The Hot Tank

The hot tank is a coveted accomodation on a lobster boat in the winter. For that matter, any source of heat is cherished during the winter months. On Cap's boat it is a fiberglass tank that is attached to the wheelhouse alongside the lobster tank. At the base of the tank is a coil that conducts heat released from the engine and warms water in the tank. It is one of my duties to screw in the drain plug at the base and fill it with seawater from the deck hose first thing every morning. This way the water has time to heat up as we steam out to the first buoy.

During lobstering season, the hot tank has multiple uses. It can be used to clean the "foul" off of the buoy and lines. When gear sits in the water for an extended period of time, brown stringy algae begins to grow on it. This algae makes the lines slippery and heavy. It dulls the bright colors on the buoys so that they are hard to spot. This algae grows predominantly on the upper 5 fathoms (30 ft) of line, since this is the portion of the water column that receives the most light thereby fueling algal photosynthesis. By simply dropping the line and buoy into the hot tank, the hot water will cook the algae off and have the effect of cleaning your gear.

Another purpose of the hot tank is to redeem a withered buoy. When a buoy sinks deep under water often due to another fisherman setting his traps over your line, the air in the foam condenses under the water pressure having the effect of shrivelling the buoy. This can also be fixed by throwing the buoy in the hot tank where the air bubbles within expand and the foam returns to its original smooth, rounded shape.

During shrimping season the water is so cold and the sunlight so pale that algae doesn't have a chance of growing on our gear. The principal purpose of the hot tank during shrimping is to wash our gloves off. This may sound prissy, but when you are turning greasy pogies inside out and handling pulverized herring all day, your gloves get quite greasy. Slimy gloves make it exceedingly hard to tie or untie rope and do other tasks requiring grip and dexterity.

However, the hot tank also acts as a kind of black void. It is conveniently located in the center of my daily activities, but sometimes this location isn't so desirable. Once something drops in the hot tank, there is no recovering it. I've dropped the bait iron, full bait bags, and innumerable helpless marine victims in that black hole. Luckily Cap has Neoprene cuffs on his oil coat, so he is able to reach in to rescue large items without swamping his gloves. However, when it comes to critters, there is no hope of survival. When Cap pops open the door to empty the shrimp trap, sometimes a pathetic shrimp that was caught on the trap door plops into the hot tank. Fish have landed there, not to be seen again until I drain the hot tank at the end of the day. By then they are boiled to smithereens.

At the end the day towards the beginning of the season I thought I was going crazy because I kept whiffing the tempting yet sickeningly greasy smell of fried fish. The thought crossed my mind that maybe the wind was wafting the smell of Shaw's fried seafood our way. But then I realized that Shaw's wouldn't be open for another few months and that the wind was coming from the wrong direction. I traced the smell to the hot tank and realized the cause. I had been washing fish particles off of my gloves all day and they had accumulated in the hot tank and cooked. It was the hot tank that smelled of cooked fish!

Sometimes it's interesting to observe the

colors that different critters turn when they are cooked in the hot tank. For instance, there is a peculiar shrimp that is spiky and striped (picture at top of photo). Unfortunately I don't know the common name for it. When it is alive it is clear with brown stripes. However, when the hot tank's through with it, the shrimp looks like a candy cane: white with red stripes! I find this fascinating.