A Crab in Every Pot

In the darkness just before dawn, a crab boat Captain checks the oil level in the diesel motor that will soon ferry him and a crewman out onto the Albemarle Sound. The Captain scans the sky one last time and then fires up the engine. The crewman loosens the dock lines and slips nimbly aboard the crab boat as the Captain eases the boat into gear and points the bow downriver.

Crab boats work out of many of the marinas situated on the Albemarle Sound. Mackey's Marina on Kendrick's Creek is home to between three and eight crab boats, depending on the time of year and where the crabs are hanging out in any given year. Most of these men do the job because that is what their daddy did; it is the only life they know. The crab industry is deeply rooted in Eastern North Carolina tradition. Many towns bordering the Albemarle Sound offer "Crab Bashes" throughout the summer months, attracting locals and tourists alike from miles around.

The Captain scans his depthfinder intently, searching for just the right spot to drop his line of crab pots. He gently slows the boat as they approach the area where the work will begin. One by one, the crewman tosses the baited crab pots over the side. The number of crab pots a fisherman can drop varies, but the pots are usually dropped about 200 meters apart.

After the fishermen set all the crab pots, it is time to gather the crabs from the pots they put down a few days before. A crewman grabs the line on the crab pot buoy with a hook and quickly wraps the line around a wench. A foot pedal activates the wench, lifting the crab pot from the bottom. When the crab pot reaches the gunwale of the boat, the crewman grabs the pot and swings it aboard the boat. The crabs must be sorted quickly and thrown into crates, and then the empty crabpot is stacked out of the way. The crewman must be quick and be ready to retrieve the next crab pot by the time the Captain has brought the boat to the next buoy. When all the crabpots have been emptied, the Captain brings the boat back upriver to the dock, where the men unload their catch, wash down the boat, and refuel for the next day.

The crab fisherman will face many challenges in the course of his work. He must keep his boat in top condition. If the boat breaks down, missing a day or so of work is a high price to pay. There is little rest throughout the day. The fisherman must be prepared when the boat arrives at the site where the crab pots will be dropped or retrieved. Time is money. The day of a crab fisherman starts before daylight and only ends after he has carried his crabs to market.

The challenges that a crab fisherman faces do not end with the work itself. The Commercial Fishing Industry is highly regulated. A fisherman must be familiar with the dates in a season, the size and gender of crabs he is allowed to take, the number of pots he can set, and the number of crabs he is allowed to harvest in a season. The rules change often.

Then there is the Albemarle Sound itself that the fisherman has to contend with. It is well known among boaters that North Carolina has the most treacherous waters on the East Coast and that the Albemarle Sound is the most hazardous body of water in North Carolina. The many rivers and streams that drain into the Albemarle Sound often carry logs, branches from trees, and stumps down into the Sound. The debris may float clearly on the surface of the water, or it might float just under the surface out of view, creating a collision hazard. The fisherman must also consider the weather, which can change very quickly on the Sound. The fisherman may spend hours on the Sound in clear blue skies and light breezes, only to have a white squall come across the Sound within minutes.

Most people give little consideration to the effort that went into the food that we eat. We don't consider the man who spent his day under a blistering hot sun or in a freezing winter wind just to put that crab on your plate. It is a job that requires some of the hardest, strongest, weatherbeaten men in our community. So the next time you run across a crab fisherman in your day-to-day travels, offer a shout-out to those " Fear a' Bhàta", those brave men of the boat.