Bill Blue and his Crew: The Crab Fishermen

On one of the only sunny days in December, I met Captain Bill Blue.
I was walking past the line of crab vendors at The Wharf on one of the only shaded street corners. Live crab were piled into thick buckets and eventually shoveled into steaming boilers or tossed on top of ice for chopping. Bread bowls overflowed with hot chowder, while crab sandwiches and shrimp cocktails were chilled in cool cases below the registers. The smell of raw fish clung to that corner, but tourists and seagulls never seemed to mind as they weaved in and out, almost together, around the vendors.
"Fresh local crab!" yelled a worker. "Buy a crab and set it free!"
Curious, I asked the guy where the crab came from. Like a smartass, he pointed to the ocean.
Every morning, rain or shine, Dungeness Crab are caught at sea and brought to The Wharf to sell. A true, rugged fishermen's market. Looking for a story, I decided to walk past the street vendors to the pier to see where it all began.
I made my way up to the boats. The closer I got to the back end of the pier, the less people seemed to be around, which I liked. It was quiet, except for a small run-down boat pulling in to dock. There, on that old and worn-out crab catcher was my story.
I caught Blue and two other men on board working on the boat's broken radar. One of the men was Bobby Maharry, who looked like Blue; gray hair, dirty hands and rubber boots. The other, whose name I didn't catch, looked like he was only 12 years old; short and smiley, with an accent too thick to understand. Apparently, he was a full grown man from out of the country looking for work, Blue said. Crab fishing is a three man job, so they needed an extra set of hands.
Blue, 52, has been fishing since his high school days and purchased his boat soon after. His right hand man Maharry claims he's 30, but he and ol' Blue are close childhood friends who grew up together in Morro Bay.
"We've got a lifetime of stories," Blue tells me.
There's no typical day in the competitive fishing business, but during a good season, Blue and his crew set out 11 miles to sea every morning, seven days a week, from 3am until midnight. This year, however, business isn't doing so well.
"Sometimes it's diamonds, sometimes it's rocks," he says.
Usually Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are big marketing days, but fish prices have dropped to only $3.25/lb a day from $10/lb a day, plus the cost of insurance, taxes, and wages Blue pays for out of his own pocket, along with the additional $750 a month to upkeep the boat.
"Bank of America don't care if the wind is blowing," Blue says. "This is it. No fish, no money."
Out at sea, the guys set out for the Dungeness, salmon, black cod, and albacore. They prepare about 50 traps altogether, 10 traps per mile, then they add some squid bait and leave the traps there until the following day.
"You always hope one more [fish] might walk in," says Maharry, who's now carrying the majority of the workload since Blue dislocated his shoulder after slipping and falling backwards on deck.
"It's real nice to have two hands, let me tell you," laughs Blue.
But he's no rookie; he's a survivor. Blue tells me about the time he and his friends were on a fishing boat when it sank from the weight of the crab. All six men on board made it alive, but they had to wait over an hour in the water at night to be rescued.
With a disheartening lifestyle like this, it's hard to imagine this man in love. Blue married his high school sweetheart, but after 20 years, she couldn't handle his job anymore.
"She didn't fish," says Blue. "I did."
Blue's away from his home and family eight months out of the year. He spends more time with his boat.
"You'd think I'm a 'lucky guy' with two homes," he jokes. "One floats, one doesn't."
His second wife and kids are better about him being away, he says. His children were born into it.
"Let's just say fishing puts a mild strain on relationships," adds Maharry, who's married to a fisherman's daughter. "Most marriages don't survive in this biz."
But Blue knows how to love. I watch him pause in between his short discourse to stare out at the water. Incredibly raw, incredibly real, incredibly honest. His heart belongs to his boat, with his crew, out at sea.