My family on our lobster boat, the "Phyllis". I am on the far left, 10 years old. Then my sister Lee, my brother John, Mom, Dad, Lorna the dog, and sister Pam. My brother and I have found our life's work on boats....he as a ship's pilot, me as a fishing boat owner and operator.Fishermen are grown slowly. Their skill set begins at birth. If fishermen knew what life would bring down the road, they probably would be smart and choose another path. But those of us who bungled into this lifestyle, did not get there by chance. We were born to it. Everyone learns how to keep going in a particular direction as a kid...a fishermen learns how to steer.
The first helmsmanship for all four of us kids was steering the Scamp, our great grandfather’s sailboat, and the 4-Fun, commonly known as the “Nana boat”. Both were havens for our family on weekends and vacations on South Oyster Bay and Great South Bay, between Long Island and the outer sand spit of Jones Beach and Fire Island. My bunk on the Scamp was a wooden dresser drawer because I was just a baby and the sounds and movement of the boat put me to sleep. On the Nana boat, I slept in the farthest reaches of the bow curled up on the extra anchor line. During the day we sailed from Amityville to a destination across Great South Bay such as Hemlock Heading, Cherry Grove, or Fire Island. We had a chance to hold on to the tiller with Dad’s help and got the feel of it pulling to leeward. It’s funny how it’s called “weather helm”.
The beaches of Gilgo, Cedar, Oak Island, and Fire Island were our playground. The ocean swell broke on the south side in combers under which we dove like dolphins. Our mother was constantly counting heads in the surf. The eelgrass poked and cut your bare feet if you weren’t careful jumping and climbing on the sand dunes. Mermaid’s purses and shells lined the tidal edges while the terns and gulls whirled overhead. Mom said we had our bottoms in the air continually like sandpipers pecking at the sand fleas. We collected feathers, shells, driftwood, and anything we could carry .When you are four, most of it gets dropped on the long trek back to the boat.
We learned how to clam with our toes in the shallow waters of Great South Bay. My Dad supplemented his income with weekend clamming for littlenecks & cherrystones piled in wire baskets. We were always wary of the blue crab’s sharp bite. A howl would go up and you knew one of your siblings had just got it. My Dad fed us raw clams if we complained of hunger. My first memory of eating fish and clams was from the Great South Bay adventures. It was heaven for a child to be over, in, and under the water, fed when hungry, and put to bed with the sound of the sea rippling by the bow. I learned to hold the tiller and steer towards a landmark or a bouy ahead. A lot of what we absorbed was a vocabulary of seafaring terms like leeward, mast, stay, bowline, sheet, warp, tiller, starboard, hard-a-lee, but most of all we were my Dad’s crew, so we did stuff, and doing is learning. Now I am doing what I did as a kid. I am a fisherman.
The first helmsmanship for all four of us kids was steering the Scamp, our great grandfather’s sailboat, and the 4-Fun, commonly known as the “Nana boat”. Both were havens for our family on weekends and vacations on South Oyster Bay and Great South Bay, between Long Island and the outer sand spit of Jones Beach and Fire Island. My bunk on the Scamp was a wooden dresser drawer because I was just a baby and the sounds and movement of the boat put me to sleep. On the Nana boat, I slept in the farthest reaches of the bow curled up on the extra anchor line. During the day we sailed from Amityville to a destination across Great South Bay such as Hemlock Heading, Cherry Grove, or Fire Island. We had a chance to hold on to the tiller with Dad’s help and got the feel of it pulling to leeward. It’s funny how it’s called “weather helm”.
The beaches of Gilgo, Cedar, Oak Island, and Fire Island were our playground. The ocean swell broke on the south side in combers under which we dove like dolphins. Our mother was constantly counting heads in the surf. The eelgrass poked and cut your bare feet if you weren’t careful jumping and climbing on the sand dunes. Mermaid’s purses and shells lined the tidal edges while the terns and gulls whirled overhead. Mom said we had our bottoms in the air continually like sandpipers pecking at the sand fleas. We collected feathers, shells, driftwood, and anything we could carry .When you are four, most of it gets dropped on the long trek back to the boat.
We learned how to clam with our toes in the shallow waters of Great South Bay. My Dad supplemented his income with weekend clamming for littlenecks & cherrystones piled in wire baskets. We were always wary of the blue crab’s sharp bite. A howl would go up and you knew one of your siblings had just got it. My Dad fed us raw clams if we complained of hunger. My first memory of eating fish and clams was from the Great South Bay adventures. It was heaven for a child to be over, in, and under the water, fed when hungry, and put to bed with the sound of the sea rippling by the bow. I learned to hold the tiller and steer towards a landmark or a bouy ahead. A lot of what we absorbed was a vocabulary of seafaring terms like leeward, mast, stay, bowline, sheet, warp, tiller, starboard, hard-a-lee, but most of all we were my Dad’s crew, so we did stuff, and doing is learning. Now I am doing what I did as a kid. I am a fisherman.
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