The Peter Charles - 3. Chapter 3

The rest of the week I worked late. Friday couldn’t come soon enough. Arriving home, the boys were all dressed, including boots. “Boys, before you wear those boots, make sure the cleats have been removed. If they aren’t, you can wear your boat shoes.” They all decided to wear their boat shoes.

Glen drove the truck to the dock. The boys helped to unload the truck while Andy and Nicky went to Chicken Shack. As they were walking to the Shack, Nicky called back for Scott to join them. Glen and I took the large chests and carried them on the boat. I plugged them into the DC unit. The boys carried the smaller chests. With Glen’s help we unloaded the food, putting the food in the refrigerator or freezer. I sent Charles to the Wharf to ask Uncle if he wanted to go out with us. By the time the boys came back with the chicken, I saw Charles and Uncle heading toward us. I went to the bridge to pick out the coordinates for us.

“Does Jim need coordinates?”

“No, he figured out what you have been giving him.”

Nicky came down from the bridge, he and Andy went to the bow to talk to the mermaids. Nicky blew his horn, Ron looked. Andy waved him forward. When he got there, I watched as they had him between them. Walking back he was smiling. Nicky, back in the bridge, started the motors, how sweet that sounded.

“Charles, take Ron and show him how to bring the anchor up, Glen get the bow line, Andy get the stern line.” I listened as Nicky engaged the motors and the boat started to move out to sea.

“Okay boys, your cots need sheets and pillow cases. Get those chores done while we move to our fishing site.” The boys headed to the cabins, “Glen, let’s get the Captain’s cabin ready for Uncle”

When we got to our site, Nicky gave a few short whistles, “Okay boys, let’s go.”

Dropping the nets was so much easier, “Dad, what about the other nets?”

“We’ll drop the stern nets tomorrow when we have bait.” Dinner, sitting around the table was so different, no more standing or sitting on a bench at the stern.

Everyone was happy, happy because we were fishing again and happy we had such a boat. It was eight when the older boys said bedtime. Ron looked like we were crazy. “Ron, a horn sounds at four in the morning, that’s when we pull the nets. You’ll need your sleep.”

Peter slept with Glen and I. I’m not sure who the boys shared a cabin with. I was tired from the week and I was asleep within five minutes.

Four o’clock and the whistle went off. I didn’t want to get up, my bladder made the decision. I wasn’t the only one blessing the ocean.

“Okay boys, when we pull the nets you’ll only need the pushers if a fish escapes from the net.” I opened the hold, Glen and I pulled the port net, hooked on the wench, we moved the wench over the hold, then unfastened one side of the net, the fish fell into the hold. The boys smiled as they saw their job being much easier. Uncle had a big smile on his face. The starboard net was handled the same way. Dropping both nets back in the water, “Okay let’s wash up and get breakfast.”

After breakfast, I opened the hold and took out three fish and cleaned them. Taking the entails and heads to the stern, I was ready to go fishing for shrimp and lobster. Unlike the nets for the fish, these nets never detached from their winches. Essentially the nets sat on the bottom of the ocean.

I washed my hands, we had three cleaned fish in the chests. “Why don’t you boys go back to sleep? I’ll call you in three hours.”

Glen and I cleaned up, sitting around the table drinking coffee, Nicky came down, picked up Peter, whispered something and they left. “Uncle, what do you think?”

“You have considerable larger holds, the other captains are going to be jealous.”

“I don’t understand them. Jim is fishing as far out as he feels comfortable, he comes in full. The others could share that. Sometimes these guys are so stubborn.”

“It’s not all that. Some of their boats aren’t safe this far out.”

“Come on Uncle, our old boat was in worse shape than Gus’s, yet we went out.”

“It sounds like they are getting tired of fishing.”

“What do you think Uncle, is Glen right?”

“It could be but Jim is still going after full loads, Jim is over 60.”

“I’m not sure age is the issue, how old are you Uncle?”

“I had you, if I didn’t have you, I would’ve retired a long time ago.”

“I don’t think so, if you had the right hands you wouldn’t have retired.”

“Well, for the record, I’m retired. I moved into a room at the Wharf and I’m happy.”

“You still going out with us?”

“No, I wanted to do one trip on your new boat, now I’ve done that.”

“You know it won’t be the same. We’ll see next week.”

The boys came up, “Is there anything to eat?”

“Check the chicken buckets, there may be some biscuits left over from breakfast.”

“What time are we going pull the nets?”

“We’ll pull them at two and at eight”

At two we pulled the nets, again we dropped them directly into the holds. “Kevin, this hold will soon be full.”

“We’ll fill that hold before we start to fill the bow hold. Let’s check the stern nets.”

The boy were excited, “Charles, get the rubber bands. Okay guys we‘ll use both holds, one for shrimp and one for lobster.” I started the winches, as the nets began to clear the water, we watched to see how full they were. The starboard net wasn’t full but we had shrimp. The boys started to pull the port net, at one time three boys were applying rubber bands. Again that net wasn’t full, but we had lobster and more shrimps.

“Good job boys, now we need to clean more fish before we drop the nets.” I watched Johnny and Andy dropping the entails from the fish they cleaned on the nets and started to lower the nets. I was glad I showed them how to clean the fish.

We fished till four pm on Sunday, we had a full load of fish, the shrimp was okay but that hold wasn’t full, neither was the lobster hold. Charles pulled the anchors, the boys stripped the beds. When we were about two hours out, Nicky blew the whistle. Reaching the dock, the cannery truck was there. Now I needed tins. Uncle set up his shop, Peter started to catch crabs with Uncle’s contribution. I did fill the chests. It took us three hours to unload the fish. I didn’t empty the shrimp and lobster holds, the cannery didn’t want them.