Crabbing Brothers Lived to Write About It

Corey Arnold

Watch: Photographer documents high-risk fishing

Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand have one of the deadliest jobs in the world. The Hillstrands are crab fishermen off the coast of Alaska, where the waves are huge and the water is cold enough to kill a person in five minutes.

The Hillstrands have been on the Discovery Channel show "The Deadliest Catch," and they've written a book about their adventures called Time Bandit.

Johnathan Hillstrand writes about a day when the boat's motor quit. Stranded, they don't know which to fear more — the silence, or the sound.

"It was so calm and quiet, it was scary," he tells the Bryant Park Project. "And I was helpless with no radios, so I'm just floating out, and getting flushed out into the Bering Sea."

"We're used to hearing loud sounds all the time," Andy Hillstrand says. "So when you hear the lapping of the hulls, it's not like you're in the harbor tied up, just sleeping like a baby. Something bad's coming."

On our blog, video of the Hillstrand brothers' visit to our show.