Life With A Fisherman

I went home that night from the dock, thinking about a new boat. It was all I could think about. I knew I’d saved enough money to pay cash for whatever boat I wanted. It had been a very good year with the sales of our lobster take. That night at dinner, I told dad what was on my mind. He agreed that it was time for us to grow into a nice boat. “I’m going to New Bedford on Friday,” Dad said. New Bedford was a growing town with a great harbor. A lot of the fishermen were going there now with their fish to sell. Dad wanted to set up some deals with a new lobster buyer who was coming to the harbor to meet with lobstermen. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when Captain Ben said that people in the city are eating lobsters, he knew what he was talking about. These little things that he called crawls were becoming a restaurant delicacy. All the lobsters that we were trapping were being sold to distributors in Woods Hole. Dad was thinking that if we could start selling in New Bedford, our little company that I started would get bigger. I was going to be 15 years old that year. Maggie and I were inseparable. We were a team, and I had fallen in love with her. I kept that to myself. I know Captain Ben knew how much we loved each other, but he didn’t say anything about it. He would just watch us.

Well, anyhow, it was Friday morning and off we went to New Bedford. Maggie couldn’t wait to go shopping and had a list longer than my arm from the islanders. Mom just wanted salt and flour. I had $500 stashed away in my boot. And that was the money that I’d been saving all the past year. I was thinking that I could buy a new boat for around $200, but I figured that I had better bring what I had in my box under my bed. The winds were slow, and it was a six-hour sail to the Bedford harbor from the bluff. As we pulled into the harbor, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a sight to see. It was also the first time Maggie and I had been there. The sailboats were everywhere in the harbor, and the docks where long and wide. I looked up the hill at a building that was under construction, and it was a new canning plant being built. Dad smiled and said, “That’s the fish house that I was telling you about. That’s going to distribute fish up the coast.” I could just make out the sign. It read “Reilly’s Canning Company.” We pulled into port. Maggie and Captain Ben headed to the shops. He said there were things he needed and would stay with Maggie. I was staring at the new boats that were at the end of the dock. I had never seen a boat with a motor. I couldn’t wait to check them out. “Come on, Cappy,” Dad said. “Let’s go meet the people at that new canning plant. We will look at the boats after we meet these new people.” I couldn’t believe the amount of people that were in this town. They were everywhere. This little harbor was the start of a new area in the fishing industry, and it was in the first stage of its growth. Dad and I went to the building that had the “Reilly’s Canning” sign on it.

We went into the building, which wasn’t open yet. There were carpenters at work all over the place and canning machinery lines being installed. This was one heck of a canning plant going in. Dad asked one of the men who seemed to be in charge, “Who do we talk to about selling our fish here?” “You need to speak to Mr. Reilly,” the worker said as he pointed up at a room with all glass windows at the top of some stairs. Dad and I headed upstairs, and we went right in without knocking. There was a big man sitting at a desk. He was wearing a white shirt and was smoking a cigar. “Can I help you?” he said as he looked at Dad. “I’m looking for Mr. Reilly,” Dad replied. “We are fishermen. This is Captain Cappy, and I’m Captain Red.” He stood up and shook our hands. He had a grip like a lobster. “It’s nice to meet you,” Mr. Reilly said. “I’ve heard about you. You’re from Martha’s Vineyard. Yes, I’ve heard great things about you. What can I do for you?” Dad replied, “Well, I want to talk to you about selling our fish and lobsters here.” “Well, sit right down,” he said. I could tell that Mr. Reilly was a good man. I liked him from the start. “I’ll take all the fish you can deliver,” he said to dad. And then he looked at me and said, “Young Captain Cappy, I’ve herd great thing about you, and you’ve built one heck of a trap line for lobsters. I’ll take all you can get me, and I’ll pay market price the day you bring them in. You couldn’t have come to talk to me at a better time. I’m right in the middle of setting sales up into the Boston area.” I looked right at him as I stood up and said, “I’ll supply all the crawls that you’ll need, and Captain Red will deliver the fish to your dock.” He had a puzzled look on his face and before he could speak, Dad stood up and with a laugh said that lobsters where called crawls on the island. They both broke out in laughter. “It’s a deal then,” he said, and we shook hands again and left.

As we left the building, I could see that Dad wanted to jump up and down with joy. “We just made one heck of a deal with the islanders,” he said. “This gives us two sales outlets, New Bedford and Woods Hole. I hope you know what you just entered into. This man is going to need a lot more lobsters than you are trapping right now, and if you can’t keep up with his needs, he will find other lobstermen.” “I’ll keep up with the needs,” I said, “but I’ll need one of those boats.” Dad smiled. “Well, let’s go look at them.” And down to the dock we went. On the way back to the dock, I was thinking that I needed to make more traps and that takes time. I knew we’d have to work day and night on new traps. We reached the new motor boats at the end of the dock One of the boats was 32- feet long, and the other two were a little smaller. I had my eye on the big one. It was a nice boat with a big work area at the back end. There was about 150 new lobster traps stacked up on the end of the dock. They were made of steel fence. I’d never seen anything like them before, and I went right to them to see how they were built. They were just like the wooden one that we had made, but these were bigger and made out of metal. As I was looking at the new traps, a man came up to Dad. “Can I help you?” he asked. “Yes,” Dad replied. “I’m looking for a new boat with a motor.” They went aboard one of the smaller boats and started talking prices. I jumped on the big one. I didn’t say anything, but I loved that boat. It had everything on it that I could imagine. I overheard the man say, “These two are $500, and the one the boy is on is $700.” “That’s a lot of money,” Dad told him. And it was. Back then, $500 went a long way. Dad was set on buying one of the small boats. I knew Dad had $300, and he was offering that to the man for that boat. The man said to Dad, “Four hundred and that’s as low as I can go.”

Now, this man looked at me as a young boy, and I don’t think he expected me to do the next thing that I did. I jumped from the big boat to the dock and went to the boat that they were on. I interrupted their conversation by saying, “Excuse me, sir.” And I was ignored. Then I said it very loud and got the man’s attention. He and Dad looked at me. Very firmly, I said, “I’m Captain Cappy, and I’ll give you $800 for both of these boats right now if you throw in those traps.” I shocked my dad. He just looked at me. He couldn’t believe what I had just said. The man started to say something, but before he could get it out, I said, “That’s our final offer for these boats. We are going to Woods Hole next, and I can get the same deal there.” He looked at Dad, then me and said, “OK, it’s a deal.” I pulled the money from my boot and gave it to Dad to close the deal. Dad knew I had some money to put toward the boat, but he had no idea how much, and he was shocked at what I just did. I just made a great deal and didn’t pull any punches. He looked at me with a puzzled face, and the only thing he could say was, “Nice work, my young captain.” “Dad, do you mind if I name the boats?” I shouted from my boat to his. “No, Captain Cappy, I don’t mind what you name your boats at all,” he said. I hadn’t a clue yet what I was going to name them; I had some thinking to do. Very quickly, Dad and I familiarized ourselves with the boats. I couldn’t wait to get under way and bring them to their new home on Martha’s Vineyard.

By the time my dad and I had stacked all the new traps on the boats, Captain Ben and Maggie were at our old boat. They had no idea we just purchased two boats. “Maggie! Maggie!” I shouted. “Come look at our new boats . Maggie came running down the dock and jumped on the boat. She gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. “We have new boats?” she shouted. “Yes, we do,” I said with an ear-to-ear grin. Captain Ben was a very happy man, and I could see it on his face. “They are new and need new names,” he said. Dad looked at me with a smile and said, “Well, what are their names?” I went quiet for a minute, and it just came out: “This is ‘Ben’s Crawl One’ and that is ‘Ben’s Crawl Two.’ ” Well, with this, Captain Ben broke out in laughter. Everybody on the dock could hear him. The crew on our boat that we came in on heard him. All he could say after his laughter was, “Thanks, my young captain.” Well, that was that. We had new boats and had to get them to the bluff . We filled them up with diesel and headed out to port. Maggie was with me and Dad was with Ben on the other boat. The crew was in front of us on the sail as we left that harbor. It took about 30 minutes of following the sailboat to break the jetties at the front of the harbor. The sea was a little rough but not rough enough to hold us up. I was last in line leaving the harbor. I looked at Maggie and said with a smile, “Hang on.” I pulled up to Dad and yelled, “See yaw in the bluff,” and opened Crawl One up. She was like a bird in the air. She rode those waves so smooth. Captain Ben and Dad were trying to keep up, but there was no way. My boat was big and fast. In about 20 minutes, the other boats were out of our sight. I backed off to half throttle for the rest of the ride, and we were in the bluff within two hours. “This is awesome,” I said to Maggie. “Now we can set traps off Nomads Island.”

We pulled into my dock, and Maggie was looking at the sky. “There’s a storm coming in,” she said. The sky was full of clouds, and she was right, there was a storm coming. I could feel it in my young bones. About two hours passed, and as I looked out to the head of the bluff, I could see the sails of our crew coming in. Dad was with them. He stayed with them all the way in. Maggie and I unloaded all the new traps onto the dock. I couldn’t wait to get them into the water. She looked at the traps and said, “Cappy, we need more traps if we are going to keep up with the new demands. I said, “I know. We need to make at least 300 more traps. I’ll talk to Captain Ben, and maybe we can start making them in the morning. I’d like to get these new traps all set for putting in the water by the middle of the week.” She replied, “We have our work cut out.” “Yes, we do, and I’m broke. I spent all my savings on the boats. It’s going to be hard to even put fuel in it to go out and run the lines. I may have to run Salty on a few trips. The sails run with the wind, not the fuel.” She laughed, but I was serious. I had no money for fuel and I know Dad was close to being broke also. But all in all, we had new boats with motors, and we all had plenty of food. I thought to myself, “What else do we really need other than a bed to sleep in and food for our stomachs?”

When Dad and Captain Ben tied up to the dock, I pulled them aside. I told them what I thought about running Salty for a while more and keep the fuel we have to run the lobsters to Reilly’s in New Bedford. They both agreed, and we decided to all chip in and make more traps. For the next three days, we built traps. All of us worked very hard at it. Captain Ben wasn’t felling very well, but he didn’t stop. I went over to him as he was tying nets to the traps. “Captain,” I said, “How are you doing?” “Eyeeee, young Cappy, eyeee,” he said. “Meee bones are getting old. I’m 99 years old tomorrow. August 5th is me birthday.” This took me by surprise. No one on the island had ever known his age or his birthday until now. We all just guessed on his age. “Ninety-nine? Are you sure about that? You don’t look or even act 75.” “Eyeee, I am, and I’m feeling it,” he said with a grin. I didn’t say anything more about it to him, but I went right over to Maggie. I told her what I just found out. Maggie smiled. “It’s time for one big birthday party,” she said. Let’s have a party the island will never forget.

We went over to her mother and mine and told them of Captain Ben’s birthday. We decided that I would take him out in the morning to check the crawl traps, and they would set up a party on the beach next to my dock. I told him to meet me at Salty in the morning, that we need to check for crawls. I didn’t say anything about a birthday party. The next morning, we meet at Salty and set sail with the raft in tow. Before leaving the house, my mom told me to have him back by noon because that’s when the party starts. I did all I could do not to say anything to Captain Ben about it. But I kept closed-mouthed. We sailed out to the traps on west chop. I was pulling traps in, and they were full of crawls. All four- and five-pound crawls. In a five-hour time, we pulled in 50 traps and had over 300 pounds of lobsters. My God, what a day that was. As we were pulling the last line of traps, the captain yelled, “Cappy, do you see them?” I was on the raft, and I looked back at him and he was waving and yelling, “Ahoy there!” I looked and saw nothing. The sky was gray with clouds, and there was nothing but waves. Captain Ben stopped waving. He looked at me and said, “Did you see the Barnacle? It was the crew and Barnacle. They where waving at us. They were right there, and he pointed at the white-capped waves. “No Captain, I didn’t see them.” He put down his hand and told me that he had been having dreams about them for the last few weeks. “I think they are coming to take me home, young Captain Cappy,” he said with a smile. I didn’t know what to say other than, “You tell them I say hello when you see them again.” He laughed. I started thinking that his age was finally sneaking up on him.

We finished resetting the last trap line and headed back to the bluff. As we entered the lagoon, we could see smoke rising in the air. As we got closer, all we could see were people on the dock and beach. It looked as if everybody who lived on Martha’s Vineyard came to the party. “What’s going on at the dock ?” Ben asked. I shouted, “Happy birthday! It’s your party.” He was dumbfounded. He told me that he had never had a birthday party. “Well, you’re having one now!” I yelled. And it was a party to remember. There were whole pigs on the barbecue, corn on the cob, salads and just about every kind of fish that was ever caught. As we reached the dock, everybody sang “Happy Birthday” to Captain Ben. I saw a tear run down that old man’s face. It was indeed a day to remember. The captain had the time of his life, and so did the islanders, who really pulled together for his birthday and showed him how much he was loved by all of us.