The Gulf Stream was rushing south. Novak put the engine into gear and traveled with the current. Richard had gone underwater about 15 minutes before. Luna was up in front, scanning the surface. "Then I saw him a couple hundred yards away, floating in the water," Novak says. "We thought there was still a chance for him."
Luna jumped into the water and swam to Richard. In his arms, he cradled Richard's large body, which was made nearly weightless by the saltwater. "Wake up, big man," he said while tapping Richard's cheek gently with an open palm. "Wake up." But Richard lay motionless.
Richard Nielsen Jr. was a blustery fisherman whose voice was so deep and loud that it earned him the nickname "Boom Boom"
Teri Nielsen stands on a dock at Milt's Marina in Dania Beach. Behind her is the 51-foot Lady Mary.
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Novak and Luna tried to lift Richard's body onto the boat, but it was too heavy. Luna, impatient, crawled back onboard, cut the grapple from the line, and then jumped back into the water with the line in hand. He tied it around Richard's waist and signaled to Novak. The hydraulic lift hoisted Richard's 365 pounds back onto the Lady Mary just as it had hoisted heavy loads of golden crabs so many times before.
Minutes later, Novak and Luna could hear the fluttering and feel the draft of a helicopter. A sailboat came alongside, and its captain jumped aboard to help. Novak, Luna, and the captain lifted Richard's body into a basket lowered by the helicopter. Once the unconscious fisherman was inside the Coast Guard chopper, it flew west toward Jackson Memorial Hospital. But it was too late. Richard had drowned somewhere between freeing himself from the line and struggling against the current he knew so well. Richard Nielsen Jr. was pronounced dead at 1 p.m.
"He was my friend, my best friend, and he's dead," Novak says. "I was in the Navy. I saw a lot of people die. Once, I saw a guy charred to death from the exhaust of a jet engine. I smelled him first; he was one story below me. I looked down, and his body was still in flames. That didn't bother me because I didn't know the guy. Richard's death, that's the only one that bothered me."
On May 23, 11 days after Richard drowned, more than 250 people crammed into Dania United Methodist Church to pay the captain, a devout Christian, their respects. The next day, 30 people consisting of family members and close friends boarded the Lady Mary and the Joyce Lynn II, which belongs to Rau. Teri and her three daughters -- 25-year-old Jessica, 24-year-old Amber, and 22-year-old Sherry -- traveled aboard the Lady Mary with Richard's ashes. The two boats, one from Milt's Marina on Griffin Road and the other from Sea Legs on Dania Beach, met at the spot near where the Intracoastal Waterway opens out into the Atlantic Ocean. Then they traveled east.
The sea was rough; a few people became sick. There was talk of turning around, doing it on another, calmer day. But most knew that's not how Richard would have wanted it.
They kept on. Out in the ocean, as the waves jostled the Lady Mary and the Joyce Lynn II, Teri scattered Richard's ashes on the water and gave him back, finally and wholly, to the sea. Then it rained, a steady downpour that lasted only minutes. It was as if the sky had cried for Richard.
Since Richard's accident, the Lady Mary hasn't brought in any new catches. Howard Rau and his crew tried, as a favor to the family, to gather the traps that had been left in the Atlantic. They couldn't. And it's unlikely that David Nielsen will continue the search. The younger Nielsen may never set foot on the Lady Mary again because of family disagreements.
Teri Nielsen wants to concentrate on returning the boat to South Florida waters. But as time passes, the outlook seems bleaker. Although the family is considering a candidate for Richard's spot, he's an older seaman with little experience in deep-sea fishing. "It's going to be a matter of finding someone who has some knowledge of a deep-sea fishery," Teri says. "That is our intention -- to fish her. That's what Richard would have wanted."
Part of the difficulty, Rau says, is the area. Although the docks of Broward County once teemed with commercial fishermen, escalating dock fees and waterfront condos caused most of them to leave years ago. Richard Nielsen Jr. was one of Broward's last. "This is a dying man's job," Rau explains. "There're very few of us left in Fort Lauderdale."
