MAN OVERBOARD!!

In another blog post, I talked about the day in the life of a lobsterman. 12 years ago, when I was in college, I worked on lobster boats during the summer break.

At the end, I talk about the dangers of working on lobster boats, and how deadly it can be if you go overboard on a lobster boat. Growing up, there were people that I knew, that went overboard, and never coming back up. So if you missed this story, then go back to the last blog post and check it out.

Now like I mentioned, if you go overboard, you are likely not going to come back up, and I talked about why in my last email. At the age of 7, my father brought me on the boat that he worked on, and he went overboard!

Growing up, my father would bring me back all kinds of cool things from his fishing trips. One trip he brought me back a shark tooth and made me a shark tooth necklace out of it. One trip he made me a pocket knife out of plastic. He would bring back fresh fish and cook it up. He had video footage of sharks and whales when he went way out to sea. All kinds of cool stories about what he saw when he was out at sea. And I thought it was so cool.

I wanted to see sharks! I wanted to see whales. I wanted to catch fish.

Some of the fishing trips he went on were for 2-8 days long, so I couldn’t go on those with him. I had school and being out to sea that long for a kid, was too long.

But hauling lobster traps was something that was a day long trip. So  I asked him all the time if I could go hauling with him. He always said “no the boats too small” or “no we have too much work to do”. But I kept asking. And finally, one day he brought me when I was 7 years old.

That day, my father woke me up bright and early. It was probably 5 am, I am 7 years old at the time, and I am so excited, I jump right out of bed and get ready to go. No arguing about wanting to sleep 5 more minutes or anything, I was too excited to sleep in.

We hit the road, we get to the wharf, and hop on the lobster boat.

The day is going well. I am still super excited, having fun being on a boat, hanging with adults. I was a little bit cold, I wasn’t ready for how cold it would be out on the ocean that day, but my excitement trumped the cold feeling.

My fathers working, pulling traps up, catching the lobsters. I am playing with the lobsters. Learning how to put the rubber bands on them, and trying to help the adults out with their job.

The traps were going over board, and I had to stay on the front of the boat by the Captain, away from the rope as the traps went out.

On one line, the traps were going out, and I didn’t realize it. I walked to the back of the boat to talk to my father as he was working. And all of a sudden he goes overboard.

I am scared. I am like what just happened. The captain of the boat stops the boat. And my father swam to the surface. He’s treading water, laughing.

The Captain is asking "What happened? Are you alright".

And my father replies with "Yup all good. Waters nice and warm" and then he swam back to the boat.

He gets back on, and we were like what the heck happened? He d tells us his foot got stuck in the rope, and he had to jump out of it, and there was no where to go, so he jumped overboard. The captain was laughing.

After that, we just proceeded on throughout the day like nothing happened. On his lunch break we whipped out the fishing poles. My father hooked on to some haddock, and he brought it home, and we ate it for dinner that night and told my mom and sister the stories about my day out on the boat.

I never asked to go on the boat again. I then realized it was too small and can be dangerous with how small the boats are. My father is lucky. Not many people go overboard and make it back onto the boat. Luckily he was a good strong swimmer.

As a kid, I ate a lot of haddock. It was a common fish that my father would catch when he was out to sea. It is also a fish that we also offer on our store! If you would like to order it, here is the link to get yours now >> Click here to get some Maine Haddock 

P.S. Next week I am going to talk about what lobsterman are like. So favorite my keep your eye out!