A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything
Mainers call them “bugs.”
My uncle was a lobsterman for a while. Went out to George’s Bank from Cape Cod. Imagine the hardest construction work you ever did. Now do it during an earthquake that never stops with a hose pointed at your face in a walk-in cooler.
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A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything
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That does not look like fun. A friend's father fished them in Hawaii; called 'em roaches and wouldn't eat one to save his life.
(Laughed out loud.)
People ask me why I don't go out. I reply, "If you don't go out, you won't drown."
.
Going to sea is like going to prison, with the risk of drowning besides(to paraphrase Samuel Johnson-I think).
That lobsterman's wife or mother is on the crew. She's the one in the sou'wester.
I worked deck on an urchin boat out of San Diego for a few months.
Hookah diving. The captain/owner/diver was my upstairs neighbor.
My duties were pretty simple. Keep the compressor running. Keep the umbilical coiled neat without too much slack in the water. Snag the urchin bags with a grapnel when they popped up from below. Use the camping winch on the L arm to bring them aboard. Put the bags in the two holds, making sure to balance the load.
After the diver had had enough fun fighting the kelp, the harbor seals, and the cold, he'd stage to the surface and then float face up like a corpse until I could drag him in and pull him over the side, too.
Five to eight foot swells with a Santa Anna blowing may not sound impressive but try it getting into San Diego harbor sometime with two full holds and one dead engine.
North Island got pretty close.
It was only a few months.
No seafood for me. The sea can keep it all.
Five to eight foot swells are plenty in a small boat. I recall our daughter being down below during one such run. She told us later about watching the dog go flying through the air. Now, this is a fat corgi dog who weighs about 50lbs. It's just not normal for such an animal to fly. He changed his mind about being a sailor that day. Me too.
The actual quote:
"An ocean voyage is similar to incarceration, with the added possibility of being drowned." That's why he's Samuel Johnson.
Heh, and I'm not!
A latter day sea chantey. Well done. Music to work by.
Though I was born and raised only 50 miles from the ocean, I never developed a fondness for the ocean. The ocean looks to me like the End of our Land.