
• During his first Opie season, Northwestern's Jake Anderson made 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 the families of his crewmate that the ship had been 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 than 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 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 aired 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 Heartwarming Moment 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. A wonderful way to close out the opilio season.
  • You can check it out on YouTube.
  • What made it work was that it was the last thing anyone would have expected Sig to do.
  Andy: You got us good, you albino bastard!
  • Also doubles as a heartwarming moment:
  Andy: Phil would've been proud of us on that one, baby!
• Pretty much any time the Time Bandit crew plays 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!
    • The Chinese lantern prank was what pushed Sig into planning the aforementioned fireworks ambush on the Time Bandit.
• During the 2010 opilio season, one cameraman 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 the deck in the middle of a storm for a five hours solid shoot of crab hauls. Unfortunately, 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.
• The new greenhorn on the Wizard for the 2012 opilio season getting a half-percent raise - and the personal kudos of Captain Keith Coburn - six days into his stint on the ship! It might seem like a small accomplishment, but considering how few, if any, greenhorns have lasted longer than a season onboard the Wizard since the show began broadcasting, that is huge.
• Wild Bill's son Zach Larson gets a great moment during the King Crab 2012 season. A little background: Zach has had trouble accurately throwing the hook (used to snag the ropes the pots are attached to) for a long time. In an attempt to improve his son's skill and confidence, Wild Bill makes a bet: Zach will be responsible for snagging every pot in a 25-pot string, and for every time he misses with the hook, he has to pay Bill $100 in rent (Zach lives rent-free at Bill's vacation home in Mexico). Zach does not miss a single throw.
• Eliot's rescue of the crew of a boat that had run aground (they also happened to be friends of his) was pretty epic: his original plan was for one of his crew to swim a line to the life raft and tow them in with the crane, but the line became undone so Eliot's dad went into the water with a second line. While that was happening, the waves pushed the boats towards the shallows, and Eliot's boat hit bottom (they later discovered a sizable dent but no hole). Eliot's dad got the second line to the life raft, and the whole crew survived.
• During season 18, Patricia Lee deckhand Francis Katungin was crushed by a crab pot when the boat was hit by a rogue wave, suffering a possible hip fracture. Captain Rip Carlton called in the Coast Guard for a helicopter rescue... in the middle of a huge storm. Carlton had difficulty keeping the boat on course for the rendezvous point, and the Coast Guard also had to battle the weather. Katungin was winched on board the chopper less than three minutes before it would have had to abandon the rescue due to lack of fuel. He survived, and some months later returned to the boat.

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