Day in Portland! (fly home tomorrow)

Today, i got to spend the whole day in Portland! Yesterday i said i was in Rockland, but no its Portland. In the morning, i got up at 7 A.M. and then we went to breakfast. We went to breakfast at a place called local sprouts.  It was a really cool restaurant that had a lot of vegan and gluten free stuff. There were some really unique items on the menu. I got a pancake with butter and Maine maple syrup, and 2 pieces of toast with butter. My mom got the breakfast burrito, which was really good. Levi got french toast!

Inside, they had seating, they had a couch, and a high table with high stools, and we sat on a platform with 3 chairs, and the table looked like an old door turned into a table, and it was really cool! The pancake was really good, and we all finished our food. Then, we went to a bookstore, and i got a journal, and Levi got 2 mad lib books. My mom tried to find a book that she wanted to read on the plane ride home tomorrow, but they were all out. We then went to an ice-cream place called Gelato Fiasco. I got toasted coconut, and mango. It was very yummy!

We went next to an observatory. It looked like a lighthouse made out of wood, and the whole thing was made out of wood. It got thinner the taller it got, and it was pretty tall. There were a lot of rocks holding it down so that the wind couldn't knock over the observatory. As we walked up the observatory, the rooms kept getting smaller and smaller, until we got to the top of it, and you could see about 30 miles! It was awesome! We had a guide who told us how it was used for raising flags every-time a ship came in, and people would know the flag and which ship was in.

We came back to the hotel room, and we were going to go to the Green Elephant for dinner.

-August 31, Monday

Last Day! (Saturday) In Rockland

Today, was my last day on the boat! We went out off shore, so that we could haul some more double traps. We hauled about 35 double traps. The rest of the traps were single traps. It takes about 25 minutes to get out to that area of the water, so i was able to fill a lot of bait bags on the way out. We found some more fish in the traps today. Uncle Art had about 6 traps on the back of his boat today to set. They were all going to be set as double traps, so he has to tie them both together. One trap has the long rope that is connected to the buoy, and the other trap, has a small white rope that is connected to the other main trap, and that is how they are hauled as doubles.

The day did not start out good, because when Uncle Art went to set the first pair, he forgot to tie the other trap to the main trap, so that one trap went all the way down to the bottom of the ocean and we could never get it. He was pretty mad. We also had a ton of sea-weed grass stuff on all of the double traps when we hauled them. The single traps do not get the sea-grass on them but the double traps do, because they are connected, and usually the second trap off of the double traps gets all of the sea-grass. The reason is because, when the double traps are hauled, the second trap is dragged along the bottom of the ocean floor until it can be pulled up, so it collects a lot of sea-grass. Sometimes we cant even see the trap there is so much of it on there.

We were not getting a lot of lobsters from any of the traps, but once in a while we would get some. At the end of the day, we only caught about 300 Lbs of lobsters. It was my last day, and i got to go home, and make a sandwich to take on the road, because we were driving to Rockland to spend 3 nights in a hotel until we went home. We were going to stop in wiscasset, so that me and my brother could go to a place called "Monkey C Monkey DO" it had like zip-lines, and outdoor lazertag. We would be there while my mom, Uncle Art, Aunt Pennie, and Oma went out to eat dinner. Me and Levi had a lot of fun there, and we loved outdoor lazer tag. Then, we did the twin zipline for the rest of the time. We got ice-cream at the end of the day, then my mom and Oma came to pick us up. We said goodbye to Uncle Art, and Aunt Pennie before we left.

We then drove about 50 minutes to get to the hotel in Rockland where we would be spending 3 nights there until we leave Tuesday Morning. There  will be a guest blogger sometime in the next few days!!!1

-August 30, Sunday

Day Off! (Last Day Tomorrow!)

Yesterday, I was out on the boat, and it was not foggy for once in the morning. Uncle Art said that it was going to be a fairly short day, and that we would be done at about Noon, or 1 P.M. We were hauling only single traps today, and we were not getting that many lobsters during the beginning of the day. The only thing that saved us was the traps that we hauled at the end, that were put near the rocks where the big lobsters live. We caught a TON of great lobsters there, and at the end of the day, we had about 411 LBS. It was sunny the whole day, and there was no fog anywhere! It was really nice to work on the boat that day.

Yesterday night, i spent the night at Aunt Pennies house, and then i came to my moms house this morning so that we could have a pancake breakfast. I had 2 big pancakes, and a few silver dollar pancakes. I always put peanut-butter on my pancakes, and then syrup, and it tastes really good! During the day, we played some card games, and a game kind of like charades.  I read some of my book, The Scarlet Letter, for school, and it is actually a good book and i like to read it!

We went to the park, and me and Levi played on the orange spinning circle toy. It was really fun, until i got some skin ripped off of my hand from holding onto the metal to tightly or something. I don't know if it will still hurt tomorrow when it is my last day to haul, but it is feeling ok right now when i am typing. I do not have any pictures to post today because i have none left, but i have been playing a game on my ipod a lot because a new update just came out!

-August 28, Friday

Short Day! (got a big lobster)

Today, was a pretty short day, and we hauled only singles. We were getting about an average of 1-3 lobsters per trap near the beginning of the day, so we were doing the traps really fast. It was rainy this morning. It stopped raining after about 30 minutes on the boat, and it was really foggy, and the fog never went away for the whole day.


Today, Uncle Art would push back a trap to me if we had 2 traps really close together, so that i could to that trap, and he could get the 2nd trap that was really close together, so that we could go quicker. We found a Codfish in one of our traps today. They have like a single whisker on the bottom of their chin, and they are really slippery, and hard to get out of the lobster traps.

Codfish in the trap!

In one of our traps, we got a really big female lobster. It was a really big one also, and it didn't have shell disease, just like all of the other big female lobsters had that we found. I held it in my hands and it was huge! I had to hold a claw in each hand!

BIG LOBSTER!!

Easy Day!(took my mom and oma on the boat)

Today, we were going to only be doing single traps. I love single traps because i have a system for getting everything done every trap.  I do the traps bait first, then I band the lobsters, last I fill the bait bag from the last trap and put a rock fish on it. It is a really efficient process so that it gets done as fast as possible. It was foggy early in the morning, but as the day went on, it got really nice, and sunny!

We were going to take my mom, my Oma, and my brother Levi, on the lobster boat later today, so that they could see me haul 10 traps. Levi wanted to band the lobsters and "send them to jail" as he calls it as he sends them down the shoot to the lobster box. We were finished with our original traps at about 12:30 P.M. but then we hauled some traps that only had 4 nights on them because we had more time because we were going to pick up them at 2 P.M. to go on the boat. Those traps were filled with lobster and he is glad that we hauled them.

We had some traps up near a really small island, and Uncle Art said it was up in the rocks where the big lobsters lived. He said that the big lobsters like to live up in the rocks near the island because they are separated from the smaller lobsters. He had some traps there, and it was only like 10-20 Feet deep. We hauled them, and we got really good sized lobsters from those traps. We got about 3 really good sized lobsters that were really big and to big to keep.

My Uncle Arts mom named Lucy, has a lobster on the wall and it is 20 LBS. It is mounted on her wall and i got a picture of it!

HUGE 20 LB LOBSTER!

-August 25, Tuesday

Double Traps Day! (got a HUGE lobster!)

Today, we were going to go off shore to haul the double traps that we have about 3 miles away from shore. Since it takes about 25-30 minutes to get there, i have tome to fill a lot of bait bags so that i can have extra if i need them. I had cereal again for breakfast today. It was the cinnamon one. We got out on the boat, and we did some double traps first, but it was really foggy at the time. After we did some double traps, Uncle Art decided that we would just do single traps until the fog cleared up. He has about 30 single traps out there, and the rest are double traps. The traps need to be double traps so that when the whales are migrating, they don't get choked with the ropes, because the double trap makes it so the whales can get by.


Throughout the day, it was foggy one second, and then i turn around from filling up a few bait bags, and you can see 3 miles and all directions. Then, 3 traps later, you cant see your next buoy. It was crazy! It was like fog waves were just rolling over us and it was foggy, then not foggy every 30 minutes. In one of the double traps, we found a HUE lobster, and Uncle Art got a picture of me with it! He said that if i got clawed by that one, it could REALLY hurt me!

Huge lobster!

We found some more fish inside of our traps. There was a fish that was in our trap, and Uncle Art said that he would fill up with air in his stomach. He was like a puffer fish, but only his stomach inflated not his whole body.

We thought that we would be out on the boat until 3 P.M. but we got done at about 1:30 P.M. Uncle Art said that i was doing a really good job working. I want to come back next year!


-August 24, Monday

Day Off! (Sunday - Went to look at houses)

Today was Sunday, so we could not haul today. I would be going home in about 8 days. Today, my Grandma, and my Dad, flew back home to Michigan. I got up at about 7:30 A.M. to say goodbye to them before they left at 8 A.M. After they left, i read a chapter of my book, the scarlet letter, that i have to read for school. Then, me, my brother, Aunt Pennie, my mom, and my Oma, all got into the car to go and check out houses that my mom might buy in Maine.

My mom wants to buy a house in maine so that when we come back out here in the summers for me to work, we can have our own house, and so that my Oma can use it whenever she wants. We looked at 3 houses, and i liked the 2nd one the best, because the whole house was really open, and unique. There were not really any rooms, you could see everything in the house, and there were no walls, so everything was just open, and it was awesome! The people who had lived there before, had some really unique pieces of art that looked really strange and irreplaceable!

We had lunch at a place called the "Happy Clam" They had some really good seafood meals, and really good soups. I got a cheeseburger, and some onion rings. The onion rings were huge and really good! There was a playground at the "Happy Clam" It had a swing-set, and it had a huge game of Jenga!

Giant Jenga!

By the playground, they also had a toy car that little kids could ride around in, and it actually has an electric battery and it goes by itself, so you don't need to move it, and Levi loved driving in that!

Levi riding in the car!

They had a chair, that was somehow, made out of a lobster trap. They made it like a real chair with a back, and arm rests, and it has the net inside of it and it looks really cool!

After we were done looking at the houses, we got back to the house, and i read more chapters of my book, and then, me and Levi were going to go and put some more coins on the rail-road track so that they would get flattened!


-August 23, Sunday

Rainy Day (lobsters dropped off)

Today, I got up, and i had a boal of cereal for breakfast. It was cinnamon, and it was really good! I packed some peanut-butter crackers and a water bottle into my plastic bag for a snack on the boat. We went out at about 5:15 A.M. from the boat, to go to the wharf. It was not foggy like usual. When we got onto the boat, it started to rain a little bit, and so we had to put on our raincoats. From then and on, the rain went on and off, and it wasn't cool, because i had to keep my head looking down, or else i would get a ton of rain in my face.

Soon, the rain went a way for a while, and i got to take my rain jacket off. We only hauled single traps today, but sometimes, if the traps were close together, Uncle Art would give a trap to me for me to do, so that he could get the other trap for him to do. The lobsters were dropping off today, and at the end of the day, we didn't even fill the box all the way to the top. It started to rain again soon, and i put my rain jacket back on.


We got done at about 1 P.M. and my Grandma, Dad, and brother Levi, were going to take a short trip with me and Uncle Art on the boat so they could see what it was actually like to haul a trap. We left 5 traps for that trip so that they could see us haul the 5 traps. Levi wanted to band the lobsters, but he wanted someone else to hold them while he put the rubber band on them. Uncle Art has a gate around his propeller so he does not get rope tangled and it looks like this.

This cage keeps the trap ropes out of the propeller so that they don't get tangled in it.

We got back to the wharf at 1, and we unloaded our lobsters, and we had about 500 pounds. We usually get more than that, but today, they dropped off. Uncle Art left me in charge of the boat at the wharf, while he went over to the Lobstah Shack nextdoor, to get some cheeseburgers for me and him for lunch. By the time he got back, Grandma, My brother Levi, and my Dad, were ready, and were getting on the boat. We all got onto the boat, to go for a mini haul session.

On the way out, i had my cheeseburger with some potato chips, and we talked about the boat, and what happens when we haul a trap. We showed them the bait box and where the lobsters go. We were going to haul 5 traps where it was very rocky, and usually that is where the big lobsters are. We hauled the traps, and we got about 8 good sized lobsters from each trap. Those traps did great! Levi got to band some lobsters.

On one of those traps, there were some sea-urchins in there. They were green, and they are really sharp, and my Dad, and Grandma got to check them out. We also, got about 40 conch shells from just that trap alone. It was so crazy, i got all of them out of the trap, and put them on the side of the boat to take a picture, then i threw them all back into the ocean.

When we got back to the wharf, we put the boat back, and then a fish, just jumped out of the water, onto the floating wooden raft. It was so crazy, because no one had ever seen that before. Then everyone got off, and i went back to my moms house with my dad, Grandma, and Levi.

-August 22, Saturday

Learn how to Cook a Lobster

Today, i will be teaching how to cook a lobster! One thing that people do not usually understand is that, lobsters are not red until AFTER they are cooked. Before lobsters are cooked, they are dark with dots on them. This is a picture of a lobster before, and after it was cooked.

The first thing that you need, is a big lobster pot, big enough to hold and cook the lobsters. It can cook a  lot of lobsters at a time. The first thing that you do, is you fill the big pot with water, and then you heat it up until it starts to boil. When the boil is going, you put the lobsters in the pot. Then, since you just put the lobsters in the pot, the boil will go away until the 2nd boil starts going. This is when you start your timer. For soft shelled lobster, it takes about 14  minutes from the 2nd boil, for them to be cooked, and for hard shell lobsters, it takes about 22 minutes.

This is Uncle Art, with the lobster pot boiling, hooked up to a propane tank.

This is what the inside of the lobster pot looks like. 

 When the time is done, you take the lobsters, and take them out of the pot, with some tongs, and you put them on a plate, or if you want, you can put some lobsters into a giant strainer pot, and you can make lobster pieces, instead of having the whole lobsters out. We had about 7 whole lobsters out, and we made the rest into bits of pieces.

Uncle Art taking the lobsters out of the pot

Put them on a plate, or in the other pot with holes in it.

After you are done with that, you can let the lobsters cool off, and then you can just take them inside, and then you can eat them. You need to know how to get the meat out of the lobster, because most people do not eat the shell. For the claws, there are these things that you can use to crack the shell of the claws, and get the meat from the inside of the claws.

Cracks the claws open to get the meat inside.

For the body of the lobster, you bend the tail flippers back so they all break off, and then you can push your finger along the inside top of the lobsters shell, so that the meat falls out. Then, we have butter sauce that you can dip the meat into. The meat, is usually not as big as the claw itself, because the lobsters need to shed their old shell and get a new one in order to grow. This is a picture of the actual claw of a lobster, and the meat inside of it.

The left is the meat, and the right, is the actual claw, so they are different sizes.

Then, you can just enjoy your lobsters!

Lobsters set out on a plate in the middle of the table.

-August 21, Friday (blog of the day later today)

Crab day! (very foggy)

Yesterday, my whole family went out to eat for Aunt Pennies birthday! We went to a really fancy reastruant, and it was an italian place. I got the bacon and bleu cheese pizza. It was really good, but i could not eat the whole thing, so i had to take it home.

Bacon and Bleu cheese pizza.

Today, i got up at 5 again, and there were no more bagels, so i had 2 pieces of toast, one with jam, and one with peanut-butter. I packed my bag of snacks with pretzels, a water bottle, and a bag of chips. Today we thought we were going to be done after 1 P.M. but we actually finished right after Noon! We were collecting the good sized crabs that we caught in our lobster traps today, because later, my dad wanted to boil the crabs and eat them. 

When we went out on the boat this morning, there was a lot of bait bags filled up already, and Uncle Art had just bought a whole other package of yellow bags. The bags come in long rectangles, so you need to stretch them out before you can fill them with bait. I got a lot of bags filled on the way out to the first trap. I finished filling all of the yellow bags with the rest of the bait we had in the bait box, by about 12:30 P.M. So... from then and on, i didn't need to fill bait bags because they were all full and all of the bait was gone.

We saw a mama seal, and a baby seal, following our boat. At first, we thought that it was just the baby seal alone, but then we saw the big mama seal, and Uncle Art said it was rare that we got to see them together. The baby seal was really tame, and it came right up to the boat. It was so cute, i was able to get a picture of it!

Baby seal!

Baby seal again!

It was right next to the boat, so i was able to get this picture by leaning out over the boat and taking this picture. It was awesome! By the end of the day, we had collected about 9 good sized crabs, for my dad to cook. Crabs are really strong, and their pinch, can hurt as much as a large sized lobster! Crabs are only about the size of your foot, but not as long. We got some good sized crabs, and heavy ones, good for cooking!

-August 20, Thursday (Day off tomarrow!)

Foggy Easy day! (done at Noon)

Today, it was really foggy. I got up at 5 A.M. and we got to the wharf at about 5:30 A.M. It was pretty foggy when we got to the wharf. We went straight to the lobster-boat from the docks because we already had bait, so we didnt need to get any this morning. We were only doing single traps today, and i filled a lot of bait bags on the way out. As we were hauling traps, i tried to fill more bait bags than we were putting in the traps, so that i could have some for tomorrows work.

Today was easy because we were not using any rock-fish, so i only needed bait bags to fill. This made it much easier. The only reason that we weren't using rock fish today was because, we didn't have any left, because the wharf ran out, and we got the last 9 packages of rock fish yesterday, and they were all used up by the end of yesterday.

We caught a huge female lobster, and it had shell disease. Shell disease is caused by pollution in the water, and the only way a lobster can get rid of shell disease, is if the lobster sheds its old shell, before the lobster dies. The lobster was huge, and its tail was really big also.

Ill be posting a Learner page on how to cook lobsters tomarrow.

-August 19, Wednesday.

Hard Workin Day (we found a huge lobster!)

Yesterday, me, Oma, and Aunt Pennie, had a fire outside in the fire pit. We roasted marshmallows. I went to sleep yesterday night, at 9 P.M. because Uncle Art was going to wake me up 30 minutes earlier than usual, at 4:30 A.M. so i wanted to get some more sleep than usual.

The fire last night!

 This morning, i woke up, and had another bagel, (now all of my bagels are gone). I made a sandwich because Uncle Art said we were going to get home later than usual, at 2 P.M. I also brought some pretzels filled with peanut butter. Today, were were hauling doubles, and about 35 single traps. Where the double traps are located, it is about 20 minutes away from shore, about 3 miles off shore. So... while we were going to the double traps, i was busy filling the yellow bait bags. (the yellow bait bags are bigger, and have smaller netting openings, so they hold bait way better. I filled a TON of bags, i filled all of the bait bags that we had on the boat at the time.

When we were hauling traps, we found another small lobster, that was so small, that it was smaller than the lobster measure itself! Uncle Art could just hold it in his hand, and it was so cute, and it had tiny little claws! We also hauled up a huge lobster, that had shell disease, which is a disease of the lobsters shell, but it was still really big! Its crusher claw was bigger than my hand!

The small lobster!

This is the huge lobster that had shell disease (its huge)

Every-time we hauled a double trap, i would always do one trap (get all the lobsters from it, and bait it) and Uncle Art would do the other one. Sometimes Uncle Art would help me with the lobster part if i was filling bait bags or something. We had our sandwiches for lunch, and then we hauled single traps. Single traps are so much easier compared to double traps.

We got home at about 2, and then i took a shower. Today, my Mom, Dad, Levi, and Grandma were all coming over to Aunt Pennies house to have lobster for dinner. Aunt Pennie has a whole set of plates and other stuff that we use when we are eating lobster. She has some lobster themed table wear, and lobster plates!

Lobster silverware thing, used to break the shells of lobster claws (i think)

Lobster Plates!!!!

Tomorrow, i think it will be an easier day, and we will probably only haul singles, but please give ideas for more "Learner posts"


-August 18, Tuesday

Learn about The House

Today, i will be teaching you about The House, and mainly the things that The House has outside, because inside, the house is just a house. The first thing that is out side, is a huge amount of lobster traps that Uncle Art keeps outside. There is a huge wall of lobster traps that he keeps, and then he also has the place where he works on his traps, with a lot of buoys, and lobster traps stacked up right next to him.

Wall of traps

This is where Uncle Art works on his traps.

Another thing outside, by the wall of traps, there is a shed, just for storing things. There is also a chicken coop, that holds the chickens that we have. We get about 6-8 eggs every day, and Levi, loves to go and collect the eggs.

Shed

This is the chicken coup, there is a whole area of space behind it with a fence around it so the chickens can play.

Their is another bigger storage shed, by the cloth line, and the huge willow looking tree. That holds all of the big things, that we only need for special occasions, like tents and other stuff. Behind the house, is a big outside balcony, that has a table and chairs, and its really cool. There is also the screen room, which is kind of outside and kind of inside at the same time.

This is the shed by the cloth line,and the willow looking tree.

This is behind the house, the balcony,and the screen room.

This is the screen room, where we have a little table and couch, and there is a lot of cool things here, like found bottles, cool crab shells, cool shells found, pieces of driftwood, and anything cool that Uncle Art, or Aunt Pennie found, by the beach.

Behind the house, we have a huge back yard. There is an area of water that connects to the sea that me and Uncle Art fish at. There is also a cool wooden pine tree made out of driftwood. There is a small pond, with a row-boat, and also a playground, and a baseball diamond.

This is the backyard of my house in maine, with a pond, and the area of water connecting to the sea (left)

This is the area of the back yard that has the playground, the pond, and the baseball diamond, if you walk back really far!

This is the cool pine tree that is made out of driftwood.

This is the area of water that comes around the land, and is connected to the Sea.

I hope you enjoyed this learner post!

-August 17, Monday

Easy Day! (seal was following our boat)

Today, was a pretty easy day. I got up at 5 again, and had another bagel. We then drove down to the wharf, and it was really foggy. It was so foggy, that we could not see the water from the road by the wharf. Uncle Art, looked out on the water and said "This is as foggy as it gets" and it was really foggy. Uncle Art needed some more rock-fish to load onto the lobster-boat for today, so instead of just sitting in a chair while he went to go get the boat, i helped get the rock-fish into the trays, by getting each box of rock-fish, and getting the rock-fish out of the box, and then putting all of the boxes in the trash bin. I got some pictures of the wharf this morning.

Its really foggy at the wharf!

ITS REALLY FOGGY!

I cant even see the water off of the docks!

It started to get a little bit better.

During the day, it started to get better because the sun came out and it got really hot. On the boat, the first part of the day, we were not getting a lot of lobsters. Yesterday, I had filled a lot of bait bags so i would have them to use today, and this morning, i filled a lot of bait bags, while we were cursing out to our first trap, so during the majority of the day, i did not have to fill the bait bags, which was really nice. We didn't get a lot of lobsters the first part of the day, so i had little breaks in-between traps. The last part of the day, we started to get more and more lobsters.

One time, we saw a seal, following our boat, eating the rotten fish that we dump over the side of the boat every trap we get. Seals like that rotten fish. I got a picture of him, or at least, i tried to. We also got a lot of conch shells in our lobster traps sometimes. They have snails living inside of them, and they are about the sise of a golf ball. I have a picture from online, compared to the picture that i took.

This is a picture of conch shells from online!

These are the conch shells found in the lobster traps.

We got all of these conch shells in one trap! I just had to take a picture of them! Here is the picture of the seal following our boat.

This is the seal under water.

This is the seal popping its head up above the water following us!

Since the first part of the day, we were not getting a lot of lobsters, i was able to do my system where i do the trap, then the lobsters, then the bait bag, in that order. That system does a good job of getting everything it needs to get done on time every trap that we pull up. We were able to get through a lot of traps, in a smaller amount of time than usual. We got done around Noon again. We got home at about, one because we needed to re-fill the boat with more bait for tomarrow.

One other thing, when you haul a trap, sometimes there is a skeleton of a rockfish still there, because the lobsters did not eat it, and sometimes there is just a skull, or just a body, but i found a whole part, and it looks really cool!

Leftovers of the rockfish found in the trap.

 -August 17, Monday