Drinking from the Full Half of the Half Full Glass

If I wasn't consciously choosing to drink from the full half of the half full glass, I'd be pretty well in despair. This month was the month I fondly and feverishly imagined I would do a lot of catching up on bills. This was the month that the pathetic catch of the early part of the season would give way to a stampeding bounty of lobsters and cheddar. Unfortunately, the stampede got out of hand. We are catching way too many shedders too fast. As a result, the price is flabbergastingly low. My flabber is so gasted that I may need surgical intervention.

Lobsters are selling for what they did in the early 1980's. That McMonkeyed up time machine is not functioning evenly, however. Bait, fuel and boat payments are very much in the current day economically.

Not only is the price shocking, dealers are instituting rolling blackouts- days they won't buy at all. Add a week off in July when the lobstermen to tried to take action to stabilize price, and voila - a screwed up month.

So the cheddar thing? Not happening.

This was the year I'd have my first full season aboard Close Enough. Timing is everything. Time to get the glass half full again. Tomorrow it will still be July. I will still have the privilege of working on the ocean. February is still a long way off.

Linkage:

Check out the Unstuck posting for this time around

Time for a Rematch

"Oh, what a good boy am I" I was thinking a week ago yesterday. Despite the economic hardships of the lobster season, I'd got into the habit of buying bait and fuel ahead. The fuel keeps fine, since it has been in a similar form for x many million years in the ground. Herring is another matter. Herring keeps well either alive in the ocean, or heavily salted and in massive refrigerators. In a black plastic tote in the stern of my vessel in July for a week and change? The runoff had turned to a greasy brown shellac on the deck, not unlike what you'd find renovating a diner when you pull out a sink or friolater that's not been brought up to health code in several decades.

It's only $120, but I think I need to pitch what was my paid-ahead bait overboard. Why? Because our fleet has not left the harbor since last Friday. The fishermen have engaged in a tie-up to allow an oversupply of lobsters to correct itself, the price to stabilize and to permit the all-powerful dealers and processors to pull their heads back out where  the sun does shine.

If my history is correct, the last time this was done was 1957. The tie-up triggered an unusually prompt response from the federal government who, rather than examining the real cause of market distortions, instead elected to indict fishermen for Sherman Act antitrust violations. This law, designed to deal with oil monopolies and other abuses of emperors, oligarchs and the ultrawealthy was now directed at independent guys in small boats, none of whom had anything remotely like market influence. Or even a fancy cigar and top hat.

It was a misuse of the law to intimidate fishermen out of participating in their own free market. It won't happen again.

The key legal question is: Is the tie-up natural or artificial? Is it the product of advocacy and solidarity and basic free market economics, or of conspiratorial agreement to manipulate supply and force a price?

It is one of the poorer kept secrets that dealers and processors communicate regarding price in order to manage their involvement in this market. Fishermen are entitled to do the same as long as there is no coercion or contract.

It is time to undo the 50 year old misrepresentation used to intimidate fishermen out of taking an active role in their own market. The Maine Department of Marine Resources issued a memo directed exclusively at fishermen, threatening "swift enforcement" and floating the idea of antitrust indictments.

I say bring it on. Fishermen have a right to take an active role in the market that their hard work and risk make possible.

Tie-Up

No, lobstermen do not have to get in the boat if the price isn't reasonable. Lobstermen don't have to duct-tape their mouths shut about it either.

There is nothing illegal about a public call to tie up for the purpose of letting the temporary oversupply of lobsters correct itself, letting the processors catch up and allowing the price to come back into balance with the value of the product. This is actually an example of lobster harvesters being intelligent market players instead of passively waiting for things to get better.

There is no such thing as an illegal lobster "strike" because harvesters are not regulated as to their production schedule with the exception of the state law prohibiting harvests on Sundays between June 1 and August 31.

This is not price-fixing because there is no conspiratorial attempt to artificially set a price. It is simply an adjustment to the harvest for the purpose of allowing the market to correct itself.

Lobstermen are under no obligation to accept any particular price because they are participants in what is supposed to be a free market. Lobstermen also have a constitutional right to communicate about their concerns regarding market conditions.

 Now, let's eat. Eat local.

Summer 2012 is.......on!

Maybe it was the 80 degree days in March, or the near total absence of snowfall. Maybe the water temperature was off its normal track as much as the atmosphere. The lobsters have acted very differently this year. Many of them molted and shed in May instead of July. Then we had a sluggish, cool and rainy late spring and early summer and many other lobsters are now just arriving and settling.

Whatever the climate and the odd migratory patterns of those magnificent crustaceans, they are here and have brought summer to the island, complete with its kaleidoscope of pre-dawn starts to the workday, parties, music, runaway lawns, summer fix-up jobs, predictable southwest breezes in the afternoon and a fighting chance to undo the financial damage of last winter.

Here's a little bit on summer, $2 bills- now I'll notice if they smell like baby oil- and a new song.

Back to Work

After a week of poor weather and other commitments, today was a lovely day on the water. After 10 hours on the boat, I finished a real estate transaction, dealt with some tax stuff, cleaned up the kitchen and now it's 8:26 PM.

Squall!

Today was a long, soggy grind that was mercifully cut short by the most extreme squall I've been out in since being on my own in a boat. The wind went from clammy and mildly annoying to ferocious within about 15 seconds around 10 minutes to 1:00 in the afternoon. It looked as though the first 3 inches or so of the ocean were all being peeled off and hurled northwestward. I was glad to be snugged up to the shore in the lee of the island. It's definitely extreme when there is a 2 foot chop a couple of dozen yards off the shore. I took my time getting back around to the harbor and had a bouncy time getting to the lobster car and then onto the mooring.

Here's my first video journal- the Island Update. Lobsters, waxwings and a peculiar event between an earthworm and centipede.

If You Weren't Crazy Already

It's no wonder that fishermen are unhinged. Between never ending regulatory hurdles and relentless pressure to consolidate, drive out the small boats and harbors, commoditize and otherwise crush the life out of the profession, there are things like weather and breakdowns. Lament! oh fisherman and even more, the long suffering family and partners.

I got up on Saturday already dreading going out for a stingy early season haul on a rough day. I looked at the 5:00 am buoy report giving out 21 gusting to 22 knots- no go territory. I looked out the door a little later, and what I was seeing didn't match the data. I packed up for  the day, thinking I'd go to the harbor, get a look and then come home and do other things.

I got down there, and Charlie was  getting ready to go. Ellen was heading out. I suppose I ought to try.

I dragged myself across the harbor, got my oil gear on, checked the dipstick with the unease that comes from not quite wanting to see that yes, the oil keeps getting a little lower each day, beyond what it should be. More on that sinking feeling later when the weather actually does get nasty.

I proceeded around the island to the wild north shore- an area that looks like it could be the Alaska coast, with all the bleak rocks, spruce forest and driftwood pick up sticks the size of tree trunks.

I get to the west side and, of course, it's a flat calm and dazzling morning. Blue silver water stretching away to the Mussel Ridge Islands, Owls Head, Spruce Head and the rest of the world's most gorgeous coastline.

To further confound, but in a good way, the catch is qualitatively and quantitatively much better for no reason I can discern.

Then there's Monday. I motored back Sunday night, leaving family on North Haven to get a proper start on Monday. Monday is supposed to be a super Nat-friendly 5-10 knots from the northeast.

I get a few strings hauled and the gray-green gloom sets in with occasional traction waves-my name for the the little ripples that mean big gut clenching pain in the ass fishing conditions. Things are manageable but unpleasant.

I steam across to the Mackerel Ledge where a squall and dense fog show up at the same time. OK, I'm a mighty sailin' man, I can handle it.

Then, coinciding perfectly with the deteriorating weather, the bottom falls out of my intestines and soul. That little oil leak must not be so little. There's a rainbow around me, and not the equal rights or clearing after the storm kind, but the motor falling out of the boat and bankruptcy looking kind. My eyes pounce on the oil pressure gauge. It's normal at idle, but clearly not happy when I tach up a few hundred rpms. I'm sure this means a tow into town, several hundred dollars to get hauled out and several thousand to pull the motor, or whatever seized up dead weight of cast iron is left when I get into  the harbor.

I limp in, begging the almighty to release me from my self-imposed lunacy of trying to be a commercial fisherman. I then beg Weston to help me look things over. He alerts me to the fact my hauling davit is down and imminently going to take out his wheelhouse if I don't get control of my vessel.

While I'm waiting, I very, very reluctantly look at the dipstick. The oil level that was normal a few hours ago is catastrophically low now. I want to shave my head and join a cult until the next comet goes by. Or work at Home Depot. Anything but this belligerent mechanical bull-ride of stress, unpaid bills and boat ignorance.

A few minutes of skilled inspection identifies an oil pressure sensor line as the source of all the oil spewing out of the engine. A mere 6 inch piece of tubing that rusted through. An easy fix. If I could get my hands on it. Which I can't  because the engine box is bolted, glued and caulked into place. No matter. It's gotta go.

A day later, the part has been ordered by Art Stanley, the Yoda Wan Kenobi of all things marine and diesel, dropped off on a boat he just finished fixing up that was heading out to Matinicus, and successfully installed in about five minutes.

In the meantime, I caught up on all kinds of law nerd business, laundry and yard care.

What was I was so stressed about? Quite a bit, actually. I'm a sensitive type. I'm only a very small animal. Not one of the fiercer ones, you know.