Today is the first day of our sea scallop fishing season – but only in certain zones for divers’ scallops. These are hand-harvested from the sea bottom by Maine’s relatively few licensed divers who wear wet suits and self-contained underwater breathing apparatuses (SCUBA equipment).
Above, you see “Tarrfish” yesterday; she’s owned and captained by diver David Tarr. His boat already is sporting a blue and white international diving flag (“code alpha/alfa”). The flag signals that the vessel, when circling in open water, has a diver down and other vessels should keep clear and proceed slowly.
In the meantime, many lobster fishermen are bringing in their traps and ending their seasons:
A good number of the fishermen soon will install masts, booms, “drags” (dredges), and weather-protective shelling huts on their “lobster boats” to drag sea bottoms for scallops in the winter.
The scallop-dragging season opens here in the first week of December. Some of the fishermen already are taking orders from drooling neighbors for the delicious, off-the-boat mollusks. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 14 [traps] and 18 [boat], 2024.)