Gloucester, MA, the home of fishing in America

Gloucestermen began fishing in the early 17th century, and Gloucester is still a fishing town. The harbor area is long, and the whole town pretty much revolves around the fishing trade, including lobstering, in some way.

Perhaps you've been wondering, "Why did Mike decide to drag his people 1,000 miles to the little town of Gloucester? I mean, Boston, sure, that would be a neat place to visit, but how did he ever hear of Gloucester?" The town is pronounced Gloster, by the way. Ever heard of the movie The Perfect Storm? There's your answer. I don't know why, but I really like that movie, and the book by Sebastian Junger is even better. In the movie, Bobby Shadford's mom was a barmaid at a little dive bar called the Crow's Nest that pretty much was a place for fishermen to come and blow their hard-earned wages. I'm also hooked on the Discovery channel show Deadliest Catch, and in that series they make it clear that, just as portrayed in The Perfect Storm, most fishermen--and we're talking about men who go out in boats for days or weeks at a time and bring back thousands of pounds of fish, crabs, and lobster--don't particularly like being out. They like making money, and when they come back with a pocketful of cash (often several thousand dollars if things go well; on a recent episode of Deadliest Catch one boat brought back so much Opelio crab that each crew member made $47,000 for seven days work) they usually just drink until it's gone, then they go out and fish again. Much to my delight, the Crow's Nest is a real place! I didn't patronize the establishment, but I did take a moment to snap a photo.

The Gloucester harbor lighthouse is still a working light. As I said, Gloucester and the entire Cape area is a fishing community, and the area is notorious for horrendous storms. More on that later and its effect on the fleet.

Lobster boats go out fully loaded with lobster pots, which they bait and drop to the floor of the ocean. The water depth in the harbor area is around 60', and the lobstermen drop pots in water up to several hundred feet deep. In order to find their pots again, the pots have a small floating bouy with a flog atop it so it can be easily spotted. Each lobstermen has his own distinctive color scheme and also has the last four digits of his SSN on each bouy. The lobster pots are around $100 each, plus whatever might be in the pot, so if you're looking for a quick way to make an enemy, run over a pot, steal a pot, or cut the bouy. I asked a Gloucesterman if there were fines and such for that type of activity, and his answer said it all, "Yeah, there are fines and legal stuff. But the fleet pretty much takes care of that on their own."

These boats were tied up side by side, and they are typical of boats used for long-lining, gill-netting, or dragging. These particular boats are trawlers used for gill-netting, as you will see from the view of the same boats from the stern in the next picture. This is the type of boat the crew of the Andrea Gail sailed in The Perfect Storm. They are big boats, often 80'-100' long, with enormous engines and huge holds. Depending on what they are fishing for, the crews of 4-8 men may be out for several weeks or more. The usual setup is the boat owner gets half of the net after all expenses are paid (food, bait, gear, maintenance, fuel, and so forth), the captain gets a triple share, and the full share deckhands get a single share. Greenhands, new or inexperience deckhands who require a lot of supervision and training, get a partial share until they prove they can take care of themselves and fully contribute to the success of the trip.

Stern view of the same boats tied up alongside the pier. The gillnets are coiled on the stern decks.

This is a lobster boat that is geared up and ready to roll. It is about as big as the long-liners, which as far as I could tell from what we saw at Gloucester is unusual. Likely this guy fishes lobster at times and other fish at other times, perhaps depending on the market. When we were in Gloucester the lobster boats were getting around $5 for a pound of lobster, and you know what those babies go for in restaurants. Like everything else, the guys doing the hard and dangerous work aren't the ones getting rich! Most of the lobster boats I saw in Gloucester were small boats with low rails on the stern of the boat. They don't go out very far from shore, so they don't have the same need for a huge boat that can handle a really bad blow like the longliners. They also don't haul anywhere near as much gear as the longliners or gillnetters. The boat in this picture, including fishing gear, communications, an ice machine, and all the odds and ends is worth several million dollars.

Gloucester has a beautiful seafront area with walking paths, monuments, and so forth in the area of the monuments shown below. As you can see in the picture, the tide was out at this time of the day. The flags extended about a half mile down the seafront--beautiful.

According to the scrolling info at the end of The Perfect Storm, the town of Gloucester has lost 10,000 men to the sea over the past 3-1/2 centuries. Yes, you read that right--10,000 men lost since about 1650 or so. I had to rewind the DVD twice myself to make sure I read it right. The monument plaques shown in this photo and the next have the names of all the men who were lost to the sea. There are 10 plaques full of names and the print was maybe 1/2" tall. The first plaque had a synopsis of the losses, and they placed the number of dead at more like 5,600. While still a staggering number of men to lose to the fishing trade, that's a lot less than the number put forth in The Perfect Storm. Don't know what the deal is there. These plaques were erected in 2002, and they are still losing men to the sea to this day.

Many years went by without a single loss, but there were also years of devastating losses. Often, everyone who was killed were on boats sunk in a single horrific storm that devastated the fleet. There was a storm in 1879 that sunk over 20 schooners, with a loss of life of 169 men. Imagine the devastation that would have done to the town of Gloucester. Surely every family would have lost someone.

In 1862 a man named James A. McKay was lost a sea in a devastating storm that killed 120 men and sunk 16 schooners. Many, many of the men lost over the years were Irish, and it was sad to see many of the same names over and over again. It was common then, and still is today, for the sons to follow their fathers into the the fishing trade in spite of the danger.


This is a photo of the famous statue The Man at the Wheel. The inscription reads, "They that go down to the sea," which is a partial quote of Psalms 107:22-23. Beautiful statue.

Back to my Perfect Storm quest. The movie is based on a real event that occurred in 1991. The fishing vessel Andrea Gail, an 80' longliner fishing for swordfish, was lost with all hands in a storm off the coast of Newfoundland that was called the perfect storm by a meteorologist named Bob Case. Three separate meteorological events converged with deadly consequences. Several boats were lost to the storm. Much of the movie is based on two things: first, the scarce information that was available to the outside world about what was going on aboard the Andrea Gail. Second, some of the events in the movie really happened, but to people other than the crew of the Andrea Gail. In the commentary to the movie, Sebastian Junger talked about how difficult it is for people who lose loved ones to the sea in the manner of this boat. There is never any closure, because there is no way to know what really happened. There were enough reports from the Andrea Gail to know about where she was, but beyond that, nothing is known. Apparently they lost their com gear, or else the captain and crew were just too busy dealing with the storm to let anyone know what was going on. After the storm boats in the area and the Coast Guard performed a search and came up with a few barrels marked with AG, but nothing for sure can be known. There is no crash site, and there are no bodies. In the movie the boat encounters a rogue wave that pitchpoles the Andrea Gail. Rogue waves certainly do occur, and pitchpoling is certainly possible in that type of scenario, but in this particular case that has to be a case of artistic license. One way or the other, captain Billy Tyne, Bugsy Moran, Murph, Sully, Bobby Shadford, and Alfred Pierre never came home.

As mentioned in yesterday's blog, we went on a whale watching tour, which was absolutely stunning. This is the boat we were on. The Privateer IV was about 80' long, and she was fast and beautiful!



The gal on the bridge talked on the intercom through the entire whale watching experience. Alex visited with her when we were on the way back into harbor and learned that she was originally from Ohio, so there is hope for Alex too! She was very knowledgable about the whale's behavior and added a lot to the whole experience.

The Privateer cruised along at about 17 knots at flank speed. A knot is about 15% faster than mph, so the boat was moving right along. I was amazed at the boat's wake. While you can't tell from the picture, the stern wake was probably 10-12' deep. Drew and I talked about what it would be like to be in a kayak when these waves get to you--yikes!


Now for the fun stuff. The first whale we found must have been put in place just to entertain us, and she put on quite a show. Here she is floating on her back with both flippers in the air. As mentioned in yesterday's blog, each flipper is around 12 long and weighs about a ton. There are marine biologists on every whale watching tour boat that goes out, and they are even more excited to see these whales than we are. Humpback whales are endangered, so the research provided by the tours is invaluable. Just like our fingerprints, humpbacks are uniquely identified three ways: by the dorsal fin, and by the markings on the flippers and tail flukes. Researchers don't know exactly why humpbacks do the flipper slaps, but it may be for communication purposes--sound travels four times as fast in salt water as through air--or it may be just to entertain people on whale watching tours!

The big beauty also gave us a good look at her rear end. The tail flukes are massive. She pulled this manuever over and over. The humpback pokes her tail out of the water, and as she's sliding under the water she slaps the water with her tail, which results in a thunderous SMACK!

Here you get a good look at the dorsal fin. Each humpback has a unique dorsal fin. Som are straight, some are curved as this one, some are just rounded, some have markings, and so forth.


Our second encounter with humpbacks was during a feeding frenzy. While it's certainly not the frenzy one associates with sharks or piranha, the idea is the same. Imagine, if you will, 30 sharks feeding on a dying whale, slashing in and out with tremendous speed and power. Now, replace that image with six or seven humpbacks weighing about 80 tons moving about as fast as an Olympic swimmer, and you have a humpback frenzy. They certainly do work together. Here you can see the dorsal fins of two humpbacks working side by side.

This is a good picture of the bubble curtains the humpbacks blow to maximize their feeding. They go deep, blow these bubble curtains, then swim up through them with their mouths open, scooping up whatever might be there. Notice the dozens of seabirds flying around the bubbles. They also take advantage of the buffet line.


Here is a shot of a humpback swimming up through a bubble curtain with mouth fully distented. The bottom of the mouth has folds of skin that extend much like a pelican, so given the size of these suckers you can imagine how much food they can scoop up in a single mouthful.

This is a shot of the first whale on her back, and you can clearly see the folds I mentioned in the last description.

This is the grand finale. The one thing we all really wanted to see was a whale breaching. By the grace of God we had that joy. The first humpback who put on such a show for us before quietly going away provided us with that memorable experience. She went under, and it appeared that she was probably gone. But suddenly, there she was, swimming nearly vertically, and propelling over half of her massive body completely out of the water. How many horsepower is required to lift 40 tons of humpback 30' into the air? Truly, truly, incredible.

I'll take a humpback whale in a cannonball contest any time!