Before launching for day of hauling lobster traps Captain Kelly Nichols Bourne checks on her new crewmates. She’s not happy.
“This is ridiculous. This is a shame. Basically what they’re doing is putting on the wrong lids on the wrong traps” complained Nichols Bourne. “Now it’s going to cost half a day to fix everything.”
Kelly is 28 years old. That makes her the youngest fulltime commercial fisherwoman in the Keys. This is her tenth season. She’s following in her father’s footsteps. She and her dad have dropped tens of thousands of crab and lobster traps from the Gulf to the Atlantic. The days are long - from sun up to sun down – and often longer.
“It’s ball busting work”, said Kelly. “I mean, it really is. When we put out traps we start at midnight and we go around the clock for two days.”
This year, Tropical Storm Isaac destroyed nearly 800 traps, so there’s lots of repair work to do. Lobster prices are down, and the demand from Asian markets isn’t as strong as last year. Kelly’s grandfather says it’s a tough life -especially for a woman - but he says all Kelly ever wanted to do was fish.
“She was two weeks old when my son took her out for a first boat ride. I was there. She was raised with this business. It gets in your blood”, he said.
“When I first started, it was a big, big challenge, being a woman especially. I think the biggest person that I had to prove myself to was my dad”, Kelly remembered.
Kelly was sixteen when she started begging her dad to let her captain one of his boats. Her father wasn’t sure it was a life he wanted for his daughter.
“Drinking, drugs, alcohol and that seems to be the most problem. People not coming to work and I need a guy, someone to be consistent” he recalled.
Finally, when Kelly was 18, she got her chance. Her dad needed a captain. No one on the island was available. Her Grandfather said the guys underestimated her.
“And the first time she ever went out, all these fishermen on the island was over here waiting for her to come in with that big boat. She pulled that big boat up to that dock like it was piece of cake”, he recounted. “She gets off the boat with her ball cap and a pony tail in the back end and I’m saying ‘okay guys, I’m going to tell you right now, the male dominated world just come to an end.’ “
Today Kelly’s husband, Brian, steers the boat while she hauls the lobster traps from the bottom of the ocean. The traps weigh 150 lbs. when they’re wet. She stacks them on top of each other, five rows high.
It’s after sunset when Kelly and her crew arrive at the dock. They work quickly - unloading the catch. She tries to get home in time to tuck her 5-year-old into bed. Most days she makes it, unless she’s short a crew member.
Captain Doc Halladay has been a keys fixture for 37 years. He says keeping a steady crew is one of the big challenges of this job.
“One week she may have one crew, the next week another crew,” said Halladay. “She just don’t sit there filing her fingernails. She does what she’s got to do to survive.”
The day is almost finished. The live lobsters are sorted, weighed, and packed for delivery to restaurants in the Keys, up North, and all the way to China.
Kelly’s smiling. Tonight she’s going to make it home on time.
“Rough days obviously, you don’t like them very much. But on a beautiful day, there’s nothing like it,” Kelly observed. “Looking at a sunset, seeing dolphins jump fish. The water being so beautiful. When you’re catching lobsters of course you’re having fun.”
A new generation is continuing the legacy. Kelly’s son Jason, who just started kindergarten, is a regular on the weekend lobster boats.