Down East Magazine - Maine Vacations, Real Estate, Lifestyles

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'I Dreamed of Working on a Lobster Boat'

Providing therapy in a warm office looks appealing, but there is something about struggling and scrambling around on the Mollie B that I will forever cherish and miss.

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    Matthew Schuler writes:  I spent summers in Brooksville, adjacent to the Holbrook Island Sanctuary, From the time I was a small boy. My Dad had a wooden, lobster-style picnic boat, the Nancy, that we used to spend endless hours cruising Penobscot Bay. I loved visiting Stonington and watching the lobsterman do their thing! From those early days I dreamed of working on a lobster boat and have actually recreated part of this childhood by purchasing the Owl, another wooden lobster-style picnic boat with an extensive history on Islesboro. I have two teenagers of my own now....

  
Lobstering Journal
August 19, 2007

    It turned out to be a good day for the captain and crew aboard the Mollie B yesterday, but it did not look that way when the day began. I awoke as usual at 3:45 a.m., had some coffee and toast — the traditional "mug up" that Nana used to recommend, and then stepped outside to a steady rain.

    Ugh, I thought, this is hard enough work as it is — do we really need to do it in the rain?

    I met Josh at the dock at 4:25 a.m. He already had the Mollie B at the float ,which meant I got to avoid the skiff ride. (Just fine with me! )We loaded the rest of the bait — about 8 boxes of salted herring with each box weighing about 75 pounds — aboard, went through our own mental checklists of what we needed to have for the day, and then pushed off from the dock at 4:35 a.m. sharp.

    It was pitch black and still raining. In the past the sun or moon had given light to make the trip out of the harbor easy. Not the case today. I knew even Josh could not see when he turned on the spotlight. Dodging boats and buoys, we gently made our way out of the harbor, allowing the huge Detroit diesel to warm up slowly. At the bell that marks the entrance to the harbor I experienced another first: Josh turned to the radio's weather channel. In the past this device has been used exclusively to monitor other fisherman, hear about the chatter coming in and out of Camden Marine, and hear who needed a lift aboard the Wayfarer launch. The fact that Josh was suddenly interested in the weather should have been more of a clue to me than it was. Although I am a morning person, I must admit at the time I missed the true meaning of this sign.

    I had manned my station, which is located just behind the wheelhouse. It contains the lobster holding tank — a tank with circulating saltwater where we store lobsters during the day's haul. The top of this tank acts as a table where I'd stand and measure and band the lobsters and see that they are legal, the other part of my station are the bait tubs used to fill the bait bags. Each bag contains a mix of a piece of cowhide or a "puck-"synthetic cowhide-and herring. We used mackerel in the past but with disappointing results. Lobsters — and therefore the crew— really prefer herring.

    The rain picked up, which really is a lousy situation for me as the sternman. I am exposed to the weather and Josh is covered by the wheelhouse and so cares less about the rain. I was about 30-40 bags into it when I figured I could take a break. Surely that number of bags will keep me ahead, I thought. A little after 5 a.m. the sky lightened a bit. Not the sunrise I was looking for, but not pitch black anymore. We hit our first traps at about 10 past 5. If I remember correctly, it was empty. Great, I thought, hauling empty traps in the rain – could anything be worse?