Chapter 3 if he had his coffee...

The line went smoother than expected and we already had 200 traps pulled by 9:30 in the morning. The guys were having a cheerful conversation as they worked, I'm not sure what about but they laughed a lot. It's hard to even guess since they've become such good friends over the years, like brothers. It makes me happy to see them engage so well with each other. I set the course to the next traps on the plotter and throttled to our cruising speed of 13 knots. "Fabulous job guys! We have about half an hour to the rest of em. How'd we do?"

Moose already had the hauling station hosed clean and was about halfway across the engine box. His tall thick structure looked back at Scott. Moose would've made a good linebacker if he ever played football. He's built like the tank that's designed to run over tanks. When we were moving freezers around, we had a fully loaded bait freezer that weighed easily over 500-600 pounds. Scott and I tried to get it to budge with not much luck and were trying to figure out how exactly to get the forklift in that tight area enough to pull it. While we were creating a harness out of trap ropes, when Moose came up to see what we were doing. I explained the plan and he just gave an "uhhh huh ok" and pulled that freezer out onto the pallet with what seemed like hardly any effort. He had only recently joined our crew at the time and we definitely weren't expecting him to help let alone just yank it out of there. I was delightfully impressed. I could tell Scott was too. We've had plenty of indifference to tasks from previous crewman. They like easy, but not many are up for any challenges.

"Half a box, good grade though." Scott halfway smiled as he reviewed the catch. He added some water from the live well hose and covered the box to protect it from the sun. We take really good care of our product. He inspects the crabs and various sea creatures as he's clearing the traps. We're very conscious of the sea and all it's creatures. It's disappointing enough there's so much unnecessary construction going on on the islands that's destroying the marine sanctuary, as well as the pollution coming from the big sugar on the mainland. That's right up there with the cruise ships dumping sewage and stirring up the bottom and that cloud carries further than they'll ever admit. We noticed a difference during the shut down all the way 50 plus miles away from the docks in Key West.

The water isn't as clear close to shore as it was 10 years ago and the reefs are suffering. There's less lobster and less crab and the regulations they keep adding have nothing to do with the actual problems. Scott is more aware of it than some of the other boats that haven't been fishing and diving here their whole life. The elder captains know it too. The ones who have been fishing here for over 30 to 50 years clearly see the difference, and most know the problem.

Scott took his gloves and slickers off and lit a cigarette as he walked up to the wheelhouse with Moose. "Need a water?" He took four waters out of the cooler, handed one to Moose, one to me, and topped off Patrón's water bowl before taking a sip himself. He brought the empty soda can he uses for his cigarette butts up into the wheelhouse, and sat down next to Patrón. Moose sat next to Scott and Patrón wagged his tail as he got in between them. "If you get tired and need a nap, let me know and I'll drive..." Scott looked at me like he was inspecting my reaction. "No I'm good," I laughed, "I actually was able to get to sleep early." I stayed focused on the route but gave him a smile to ensure him I was fine so he wouldn't keep asking. He always asks around this time because he knows how much I don't really like mornings, but that's usually when I don't have my coffee and am kept up all night dealing with nonsense. "Plus, I have my coffee." I added as I took another sip. "Yeahhh. Yeah she does have that," Moose chimed in with a chuckle, "you know she's ok when she at least has her coffee." They both laughed, then started talking about comical mishaps that happened when they work on the other boats, adding that it probably wouldn't have happened if they had their coffee. "He ran over like 4 buoys in a row, but it probably wouldn't have happened if he had his coffee" lots of laughing "yeah but what about when he forgot the crab boxes on the dock? Hahahha it probably wouldn't have happened if he had His coffee hahaha..." They kept that joke going all the way to the next line. I had to laugh at the scenarios, and I remember every one of them, which made it even funnier.

I slowed the throttle as we approached the next line, and the guys went back to the deck and geared back up in their slickers .