gone to haul...with everyone.

On one of the rainy days of our vacation we drove to Beals Island so that Ella could haul her traps and my family would have the opportunity to go out on Dwight's lobster boat.  Because it is so far from where my sister and her family live, they had never actually been to Beals Island where the Carvers live.  It was yet another way this summer knit our families together a little more.  

Tricia, Krisit, Patti, Me, my mom (Jan) and my sister (Kathryn)

Look whose driving the boat again!

There was a storm chasing us on the horizon.  It was one of the more ominous things I've experienced  being on the ocean in a boat knowing that the black sky would eventually open up over us.  

In order to fish as a student, Dwight and Ella both "tag" the traps that she fishes.  That means he gives up fishing 10 of his own traps to allow her to fish them.   The buoys that mark these traps are labeled with both of their initials and license numbers.  I can't fully explain why the site of this buoy is so touching to me- perhaps it is the commitment of a grandfather, the opportunity she has been given, or just the sheer cuteness of my very fashionable, tween daughter fishing for lobster with her Grampie-  but it fills my heart with love.

 YES! Lobsters!

Kathryn was so excited to get on the boat and get to work.  She kept telling us she had been waiting years to do it.  It was like a kid in a candy shop.

Michaela and Brian got really into it too!

Have you ever seen such a crowded lobster boat?

Yum, that bait smells good.

Ella is slightly distracted on the boat, multitasking being something she hasn't exactly mastered.  She is trying to tend the trap and get the lobsters out, band them, count them and bait the pockets to go in the trap before it is returned to the water.  She gets rather overwhelmed.  Usually Brevan baits her pockets because he is a boy and bait doesn't bother him.  (I think he actually likes it.) For this, Ella is very grateful.  She usually does the banding whilst dreaming of all the money she is making.  But on this trip with so many hands helping, she also learned how to measure the lobsters to determine if they are "keepers".    Which is, in fact, hard to do with your fingers crossed praying you can keep them and sell them and profit from them....

Do you not love the child-sized Grundens?  (Or oil pants as they are also called.)

Maya is very serious on the boat.

Someone spotted a jellyfish in the water and Dwight scooped it up with a bucket.  The kids were enthralled.

When the storm that was brewing finally broke over us, we headed back to shore to sell Ella's lobsters and crowd into the Carver's house for dry clothes, coffee and Patti's out-of-this-world blueberry cobbler.  It was such a special and memorable day.