insects of the sea

Our friends Skipper and Radar dropped by for tea on their way home from lobstering the other day. They brought us our dinner, too! After four years here it's still amazing that we can sit down and eat lobsters as fresh as this. Skipper and Radar say the lobster season hasn't been good, though. The weather even in December -- usually the best month -- was horrible for lobstering, with some major storms. Maybe things will pick up in May, when the waters are warmer. In the meantime, Skipper says "We are a non-profit organization."

Well, especially if they give away the catch before they even get back to their wharf.

marooned

I looked up the definition of maroon this morning. The first definition doesn't apply to us, since it requires our having been captured by buccaneers and set ashore as punishment. But here's the second definition: to isolate as if on a desolate island. Yep, that's us. We haven't been able to leave the island for a week now, and it looks as if we won't be able to leave for another week, or even longer. And what an adventure it is!

Greg called Laura at Fort Point Fisheries to ask about Gunning Cove the other day. "Oh, yes, it's iced up," she told him. "It doesn't look too thick out there, but no boats are going out." We knew no boats had gone out for the past week or so. It has been too windy and the waves too high even for lobstermen. This isn't really their time of year anyway. Even though the official lobster season runs from the beginning of December to the end of May, most lobster boats take a break during the season when the weather is at its fiercest. It's too dangerous out there now. They'll start going out again in late April, and fish until the season comes to a close at the end of May. With ice covering the waters of Gunning Cove, and no bigger boats going in and out to break it up, Greg would not risk trying to take our little Chopper over there.

Fortunately, Greg is a serious student of weather forecasting. So he can tell me exactly what Environment Canada is predicting for the next week. It goes something like this: cold, cold, cold, wind, wind, wind, wind. Here's a little lesson I never knew until I lived here: warmth and wind go together. So does rain, but we don't care about rain. It's wind that makes the difference, and, in the winter, ice. We are not talking about light breezes when we say wind. Greg won't take little Chopper out into the harbour when the wind is blowing at 25 kilometres per hour, and these days the wind is well above that level. Right now the wind is strong and the cold is biting. And Greg says it's about to get a whole lot colder.

So, maybe he can go in next Wednesday. By then there will have been a string of warmer and windier days, maybe enough to melt the ice in Gunning Cove. On that day the wind is supposed to die down and it's supposed to get colder again, but if the ice has melted by then, there should be enough time for him to go into town and run all our errands and get home again. Or not.

The inconveniences are not that great. We have run out of butter and cheese and milk and -- horrors -- okay, this one is serious -- we are about to run out of coffee. We are running out of vegetable oil but, as people who have our priorities straight, we do have a big stock of olive oil. Greg is sad that he's almost out of garlic. But the freezer contains enough food -- green beans, moose meat, lamb, mutton, chard, chanterelles, raspberries, dried apples, et cetera -- for us to dine well into eternity or until the freezer dies, whichever comes first. And we have plenty of Greg's home-made beer and hard cider in the cellar.

We can't return or borrow books at the library but -- hooray! -- the library now offers digital downloads. So far I've been able to download and read John Casey's glorious new novel, Compass Rose (Random House Canada, 2010), Rebecca Skloot's amazing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown Publishers 2010), and Lewis Desoto's Emily Carr, a title in a lovely if somewhat perplexing series called Extraordinary Canadians and published by The Penguin Group. The library's online services were down for three days this week but they are up and running again and I shall go a-browsing. Marooned, but with digital library borrowing: pretty good.

With all this enforced indoor time we have both been carrying on with our various writing projects. We keep the wood stove blazing. Greg devotes a great deal of time and ingenuity to the pursuit of asymmetrical warfare against mice. And I cleaned the stove. So, you see, it's fine, really (though not for the mice). An adventure! Except for the coffee.

no lobstering today

It's a wild morning with serious winds, high tide and a storm surge. The water has come above the dock, a couple of posts have come away from the structure, and we think Chopper is hanging by one line, though we can't tell for sure. We'll need to wait until the water and wind subside a bit before we can safely investigate.

end of the day

supper time

We were at the lighthouse today, and saw many boats far out on the horizon. Once in a while one would come close enough to have her picture taken as she rounded Cape Roseway on her way up the eastern channel.The gulls are delighted that lobster season has begun, and follow the boats hoping for odds and ends of leftover bait that might be tossed overboard. Supper for gulls.

And supper for us, too. No, not leftover bait. We were stacking wood for winter of 2012 when we spied the H. Sinclair coming toward the cove. Greg grabbed a yellow plastic pail and walked down to meet Radar and Skipper while I followed with frosted applesauce cake.
They tied up at the dock long enough to give us three lobsters and eat cake.
After a bit of a chat, they were on their way. They would have lots more to do before their day was finished and they could have their own supper.

lobster season opening day

The lobster boats went back and forth all day yesterday, carrying out their first load of traps, setting them, and returning to the wharf for the second load. Most of the boats that travel this shallower side of the harbour are not large enough to take all their traps in one load.

Today they began to haul lobsters. From now through next May we will notice the low bass sound of each diesel motor as it thrums along in the channel, going out to sea in the early morning darkness and coming home in the afternoon. The lobster boats have a peaceable sound about them, and in the island's silence we hear their going out and their coming in.

lobster season setting day Nova Scotia 2010

This is more of an audio than a video, since everything was so dark ...

getting ready for lobster season

At Fort Point Fisheries in Gunning Cove, everybody has been getting ready for the lobster season for weeks. Now they are putting the finishing touches on their work. Next Monday is dumping day, also called setting day. That's the beginning of the lobster season for Lobster Fishing Area 33, which is this one.

The traps are either already loaded onto the boats, or about to be. A lobster license entitles the holder to set 250 traps. All those traps will be set next Monday, beginning at 7:00 a.m., if the weather is okay. The word from Environment Canada is that it will be windy.
Randy Van Buskirk is helping load his brother Cody's boat. I suppose Cody will return the favour later on.

Here's Cody Van Buskirk on his boat, Au Cobra.
The traps are very big and they are very heavy. Each one has a concrete weight inside that keeps it from moving around too much when it is sitting out there on the ocean floor.
It is a big project to slide the traps off the stern and into the water. They go off the stern one after the other, mostly in strings of several tied together. The boat is moving over the place where the traps will be set, and the traps are sliding off the back. This is all happening far out in the North Atlantic, at the beginning of December.
The day the lobster boats go out with their traps is a dangerous day. So much is going on and there's so much weight and mass to deal with. There's a lot of skill involved, and even then things can go wrong.A view of Skipper's new boat, H. Sinclair, which is named for his dad, Harry Van Buskirk. Randy's new blue traps are stacked on the dock to the left, ready to be loaded onto Sea Arrow.
Locomotion, the red boat on the left, is already loaded. That's Cody and Randy's dad Roger's boat.
Another view of Au Cobra taken from Chopper I as we sailed away toward home.

last day of lobster season

Two lobster boats on their way back to the wharves at Gunning Cove and Fort Point yesterday.

On a breezy day, stern sails catch the wind. Lobstering is over for now; next season will begin at the end of November.

world of wind

For the past several days a strong westerly wind has blown across the island. The days are sparkling with sunlight on deep teal waters and skies that are a correspondingly intense blue, sometimes filled with racing nimbus and cumulus clouds that turn the day from cold to hot to cold again so that everything's changing, all the time, all day. Dramatic weather is one of Nova Scotia's great overlooked and unsung gifts to the world.

Today is the last day of lobster season for this district. Boats are picking up their traps and returning to the mainland. It's a challenging enterprise, bringing in a mass of heavy traps stacked high and filling the deck of the boat. A calmer day would make the effort easier, but there it is. Maybe they will hoist their stern sails, catch a tail wind, and save a bit of diesel on the run home.

In the garden I have almost finished amending the soil in the raised beds. I forked it over a few times until the tines of the fork sank down like butter, then added my half-baked compost and let it sit on top. Before I plant I'll work that compost in. There's not much dirt in this part of Nova Scotia. Rocks, yes. Moss, yes. Swampy boggy cold wet stuff lying just beneath the surface even in places where the ground looks firm enough, definitely yes.

But our vegetable garden sits where the early island settlers had theirs, I think. They did the hard work. And so the soil is good to begin with, though it was compacted when we first began. Now I'm building on the cumulative effort of the past hundred and fifty years, adding another layer.

As I work the wind sings through the mesh of the herring net that fences the garden. This magical net can catch fish in the sea and stop deer and sheep from invading the garden. But it does not even try to hold back the wind.

Wild thing

Skipper and Radar came by this afternoon for a small book party consisting of the four of us. They brought us two lobsters fresh from the sea. After Radar pulls the lobsters out of the traps he puts these heavy rubber bands on them, so their claws can't do serious damage. This year the bands are imprinted with an important message. In case anybody thinks they grew up on a lobster farm.

Early season lobstering

Shelley Van Buskirk Spears is one of our island neighbours. Shelley's grandfather was one of the last lightkeepers on the island, and she is part of a big extended web of family and friends whose McNutt Island connections go back many decades. When lobster season arrives members of this extended network jump in to provide extra help during the crucial first days, when there is so much work to do.

Shelley went on Lyndon Crowell's boat, Maybe Tomorrow, as a bander. Her job was to put rubber bands on the lobsters' claws so they couldn't damage each other after they had been caught. She and her crew-mate Josh took these photos, and she graciously let me use them here.

Josh is emptying a trap. He'll put fresh bait (seen in the foreground) into the trap before he slides it back into the sea.

A banded lobster.

Lyndon Crowell, captain of Maybe Tomorrow. Lyndon grew up on McNutt's Island as the son of one of the last lightkeepers.

Shelley's uncle Cliff's boat, Bar Tender.

One of her dad's boats, Ocean Motion.

Her brother's boat, Au Cobra.

Her uncle Mark's boat, Butt Buster.

A fashion statement. The crews have fun and work hard. On freezing mornings we shiver in our cozy house when we hear them steam by in the darkness, long before dawn. It is dangerous and difficult work.

Lyndon says he loves it and looks forward to every new season.

Homeward bound

Sea Arrow makes her way down the western channel toward Fort Point. She is coming home from her workday -- filled, we hope, with lots of lobster. In this first week of the season the price for lobster has been quite low. Demand is down in a bad economy. Many lobstermen will hold their catch in lobster pounds until the price rises, instead of selling it right away. This gives them a bit more flexibility in dealing with the ups and downs of the market. But it extends their risk as well.

Lobster, apple orchard, sheep

A lobster boat was checking its pots for lobster this morning.Most boats go a bit further out than this at the beginning of the season.
But a few set their traps along the island's shore. I watched this boat through the branches of the lower orchard.
The sheep are watching, too, while they graze kelp out on the point. We're all quite interested. This really, truly, is how lobster is harvested.

McNutt's geography: Lobster Fishing Areas map

This map from the Department of Fisheries gives you the scope of Lobster Fishing Areas 33 and 34. The seasons are different for various LFAs. Some are in the summer. Some LFAs are only open for a month or so. LFAs 33 and 34 have the toughest season since it begins now and runs through May. The boats don't go out, though, when the weather is too rough. This business of catching lobsters is dangerous enough even on calm days.

By sighting the boundary between LFA 34 and LFA 33, then looking to the right a tad to the longest inlet, you will have located Shelburne Harbour. McNutt's Island sits on the outermost edge of it.

For more information you can go to the DFO web site.

Dumping Day in LFA 33

It was still dark when we walked down to the shore to watch the lobster boats set off this morning.

They are officially allowed to go out at seven o'clock, and we could hear the motors humming down the western harbour about then. It must be quite the traffic challenge to launch so many boats all at the same time, filled with traps and gear and crew, off the wharves at Gunning Cove and Fort Point. And this same scene is being repeated at every wharf in southwestern Nova Scotia.

Lobster Fishing Area 33 begins just east of Halifax, and Shelburne is at its western end. LFA 34 -- the big kahuna -- begins to the west of Shelburne Harbour and runs all the way around the southern tip of Nova Scotia and up to Digby. Together, these two LFAs pull in more than sixty per cent of all the lobster taken in Nova Scotia. In 2007 that was just under 16,000 tonnes, worth over $218 million, according to the Department of Fisheries.

This morning the lobster boats will dump their traps. A license allows for 250 traps, which are stacked high on the decks of the boats as they go out to sea. By late morning the boats will be returning to the wharves. Then, as early as 12:01 a.m. on December 1st, they will go out again to begin hauling their traps. They will get most of the season's catch in the first week or two.

There are about 1,700 license holders in LFA 33 and 34, and we waved at fifteen or sixteen of them steaming off, their lights moving through the darkness, their colours emerging as the day lightened. Randy blew his horn in greeting. I always feel honoured when Randy blows his horn.

The weather forecast was calling for wind today. But the day dawned mild and clear and still. As good a morning as you could hope for.

Colours of the season

Lobster season for this district will begin on November 30th. The first day is Dumping Day. That's when the lobstermen take their traps out to sea and dump them. Then, after midnight on the next day, they can go out to haul their traps.

There's plenty of activity right now at Fort Point and Gunning Cove wharfs, on the western shore of Shelburne Harbour. Everybody is getting ready for the season.

There's plenty of activity on McNutt's Island, too. Skipper keeps Sailor Boy's traps on his island dock from one season to the next. This is where he and Radar will load Sailor Boy with the equipment she will need for Dumping Day. Radar's son Allan is helping out today.

The traps are ingeniously designed inside, with an outer compartment and an inner one. A lobster can turn around and leave the outer compartment, if he changes his mind. But once he's gotten all the way into the inner one he's not likely to leave until the lobsterman hauls the trap and pulls him out.
Undersized lobsters have an escape hatch. And if a trap is lost at sea, the hinges on the hatch rust away after a period of time so that a bigger lobster can eventually get out, too.
Radar is checking the traps while Skipper cooks today's dinner.
Sailor Boy's equipment is ready to go. The buoys have all been repainted, and the trawl lines are coiled in stacked boxes. Behind the buoys and trawl lines is an old fish house, the only other one that's still standing on the island.
Some lobstermen use plastic tubs for trawl lines and some use the old wooden boxes.
It's important for buoys to be freshly painted and bright. You don't want to have to be searching for your buoys when you are hauling traps.
It all makes for a very colourful season.