On Board at Last

It finally happened!  With the help of Steve Robbins III at the Stonington Co-op, I finally got my first ride on a working lobster boat. Steve has been a great help to us on this project and extremely patient about answering all my many questions with a smile.  Hey, now that I think about it maybe Steve was trying to get me out of his office when he sent me down the dock in search of Captain Jason and his sternman Chris with the suggestion that they might be amenable to a camera toting ride along.

As it turned out, Jason and Chris were wonderful about having me onboard, and they too were very patient with my questions, the first of which was ,“what happens if I get sick?”.  Jason said not to worry about it. Not, don’t worry about it because it won’t happen, but don’t worry about it because it happens to everyone!  I am very pleased to report that despite the fact that the sea was choppy, the bait was smelly, and I hadn’t eaten breakfast I didn’t embarrass  myself – at least in that regard.

I did have a few embarrassing moments trying to stay on my feet, not to mention stay on my feet and photograph.  Chris and Jason were walking around like most of us do while sober on dry land. I however, was stumbling and lurching like a drunk getting off a merry-go-round.

I have to tell you that these guys worked non-stop. No bathroom breaks, no lunch break, no sitting down. Chris ate a sandwich at the wheel, and Jason seemed to prefer smoking while continuing to fill bait bags and haul traps.  Every minute is accounted for either; looking for your buoys, gaffing buoys, pulling traps on board, unloading lobsters and other assorted sea creatures (more on that later), rebaiting the traps, dropping traps back into the water over and over and over again.

It wasn’t too bad of a day considering it was still early in the season. Like lobsterman all along the gulf, the guys in Stonington are waiting for the  lobsters to migrate inshore, and for the “shedders” to harden up and come out of hiding.  When this happens things get very busy.  Given the costs of fuel and bait, and the current low price paid for lobster, these men and women really need some big catches in the months to come.

Now that I have had one ride am I satisfied? Not at all. I plan to be back as soon as my tired legs will let me. Embarrassing fact number two – I was tired out from simply trying to stay standing up on that moving boat all day long, and I wasn’t even pulling traps. Besides, Chris and Jason said if I didn’t tell anyone about the fact that the steering went out, I could come back again.