crowbelle's Diaryland Diary

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Spring Tidings

SPRING TIDINGS

They tell me this is Springtime.

It looks like Springtime, if you go by the flowers, trees and shrubs.





But the weather has been less than Spring-like these last few weeks here. Oh, we did have about three nice days in a row a while ago, but since then, it's been gray, rainy weather here in New England, more like the beginnings of Winter, than like the preview to Summer!

My husband, Paul, is a lobsterman. His office is his boat, called "Bollocks!" - for any British readers here, that may sound a harsh name, and it was meant to be. The year Paul lost his old lobster boat, in a freak wind storm, was rough.

He had gone to check on it early that Sunday morning, after a wild night of fierce wind and rain, and it was just gone from its mooring! Vanished!

I remember, very clearly, his voice on the phone telling me he was "all washed up."

His beloved "Sunshine" - the lobster boat he had built himself, with the help of his late grandfather, was no more.

Over the course of the following days and weeks, he found bits and pieces of "Sunshine" up and down the coastline. There were even some pieces of her around Peaches Point, in Salem Harbour. It was all very sad.

We had finished paying for our house recently, which was a feat in itself. We owned it free and clear! But this disaster changed all that.

Paul needed a new boat, so we mortgaged the house again, he bought a brand new fiberglass boat from "down Maine," and we waited for it to be built. He couldn't really afford to buy a boat that was completely outfitted already, so he got what they call a "kit" boat. It comes as a shell, and Paul had to cut out the windows, and do all the finishing work to it, including install all the electrical lines, windows, hauler, engine, etc, etc, etc.

The following Summer his boat was ready. It was a Summer from hell, too. Very, very hot and humid. The boat came down from Maine and was deposited in our driveway, next to the house.

Paul set to work completing his new boat, which took him the entire Summer. He broke many saw bits trying to cut the windows out of the fiberglass body. He worked tirelessly day and night. His buddies - other lobstermen - and even their wives, would drop by regularly to see his progress, and to offer bits of advice about what he should and shouldn't be doing on it.

At the end of this process, Paul was but a shadow of his former (slim) self. He had sweated off many pounds and was a deep golden brown from the scortching sun he endured each day up in the cockpit of that new boat.

He did all the work alone, for the most part. Now and then, he needed help and a buddy would come by and lend a hand.

Finally, when he never thought the day would EVER come, it was done and ready to go "over" - and Paul was just about "all in."

We sat down to dinner, with the boat in the driveway for the last night, and pondered what to name her.

He had loved the old "Sunshine" so much, and had intended to call the new boat "Sunshine" as well, but after this long, hot, arduous Summer, and all the heartache he had been through, that name just would not suit.

As many readers may know, Paul and I are Anglophiles, and one of the favourite "cuss words" in Britain, is "Bollocks!" I happened to utter that word to him, his eyes lit up, and we both knew that "Bollocks!" was her name. It was how he felt then about the whole process, and it just stuck.

Not many of our friends here really appreciated the significance of that name, but we did have friends who lived in a house overlooking Marblehead Harbour, and Paul's mooring, who are from England, and when they saw the name, painted in big white letters across her stern, they cringed! I guess it's just not a nice word to utter out loud, or to have painted on a boat's behind! But the boat had already been registered in that name, and "Bollocks!" she was, and will always be.

I guess it's just a way for Paul to always remember why she is here... to replace his old beloved "Sunshine"... and to get him through a hard day's work of hauling lobsters from the sea. Not a toy, or a recreational vehicle, but a hard working boat.

Today, he tried to go lobstering.

It's a holiday here today, Memorial Day, but lobstermen don't have many "holidays" - Paul fishes 7 days a week, for as many days a year as the weather and seas will allow him to get out there. There are no "weekends" for him.

He came back today, all frustrated with Bollocks!, saying "She's got water!" He thinks the starter got wet. Now he has bait on the float, a load of traps to take out, and no way of doing it, until he gets his starter repaired or rebuilt. There is always something happening to him and that boat... It never ends....

But it's Springtime here, and the flowers are out, and the birds are singing. Oh, and now it's starting to rain again!

Cheers!