Farewell to Sweet Pea

Sweet Pea came out of the water at the pebble beach in Owl's head, exactly the same spot as she'd gone in just three years ago.

I was glad to see the boat go to an enthusiastic forager who planned to use her for that purpose.  I would have been a whole lot happier to keep the boat, but running before the financial avalanche for a couple of years made it a necessity to let go.

Sweet Pea had lived for the last year and a half in my barn. This was not where she belonged. She was not meant as a storage bin for drum sets, immersion suits and other culch that seemed to get dropped in. Megan, Matt and I tugged her out of the barn and into the sunshine. Fiona and I went and borrowed a trailer.

Fiona and I put her into the inner harbor at Matinicus so she could soak up before the 10 or so mile tow into Owl's Head. Rowing out around the ledges in the harbor, it quickly came back to me what an incredible boat she is. Sweet Pea has the balance of being super sturdy and stable while also rowing as smooth and sure as a knife through butter. With the raised oarlocks-many thanks Clayton, for everything- the rowing is, well, not effortless, but very comfortable and efficient.

Fiona and I poked around Dexter's ledge, enjoying the view of the seaweed jungle from above, tucked in tight to the rocks in a way that can't be done on a full sized vessel. I was aware how much more comfortable I was maneuvering in close to the rocks than I remember being when I was actually working the peapod. I suppose that's what comes from a couple more seasons of daily work on the water. I wish I'd been more relaxed for the two seasons I worked out of Sweet Pea.

The night before the tow to the mainland was restless as I worried about wind, sea and all the other things that can so quickly and thoroughly go wrong when a green boat operator is combined with challenges on the ocean. The worrying must have paid off, as the tow and the weather were both very peaceful. As soon as I got out of the harbor, I lengthened the tow line out and, through dumb luck, got the length such that the pod sat just on the back side of a wave in my wake and towed without any swaying or sliding sideways.

On the way across, I retraced the whole adventure in memory, from visiting the boatshop in December of 2009 through the building, launch, hauling, inventing things to make the job doable, making the boat solar, sailing, fishing, hauling out in front of big storms and now letting go.

I rowed from the wharf where I'd tied up Close Enough over to the beach, aimed the peapod toward Jon's trailer and helped winch her on. After a few minutes of conveying the unique features and things I'd done to adapt the solar setup, off they went up the hill, on their way to another part of Penobscot Bay.

This important and magical chapter is over. I am happy and sad.

Homecoming 2013

Cliches pro and con about island life aside, there are unique experiences to be had, at least as far as Matinicus goes, which is pretty far out in every direction in spite of only being about a mile longitudinally and two miles the other way.

One thing I never imagined myself doing is spooning baking soda in through the fan housing on the back of my refrigerator. It is part of the adventure.

Back in April, we came out to clean. I was riding the twin horses of 'oh f***, we have to clean this place up and sell it' and 'no f-ing way is somebody taking my house.' Either way there was cleaning to be done. Big heavy putrid rat-ransacked mounds and dozens of contractor bags for landfill and Goodwill- that kind of cleaning.

When I opened my shop two things occurred. Several rats took off in different directions, hurried, surprised and rudely not observing any sort of courtesy or welcoming me back. I was also forced to confront my hasty and foolish departure late in the previous year. I did not recall leaving such a banquet or so many piles of rubble from several years' of stashing things to figure out another day. Today is the day. As I gaped, I also had to admit that I'd sent Paul in to open things up and he had to walk through this. Sorry, Paul.

A week later, we left. The place had never looked better. The shop was wide open and ready for productivity; buoy painting first, soap making later. As we readied to leave, I put out lots of rat poison. This indirectly led to the eventual spooning of baking soda through the fan blades into the innards of the fridge.

The first three decomposing rats were easy. The fourth got revenge. A couple of weeks later, I returned to a stench, the inescapable olfactory equivalent of crash cymbals next to your head, only more constant. I looked everywhere. I sniffed every cupboard, got in crawl spaces, searched from basement to top floor and found nothing. Pulled the stove. Pulled the fridge. After several days of intense self hypnosis, I convinced myself that the smell was subsiding to a mere nostril hair dissolving, eye watering level.

Eventually, I came to believe that the revengeful critter had somehow crawled into my kitchen ceiling because that was where the smell was most noticeable. After more weeks of patience and delusion, we decided to pull out the fridge again. I got behind and noticed the cheapo particle cardboard stuff had been pulled away from the lower right hand corner. With a flashlight I peered into the dusty cavity and could just make out a tuft of fur. Inside the fan. A more diabolical place to make your last statement I cannot imagine.

I tried reaching in. I'd need to borrow my eight year old's hands to do this, but I don't think he'd go for it. Needlenose pliers did the trick after a lot of profanity and fiddling. First, all I got was some fur. Then I delivered the rat back into daylight.

My biggest mistake was turning the rat over as I got him out. He'd been in a puddle of foul liquid. Why did I look? It was not his good side.

I'd love to have used gasoline in there, but went with baking soda. Even with the rat out and some smell absorbing stuff in there, the project wasn't quite over. I bent one of the fins on the fan, so it started going buckety buckety when I plugged it back in. That problem was easy enough to fix. On the other hand, the extraction took place yesterday, but the smell is not really gone. I hope the rat was alone.

Most of my homecoming proceeded more smoothly. Charging vehicle batteries, blowing up tires, painting buoys, getting rope ready, playing some nice loud tunes with Dennis, mowing the lawn, catching up with friends, journaling the migratory birds.

It smells really nice outside.

Feet Up

I'm in Bowdoinham today, beside the woodstove. It is snowing. More remarkable is that the wind is up and my nerves are not on edge. I am not obsessively watching the marine forecast and checking the Matinicus Rock wind data every hour. Matinicus seems very distant. It's a hard place to live. It's a hard place to leave. When the weather starts to turn I have some agonizing decisions to make.

Sweet Pea made some decent waves for a 15 foot boat. The oar/solar/sail powered lobstering operation was why I got into the business in the first place. It was a conceptual and publicity success, but a financial fiasco that put my family through much suffering. Other people actually made money off the project. I was at an art fair and saw two different depictions by two different artists, both of which had sold. One was a nautical chart with a painting taken from a picture of me off Markey's breaking a trap aboard. Someone paid a decent sum for that piece. The other was a beautiful photo giclee print of Sweet Pea hauled up on the bank in the fall of 2010 when a storm was on the way. I bought that one. It now hangs in my office, reminding and sort of taunting me.

Was it all for nothing more than a crater of debt and family strife?

I now own-sort of- a small, but viable diesel powered boat, Close Enough. I love her almost as much as Sweet Pea, maybe more some days. This vessel actually offers a decent chance of making a living if I can learn and earn enough and get through the long months with no income.

What about bringing together the best of both worlds? What about the punchy, reliable 210 Cummins to get to strings of gear and steam up the bay, and electric power when I am going trap to trap? The Prius of lobster boats; A hybrid with the diesel as primary big, horny power that charges batteries, together with solar panels that charge batteries any time the sun is shining.

Lobstering does not appear to be going away any time soon. Neither are the problems associated with fossil fuels. On this snowy day far from my home, there's a thought.

Maine Last on Forbes- Is That Really a Bad Thing?

There is an impression that we in Maine always seem to be waiting for the next big out of state entity  to bring economic activity and incomes. It was going to be factories, then call centers, and box stores.

Maybe the big economic elephants don't fit with what Maine is about. 

Perhaps instead of wringing our hands and feeling bad about bottoming out on Forbes' list of places to do business; instead of lamenting what we aren't, we should recognize and grow what we are. So Maine is not a great place for oil refineries, chemical complexes, factories and box stores. Maine on the other hand is a great place for small businesses, with a rapidly growing farming sector, wood products, clean energy and my favorite- the most bitchin' deconsolidated fishery in the nation.

Maine is a place where it's recognized that if you buy local or hire your neighborhood contractor, the money stays in town and comes back to you instead of being cyber-whisked off to the Caymans.

Maybe Maine's economy just isn't ever going to impress Steve Forbes, but we can grow stronger by knowing the strengths we do have and tilting policy accordingly.

On the Hard

 "Still, despite the war, despite anything, really, it eased his heart to be back at sea." -Alan Furst Dark Voyage.

Close Enough is perched on blocks and out of action. The great folks at J.O. Brown & Sons on North Haven take very good care of her. I haven't decided whether to tape a sign on her or not. I love that boat. I love the state of mind that comes from that boat. I can go places too wet and cold to otherwise go.  No matter what else is happening, the quiet and sneaky sense of peace sets in as soon as I pull away from a dock, float or mooring.

That transformative means of letting go the land and the struggles of life there is not an option now. The sense of mastery that comes when a wayward farm boy/attorney/musician is welcomed into a true island community (or two) and then learns how to- at least with fenders- make a boat go across Penobscot Bay and stop at the desired destination without major damage to vessel or float is magic. I'm not sure how to translate that to other spheres in life, but I don't think I could get rid of it if I tried.

Taking Up II

What may be my last day of taking up traps started bright, cold and breezy. After breakfasting my two younger kids and taking care of a customer with 5 vehicles to register and three fishing vessels to pay excise tax on, I head down. Rounding the top of the hill before going  down to the harbor is the spot where I get the first look at sea conditions; except of course in the summer when I don't look because it’s presumed to be tranquil. Summer it is most certainly not on Saturday November 17, 2012. Great frisking horsetails of spray arch up off the distant ledges. The temperature difference between water and air creates a serrated horizon and vertically stretches far off islands and oil tankers and such. Not a particularly inviting seascape.

The skiff is even less enthusiastic, trying to go every which way other than toward Close Enough in the wind, perhaps trying to tell me something. Nick and Samantha pull into the harbor around 9:45 or so and tie up at the lobster car. I don’t want to call and ask why. Again, not  encouraging. As a sentient being, though, I can go out and turn back if need be, though I’ve decided I really need to get the job done this weekend. I have a new job to perform for, November is only going to turn into December if I wait, there are nautical miles to go before I sleep, bills piling up waiting for the next cash flow to start dripping. Today really needs to be the day. Arrggghh, as opposed to Yarggggh!! such as pirates with more fortitude and chest hair would say.

The roller coaster delivers as promised. The first pot I try bringing up is preceded by a haybale sized tangle of balled up trap wire and some chrome automobile trim caught a couple of fathoms from the bottom of the line where my trap awaits. I wrestle the mess into  the boat as a wave hits. A wave of panic splashes across my imagination as I  picture getting yanked over by this giant wire burdock.

It is great to be back aboard the boat. Really.

Traps come on slowly and dance merrily on the platform. They are not where they belong. They are where they do not belong. Over the course of the day, I come to know that many were either junked by superstorm Sandy, or have hopscotched off and waltzed with Matilda off into the distance and the depths. It’s irresponsible to leave gear out, so I expect I’ll need to do a cleanup day some time before putting the boat up.

Even with the assumption that some lost sheep will be returning to the fold, I have lost a lot of traps this year. Poor rope work, old rope, sinking them by not anticipating tidal drift and thereby sending them off the continental shelf, snarls and who knows what else took a heavy toll on my string of gear.


I've learned so much this year, but have only just begun. I feel intimately familiar with the neighborhood of my work, the waters, the rocks, the paths between hauling areas, how to get from here to there without ski jumping over a ledge. I can sort of think in two dimensions on the water. I am utterly in awe of the fishermen here who see what I see plus the third dimension of the shape of the bottom, plus the fourth, fifth and Sixth dimensions of tide, lunar and migratory cycles of lobsters.

By Saturday night, however, I deeply and personally despise each and every trap I was not able to lose on account of incompetence or natural forces. They are heavy and grabby with rotten bits of wire bent on seizing themselves together when I am trying to stack them- each one needing to get moved about six times before it’s in the yard for the winter. I am in pain and in foul temper.

Then the last one is on the truck in the yard, and I'll unpack it tomorrow. I look at the glow fringing the western tree line and breathe. I guess I’m done. Mostly.

Taking Up 2012

At the moment, I’m riding the Capt. Neal Burgess from North Haven to Rockland inside my minivan. There are gruff northeasterly whitecaps covered with capillary waves. They are being summoned by a monster storm off the mid Atlantic. The low pressure down  there has demanded air from up here, which moving air mass is scraping across the water and gruffening up the whole of Penobscot Bay. The van is getting a saltwater rinse. November is here. It is a good time to write about July.


July is a month of overpowering blue and silver on the water, beach days, early sunrises and late sunsets, social gatherings- planned and invited as well as spontaneous and initiated across the yard when someone passes by and waves. The workdays are hypnotic. The traps are all in the water, the kinks are worked out. The dance moves come subconsciously. The dread- filled starts of cold days with large green seas and zillions of capillary waves that signal rougher water to come are far in the future.

Lobstering is a unique livelihood even on the mainland, but here on Matinicus, the days start in even more unusual ways. I may bike to the wharf with a lunch and thermos, or I may take the ancient little blue truck that saw its last inspection sticker many, many years ago. Most often, though, I walk across my lawn, down the dirt road to the island’s only cross roads, turn right with the sun not quite over the tree line and songbirds long since having shifted into full swing. I climb down a ladder at the wharf, drag my little skiff to the water and head out to the boat. The morning walk is about the nicest work commute imaginable. At the end of the day, though, the uphill seems a lot longer and steeper, especially if I promised somebody a bucket of lobsters.

There was a day in July where I tore off a lot of checks and sealed a lot of envelopes. I paid bills that had been etching my insides since the prior year. Even though the price of lobster paid at the boat was historically low, and even with 10 days or so carved out of the month by either dealers or fishermen unwilling to conduct business, I made some decent money in July. I thought there would be several more of those days before the season ended, but they never came. I did finally finish paying off the unpaid 2011 bills in October of 2012, and paid my first year’s worth of big principal payments on the boat.

There is a great Simpsons scene where Homer unintentionally skateboards down a steep incline and hurtles out across a canyon. There is a rising moment of exhilaration when he thinks he’ll make it to the other side. Then the horizon sinks slightly and -ka-splat- he does not make  it. So it was with my  season.

I’m ending pretty far short of where I’d hoped to be financially. I’m starting my winter work abruptly sooner than expected for the same reason. I am again facing a winter of financial terror, this time with a senior looking at colleges. In spite of all that, it feels like a success.

I survived my first season as a boat operator. I learned how to take help in the stern. I managed not to give myself an aneurysm every time some part would let go in the engine and I’d be looking at the rainbow colors of oh fuck I can’t be fisherman around my boat. I got handier with wrenches. I even rigged an alternate gear oil cooler so it would work on my boat and I wouldn’t have to wait 3 weeks in the make-or-break month of September for the exact part to come in. I am not quite as afraid of my 210 Cummins diesel  as I was in April. I left the harbor on many dozens of mornings, worked hard, sang out of tune, cursed frequently, partied too much, let the grass get too long and got on with it as much as I could.

I do not know if I’ll fish next year or not. Financial pressure and family changes have made it even harder for me to be on Matinicus. As I was getting ready to leave to start my part time position onshore, I took lots of walks and realized that every inch of that island had dozens of memories for me- every road, path, yard and ledge around the shore prompted many vivid moving pictures and sounds. The people are family. The place is my place. I’ll be back. Especially since there are still 350 pots to be taken up.


Learning to take help

“You’ll make more money and do less work.” “You’ll be a lot safer.” “What, fa Chrissakes, of course you got to have a stern man, whatya thinkin?!” After about the first 5 minutes of having a sternman, I wondered what took me so long. The business platform evolved around boats of a certain size and configuration, taking on or two crew along. It only makes sense for me to go with the tried and true model. Which is, of course, exactly  why I didn’t do it. Nature abhors a vacuum the way I resist doing things the correct easy and sensible way.

In my predictable square peg fashion, I wanted to haul on my own. I didn’t have any quarters to put a sternman up in. On Matinicus, crew people do not drive to work from their home. They inhabit the upstairs of shops and fish houses, couches, bunkhouses, trucks, overturned skiffs, ditches on Friday nights into Saturday mornings. I guess I’m exaggerating, but the point being that having a crew person means having a place for them to crash, eat, bath, smoke, drink and so on. I also resisted because as I am learning to run the boat, find gear, and operate the business, most if not all sternmen are far more qualified than I am to be at the helm. The only difference is that it is my name on the note at Bar Harbor Bank and Trust.

There was also the matter of me enjoying being by myself when working.

The day came, however, when I needed to at least try and do it right. My first sternman came on board in July during her break from a private liberal arts college, the basement halls of which my brother and I made years of mischief in. She knew about as much about sterning as I knew about taking her as crew. She caught on extremely swiftly. It took me about 5 pots to see the reason the business functions this way. Well, duhhh, again, what took me so long? We were grotesquely over educated, but managed not to have our top heavy brains completely overtake common sense. Neither of us fell overboard or got paralyzed by overanalyzing the kelp scraps and crab shells.

Next year is a big question mark. Insolvency, incompetence, stress and all I wouldn’t trade this one for anything.