Another Day in the Office

From here on out I'll refer to my Captain as "Cap, " since I'd like him to remain anonymous.

6 am- Meeting in Back Cove. Cap backs his truck down to "landing" by the footbridge where we unload very heavy trays of bait (probably 125 lbs--my body weight--each), buckets, and our daily supplies (lunch boxes and thermoses). Cap parks his truck and fetches the skiff. Then we load the skiff and motor a stone's throw to the

mooring.

6:15 am- We unload the trays and all our stuff onto the boat. Breathless from the lifting, Cap says "The hardest part of the day is over." Cap starts the boat. I fidget with my clothes, hair, oilskins, etc, until everything is "just so." We chat briefly while steaming out of the Cove. It's hard not to stare at the gorgeous hues of pinks and oranges flaming on the horizon as the sun rises. Everything is silhouetted by the blinding first light of the day.

6:30 am- We kick into action. I start flying around deck organizing trays, filling the hot tank with seawater, and setting up my bait for the day. I remove lids that keep the gulls out of our leftover bait overnight and confront the smelly mess of pulverized herring and rotten pogies from the day before. I begin stuffing bait nylon mesh bags with one pogy (head ripped off, cut along the underside and turned inside out), and a handfull of herring pulp each. Stuffing bait bags occupies me for the rest of the day whenever I have a free second (very rarely).

6:45 am- Cap locates the first buoy in our string, snags it with the gaff, and pulls it into the winch and then the hauler. The hauler lets out a loud whiny protest to hauling so much weight that early in the morning. The day has begun.

As the line is hauled, falling to the deck in snaking coils of purple, orange and black, I bait my bait irons with two full bait bags each. Each trap has two bait lines that secure two bait bags on either side of the white trough. Each buoy that we haul marks two traps, secured to the same line. The hauler screeches and I know that the trap has reached the water's surface. I assist Cap in pulling the trap onto the washrail. I slide the "lead" trap along the rail toward the stern and Cap pulls the second "tailer" trap onto the rail.

I remove the empty bait bags from the trap and thread full bags on the bait lines. Cap opens the door and we empty the trap together. This is done by him lowering his end while I lift the heavy end (with four bricks in it). (Yes, this is hard on the back.) Then we tilt the trap toward the side with the door, dumping the shrimp out into a tray. We do the lead trap first, then the tailer. He kicks the boat into gear and I bait the second trap while he positions us to set the pair of traps back in the same spot. I close up the traps and position them on the rail for setting. He sets the tailer first and when the "tailer warp" runs out, I push the lead trap into the water. Onto the next to start all over again. Between traps I am scrubbing the next tray, baiting the bait irons, watering shrimp with the saltwater deck hose to keep them from freezing, washing the mud off of the rail so that it doesn't drip into the shrimp tray, as well as pulling the full trays to the stern and stacking them.

Craziness. We are running full throttle all day. I barely find time for a hurried pee on my pee bucket, a sip of ginger tea, or a nibble of sustenance. I have to consciously remind myself to meet my basic needs so that I don't get too focused on the work and become dehydrated or lose energy from not eating.

For the rest of the work day we haul traps. We finish hauling at around 12:30 or 1pm. Then we

steam in, "park" near Pemaquid Point Lighthouse where we are under the shore and protected from the northerly wind. (The wind is usually some variation of northerly this time of year.) We go through all of the trays of shrimp one by one pouring them into an empty tray and picking out the dead shrimp. Cap is big on quality, not just quantity, in hopes of fetching the

optimum market price.

Once our shrimp is "perfect," we steam to South Bristol. I scrub

down the boat with soapy water on the way so that it sparkles. Cap doesn't want them to see a spot of mud at the dock, so that it looks like we will have a clean product. As we steam into the harbor, we pass Witch Island, where I lived two summers ago. We pass the South Bristol co-op dock, where I wave to the fishermen I know. We pull up to the dock. Cap secures the bow and I tie off the stern. The dock hands run the hoist, lowering rope loops that

we loop under three stacked trays full of shrimp at a time. Once the trays are unloaded, they lower down empty trays for us to fill the next day. Then Cap lowers the diesel pump down to me and I fuel up the boat. We chat briefly with the dock hands and then push off to steam home.

On the steam home I am busy preparing for the next day. There are many bait bags to be filled! We use 150 bait bags in a day. Cap is kind to help me out. He busts pogies up, while I stuff bags.

Then comes my favorite part of the day.

We pass The Thompson Cottages, built by my Grandpa, owned by folks, and some day to be mine. My heart brims with pride and gratitude. But I try not to look at them too hard, because I might stuff my glove with herring slop instead of the bag!

We get to Back Cove by 2 or 3 pm. We are both exhausted. My back is in pain. I ask: "Same thing tomorrow?" Cap replies "Yep." The day is done.