The Mystique of the Sea
The old man standing on the wharf kept a close eye on me as I parked my car next to a warehouse along the harbor in New Bedford , Massachusetts
Do you know where they’re unloading the Alexis Martina at?” I finally asked him. He gave me a long distrusting look, pointed towards a warehouse thirty feet away and answered me in Portuguese. I could still hear him rambling on in his native language as I opened the heavy steel door and entered the building.
Several men on the far side of the room were extremely busy taking fish off a short conveyer and packing them in large boxes followed by ice. At the opposite end of the conveyer was the 98 foot long trawler, Alexis Martina.
First mate, Matt Jackson motioned for me to come on board but warned me to be careful. “The deck can get pretty slick while were unloading 30,000 pounds of fish” the 25 year old said as he lowered two hooks hanging from a cable through a 3 by 4 foot hole in the floor.
A long climb down a steep ladder put me fifteen feet below the deck in an area called the fish hold. I watched as 23 year old Jeremy Reposa grabbed the hooks and attach them to a plastic tote full of fish covered with ice. The tote was immediately pulled back up through the opening to a man on the deck who deposited it on the conveyer where it would be taken to the men in the warehouse.
“It takes me five solid hours to unload 30,000 pounds of Whiting” Jeremy said as he slid yet another of the 50 pound containers into position and waited for the hooks to come back down. “My father, Peter Reposa, bought the Alexis Martina in 1992. I used to go out to sea with the crew when I was younger but don’t have time any more. After college I started a construction company which keeps me very busy but I always come down to help unload the weeks catch.”
The room we were in appeared to be about 30 by 20 feet with several separate chambers where totes are stacked from the floor to the ceiling with the capacity to hold 200,000 pounds of fish or squid. It was wet, cold and most definitely smelled like fish.
I’ve seen the ten most dangerous occupations in the world many times on television and commercial fishing consistently ranks in the top five. I learned from Jeremy and the crew that many things can make the job hazardous.
Steel cables can cut a man in half if you’re not paying close attention to what you’re doing. Get to close to one of the many winches on deck and you might lose a hand or arm. Giant fishing nets can easily drag a crewman into the ocean if you get your feet tangled up in one.
Fishing through out the night brings on additional risks because of the darkness but it’s the ideal time since whiting feed together in big schools making it easier to catch them.
Raging storms have been known to unleash their awesome power on the Alexis Martina. Jeremy can remember 60 mph winds sending waves crashing over the deck but the men continued to work.
The crew quits fishing for whiting at the end of summer and switch to squid from October to April. There is a 30,000 pound limit on the whiting but no limit on how many squid you catch. Unfortunately, old man winter brings with it additional safety concerns such as machinery freezing up and ice forming on the deck which can be absolutely treacherous. The squid have to be packed in ice just right or they can spoil and create toxic fumes that can be deadly if inhaled. A non skid surface was recently put on the deck which should greatly improve safety.
. The Alexis Martina only travels at ten knots with its twin diesel engines so it takes a full 24 hours to steam 250 miles out to sea where they will fish for approximately five days with very little sleep. Jeremy remembers fishing for 49 straight hours with out any sleep at all when they were in a no lay time zone. Rules and regulations in certain places designate that you can’t stop your boat. The boat has to be constantly moving as you drag your nets across the bottom of the ocean.
Between nine in the morning and in the afternoon is when the men can normally grab four hours of much needed rest.
“Why do you risk life and limb to work in such harsh and dangerous conditions?” I asked Jeremy. “Can’t you just bring the boat back in when the weather gets bad?”
“Well” Jeremy said. “Some captains will return but most of them will keep working because they spend all that time and fuel steaming getting out there and don’t want to come back without making any money. The expenses are so great that they’re willing to take risks to fill the hold with fish.
On the average, one trip will cost $3500 for fuel. Eight tons of ice will run about 30 cents a pound. A weeks worth of food has to added to the over all expenses. Payments on the boat which is worth about $1,250,000 are very high as one might imagine.
I noticed that the four man crew all appeared to be in their twenties. “You’re right” Jeremy said. “Older men usually have families so they can’t be out to sea as much as the young single men. Just as soon as we’re unloaded we will immediately head back out to our favorite fishing waters and go back to work.”
Three of the crewmen are college graduates so the obvious question is, “Why aren’t they sitting behind a desk some where in a nice comfortable office instead of fishing for a living?” “Money” was Jeremy’s quick reply. “They all get a cut from each catch we bring in. It can vary from trip to trip as the fish prices fluctuate but on the average, each man will make over $60,000 a year.”
That sounds like a pretty good reason to me but maybe there is some thing more to it. Some thing deep within every crewman that will continue to grow stronger with each passing day at sea.
The old man on the wharf knows what it is.
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