Roadtrek Travels: Friday, Oct 20, 2023 Lobster Boat and Back to Massachusetts

Friday, November 24, 2023

Friday, Oct 20, 2023 Lobster Boat and Back to Massachusetts

Friday, October 20

We leave the campground around 8 AM and head back to Camden, where we were able to schedule a tour on a lobster boat called The Lively Lady. Took quite a few calls to find a trip, as many venues were closed and most of the remaining ones were fully booked!

We arrive a bit early, so do a little more relaxed walk around town, scoring some Maine Blueberry Syrup and other items to take back for a few folks. Too early to try their local brew!

There are only 9 of us on the boat (which we are told will hold twenty-something), along with Captain Doug and guide Burk.

We head out and learn a lot about lobstering. It is heavily regulated and licensed by the State to protect the lobstering grounds. There is a long wait list to get a license, and you can get a personal license for Maine residents who pass a test (up to five traps for personal use) or a commercial one for up to 800 traps for those that sell their catch.

Lobstermen have to serve 1,000 days of apprenticeship before they can get a license.

The buoy on the roof of the boat must match the buoy on the trap line being pulled. There are steep fines for "poaching". We find a buoy for our boat and pull the trap aboard.

Inside we find a lobster and two crabs. (There are a few other lobsters in a tank aboard which Burk will use to illustrate his talk.) The lobster in the trap is a female which is carrying 1000's of eggs and must be put back right away.

Beth gets to put it back into the water.

The crabs are an invasive species, which they are supposed to kill. So, they will use them for bait when they set the next trap.

Burk uses another lobster to illustrate how they are measured. Too small and they have to go back into the ocean, too large and they also go back. They do this to maintain a breeding population, as a more mature lobster can fertilize more eggs. We joke about the two of them enjoying what they catch. Doug gets more than his fair share, since Burk says if he eats lobster, he turns red like them (allergy).

We pass Indian Island Lighthouse at the east entrance to Rockport Harbor, established in 1850. It was discontinued in 1934 but is maintained privately now.

Gwynne volunteered as "sternman" to help re-bait the trap - not knowing she'd be ripping apart dead fish - yuck! At least they gave her gloves!

She drew the line at poking a long rod through the eyes of a few other dead fish. The trap was shoved back overboard. We read later about the havoc that climate change is causing lobstermen. Water temperature is a big factor.

Burk explained some of the markers we were seeing - red buoys are even numbered and mean keep right, while green are odd numbered and mean keep left. There was also a bell buoy which defines the entrance to Camden Harbor.

We spot a few harbor seals bobbing in the water (really, those are seals!) They stay here year round, while the gray seals migrate. There are many whales and whale watch trips during the warmer months.

You can lobster fish all year round but around about October they move out to deeper, colder water. May through July is when the largest amount are caught. We have seen many, many lobster traps in yards and on docks. Burk tells us that the bottom of the ocean here is littered with "ghost" traps - those that have broken loose from their buoys. They are built so that the trapping mechanism will rust and dissolve so that they can't trap anything.

We pass Curtis Island Lighthouse. A lighthouse was built there in 1835 by order of President Andrew Jackson, marking the south side of Camden Harbor. It was automated in 1972. The island was originally given to a black cook as a reward and the island was called Negro Island by some... probably not the cook! It later was named for Cyrus Curtis, publisher of the Saturday Evening Post, who summered here and supported Camden. Don't know how it changed hands.