“We knew it was going to be rough and we tied some things down like we normally do on those kind of forecasts but it magnified way beyond imagination,” says Bob.
Bob Swim and his son Mike Swim had tied their lobster boat at the government run wharf in Port Mouton in anticipation of the storm but had left lobster traps on their wharf. The storm washed around 400 traps into the bay and destroyed the wharf. The traps were handmade wooden traps they use in the spring.
Bob says he and Mike have already retrieved around half of the traps and they estimate around 75 per-cent of the recovered traps are useable.
The two are currently fishing from the government run wharf at least until the end of the lobster season in May.
“It’s going to be a big change,” says Mike.
They checked their winter traps that they had set prior to the storm. They say they are not missing any and have very little damage despite the rough whether.
“We were lucky because not everyone fared so well,” says Mike.
Bob says he is unsure whether the family will rebuild the wharf because he himself is retiring from the lobster fishery soon. The two are currently cleaning up the debris around the site while they decide.
The family had a wharf on the same site that was built in the 1960s, which was destroyed in a storm 1978.
