Robert Beck, April 2014
Robert Beck maintains the Gallery of Robert Beck at 204 No. Union St., Lambertville, NJ
www.robertbeck.net (215) 982-0074
Wally sat facing Pop as the older man rowed through the darkness. A rhythmic thrust from the oars and a hushed rippling along the side, pull and return, pull and return, out into the cold, four-in-the-February-morning harbor. They came alongside the Lorna Laurie, a 34-foot Jonesport, folded the oars and climbed aboard. Wally stowed gear while Pop cleared the bilge of fuel vapors and started the engine, its rumble absorbed by the dense night air. They pulled away from the mooring and headed out of Boothbay toward the ocean. Other cabin lights appeared dimly off to port near Tumbler Island. The wheelhouse radio began to chatter as more boats came to life. The Lorna Laurie would be hauling traps by the time the sun split the horizon.
The lobster traps Pop used, or pots as some call them, were attached seven to a line, about 30 feet apart with a buoy at each end. These buoys are striped in colors that identify the owner of the traps, which lay on the bottom of the ocean. Pop brought the boat up to the buoy, grabbed it from the water, strung the line on a pulley hanging over the rail next to his head then wrapped it around a winch beside the wheel. When the first trap emerged from the water, seventy-five pounds wet and loaded, he slid it down the rail to Wally.
Wally opened the trap and cleaned it out. Hard shell lobsters went into one tub and soft shell into another. If they were small, or females with eggs, they got tossed over the rail. So did any rocks, crabs, or dogfish that had found their way inside. Then Wally took a long tool and threaded new bait—dead, stinky fish that lobsters love—onto a line in the trap and closed it up. The trap was placed on the transom. By then another one was waiting for him on the rail.
Pop took the Lorna Laurie in close to the granite coast while Wally stretched the trap lines along the deck so they wouldn’t foul. Pop brought the boat up to speed through the slight chop. Wally threw the end buoy in the water and went forward to get out of the way. When the line tightened, it pulled the first trap off the back like a depth charge. Each would drag the next along in turn, the connecting lines singing as they played out over the stern into the ocean. It was a routine they went through twenty times a day.
The Lorna Laurie lifted on a swell and Wally stepped back. He didn’t remember the loop of line closing on his foot, pulling his leg out from under, raking him up and across the transom into the winter Atlantic. For him, one moment was the drumming of the engine and spray on his neck—the next was a dark, weightless void. He watched in vague confusion as the frigid ocean water squeezed the air from his body.
Pop saw him go. He immediately put the Lorna Laurie in full reverse to slacken the line and maybe relax the loop. He backed to where Wally went in—as near as he could tell—dropped it in neutral, scurried down to the stern and leaned, belly over the rail.
The line released its grip on Wally’s foot and drifted off into the blackness. He watched as bubbles from his mouth rolled silently along his chest, and thought it unusual for them to be going in that direction. Then it came clear: he was in the water, and he was upside-down. Wally twisted to right himself and gave a hard thrust toward the light but it wasn’t enough. His wet clothes held him back. He tried it again. That was all he had.
Pop saw Wally’s hand glimmer under the surface. He plunged his arm into the water, grabbed his wrist, then the strap of his oilskins, and hauled him into the cockpit. Wally knelt, knees and elbows on the deck, shivering. Pop told him to start pulling pots. Wally said he was going into the cabin where the motor was. Pop said no, they were going to pull pots, and made him get back to work, which probably saved his life.
Wally tended and stackened as best he could, under Pop’s eye. His arms and legs were rubber. Between lines he went over and hugged the hot exhaust muffler. Just enough work to ease the shivers and get the blood back, then Pop turned for a quick run to Boothbay. Other boats were heading in and talk on the radio increased. Pop picked up the microphone and said, “Waltah went ovah.” A voice that Wally thought sounded familiar said, “Did he get wet?”
Sternman
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