Old habits die hard.

It's at the turn of year when folk try to alter their habits, by making resolutions to stop smoking, drinking, or lose weight, and even as early as now, in the last stages of January, most of them will have fallen back into their old ways, but it took me back to a time in my life when I was a heavy smoker.

I smoked anything from sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, took my chance to have a good drink when the opportunity arose, and ate heartily at each meal.

I never put on much weight as my calorie intake was burned off quite easily with the hard graft of my work, and the reason I smoked so much was down to the hours we worked, spending most of my time on deck, risking life and limb, with very few hours sleep, hence the excuse to have a good dram whenever we could.
"Well,if we really needed an excuse that could have been it." lol

Never, at any time did I ever think of giving up any of my vices, including some I haven't mentioned here, and as far as cigarettes were concerned I always made sure I had more than enough when we set off on a trip, which is more than can be said for some of the shipmates I sailed with.

The incident I am writing about happened when I was crewing on a boat called the "Boy Peter," and we were fishing in "The Minch," a stretch of water separating the Outer Hebrides from the mainland, of the west coast of Scotland.

It was only our third day at sea, and two of the other crew had already run out of cigarettes, so knowing what it was like to go without a smoke, I gave them a cigarette now and then to tide them over until we landed in Mallaig, the main problem was that the fishing had been poor so we did not know how long it would be before we caught enough fish to warrant a landing, and the skipper being a non-smoker, was only concerned about making it a profitable trip, and didn't care either way whether we ran out of cigarettes or not.

With me helping the boys out of their predicament, my normally plentiful supply was nearing its end too, and I was becoming very concerned, because it was a long time since I had run short of cigarettes, and it might be a long time before we could purchase any more.

As luck would have it, after a four hour tow during the night the net came up with a large haul of dogfish, (about a hundred boxes.) I say came up, but that is the wrong term to use when speaking about dogfish, as they are so heavy in the net that it sinks as soon as you stop towing the net to the surface, unlike white fish that float the cod end.

We were rigged up for such an event as it was prawns we were fishing for which also are heavy in the net, and with a dog rope attached to the cod end (no connection to dogfish we were working with) we began to bring the fish aboard. During this time the skipper was in touch with the office ashore, to try and find out what the market was like, and when the word came back that it was favourable, we knew our cigarette famine was only going to last for another six hours, because as soon as we emptied the net we would be heading for the market in Mallaig.

An order was relayed ashore to have a carton of cigarettes (two hundred in a carton) waiting for us on our arrival, so with a bit more piece of mind I shared the remaining cigarettes with the crew, but even then, they were finished an hour before we reach land.

It might not seem long an hour, but when you are used to smoking a cigarette every ten to fifteen minutes, the withdrawal symptoms are not long in kicking in especially when you know you have no choice but to wait.

It was a more than welcome sight when the harbour at Mallaig came into view, and being smart I jumped ashore first to moor up the boat, leaving the other two aboard to complete the job, but as soon as I hit the quay the skipper was told to head for the ice factory where we could fill up, before we landed our catch.

The cigarettes had been left on the seat of the oil lorry, and gasping for a smoke I grabbed them, opened the carton, ripped open a packet, and realized that the craving had already gone,
I turned round triumphant, lifting the precious tobacco in my hands above my head to show the boys, who were stranded at the other side of the quay, below the ice chute filling ice, and lit one up blowing smoke as if it was giving me great satisfaction, but the truth be told, I never enjoyed that first cigarette.
It was an anticlimax, the desperation,the expectation, then having two hundred cigarettes in my hand, and having a smoke as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Not so for the other two who were shaking their fists at me, joking, but all the time jealous of me standing there with the only thing they craved right at this minute.

I often think about that moment in my life, when cigarettes meant so much to me, and how my body seemed to turn against them years later.

It was one evening, sitting watching the TV at home, that I seemed to take an instant dislike to tobacco, with even the smell of it turning my stomach, and the ashtray that never left my side, looked filthy, and disgusting.

There was no other explanation, than my body telling me it was time to stop, as I never had any intention of doing so, even though I used to get up in the middle of the night gasping for breath, and had reduced my nicotine intake by trying weaker tipped cigarettes.

This was the man who would not leave the house with less than forty cigarettes in his pocket, and a full lighter, would never have ventured to sea without three hundred cigarettes in his kit bag, and now at this moment, the thought of one made me sick.

For the first time since I started smoking, at the age of fourteen, I was without a cigarette, as instead of what most folk do when stopping, keep some handy, just in case, I gave a packet and a half away, and never bought any more.

I did worry how I would cope when I went to my local bowling club, where I drank on a Saturday night, on how I would survive the evening drinking and not smoking, as the cigarette was never out of my mouth during these occasions, although on saying that, they were seldom out of my mouth at the best of times, but at the club I sat in a company who passed their cigarettes out constantly all night.

Strangely enough the night passed without me wanting a cigarette, and I enjoyed my evening every bit as much, but what is more to the point, I have never smoked since, and that was almost twenty years ago.

My lungs are in much better order, and I never need to go to the window to inhale fresh air into them, but there are the odd occasions when a cigarette would be very welcome, although I know I will never go back to my old ways, (Well smoking anyway) as I know how severe the consequences would be now, and I will never need to fear being stranded at sea without them, not counting the fact that I no longer go to sea either, the difference being, the sea is in my blood, and the yearning for that will never go away.

(Above is a picture of Mallaig harbour)

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Freedom for a goldfish.

Image via Wikipedia

One of the benefits of being a fisherman was the fact that you knew how fresh the fish you were eating was.
Another benefit was that you could take home any type of fish you wanted, and any amount within reason.
So it was, when we had parties at the house I used to take home herring, prawns, and other white fish which made our parties very popular, with such good fresh fish dishes to be had. The other ingredients that make a party go with a swing were there too, but it was the prawn cocktails,(REAL FRESH PRAWNS, not the cardboard shrimps that supermarkets, and most eateries fob us off with now) pickled herring with new potatoes and butter, and the other dishes that I remember, not only because they made great eating, but also because I had to do all the cleaning of them before my wife cooked them. (fantastic fish suppers too if requested)

My wife at the time had a sister with two young daughters, one aged five, the other three.

One day at the fair they won a goldfish, which took pride of place in their home, sitting in a bowl at the centre of the table, where the girls would spend many a happy time watching it swim round and around.

The oldest girl Lorna, one day decided that it should have a bit more room to swim about in, so she emptied the bowl down the toilet, flushed the pan and ran to tell her mum of her generous deed, thinking the fish would end up in the sea.

She could not understand why her mum began to shout at her, when she was told of this deed, and even after it was explained to her that the fish was lost never to be retrieved, she was still unrepentant.

"It's all right mum" she said, patting her mum's back in a comforting way. "Uncle Donald will catch it and bring it back to us, he's a good fisherman."

Her mum could only smile, and I can only think it was seeing some of the fish I brought home that sparked the idea off in her mind.

I did for one minute think about buying a goldfish from a pet shop to replace it and confirm my nieces faith in my abilities as a fisherman, but then it crossed my mind that this might become a regular occurrence, and could cost me a pretty penny at the end of the day so I decided to spin her a yarn. (Me being a mean Scotsman ha ha.)

I told her that it had been cooped up in the goldfish bowl for so long, without seeing its mum and dad, that as soon as it entered the sea it swam away to find them, and one day while fishing I spied them swimming side by side happy to be together again.
"DID YOU Uncle Donald?" She asked, eyes agog.

Yes I replied, and your wee fish asked me to thank Lorna for sending it back to its mum and dad, then it wriggled its tail and swam away to join all the other goldfish in the sea.

Her reply left me quite stunned and speechless when she said, "Well we will have to rescue more fish from the fair,so they can join all the other goldfish in the sea."

Now how do you get out of that?

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Are there still plenty of fish in the sea?

This is the time of year when the Scottish fishermen are told by the European Union how much fish they are allowed to catch for the coming year, and the amount of days that have been allocated to them to achieve their quotas.

It is another stupid ruling thrust upon us since we joined this dangerous combination of countries, with the Scottish fishing fleet suffering more than any other country.

It is disgusting that this body, who allow their own countries to flaunt the rules, are allowed to have any say in the catching capacity of our boats, telling us that we are over fishing our stocks when they have all but exhausted their stocks, and are now after ours.

The Scottish fishermen have a better knowledge of the stocks of fish in the waters they have covered over generations, and with their own livelihoods at stake, they need no telling of how to conserve stocks, from people who sit at a desk and receive a steady wage without the worry of some idiot cutting their earning capacity.

I often wondered if mother nature had her own method of conservation, as various species of fish can change their sex, which might be their way of multiplying their stocks when the shoals begin to dwindle.

As early as the seventies we used to catch the odd "saith" with both roe, (female) and milt, (male) in them, and I thought it was a freak of nature to begin with, but as more and more were appearing, it was obvious that these fish did change sex.
The scientists might have known this, but it was never common knowledge among the fishermen.

During the cod fishing I used to look out for the cod doing the same thing, but after years of fishing, and gutting thousands of cod it never happened, until one year I opened up a large cod that had one half of its organs milt, and the other half a perfectly formed half roe.

I do not know if it fertilized its own eggs, I only know both parts seemed to be working fine.
After all the years looking, one appeared, then more came along, not as many as the saith, but enough to let us know that this was no freak of nature, nature was looking out for its own.

We might have been cutting down the shoals of cod but nature was fighting back, and I am sure when the lean times come, the fish are off hiding from our nets, in some deep parts of the sea we cannot reach, reproducing in their own way until the stocks are replenished, when they will branch out again, and spread back into the waters that are fished.

Mother nature can look after her own, without the interference of humans who know very little of her resources, and the Scottish fishermen are more than capable of looking after THEIR interests without interference from the European Union.

I suppose we men should think ourselves lucky that the human race needs culling rather than replenishing, or mother nature might put our status in jeopardy. HA HA.

Top picture: (cooked cod roe)
Bottom picture: (cooked milt)

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Cold, hard winters.

This being the last day of 2009, and with Scotland going through one of the coldest spells of weather for some years, my mind started wandering back to the first winters of my working life as a commercial fisherman.

I had started work during the warm summer months, long days working almost round the clock with only a couple of hours of darkness in our part of the world, a couple of hours to grab some sleep before it all began again, the hard slog of catching fish for a living.

If I thought the long hours of summer was to be the worst part of the year, then I had another think coming when the harsh winter of 1964 set in.

It began with hard frost in early December, with no let up all that month, getting colder each day, with ice forming on the river during the night, being broken up every morning when the fleet set sail, but also getting thicker, and more difficult to break as each morning brought temperatures well below zero, with little thaw during the day.

This being my first winter, and my sixth month at sea, my hands were still in the process of hardening up, so each time I was out on deck gutting my hands became so numb that all feeling left them, but as we had to keep on working, every deed was almost automatic, and no thought was given to how cold we really were.

It was only when we stopped for a break, a cup of tea or a quick bite to eat did the feelings return to my hands, with very painful consequences.

Firstly, as the blood began to flow to my fingertips the pain was equivalent to placing your hand into a furnace, burning and tingling with the hot blood rushing back to my extremities, making me double up with pain, and wondering how I could stop this agony, but there was nothing I COULD do but grimace and bear it every time we had a chance to heat up.

Once the blood began to flow freely again it showed up all the places where I had cut myself during gutting, my hands being so cold that I never felt my knife slice into my thumbs, or the sand from the fish wear away the skin between my fingers.
(The sand coming from inside the stomachs of haddocks from the shells they ate)

All my years at sea I had permanent cuts on my thumbs where the knife had left its mark, but as the years went on my hands were like leather so I never felt any pain.

That first year, at the end of the day when my hands dried out, they became hard, with the salt water drying into them, but in the morning they were tight and very sore to the touch until they got soaked again, so when we were hauling in the mooring ropes I could barely touch them, using my arms from the wrist up instead.

I would stand with my hands in a basin of water on the way to the fishing grounds to try and soften them, thinking it was better than the method used by the old sea dogs, which was urinating on their hands every time they went to the toilet, the toilet being whatever sea we were on at the time.
If only we had the sense to be less manly, and use hand lotion that done the job properly, and was used by the younger generations years after, who thought nothing of it.

The drying out of the hands was just like tanning cow hides, and by the end of the winter I could stub a cigarette out on the palm of my hand without leaving a mark, and the cold having no effect on them whatsoever, but that didn't stop me slicing my thumb.

It was well into the new year before the ice began to thaw, with thick flows of ice coming down the river being our next problem, as it cut into the wooden hulls of our boats, so we had to take great care when we sailed down the river, with the crews standing around the deck with poles trying to shove the ice clear as we edged slowly out to sea.

Sometimes even the mooring ropes were so iced up we could not coil them until we ran sea water over them, and on some of the coldest days even the salt water froze on deck with the spray from the waves turning to ice as soon as it hit the deck.

The fjords in Norway used to freeze during these winters, so whether it's down to global warming or not, that we don't get so many harsh winters I don't really know, I only know that the modern world seems to find them harder to contend with than we did, even though they are not so harsh, regardless of all its new technology.
Then again perhaps it because they rely too much on the new technology that they can't cope.

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My return to Ayr.

Image via Wikipedia

We managed to scrape a wage in the three remaining days, but as expected we changed back to the seine net that weekend, and as one of the crew had packed up the skipper sent me to Ayr in the boats van to try to recruit a good seine net fisherman thinking it would speed thinks up on deck, especially if we found ourselves among the expected big hauls of whiting that was being had up the west coast of Scotland.

It takes about five hours by road from Campbeltown to Ayr when you are driving your own transport(an hour less if you drive a fast car)but the journey has some beautiful scenery, which helps to make it more pleasant, making the trip seem to pass quicker.

On my arrival in Ayr I headed straight for the harbour to catch up on the news, only to be told that the Olive Tree had been sold suddenly, with the crew being given no notice whatsoever.
My uncle, rather than spend money on the boat had been made an offer from an Irish fisherman, and realizing that I had no intention of coming back, decided to accept.
The deal was completed in no time at all, and the Olive Tree had already sailed for its new port by the time I arrived giving me no time for a last look, and the next time I was to set eyes on her was in Peel, on the Isle of Man about ten years later.

She looked completely different with her new tripod replacing the thick foremast, giving ample room on deck for the trawl winch and gallows I had suggested, plus a few other small improvements around the deck, and a new, more powerful engine.
Her name had been changed too (to what I can't remember)but there was no mistaking the lines of her hull, and the wheelhouse that had taken me through so many adventures, and introduced me to the life I had chosen as my occupation.

It was a lucky break for me in the fact that I new one good man I could rely on who had been made redundant by my uncles unexpected move, and so after contacting "Davy," and spending a night at home, the two of us journeyed back the route I had just came over the day before.

The Girl Margaret, and crew were lying alongside the quay ready to sail as soon as we arrived, and in no time at all we were sailing down Campbeltown Loch, round the Mull of Kintyre,and up the west coast to chase the whiting that had been reported by other seiners working among the islands on the rugged west coast of Scotland.

The first day proved pretty fruitless with big hauls coming aboard but most of the catch thrown back because they were well undersize, so we moved further north in the hope that we would come across the shoals that had been reported.

The skipper was one of these guys who thought he was better than he really was, having big ambitions above his station, and expected to compete with boats who's skippers were far more experienced than him.

There is no harm in being ambitious, but it was the arrogant way he went about it that I did not like, and a thing I had noticed about him during our spell at the herring, which had led to some of the crew packing up then, and being replaced by other Campbeltown men who thought the same as I did but were just glad of the job.

My temper had been held in place a few times, but when he asked me to pack the fish a different way in the hold which was not only unnecessary, but totally stupid, and would have made it almost impossible to land them in any sensible order, I gave him a piece of my mind.

I pointed out the flaws in his ridiculous idea, added a few other things that had been gnawing at me, and after a good clearing of the air, normal service was resumed on deck, and in the hold, but I was becoming very unhappy with the setup, and almost dreaded the thought of coming in among the big hauls of whiting that we were heading for.

Even though Davy was a great deckhand, it would take more than the two of us to handle catches like that, with the other two deckhands never going above their own slow pace, so as fate would have it, our winch packed in just as we had the last coil of rope to come.

This meant hand hauling both sides of rope until we reached the net, trying to keep them even, and as many fish in the net as possible.

All went well enough, but it meant us steaming to Oban (the nearest port)to get an engineer down to fix the problem as quickly as possible so we could continue with our trip.

We were told it would take a day, so as most fishermen do we headed for the pub where a good dram was had by all, but things got heated when I tried to explain what was needed from all the crew if we were to hit these big shoals.
It's the wrong thing to do when drinking as the brain never thinks in a logical way, so the Campbeltown men took offence at my suggestion that they speed things up a bit, and me telling them they had been at the job long enough to know the urgency of the work in hand.

It never came to fists but I could see that there was never going to be any harmony aboard this boat again whether drink was involved or not, and that the crew were never going to get any better.

The winch was fixed, or so we thought, because after only two hauls the next day the same thing happened again, so it was back in to Oban to find out what was causing the problem.

On the way ashore after boxing the fish we had caught, I decided I had, had enough, and went into the wheelhouse to tell the skipper that I was packing up, and would be taking the first train out of Oban when we berthed.

He knew my reason without me telling him, but with his arrogance he did not want to accept the fact that I was packing in during a trip, and threatened me by telling me he would see to it that I would never work at the fishing again.

How arrogant is that I thought, he really has got well above his station, so I left the heavy atmosphere behind me in the wheelhouse, and packed my gear ready for a quick departure on our arrival in Oban.

He had plenty time to replace me with another man from Campbeltown before the repairs were carried out, and Davy thought he would see the trip out, but packed up at the end of it, realizing how bad things had become on board without the experience needed for the job.

The Girl Margaret never made a success after that and was taken off the skipper who went back to the prawns with an old boat, plugging away at what he knew best, with a crew that worked their own way, at their pace, which was good enough for the prawn fishing.

Me, well I had a lovely train journey home, and could have kissed the ground I set foot on at Ayr railway station late that evening, arriving home unexpectedly to the family I had barely seen in the last months, and now I could be at home to share christmas with them, which was only a few weeks away.

I had no problem getting another berth on an Ayr boat which I am sure my ex-skipper knew at the time of his threat, and I went on to much better things that I will write about in future posts.

The picture above is Oban.

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A wild goose chase.

Image via Wikipedia

Although plentiful, the herring in the Clyde was of poor quality, and with the quota system being enforce we had to catch good sized fish to ensure a good wage at the end of the week, so when Monday afternoon came we headed down to the Isle of Man where large herring had been caught the previous week.

It is no certainty that the same shoals would linger, but after an eight hour steam we arrived at the fishing ground off Douglas amid a large fleet of boats made up of purse seiners and pair trawlers, who had already hauled their first nets of the night having been towing during our passage down.

As we steamed through the fleet looking for a spot to shoot we noticed that the boats were lying with their deck lights on dumping what looked like ice over the side, but we knew they couldn't all be doing this as ice was rarely carried by herring boats when they fished near a port where they could land every night.

Before we had time to discuss it or neighbour, the Alliance called us up telling us his net was being shot, and to come alongside and catch the other end, before the spot of herring moved too far.

It wasn't long before we were towing away through the large spot that was showing up on our sonar, but during the tow we were told of the real objects that were being thrown overboard by the fleet.

Over the weekend massive shoals of big white jellyfish had arrived, taking the place of the herring shoals of the previous week, and all too late we had towed right through one of them.
There was nothing else we could do but lift right away, and sure enough up she came full of jellyfish, with a small scattering of herring through them.

In desperation we took lift after lift aboard, landed them on deck to salvage any herring that was among them and with back breaking work threw tons and tons of these white menaces back into the sea.
After hours of unpaid work, daylight began to break, and we could see that all the water around us was thick with jellyfish, lazily drifting along on the tide, creating havoc among the fleet.
There was nothing else for it but to head for Douglas, land the few herring we salvaged, and hope the the masses of jellyfish would drift far enough away during the day.

It was my first time on the Isle of Man, and as it was a lovely sunny day my shipmate Kenny (the same Kenny who was at the house in Tarbert with me when we downed two bottles of whiskey) and me decided we would take a look at what Douglas had to offer.

Plenty of pubs and a casino lined the promenade, and the only problem we had was choosing which one to try first, but as we had to sail later we knew we would not have the time to enjoy too many of the hostelries, so we rushed round as many as we could gulping down a drink, then moving on to another to see if it was better than the last.

By the time we decided to head back to the boat, tipsy but not drunk, we were at the far end of the promenade, with about two miles to walk back to the harbour.

All along the way girls were strolling or siting enjoying the sun, more girls than we had ever seen in one place before, which prompted and amusing remark from Kenny who was renown for his love of the opposite sex, and I must admit I was too.
"Two miles of beautiful women and we have to go back to sea." Was his quip, and it still brings a smile to my face every time I think of him or my first time at the Island.

It did seem ironic to us but after a short sleep we were back out to try and make a wage, and much to our dismay the jellyfish were still thick in the water.
It was back up to the Clyde without casting a net, a quick glimpse of the two miles of women was all we were going to get, and between them, and the promise of large herring, my first trip to the Isle of Man had been tantalizing but ended in failure on both counts.

We only had three nights left to try to make a pay, and with the prospects looking grim, a change back to the seine net was most likely to be our next move.

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We are sailing again.

It might have been the fact that my happiest days at sea were on the Olive Tree, and that this short part of my life on the Girl Margaret, although holding some adventure, while bringing the modernization of the fishing that I desired within my grasp, was not the happy place I wanted to be, hence maybe the hesitancy of continuing with the blog, but with my readers support here goes.

The short periods of time I had at home were not the happiest either, and it was no hardship when I had to return to the sea, and leave my wife and son behind.
So many changes had been made in my life over the last couple of years as I was following my instincts to make a better life for myself, with not much thought of my family.
The sea was my life, and I was selfish when it came to the crunch, choosing the sea above all else.

The second last week at the herring aboard the Girl Margaret saw quotas coming in, meaning we were only allowed to land a certain amount of fish for each nights fishing, and if you were lucky enough to get your quota early in the night it meant you were back in port long before the market opened, where we would sell our catch to the highest bidder.

It happened to us on one such occasion, when we had our quota aboard before midnight, with so much herring that we passed some onto another pair of boats to help them, rather than throw the fish back into the sea dead.

We were only an hours steam from Tarbert, and by the time we moored up it was around 1am, so I thought I had a good nights sleep ahead of me until it came time to discharge our catch, but as usual the boat was spied coming in and two or three folk, even at that time of the morning had come down to see us.

The crew new the folk here as it is not all that far from their home port of Campbeltown, so true to form in these places, we were invited up to one of the men's house for a drink owing to the fact that the pubs were shut.

Only two of us accepted, me of course and another guy called Kenny, who enjoyed a dram even more than me.

When we entered the house I noticed it looked very plain, and it was clear that this man lived alone, (lacking a woman's touch was putting it mildly.)

A bottle of whiskey was produced from a cupboard, which between the three of us was downed rapidly during the conversation about the fishing, (what else) and on seeing the bottle was empty I stood up ready to head back.
No sooner was I on my feet when another half bottle appeared from under the seat cushion our host was sitting on, and when that was finished another was produced.

It was daylight when we set off back to the boat to land our catch very drunk but able to manage the work that lay ahead of us, and by the time the landing was over and the hold filled with boxes again the drink had almost worn off.

The cook had our dinner ready for us, and once it was scoffed, we had two hours sleep before setting off to try for our next nights quota, which did not come so easily this time.
Maybe it was punishment for the night before, but it took us all that night, into daylight hours, taking four tows, before we reached our quota.
No rest for the wicked, ran through my head as we finally set off for the market, with no intention of anymore drink that week.

Well my intentions were good at least.

There is no denying the hospitality of the people in these ports, which is second to none, but sometimes it is better to refuse, rather than be sociable type of person I am, or glutton for punishment as the case may be, because sleep is one thing you can never catch up on no matter what you may think.

After another poor nights fishing, and word of herring at the Isle of Man, another adventure loomed.........or so I thought.

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