Jason Lemos - A Lobsterman’s Tale

 

I'm a third-generation commercial lobsterman. [audience cheers and applause] I grew up in a large Italian family, large Italian fishing family. It started with my late grandfather and the arrival of his mom and dad, who came over by boat from Italy to the US. They settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and made their home along the waterfront.

My grandfather, along with his four brothers, all grew up on the water. They taught themselves how to lobster fish and build lobster traps. In turn, they passed that family tradition down through the generations. You might say salt water runs through our veins.

 

My grandmother and grandfather ran a small grocery store called Marconi’s Market. They sold live lobsters and famous lobster rolls. I can remember going out fishing with my grandfather, growing up aboard his boat named the Nancy Marianne, which was named after my mom, the firstborn and my aunt Marianne, who's the second born. You see, in our family, we have a tradition of naming lobster boats after family members to bring us good luck while we're out on the water. 

 

I remember going out with him. He'd bring me down, sit me on a bucket. Put me on the boat, and keep me away from the ropes. As he hauled the lobster traps up, he'd hand the legal lobsters to me, so I could put the lobster bands on the claws. I had to be careful not to get bit. He taught me everything I knew about lobster fishing. He was an amazing man. 

 

Now, on any given day, nowadays, there's seven family boats out on the water at any given point. On October 31st, I steamed out. I started hauling along the beach, untangling traps. It was a gorgeous day. It was flat calm. The seas were just like glass. You saw the sunrays fleck down off the clouds as the sun came up. I finished up hauling there and straightened some traps out along the beach, and then I steamed off the waves. I was on the main New Hampshire line and I came upon trawl number 17. I grabbed the buoy and started hauling it aboard. Now, a trawl is a buoy on each end and then there's a row of traps attached to the rope. As I hauled each trap up, I put the legal-sized lobsters in an orange basket. I baited each trap and then stuck them on the trawl table. 

 

Now, a trawl table is a flat area where we store the traps. It hangs inside the boat. I finished hauling the last trap and I saw my cousin Aaron fishing about a half mile away from me. I called on the walkie-talkie phone and we made a plan to catch up that day. We said, “Well, after we get done, we’ll steam in together.” I hung up the phone and I turned the boat back around. Now, I fish out of a 26-foot Duffy. I fish by myself. My boat name is the Nancy Joe, which is named after my mom and my grandfather.

 

I turned the boat back around to set trawl number 17. I lined it up and pushed the first trap off. With the boat going in one direction and the traps going in the opposite direction, each of them, with the friction basically pulls them off in the opposite direction. The last trap went off. And just as I'd done so many times before, I picked up the buoy and the coil of rope to toss it overboard. Before I knew it, I was pulled and dragged to the back of the boat. I didn't have a split second to react. I didn't have time to pull the boat out of gear. I didn't have time to grab a knife off the hauling station.

 

At this point, I was thrown up against the back of the stern, the trawl table and I was dragging with my pointer finger and my thumb. The rope had become cinched around, and I was dragging eight traps. The boat is going in one direction and the traps are wanting to pull me overboard. I fought to get that off my hand. Every time I kept moving around, I kept losing my footing. And before I knew it, I was laying up on top of the trawl table just like a trap with the tops of my feet, with my boots, curled around the edge of the trawl table holding on. 

 

I know going in that frigid Atlantic Ocean at that time of the year was not going to be a good situation. I wanted the tips of my fingers to come off. I couldn't hold on any longer. I had to calm myself down and I had to not panic or I was going to drown. I said a prayer, and I took a deep breath and I let go. I kicked my boots off. One came off in the boat and the other one came off as I hit the water. I got dragged down towards the ocean floor. I felt the traps hit, where I became entangled in and the line was about 10 feet from the surface. It slacked. And then, I was able to free my hand. I felt those traps at the bottom and was then able to free my hand. 

 

I swam like a rocket up to the surface. I popped up just like a lobster buoy. I was gasping for air. I started screaming. I grabbed that lobster buoy that I had become entangled with. I stuck it between my legs and used it as extra flotation. My grandfather always taught me, “If you fall overboard, grab a buoy. Hopefully, someone will come to find you.” I screamed my head off. I thought maybe my cousin Aaron, who was fishing half a mile away, maybe he saw something. There’s another boat off in the distance. I said, maybe they saw what happened. I yelled and screamed. Nobody was coming. A split second, I left all my oilskins and my fleece jacket on, because I knew the situation I was in. I needed to keep my core body temperature as warm as I could. 

 

Before I knew it, the boat started to circle. And before I knew it, I was staring the bow of the boat down. It was coming right at me. I debated for a split second to try and say, “Oh, maybe I can pull myself up via the wash rail and pull myself back in.” But I knew if I slipped, I would get sucked under by the prop wash and I didn't want to go that way. I kicked off that buoy and swam like hell and got away from it. I actually kicked off the side of the boat and swam about 200 yards away to another lobster buoy. I grabbed that buoy and I put that one between my legs also. 

 

At that point, it was getting extremely cold. I’d been in the water for quite some time. It was like millions and millions of needles sticking me all in my body, all over. I said a prayer to my grandfather. I said, “Go tap my cousin Aaron on the shoulder and tell him to come get me.” I was at peace with myself at that point. I said a lot of prayers, and I knew I had to fight to stay alive for my family, for my mom and my brother. I was starting to really hallucinate. The fog and the haze were starting to come in. I was trying to figure out how I could wrap that line and that buoy I was on the line around my legs, so that if I did pass, they would be able to find and fish my body out. 

 

In a split second, as the fog and the haze started to come in, I thought it was a mirage. I saw this white boat coming out of off in the distance. As I looked up, and I don't know if this guy sees me or not, I started waving my arms, and my hands, and yelling and screaming. Then I knew he saw me. There was a puff of black smoke came out of his exhaust stack, and he gave it fuel, came right over to me. Pulled up beside me. This is a short guy. He's all by himself. He reached down and grabbed me. He says, "I got a three count here. One, two, three." He says, "Give me anything you got." At this point, I was toast. I had nothing left in the tank. 

 

He flopped me up over that wash rail, right into his boat, just like a fish. I looked up at him and I says-- The first words out of his mouth were, "Man, you're not white." [audience laughter] I said to him, I say, "You got to call my cousin Aaron on the VHF and tell him you got me." He says he's fishing half a mile over here. So, he got on the radio and told him that he had got me and was calling the Coast Guard. He got me into the Coast Guard station pretty quick. I remember they loaded me from the boat, and they put me on the float and started cutting my clothes off. 

 

I leaned over to one of the Marine Patrol officers and I said, "Am I going to die?" And he said, "No." He says, "You're just really cold. We're going to warm you up." [audience laughter] So, they loaded me in the ambulance and they had me over to the hospital pretty quick. Meanwhile, with all this playing out on the radio, and how close-knit a family we are, my cousins and relatives dropped everything they were doing when they were out on the water fishing and came in to meet me over at the hospital. I remember, as I got to the hospital, the doctors, they put blankets over me and they were blowing warm air over me, and I heard them off in the distance. They took a core body temperature, and they said it was 84 degrees. They said, "We can't believe that you're talking to us and that you're coherent." 

 

So, they put IVs in me. My mom and my brother were there. [sobs] I remember my mom putting her hand on my forehead and saying, "It's going to be all right." And meanwhile, the doctors are working on me. And then, I see them off on the side again and they're chatting, and I overhear them and they're like-- Well, all my cousins there have been out fishing for the day. They smell like lobster bait. They've all showed up at the ER. So, let me tell you, the doctors are like, "We got to get these guys in to see him and get them the heck out of here." [audience laughter] 

 

They were pretty ripe. [audience laughter] So, two by two, they said, "Let's bring them in," because later they found out that people were coming in for medical services, and they were like, "We got to get out of here. We're not even going to come in." So, they brought them in two by two. I remember looking up at my cousin Billy and my cousin Vinny, and I said, "I screwed up." And they're like, "No, you're here. That’s all that counts." 

 

They kept me in the hospital that evening, overnight for observation, and they let me go the next day. I remember my mom coming to pick me up. We got in the car. They were adamant. They told me to go home. The doctors discharged me and they said, "Go home and relax," and they were adamant about not getting cold. [audience laughter] So, I leaned over to my mom and I said, "We’re not going home." I said, "We're going to the boat." So, she drove me down to the dock, the family dock and I got out, walked across the dock, and I walked down on the float and I got on my boat. 

 

It was a cloudy day, and I sat down. I thanked my grandfather for that day. I thanked my boat for not killing me. As lobstermen, our boats are extensions of our lives. When you go out on your boat, you come back on your boat. And the way that I came in that day is never a way that you want to come in. That's why I'm one lucky lobsterman.