Everything goes overboard
Today, for many in the area, it is Saturday. The most important Saturday of the year. Not holiday, but a culmination of a long winter. This is Setting Day.
In the lobster industry, you go out in a boat, throw a weighted cage overboard, and then return to the wharf to wait until the start of the next week. Have to give those cages, or traps, time to gather in the harvest. There are rules and watchers and a fair bit of folklore, because the fisher rarely has seen how things go, under fathoms of water. How many fathoms? Again, a question without a real answer. Every fisher has a place that is known and held close to the heart. A place where your cage will fill, day afterday, with those valuable bugs from the ocean.
And this is all done against a larger calendar. The season lasts for two short months, and unless the ice is too thick, or the storms of great importance, things will end at the start of summer. If you are fortunate fisher, you will have money in the bank. A new truck? Certainly. A new house? Maybe. The boat is also expensive, and the taxman gets first dibs on your new riches.
The fisher folk go, willingly. It is their place in a greater order. Today, the winds were calm, and the fog barely visible, at least from the wharf. From what I can tell, all went well, and now they wait. It will be busy, most days. Remember the great act of faith, where you throw everything overboard and then count on the sea to fill your traps. Cages. The name does not matter.
