6/23/2010-6/27/2010 Early mornings, lingo and Pirates
I woke up on Saturday morning as usual around 6:30 and very sleepily stumbled out of the dormitory towards the chicken coup to let out the hens. Typically by the time I get myself out to unlock the hutch the hens have been feverishly pecking and scratching at the door for some time. I know this because even on a Monday when I get up extra early for work (sometime around 5:30) they are already well awake and clucking disapprovingly at me as I unlatch the door (I’m not sure what gives them the right to judge me like a badly behaved child considering I feed them every day but oh well). Anyway, this was a Saturday so they were going to have to wait the extra hour. I walked out of the gate beginning my typical rant of “Alright, alright, I’m coming. Don’t get your feathers all ruffled,” when I realized that there was no agitated chicken sounds coming from the hutch. I looked down and saw that the door was open and secured with the latch as I would normally do. As I was scratching my head and trying to remember if I had shut the door the night before or if I had somehow woken in a stupor earlier that morning and let them out (I also briefly considered the possibility that the reason I hadn’t seen any mink yet this year was because they had been in a top secret training facility learning how to unlatch chicken coups) I heard a very deliberate cluck from behind me. I turned and found myself face to face with a very unimpressed trio of hens who had been expecting the next person who opened the gate to be bringing them their breakfast. Now I was thoroughly confused. I made my way toward the kitchen door rubbing my eyes only to have it flung open by a very smiling and overly awake Jamie. What the hell?

This is very fussy chicken ruffling its feathers at me

It turned out that Jamie had woken exceptionally early that morning and gotten a text message from the shellfish buyer to say that we already had more crab for the week than he could handle. On top of that the intense winds that had battered the islands all night hadn’t abated as expected so Jamie made the call not to fish that day. Instead of the standard courtesy phone call to let me know we had the day off he had decided to drive down and walk across the bay (it was low tide) to tell me in person…at 6:30 am. There was no way I was awake enough to host guests at this time. When you wake up for work that early six days a week the random few days that you get off (mostly due to bad weather) are like Christmas morning, only the only present you want is to not get out of bed all day. Not only was I now out of bed but the person I worked for was casually hanging out in my house. If it had been any other employer I would have been pretty pissed off and maybe even a little frightened but Jamie is no typical employer and a genuinely nice person so it wasn’t nearly as awkward as I would have imagined. In an attempt to become a functioning human, not to mention host, I quickly splashed some water on my face and made my way back to the kitchen. I was there greeted by the sight of a very alert and jovial Skipper sat at my table clearly hankering for a cup of tea. I considered not offering and trying to slink off back to bed but there was no way I could do that, in Scotland it just wouldn’t be acceptable. I asked if he’d like a cup to which I received the exact response I was expecting, “Ach aye, I’d luv one!”…Good morning me! Several cups of tea later I was making eggs, bacon & toast for both of us. I was, by this time, wide awake and had accepted the fact that my day off had actually gotten going earlier than many of my days on. I took Jamie back across in my boat at high tide around noon and arrived back to the Croft at just about the time I would have envisioned myself getting up had I planned on not working that day.

The Mist
Last week Jamie was just dropping me off at the woodpile across from the island where the cars are parked after a really nice day on the boat working under gloriously blue skies when I witnessed firsthand how dangerous the ocean can be. There was no threat to me as I was safely standing on land but I watched as a “sea mist” swept down the Sound of Iona and completely enveloped Erraid in a matter of minutes. I could see the mist swirling past me and it was moving incredibly fast. It started as what looked like a very low cloud of smoke from a chimney over the water, which I noticed as we were driving along the road. By the time we had reached the end of the dirt track at the woodpile it was already reaching its grey fingers over Easter Island (a tiny heather-covered rock outcropping just off the northwest coast of Erraid. Before long I couldn’t make out any of Erraid at all despite the fact that I was no more than a few hundred yards from its shores. I watched bemused for a few minutes until the mist lifted and I jumped in my kayak and quickly paddled across the bay. It was not a minute too soon as just when I started pulling up the kayak on the other side the mist fell back down like a curtain all around me and only my confident familiarly with the beach guided me back to the house. It was really amazing to see how the visibility had dropped from miles to a matter of a few feet in only a few short minutes and I was glad that I had not been out in my little dingy fishing in the sound or kayaking around the island when it happened.

The mist had already started to dissipate slightly by the time I took this photo but it’s still pretty heavy, you should be seeing a village. The next picture was taken from almost the exact same location on another day but it could have easily been taken half an hour before the sea mist rolled in, note the village.
I’m not sure if a lot of you have seen a picture of the village yet but as you can see I use that term in the loosest possible sense. I believe that most villages include qualifying establishments such as post offices, banks, shops, and streets. This village does have a mailbox (not sure if it’s still used), there is a street (no car has ever been on it), people have money (nowhere to put it) and there is now a shop (really just a table inside one of the houses that sells a few bars of chocolate), so I guess the argument for village status isn’t totally ridiculous.

Terminology
There are several bits of lobster fishing terminology I feel are necessary to mention as they play a major role in my daily speech on the boat.

Cocks and Hens: Crabs and lobsters are known as “cocks” and “hens” just like chickens (which makes my life much easier). They are anatomically fairly different although to the untrained eye they all just look like crabs and lobsters. I was not very discerning as to the differences in my first week or so and as a result found myself constantly corrected by Jamie. As another big crab came up in a pot I would say something like “wow he’s a monster” only to hear Jamie quietly correct “actually it’s a her.” I felt like I was offending Jamie as well as the crab. Slowly I began to pick up on the subtle differences. Hen crabs have fatter bodies with wide tails (tucked under the body beneath which the eggs would be kept) than the Cocks, who are narrow, with very thin tails and much larger claws. Like crabs Hen lobsters have bigger tails and smaller claws than the cocks. With lobsters we don’t care too much weather it’s a hen or a cock as long as it meets the minimum size requirement but with crabs we can take smaller hens than cocks because of their fatter bodies containing more meat.

This is a big Cock!

Having this terminology leads to some dialog on the boat that I wish other people were around to hear because I think Jamie has been fishing too long to still notice the humor in the comments. As you can probably guess the majority of them deal with the cocks, for obvious reasons (primarily being that I still have the dirty mind of a 13 year-old). For example I hear the following comments on a daily basis: “That’s a monster Cock,” “We don’t want any small cocks today, only really big ones,” “there are some good looking cocks in that cage,” and yesterday (Friday) I even got “Nah, that cocks too soft,” priceless!

Fangle: Now I’m not actually sure if this one is “fangle” or “fankle” due to the thick Scottish accent in which I hear it said but I have chosen to go with the former because that’s the only way I can begin to guess at its origins. A “fangle” occurs when the rope gets tangled in the bottom of the boat when we are bringing the creels on board resulting in problems when we try to set them out again. A fangle, in my mind, is a serious tangle and as such I have decided that it originated from the truncation of the phrase “fucking tangle.” If I hear fangle in an exclamation I know to get my feet the hell away from the rope. If I hear it casually I know to get to work at un-fangling the fangle that has occurred somewhere in the piles of rope on the deck. All-in-all I know I’d rather not hear this one ever but it still makes me smile when I do.

Cling-ons & Death Stars: I have begun to be certain that at some point during the formative years of science fiction (notably star wars and star trek) there was a serious fishing connection. Maybe George Lucas had a lobster fisherman uncle or something along those lines. “Cling-ons” on a lobster boat are not strange looking aliens that constantly are at odds with galactic federations, but they aren’t far off either. They are, in fact, the smallest brown crabs that come up in most pots we haul wedged in the corners and tangled…no wait…fangled (so happy I just managed to use that in a sentence!) in the netting. They can be a pain in the ass to get out of the creels despite their small size and comparative weakness compared with their big brothers. Cling-ons always raise an annoyed grunt from Jamie and are only good for eating the bait and throwing at seagulls (more on that to come). When I think more about it the terms in fishing and sci-fi are basically the same; annoying life forms that cruise around their respective universes looking for objects belonging to their enemies to attack.
“Death Stars” are massive star fish which latch themselves onto the bait bags inside the creels and quite literally suck the life out of the creels. You know when a death star has been eating the bait because it has ceased to resemble the fish you put in the bag the day before and instead comes out looking like a big ball of snot. They liquefy the bait and it seems when a big death star gets hold of the bait the crabs and lobsters know and don’t bother going in the creels. There are often several death stars in a single creel and it becomes out job to tear them away from their meal, which often includes tearing off one or more of their limbs. I’m pretty sure they grow those limbs back but it’s my job so I really try not to think about it too much. All I know is that at the end of a given day the deck will be littered with flattened death stars and limbs from those we manage to pry loose, so I hope they grow back.
Once again the sci-fi connection is strong in these creatures; massive destroyers that maraud around looking for vulnerable planets (creels in our case).

These are all death stars, they get much larger than this also but I don’t always have time to snap photos. The one in the middle is over a foot across at least but I’m sure I’ll get a picture of a really big on before this is over.

Seagulls: Now this isn't exactly terminology so much as a distinction along with a casual rant but I would be remised if I didn’t take a few moments to discuss seagulls. Now I know that everyone has seen a seagull at some point in their lives and until very recently I would have simply said that I too had seen a seagull but after spending all this time in their company I now realize how many different types of gulls there are. I would have always just classified seagulls as seagulls and left it at that but I would have been terribly mistaken to do so. On any given day we are trailed by an entourage of expectant gulls waiting for us to lob the old bait from the creels into the water where they then battle each other ferociously for the spoils. Some fly above us taking the high route to the bait, diving down into the water when they catch sight of a tasty piece of rotten scad floating on the surface. Others ride along on the railings of the boat saving their energy for the fight to come. While others still paddle alongside us, riding the waves and hoping that our throws land in their direction. The gulls have an uncanny knack of arriving, seemingly out of nowhere, at the exact moment that the bait starts flying. It only takes one gull to notice whats happening, quicken its pace and dive for the food before there are dozens on the scene circling like sharks. As bits of food land on the surface the water is instantly transformed into a frothing bubbling cauldron by the hoards of battling birds vying for the tasty morsel.

A herring Gull riding along on one of the creels stacked on the boat

When it comes to seagulls there is a very obvious pecking order, just like with my hens (I now put the hens food in three separate piles so they can all get a fair share, otherwise the biggest and fattest of them claims it all). There are primarily three types of gulls following us; the common gull (actually very small in comparison to the others and fairly uncommon for us to see because of their inability to compete for food with the larger types), F gulls, which are the typical white with grey wings gulls that would come to mind when most people think of seagulls, and finally there are the dreaded black-backed gulls. The later are the pirates of the gull world, they are much larger than any other gulls (often twice the size) and have a propensity for thieving their meals from the beaks of other poor unsuspecting gulls (this includes any smaller black-backed gulls as well, they are not picky as to whom they rob their dinners from). The black backs don’t concern themselves with the smallest scraps of bait we toss over instead they simply float calmly waiting for the full fish heads and other larger pieces. Even when they are not going after a particular piece of food they make their presence known often with loud squawks so that the lesser gulls don’t forget to make way when the choice bits come tumbling into the water. The smaller gulls have only their speed and agility to protect them, and their meals, from the black backs. If a small gull gets a nice piece of fish they immediately take flight for their lives hoping that they have gotten just enough of a head start to evade the black backs that will undoubtedly be in pursuit. About half of the time the gulls simply give up after they feel the black backs hot on their tails and drop the fish, which the black backs gladly retrieve and wolf down. The rest of the time there are two potential outcomes of the chase; one, the gull manages to either get away or swallow the fish before they are caught and, two, the black backs literally rip them from the sky by their wings or tails and pull them down to the water, pecking and thrashing at them until the food is relinquished. This is literally one of the more vicious things I have ever witnessed firsthand in nature. There is no sympathy and no remorse from the pirates as they gleefully snack on the hard won food of the smaller birds. After a few minutes of throwing out bait I can look at the water and see feathers floating around everywhere, remnants of attacks and reminders to other gulls that the good stuff had better be left for the big guys.
I have decided that I don’t really like the black backs. They don’t partake in the initial fair fight, when all the smaller gulls dive and swim for the bait, but instead wait for a winner to come out with the food and then attack that individual. With the other gulls they generally stop fighting when it’s clear that one of them has a firm grasp on the food and, to me, that seems somehow strangely civilized and reasonable; everyone gets a good chance to get at the food and there is always a decent tussle but by and large there is no fowl play. The black backs, in true pirate fashion, don’t follow any rules but their own, which seem to vary greatly even among their own kind. I have taken to favoring the smaller gulls by throwing the bait closer to them and away from the black backs, which often does little to prevent the ruthless theft, but occasionally it gives the smaller ones a chance to swallow the meal. My other tactic involves the use of cling-ons and death stars…as cannon balls. I typically use one hand to put the fresh bait into the creel and the other to pull out all the crabs and other creatures. As a result I am often in the situation of having a cling-on or star fish in one hand and an old piece of rotting bait in the other. I then throw the bait and as soon as I see a black back rushing towards whichever gull has come out of the scrap I launch the crab or star at them. As you can imagine most seagulls don’t want to be hit with a brown crab (they are very hard and very strong with sharp legs and dangerous claws) or a star fish that hurtles towards them like a ninja throwing star and so evasive actions are almost always taken as soon as they catch sight of the missile. I have been very satisfied with myself on the few occasions where my bombs actually strike true and the confused and frightened shrieks of the black backs warm my heart as I watch the smaller gulls make off with a prize bit of fish. Even when I don’t hit them, which is most of the time, the counterattack is enough to confuse the black backs long enough that the fish they were after is long gone down the gullet of a very happy gull. You may now and forever after this refer to me as “Captain James-black back hunter and defender of the grey gull”.