Fork in the Road

Outpost Matinicus has become too much of a confessional on the failings of the Zero Carbon Lobster Project and all of its personal and family impacts. I spend way too much time sharing the stress of my life adventure and not enough on the adventure, the vision and the many successes.

 I am, therefore, moving the confessional over to a new blog where I can document my coming to grips with my situation and my path out of it. Here is the link: http://nathusseyunstuck.blogspot.com/

Outpost Matinicus will hopefully go back to being about island life, fishing life, ideas for a healthier, more prosperous and sustainable future world, here on this little island and around the global community.

Here on Matinicus, lobsters are slow. Despite a mild winter with freakish, 80 degree days in March, things are behind now. Maybe the earth didn't get enough rest and now because of that insomnia, can't get up on time.

The lobsters are late. Only the one of the rhododendrons I tend- one out of dozens- has started to blossom. I had 1 female and 3 male Baltimore orioles here yesterday. When I looked in the bird journal, they were here earlier last spring even though last winter and spring were colder and snowier.

Because the lobsters are slow, hauling traps feels like practice. I'm getting lots of practice making the boat go where I want and running the hauler, tending traps. I am getting way too much practice measuring lobsters microscopically short of the legal size. I need to expand and intensify my vocabulary of profanity, because I don't have adequate obscene words to externalize my frustration.

We've had something like 14 out of the last 20 days be raining, foggy or something in between. Today was a welcome respite. Got some laundry on the line. Got a few more traps in the water to the northeast of the island.


Tomorrow is a haul day and I am not up for it. I'm basically working for the bait and fuel vendor. If I get a few pennies over that, I guess I'll be glad. Friends went out to haul in the rough, post-storm seas and a frisky westerly, caught 8 lobsters out of 60 traps and called it good for the day. That's what I can look forward to. Really need to find that happy place inside.