The Wharves of Old

After reading Atmospheric Ruminations
yesterday, it brought back memories of
the wharves of Newport, R.I.

When I was a kid, one could walk down
any of the wharves. You can't now. Because
of condo's and yacht clubs. Most of it, you
look thru the chain link fence to see the Bay.

But when I was a kid, you could walk from
wharf to wharf. Until you got to King's Park.
Which was one of the local beaches.

Sitting on the barrel at the wharf that my
parents had their boat at, I would watch
the fishing boat come in. There was
the Champion owned by Ernest Coggeshall.
And this was Commerical Wharf.

They would go out into the Atlantic, not too
far off the coast. They had what they called
trap fishing. That was huge wings that came from
each side of the box. The wings would guide
the fish in to the box that had a scone like
hole. Where fish went into the box and could
not get back out. The small boats would
surround the box which was held up by corks,
that were sewed into the netting. They would
raise the box up and there was a scoop that
came over from the big boat. It would scoop up
the fish and put it them into the holding hole.
As far as I know they would go out daily. My
parents took my brother and I out one day so
we could watch. They were close friends of
Ernest and his son Ernie who did this for a living.

As I would sit on the barrel and watch the catch
brought up from the hole in the boat, and emptied
on to the table. There were several fishermen on
each side, who would sort the fish. They would
sort by size on which side of the slide the fish
would go, and the small ones thrown back in
to the water. The fish were sent down the slide
to boxes full of ice. There would be fishermen who
would man the ice boxes, and throw a new box in
as they nailed the tops on the full ones. Then they
were loaded on to the truck, to be taken to market
in Providence.

As a teen kid, watching fishermen, most of them
Portuguese and some Italian.. I learn some of the
not so good words. lol... But it was great to
watch. And the sea gulls would fly around in
hopes to catch a fish that was thrown to the
waters.

The fishermen were always so happy, but it was
a very rough life to live. If anyone has seen the
movie The Perfect Storm, they would see how
rough it really was. The sea claims a boat a year.
And several fishermen.