Lobster Fishing/Part 4 - The Final

Lobster Fishing/Part 4

Welcome back to the final part of this story. First here are a few more photos:

Jeremy measuring the lobster

A nice seagull very determined to follow our boat.

n

An eel that was caught in the lobster trap. Doesn't it look horrible?

We threw it back in the water.

n

Empty lobster traps stacked up behind Gary ready to come back to harbour.

n

Gary carrying a 'jumbo' lobster.

Jumbo lobsters are really large lobsters that measure larger than a certain size. They don't sell for as much money as regular lobsters. We caught a few of those. Gary became so good at measuring and banding the lobster that he has been invited to go back lobster fishing next season to help with measuring and banding the lobster.

As for me, although I really enjoyed that day and am really glad that I had that opportunity, I don't think I'll be going back next season. I have discovered that I wasn't made for sea-faring. I was ok for the first 8 hours out at sea, but the last 4 hours I was sea-sick and I can tell you, it really wasn't a nice experience, and it has pretty much taken me a whole week to get over it. I still have a sore throat. The night before I went, I realised that there was no toilet on the boat and that if I needed a toilet, I would pretty much have to use a bucket. I was so determined to still go fishing, that I decided that I just won't have anything to drink and I'll just not use a toilet for 12 hours.

Well, I did manage to not use the bucket and not need the toilet for more than 12 hours. However, I did use the bucket to throw up in twice. And I had to have a lie down the last couple of hours. So as much as I enjoyed going on the boat, being out at sea for more than 8 hours is just a bit too much for me. The fishermen were really nice to me and they said that I did really well. They said they were seasick everyday for months (the captian for two years) when they first became fishermen.

The bucket that I threw up in.

Feeling sea sick, cold and needing to lie down.

The Crew:

Gary wearing the sunglasses; Chad in the middle who invited Gary and I to go fishing; Jeremy wearing the red cap and he looks the spitting image of ex-Nirvana singer Kirk Cobain

And finally Daniel, Chad's brother and captain of the boat, back at harbour on the actual boat.

THE END

Lobster Fishing/Part 3

Lobster Fishing/Part 3

Welcome back to the Lobster Fishing story. Here is a picture of Chad hauling up a lobster trap onto the boat, followed by a picture of Chad and Jeremy sorting out the lobsters caught..



Out of all the lobsters caught in the first bunch of traps, only one was big enough to keep, you can see it nicely banded in the photo below. All the other lobsters had to be thrown back out in the water.

A few hours later they managed to catch a few more lobsters to keep ...

Along the way, there were other sea creatures that had been caught in the lobster traps:

Hmm... Cod... Nice Fish

Little Crab :)

Have no idea what that is?

As we went lobster fishing only two days before the last day of lobster fishing season, the fishermen wanted to bring half of their lobster traps back with them to harbour so that on the last day they wouldn't have as many lobster traps to bring back. So half way during the day, they started to pile up the lobster traps that were hauled up onto the boat instead of putting them back into the water with new bait. Most of those traps still had remains of the old bait inside them so the fishermen would throw the remains of the old bait back out into the water. This would attract the seagulls. That was so wonderful to see the seagulls fly so close to us. That really was amazing.

As it was pitch black when we had left the harbour really early that morning, we took photos of the harbour when we got back 12 hours later at 5pm.

I have one more group of photos to show you from this trip but again I can't seem to upload any more on this post, so I'll have to post the final lot soon and tell you about one embarrasing incident that happened to me on that boat.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Lobster Fishing/Part 2

Lobster Fishing...(Cont'd)

As soon as the fishermen see the lobster trap appearing out of the water (it's being pulled up by the rope) they haul it up and quickly start to sort it out. First they take out the lobsters caught and put them in a basket. Then they put new bait in the lobster trap. They used Herring fish with the odd Mackeral for bait. Then they put the trap down on the boat ready to go back in the water and they quickly move on to the next trap tied to the rope. When they finish doing this for all the traps, they let the rope go back in the water and it pulls the now empty traps with new bait back in the water one by one.

Chad and Jeremy haul up a lobster trap

Chad and Jeremy open the trap to see what lobster they've caught

Herring Fish used for bait

One bag of new bait ready to go in an empty lobster trap

Empty lobster traps (with new bait inside) being pulled back into the water

Lobsters caught from the first bunch of traps

In the meantime, the captian of the boat Daniel, moves the boat to the next location where a bunch of lobster traps are. As the boat is moving, Chad and Jeremy measure the lobsters caught one by one. It is illegal here to catch lobster that is smaller than a certain measure. These small lobsters are called 'tinkers' and have to be thrown back into the water to ensure conservation of future lobster in the sea. Jeremy measures the lobster to see if they're large enough to keep. Out of every catch that day, about 98% of the lobster caught were infact 'tinkers' and had to be thrown back in the water.

Daniel moving the boat to the next location of lobster traps

Gary measuring a lobster under Jeremy's supervision

The red 'Product Of Canada' bands

When eventually, there was one large enough to keep, we had to put these special bands round their claws to identify them as Nova Scotian Lobster. Gary really enjoyed learning how to measure the lobster and band them. I had a go at banding a lobster too.

I am having problems uploading any more photos on this post so will continue in my next post.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Lobster Fishing/Part 1

Nova Scotian lobster is among the best lobster in the world. Last November I wrote a post called 'Dumping Day' (you can read it by clicking here) about the first day of lobster fishing season. Well today, is the last day of lobster fishing season in Nova Scotia. On Monday I went lobster fishing and what a day that was! I had to be up at 4:00am! I hardly slept the night before as I was thinking about it too much.

So I was wide awake when the alarm clock went off. I was really excited, there's something exciting about getting up that early because it always reminds me of when I was younger and I used to live in Libya, we would always have to get up that early when we went on holidays and I always remember being excited as we drove to the airport in the early morning hours and the roads were totally empty.

We got to the harbour not long after 5:00am and got on the boat. The picture above was taken on the boat before leaving the harbour. It was so beautiful, at about 6 am, to see the sunrise out at sea...

Lobster Fishermen leave their lobster traps in the water overnight and then in the morning they go and haul up their traps to see if they've caught any lobster and to put new bait in the lobster traps before leaving their traps in the water again. To recognise where your lobster traps are, you have your own bouys in the water.

When you find your bouy, you pull it up on the boat like the one in the picture above and then you hook the rope to a wheel that then basically pulls up your lobster traps from the water as they are all tied to the rope.

For some reason, I am not able to upload any more photos on this post anymore, so I am publishing this part and hope to be able to publish the next part soon.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Sunday Morning

This is another photo of inside our church. It's a really nice day today. I preached again this morning at church. I was trying to encourage people to remember how awesome God is and to get back to that place of being in awe of Him.


I'm going to have to have an early night tonight, as I'll be getting up at 4:00 am. And if you know me at all, you'll know that I'm definitely not a morning person. The reason that I'll be getting up so early tomorrow is because both Gary and I have the opportunity to go out on a fishing boat tomorrow. One of the lobster fishermen that we know said he'll take us out with him and his crew on his boat to see what they do and maybe even help a little. I'll be mainly going just to watch and take some photos. I'm not looking forward to smelling fishy, but it's not everyday that I would get the opportunity to experience lobster fishing, so I thought it would be a good experience.

I'll be sure to blog about it all and let you know how it all goes. Hope we don't get sea sick :)

Love Ash x

Down By The River

I had a nice quiet time with God this morning down at the Boathouse and God really encouraged me. I read Proverbs 15:33 (The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. Humility precedes Honour) today and I thought it was such a cool verse.

Today, Gina, one of the 8 year old twins had a sore throat and was off sick from school and at lunchtime she asked me if I could take her out for a walk. I decided that it was much better for her to get some fresh air and go out for a walk than to stay at home lying on the couch watching tv. So I agreed.

We set out straight after lunch. It was nice and sunny outside. We made sure our arms were covered so we don't get bitten by black flies. We decided to go down our road to the bridge and sit down by the river.

Back in November last year I posted some photos of how bad our road was, you can see the photos here. Well today they were actually working on mending our road and so far they're doing a good job. They started off by doing just one side of the road so that cars can still travel on the other side. They even had to dig up our driveway a couple of weeks ago as they told us that the new road would be higher than the old road. I guess they weren't joking - you can see in this picture what I mean...

Here are some more photos of the road, you can see in some of them, the side of the road they have been working on today.





Along the way we came across these brand new pipes (which they will probably put in the ditches on either side of the road at a later time). So we stopped and Gina had a little play crawling through them pretending they're tunnels. It doesn't take much to amuse kids, does it?

We also passed by these lovely views as we walked down our road...

That last one is my favourite photo that I took today. We did eventually get to the river and sat down to eat an apple. Gina dropped her apple though and it fell in the river, so we shared my apple instead and yes I did take some photos by the river, here they are...

I love going on a walk and I had a really nice one today. Later on this evening, I went out with a couple of young people from my church. They took me out to a Lebanese restaurant in town called 'Little Lebanon'. It was a real treat for me and I really enjoyed it. The restaurant itself was small, simple but really sweet. I talked to the owner in Arabic. He was a nice guy and reminded me of Basil in Fawlty Towers. He gave me free dessert with my meal which was really lovely.

After our meal, we went and played pool in a place in town called 'Doolys'. That was really nice too, and I won two games out of three. I love playing pool. I would definitely go back to both places again. So all in all I had a really nice day today. I hope you did too.