Fishing Trawler Boat on North Atlantic, off Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
The charter sport fishing business was spotty that year (1991), so when conditions were favorable we would go commercial fishing for cod to try and fill in the gaps. For a small (32 foot) boat that meant calm seas and winds in between the storms.
The cod had been so heavily fished for so long that you had to go further and further to sea to find decent numbers. We would leave at 4:00 in the morning, with several hours of "steaming" time to get around Nantucket Island and then out to the open sea. Ideally, the weather would be serene for two days in a row, so that we could anchor at sea overnight and get two days fishing from one trip out. Rarely did it work that way.
But on one stunningly beautiful morning, the sea was a perfect blue, its surface a mesmerizing scene like rolling glass. We steamed on past a trawler boat dragging its nets for fish.
The Captain said, "If I still worked at the University, I'd be dead by now". In one short sentence he summed up the difference between being stuck in an otherwise comfortable job that you hate, versus something more adventurous like commercial fishing, one of the most dangerous of professions. On days like this, in conditions like this, you can see why it pulls at a man so strongly.
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