Sightings and Cuisine

Last week (June 21^st-25^th)

Whenever I am not in front of my computer millions of things are streaming through my mind that I want to put into words for everyone to read. Basically every day I have an experience or a thought that I feel everyone must know about but when I actually begin to write I either forget those absolutely essential tid bits or I get off on some tangential rant about seagulls and before I know it its 11 o’clock and I have 6 hours before I get up for work, it’s a hard life! Anyway before I take myself down another random road of thought I want to make sure that I talk about last week. It was a really great week full of excitement, rare sightings, long days and good fishing.

It all started on Monday with my first real landing (you will remember that the Shenda shit the bed the Monday before so I missed the landing), which begins with a 5:30am wake up. It’s important to get the early start because collecting and sorting the previous weeks catch takes a couple of hours at least. The buyer is typically on the pier by 9am and they don’t waste any time because they need to get to the ferry going to the mainland otherwise they risk everything in the truck dying before it reaches its final destination. I’m told that a lot of what the fisherman in these parts catch goes to Spain, so the trip to across Mull is just the start of the shellfish odyssey that will conclude on the plate of some tourist who is probably convinced that the tasty lobster they are paying an arm and a leg for came out of the Mediterranean. I wish I could tell them they are wasting their time and money and that they should just pop up to Scotland and have the real thing when its actually fresh…on second thoughts I don’t really want any of those tourists up here ruining my peace and quiet. Jamie picks me up from the wood pile around 6:30 and we head to the boat yard. Last week’s catch has been sitting, separated into different cages, on the floor of the bay for safe keeping. Upon pulling the lobster cage, however, we learn the hard lesson that it cannot be left on the sandy bottom because the free shore crabs in the bay have discovered that a banded lobster makes for an easy target. Several of our prize beasts have had their tails nipped at by the shore crabs and have died, or look ready to die, and every one that does is a tenner off the total catch profit. Nevertheless we had a healthy haul to the tune of over half a ton of brown crab, 50lbs of lobster and about 100lbs of velvets.

Now the catch looks absolutely fantastic when its all nicely stacked on the boat but I quickly lose my initial amazement when I realize its low tide, which means hoisting everything I am gawking at up onto the pier in Bunessan. After transferring all the browns and lobster into fish boxes we have 15 boxes to heave up the 10-15 feet onto the pier. I stood on the pier as Jamie tied a rope onto the boxes and, one at a time, I hauled them up onto the pier. This was no small feat and my muscles were burning by about the 2^nd box as each of the 14 fish boxes of brown crab weighed about 100lbs. As the last box thudded down next to me I could hear every bit of my body let out a sigh of relief. I knew that I would be getting a work out as a fisherman but I really hadn’t considered the fact my Monday routine would start with 15 repetitions of the 100 pound dead lift, with an added 15 feet to pull…at 8 in the morning no less.

This is before any sorting and boxing. Each cage in the foreground is brown crab and its a little more than 2 fish boxes from each cage. The yellow box is our Lobster and all the way in the front are the velvets.

With the heavy lifting done it was time to sort out the velvets. Velvet sorting simply comes down to dumping the cages full of velvet crabs onto what amounts to a big sand box on a table. Then we sort the crabs out separating the large from the medium. Obviously there can’t be a small classification as no fisherman would allow their precious catch to be termed “small” so as far as landing is concerned “small” does not exist but some of the medium crabs looked suspiciously small if you ask me…don’t tell Jamie I said that. While the brown crabs are the powerful finger crushers the velvets are the lightning quick finger tip pinchers, which is equally frustrating. It’s one thing pulling a few out of a creel when you can clearly identify each crab and make sure that none of the others are planning a sneak attack on you while your attention is diverted towards one of their cohorts but when there are literally hundreds piled on top of one another on a table it is a different matter all together. Velvets have an uncanny, and very annoying, knack for playing dead (or as Jamie calls it, “sleeping”). They simply lie on their backs completely motionless and wait. As we sort through the pile we are expecting some dead crabs in the bunch so it’s not surprising to see a crab in this very position. In our haste to get through the massive pile of crabs it’s hard to take the time to check all the vitals and as a result complacency slips in and we forget the game the velvets are playing at. As soon as you grab hold of the leg of a crab that you’re sure is dead it’s as if you just gave it a shock from a defibrillator and its snaps to life, legs wildly flailing in every direction, claws gnashing at the closest finger, which it usually nabs. You are then left with an angry, and very much alive, crab dangling from the tip of your gloved finger. A few quick wrist shakes usually sends the little bastard flying into the corner of the sorting table. They quickly wedge themselves back in amongst the other crabs that have decided that the corner of the table is the best defensive location and wait, claws at the ready.

After everything has been sorted and boxed we set the entire catch on the pier next to the catches from the other three boats that land in Bunessun. All of the other boats at the pier fish for prawns so we don’t get to compare our catch with any other lobster boats. This is not a bad thing as I am sure we are the smallest lobster boat around so would likely be put to shame by any other boats catch. We only fish with about half the creels that most boats do and there are several that have many times the number that we use. None of this matters to me as this is the only boat I’ve worked on and the first landing I’ve seen so it all looks pretty impressive. Once the truck arrives, they set out the scales and, one by one, each boat brings the boxes forward to be weighed, noted and hoisted into the truck. Before we even get to say a proper “goodbye” to last week’s catch we are untying the ropes and jumping back aboard the Arianna to start anew.

After the landing Monday turned into a marathon day that didn’t wrap up until I stumbled back into the croft around 6:30 that evening, body aching and stomach growling. None of that bothered me, however, because I was still buzzing from the sighting we’d had earlier that day from the boat. We were just a few fleets into the final ten of the day (about 100 creels in total), working along the Berg, when Jamie called out that he’d just seen a couple of dolphins behind us. Luckily we were just finishing a set of creels so we could take a minute to look. Sure enough when I turned I saw two fins break the water. I have always wanted to see dolphins up here and after a few near misses over the years I was beginning to wonder if it just wasn’t in the cards for me. Jamie could sense in my voice that I was excited and it was clear that he too felt it was a rare sighting, rare enough that he slammed the boat in gear and said “let’s see if we can catch ‘em.” I leapt up onto the side and hung out over the water watching the fins up ahead. Suddenly there were two more fins joining the first we had seen and just as I was yelling to Jamie I happened to look down to see several gray flashes dart under the boat, it was a proper pod and in an instant we were surrounded by them. They played just in front of us for a short while and then as quickly as they had appeared they raced off ahead and continued up around the coast. We could see them in the distance for a good 20 minutes after, their fins breaking the water and the occasional splash as they jumped up, until they disappeared around the corner of the Berg. It was the best remedy for a tired body and the rest of the creels went by without so much as a thought about my sore muscles.

I was so excited and struggling to get the camera on the right setting so I really managed only one good photo

As the weeks have gone by Jamie and I have been shifting our creels around the coast to keep them on fresh ground. Initially we were picking up fleets within about 20 minutes of leaving the boat yard but in the past few weeks the good fishing seems to have moved around the coast and us with it. Now we typically steam out for about 40 minutes before we reach the first fleet. It seems like ground that was dynamite for crab or lobster one day can sour overnight and dozens of creels can come back from the same spot nearly completely bare. Jamie’s attitude towards the sudden changes is matter of fact, he simply gives me the sign and we take a few fleets on board at a time and move them on to a new spot that he’s sure will hold the big Geamuchs (Lobster in Gaelic and arguably one of Jamie’s favorite words, I think it sounds much nicer than “lobster”…especially in a thick Scottish accent). On Tuesday as we made our way around the coast towards Ardtun I was sitting on the side next to the wheel house sipping my morning coffee out of the little blue flask I found buried among all of the randomness that is any given draw in the croft. I enjoy these longer morning steams as it gives me time to take in the morning scenery, wake up and mentally prepare myself for the tough physical day ahead. I am always amazed by the landscape along this coast as it is nothing like that of the Berg just on the other side of the Loch. While the Berg juts dramatically out of the ocean, cliffs rising for hundreds of feet, the Ardtun side is cut of the same black volcanic rock one would find out at Staffa (or for those not familiar with this area think of the Giants Causeway in Ireland) and is relatively low but no less impressive. The most amazing sights are seen from a boat and as a result I think very few people actually see them. The shoreline is dotted with sea caves and amazing rock features shared only by the birds and seals.

One of the more impressive sea caves along the Ardtun shore

Despite seeing this very shoreline almost every day as we pass along I find my eyes always glued to it and I pick up on something different each time. On this particular day as we passed a small outcropping of black rock made an island by the high tide I noticed something sitting on the rocks. It looked almost like a small child hunched over, wearing a huge winter coat. As I looked longer I realized it was a bird. I pointed it out to Jamie and he immediately recognized it as a Sea Eagle. It was another fantastic sighting for me as this type of eagle is notoriously shy and its mottled colors make it very able to blend into its surroundings…or look like a small child to confuse would be bird watchers. It seemed to realize the minute we saw it and took flight just as I was trying to snap a few pictures. I watched it fly low and close to the shoreline until it passed, chased by a couple of angry little birds obviously protecting nearby nests, over the headland and out of sight. Two days and two rare sightings…the week had started well despite the twelve hour days that had come with it all.

The Sea Eagle after thinking he had escaped us was none too pleased that we had again found him

Aside from seeing some amazing creatures during the week I also had the pleasure of enjoying some culinary rarities dredged up with our creels. The first came only hours after our encounter with the sea eagle. We were way up near the head of the Loch where we have a few fleets of creels, which we only usually haul a few times a week. On this occasion the soak time had been made longer by a day of high wind that kept us ashore and so the creels were coming up draped in Kelp and other seaweed. This always makes for slow going as we have to clear the ropes of all the weeds that have wrapped around them. As one especially overgrown creel bumped over the side I notice a large shell attached to one of the pieces of Kelp. I picked it up and realized that it was a native scallop and a fairly large on at that. Normally to get such a scallop one would have to dive for them so we were certainly lucky to have pulled one up. Jamie suggested we cook it right there on the boat using the small gas stove on board, I’m not sure I could have imagined a better way. He pried open the shell and disposed of the undesirable inner parts leaving only the pale colored flesh that most people are used to seeing in gourmet restaurants along with the bright orange row. As far as cooking was concerned we simply left everything in the shell and put that right on the stove. A few minutes later we were enjoying a pre-lunch snack that was more commonly suited to a five-star hotel than a lobster boat…we definitely had it right though.

I love scallops but nothing I'd had before even came close to this one, really big, really tasty and the freshest possible...eaten within 5 minutes of being caught. This is whats inside minus all the guts.

The very next day along the Berg we hauled in a massive spider crab with a creel. These are wild looking creatures with long legs and a talent for disguise. They have very small claws and so have to rely on their camouflage to blend into the rock and weed. I decided that this particular spider crab looked far too tasty to pass up and so I tossed him into a vacant fish box to take home for my dinner. Most of the good eating in this kind of crab is in the legs much like the king crab that has been made famous on television. They are much thicker than those on either the brown crab or lobster and the meat inside is basically somewhere in-between the two in terms of texture and taste. It was a much richer taste than brown crab but not quick as good as lobster. I don’t think these are heavily fished and my guess is that’s because they would be very hard to target and catch with the creels. They wouldn’t be able to defend themselves against most of the other creatures we get in the creels and I think we only got him because the creel was covered in a lot of seaweed that he was able to hide in. With no cover I can’t see a spider crab trying his luck in the creel. This is the only one we have caught that is even remotely large enough to consider eating; most of the others have been barely the size of a cork. His body was easily as large as my hand and the legs were about 6 inches long.

The spider crab...yum!

All in all it was a week of many firsts and plenty of entertainment to go along some really physically hard days working on the boat. I guess in these kinds of weeks one should never expect that the excitement is over but that’s exactly what I’d done when we stopped off on Friday afternoon on our way back home to do a quick spot of mackerel fishing. Just as we were setting our lines out I heard a loud snort from behind us and briefly saw two dolphins crest out of the water. I watched for a minute but never saw them reappear. Moments later everything was silent, which you’d think would be a wonderful thing…wonderful, that is, unless you are on a boat that never has the engine off from the time you set off until the time you secure the last rope at the mooring and go home for the night. Silence for us has only one meaning; something is wrong. The expletives from Jamie confirmed my concerns and he began fiddling with the controls in the wheelhouse, trying to get the engine turning again. All I could hear was the sustained beep that usually immediately precedes the rumble of the engine beginning to churn, but on this occasion no rumble came. Opening the engine a quick investigation led Jamie to the conclusion that one of two things had happened; either a fuel filter or line was blocked or, we had run out of diesel. It turned out that the later was true and it happened to be the one time that we didn’t have the customary spare canister of fuel with us. Fortunately it was a very calm day and there was little danger of our being run aground on the rocks despite the fact that we were only a hundred yards off a small island where we had planned to fish. After a few minutes spent on our hands and knees trying to eek what little fuel was left in the lines down to feed the big Kubota diesel we realized that it was a losing battle. I happened to notice one of the other Bendoran boats on the horizon heading for the boat yard and Jamie quickly identified it as the Sgian, which was skippered (and run entirely alone) by Andy, the fisherman who had given us the suggestion of fishing the Berg. Jamie was able to raise Sgian on the radio and before long I watched as it peeled off its route and headed straight for us.

Sgian to the rescue

After securing a rope between the two boats Andy began towing us back into the yard. It was certainly not the way I expected to arrive back into the mooring on a Friday after a weeks fishing with the weekend off to look forward to and I’m sure it was a slightly embarrassing experience for Jamie to not have had spare fuel onboard but its not something I’ve seen him do before and I’m sure he won’t let it happen again. Andy was nonchalant about the help and repeatedly shrugged off our expressions of gratitude, simply saying “Ach, ‘twas no bother atall.” He did accept the lobster we offered him as we motored back to shore past where he was fixing the ropes to Sgian after all was said and done, Arianna back safely on the mooring. “Aye I suppose a lobster would do me well, I’ve got me two cousins in for tea tonight,” was all he said with a smile. As far as friends and foes go in the fishing world it seems when it comes to a fisherman needing a hand in a tight spot any of the others are prepared to drop what they’re doing and do what they can to help. It definitely adds a new dimension to the sometimes fierce and occasionally personal competition that exists on the water.

Arianna being towed into the boat yard by Sgian