Day Off (Sunday) BLOG #2

This is my 2nd post on my blog today. Today, at around noon, I had a sandwich for lunch. Then, my mom and brother, Levi, came to pick me up and go to their house. When we got there, me and Levi played with a ball in the yard, and then, me and Levi, took a walk down to a beach about 4 blocks away from our house. We didn't know where we were going when we first started to walk, but then we just found a cool beach. There was a TON of shells everywhere, and we found a lot of pieces of glass. The beach wasn't sandy, it was all rocks, instead of sand, and then like huge rock spikes over the ground. It was awesome! Levi, found a random, broken pair of glasses at the beach!

Shells everywhere at the beach!

Levi rockin the broken glasses.

This beach is really rocky

Thick rock layers on the beach!

We found a lot of beach glass at the beach!

We walked around the beach for a long time. We walked along the beach, on the rocks, and we found this other part of the beach, and it had like a rectangular fort kind of thing. It looked cool. It was like rectangular, with the top of the fort looking like a castle. It looked cool! I found a pipe on the ground, and Levi found an even BIGGER pipe, and tried to pick it up! We went into the fort, and it was really cool, and it had been overrun inside, by plants, dirt, but the back of the fort was cool and had some cool graffiti on it!

Found a pipe on the ground!

Levi found an even bigger pipe LOL

There's the cool lookin fort that looks like a castle wall!

Inside of the fort, looks AWESOME!

The place where the cement was removed from the floor of the fort, was probably used to transport rainwater down hill when it rained, and get all of the water out of the fort because it has no roof, and they didn't Want the fort to flood.

After we got back to the house, my mom drove me and Levi, to a park near our house. We have been to this park before, when we came to Maine, last year. Our favorite part about that park, was this awesome playground thing that we never see in Grand Rapids. It is like a spinning circle, tilted kind-of, and you can spin around on it! It is really fun to play on!

Kids spinning on the circle.

Me spinning on it

One handed selfie while spinning on this thing! 

I climbed on top of it!

I hope you enjoyed today's blogs. Tomorrow, i am back on the boat, and will be posting, another "Learner" Page!


- August 9, Sunday BLOG #2

Day Off - (Sunday)

Today, got up at like 8:30 A.M. and i'm just chillin until my mom and my brother come to get me at my Uncle Arts house. They arrived here yesterday, and i went shopping with them, and helped them to get food for their house. They are renting a house that is really awesome! Its about a fifteen minute drive from where i am now! I got some cool pictures of the new house!

This is the front view of the new house!

This is the kitchen.

Dining room and couch.

Living room

 

 Those are some cool pictures of the new house. We came to maine last year and rented a house, but my mom said that the loves this house way more than last years house. Before we got to this house yesterday, me, my mom, and my brother Levi, went shopping. We got a lot of food. My brother pushed me around in shopping carts, and i got him a new cup that he wanted because it made him feel happy. I also got some food coloring just to make different colored water because why not. I also, got to get my new mic. and my webcam from my mom that she brought from home so i could record more videos for my youtube channel! Here is some pics from the store.

Me and my bro, Levi, at the store!

 This is a video of Levi being really crazy at the store yesterday!

When we got to the house after the store, we had to put all of the groceries away. The house has 4 bedrooms i think, and really steep staircases.
I took a lot of grocery bags into the house at once, so i didn't have to take another trip! The house had a really big backyard, and me and Levi played with a ball in the back yard for a while.

It was getting kind of dark, and my mom, and Levi, were going to have dinner, and then they would drive me back to Uncle Arts house. I chased Levi around the house when all of the lights were off and i found a cool flashlight.

This is me, chasing Levi around the house with a flashlight!

 I will be posting a "Learner Post" later tomarrow! Check it out!

-August 9, Sunday

EASY DAY! (mom and brother get here today)

Today, was a pretty easy day! I got up again at 5 A.M. and we went down to the wharf. Today, we didn't bring any new traps to put out today. We were only hauling singles today, which made me happy because that ment that i didnt have to work crazy today, it would just be a normal day. We got some more Rockfish before we went. We needed them for the traps. We didnt get a crazy ammount of lobsters today, our number of lobster per trap sure went down today, so i had more time to fill bait bags and stuff. At the end of the day, we had about 480 LBS. which is still pretty good. I got a picture of the thing that Uncle Art puts the lobsters in so that i can band them!

If that gets full of lobster, he starts to put the lobster into a black bucket, until that wooden holder is empty again.There are 4 boxes in it, and the one on the far right, holds all of the rubber bands i band the lobsters with!

Uncle Art, set up a new thing today on the boat, called a hot tank. It is basically just a big plastic bin of water, but you tap into the engines pipline in which flows very hot water. You put a metal tube in the middle of the pipline and put that metal part into the plastic bin and while the hot water is flowing through the regular pipline, it goes through the metal part, and then, that heats up the bin full of water since metal is a very good conductor of heat.

The bin of water is so hot, that it starts to steam. Uncle Art said that if i wanted to make a can of soup or somthing like that, you could just put the can of soup in a bait bag, and leave it in the hot tank for about 20 minutes, and then you could have soup on the boat! I thought that was really cool! The real reason for the hot tank, is to get the green stuff  off of the buoys. There is green stuff on the buoys sometimes, that is not seaweed, but its smaller and really sticks to the buoys, so you just soak the buoy in the hot water for a minute, and it comes right off! We had to do that to a lot of buoys today!

That is a picture of it! At the end of the day, the hot tank was filled with really dark green steaming hot water, and he had to pour it out on the boat floor since he couldn't lift it over the edge. When he poured it out, it spread all over the boat of dark green, steaming water! It looked really cool, but it smelled HORRIBLE because it had all of that hot green stuff from the buoys in it.

Today, there is a wedding reception going on back behind our house in a big field. So... We needed to vacuum, clean the bathroom, and the kitchen, and i was going to tidy up the living room. Some of the chefs are going to use our kitchen for making/ preparing some of the food that the guests eat since they are in our huge field back yard. 

You can see the field and then the white tent is where the reception is going on. I took this picture standing right outside my house, so it is a walking distance away. 

I got some pictures of what Uncle Arts buoys look like. Everyone's buoys are different, so that everyone knows which buoys are there's and know which ones to haul because they are designed a special way. Uncle arts buoys are a special kind of green, and black with a yellow or black stem.

This picture, is his buoy attached to the top of his boat so people know that hes not stealing traps.

Theese, are all of his buoys, in our yard piled up with rope on each one, ready to be put on a new trap if Uncle Art wants to put out any more traps!

I got some cool pictures of the long skinny islands that are in maine, when we were out on the boat. Usually, we went really far away from land to haul, and we cant see the land usually, and its foggy. But... Today, it was really sunny and nice out, AND we were near islands and it was perfect outside. Perfect day for a weeding!

We got back to the house at 12 Noon, so it was a really quick and short day! My mom and brother get here today, and they are renting a cool house up in Rockland!

I hope you enjoyed my blog, i will be posting a new "Learner" page in an hour or so so check it out!

-August 8, Saturday

Day off! (FRIDAY) Movie Time!

Today, was cool, because i got to sleep in! Last night, i stayed up late playing call of duty because i knew that i could sleep in this morning. When i got up, i was really refreshed because i got to sleep in. I look at my ipod, and guess what time it says. 6:46 A.M. I thought that i had slept in until 10:30 A.M. I took this to my advantage because now i had 4 more hours in my day.

I watched youtube and played call of duty for a while. By the way, there is a wedding going on near our house in Maine, in our backyard. We have a huge backyard with trails and like a pond and an open field, and  its a perfect place for a weeding. I don't know if it is a weeding or a reception or whatever, but i helped Uncle Art, mow the lawn, and some of the paths through the field.

I got to ride a ride mower, and i got to drive it around and it was pretty fun! After i was done mowing, i just chilled for some more, and then Uncle Art was like, lets go see a movie and go out to eat, and i was like yeah! So.... We went to see Fantastic 4, which i really wanted to go and see! On the way, we were going to stop to eat at apple-bees again, but instead, we stopped at McDonalds because we were running short on time.

The movie was only 1 hour and 46 minutes long. I honestly, thought that it could have been better. The previous 2 X men movies were way better in my opinion. We got home, and i decided to go to bed because it was about 9 P.M. Except this blog that i am doing now! I will post another "Learner" Pages tomorrow, but i am not going to tell you what its about until tomorrow!

For no reason, please check out this awesome song that i like! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVMuwa-HRCQ

-August 7, FRIDAY

CRAZY Working/ Hauling today! (Longer day than usual)

Today was crazy, because we were going to be hauling more buoys than yesterday. Even more, about half of the buoys that we were hauling today were double traps! That means that there are 2 traps, attached to one buoy. One trap comes up first. Then, you slide it over, and continue to haul and the other trap comes up. Today, we didn't just put herring bait bags into each trap, we also added a
Rockfish to each trap. Rockfish, are found in the coast of  Alaska. They are shipped here on dry ice and they are really big fish. They look like this.

So, we were hauling double traps, we had to add a Rockfish to each trap, there were 2 traps perr buoy, we needed to fill bait bags also, and also band lobsters. Since we got 2 traps per haul, Uncle Art, did one trap, and i did the other. Usually, on the regular day, we would haul only 1 trap per buoy, and Uncle Art would take the lobster out of the trap, and i would take out and refill the bait bags. But now that there's 2 traps, i have to take the lobster from one trap. I took the lobster out, measured them, and then did the bait bags. It was a lot of work. We got done at about 3 because we had a lot of work to do. I was pretty worn out after that i was glad to come home and chill.

We found a tiny sea-star in a trap one time and i got a picture of it. It was literally, smaller than a Quarter. We also, found more crabs. They can pinch you harder than lobsters, so be careful!

When we were hauling the double traps, there was a TON of seaweed on each line and Uncle Art would have to pull all of the seaweed off of the rope before we could get the trap up onto the boat. There was literally so much of it! The people at the wharf call that, "Gorilla Hair" The seaweed on the traps look kind of like this.

I found out that Uncle Art try's to let each trap sit for 5 nights. The thing that you use to measure the lobster is metal, and you measure the lobster from its eye socket, to the back of the carapace (back shell of the lobster)

Somthing other than lobstering, after i was done working, me and Uncle Art, went to walmart and got some waters, because we needed more, and some more bread, cheese, and cream cheese for the bagels that we got last time. I also got some cool snacks.

Im going to end this post with a cool picture of me holding a Rockfish in one hand, and a bait bag, in the other hand. Be sure to check out my "Learner Posts" that are near the top of my blog page.

-August 6, 2015

Another Hauling Day - August 5, Wednesday

Today, was another working day. We hauled traps and we got finished pretty early, at about 12:30 A.M. Today, we didnt have any bait bags ready, so i had to fill bait bags along with banding the lobsters and hauling the traps. It was constant work, i usually never had time for a break. It was work, and i was tired after we got done. I felt a little sick throughout the day, but i just kept my mind busy so i didnt think about being sick. The smell of the fish was what got to my head the most. I needed some fresh air sometimes.

The most lobsters that we got in a trap today, was 12. We hauled 100 traps today, and got about 550  LBS. My Uncle Art, has about 500 traps out there as of right now. We keep bringing new traps out each day, and he says he wants to get 650 traps out there. He says that a good trap, costs 80$. Some of the traps that he has, are really good, they are black and orange and they are really well put together. The lobster traps work so that the lobsters can crawl inside of the trap, but then they can not escape. There are entries that go into the trap, and the entries are elevated so the lobster drops a little when he enters the trap, but then he cant escape.

One thing that i noticed about the lobsters, is that, on the inside part of their claws, they have little white bumps that are like feelers, so if anything touches the inside of their claw, they will clamp down and try to get whatever was there. If a lobsters claw wont close, i touch the inside of their claw really quick with the bander, so that it will close and i can put a rubber band on it. Lobsters go through a process called sheeding. Lobsters shed their shells, and it takes about a half an hour for them to do so. After they have shedded their shells, the lobsters are incredibly soft, and you can not pick them up or it will hurt them. It takes about an hour for it to form a new shell. We got a lobster that just shed its shell in one of our traps today.

The left, is the lobsters shell that it shed, and to the right, is the new lobster, that is very soft, and we had to through it back, because it was so soft and very, very fragile.

Learn more about sheeding: Lobster Shedding in a Nutshell



Here is a picture of me, holding a giant crab that came up in one of our traps today!

-August 5, Wednesday

Hauling day - August 4, Tuesday

Today, we just did the normal thing, and hauled traps. We got about 700 LBS. of lobster at the end of the day.  We got so much, that we needed to switch to putting the lobster inside of a smaller crate because the lobster holder was already full. The beginning of the day, was a little weak with getting lobsters, we didn't get that many per crate. After that, we started to get better, and better, and better! At one time we got a lobster trap that had 14 lobsters inside it! Then, the next one had 13! I was banding lobsters for a long time!


 Today, it was really foggy, so it was hard to see the next buoy. It was also high tide. Uncle Art, found that a lot of his buoys, were caught up in another buoys roar, and he blamed it on all of the "non lobster" boats, because they go through the buoys and tangle everything up.

This is a picture of the thing that holds all of the herring and the filled bait bags.

That above, is a picture of the thing that we use to put the bait bags, inside of the lobster traps. It has a little hole at the end of the stick, so its just like a giant needle. First, you take it and you stab it through a bait bag, then, you put the string through the end of the stick (while the stick is still through the bait bag) and then you pull it back, and the string should come right back to you, through the bait bag. Then, you can wrap the string around the other side of the cage, keeping it inside.

Near the end of the day, it started to rain, and Uncle Art got me a rain coat. I didn't need it that much because i was banding lobsters at the time, but i did need it when i was filling bait bags. The fog seemed to clear up after the rain was finished. Near the end of the day, i felt a little sick, so i went to wait in Uncle Arts truck, until he finished about 2 hours later.

Here is a picture of the lobster holder. It is the same shape as the bait holder.

When i am done banding a lobster, i send it on its back, down that tube so that it can reach the lobster holder and so that i do not need to walk anywhere to put the lobster in it! 

-August 4, Tuesday (Im posting this wednesday, but this was Tuesdays day)