Last year, in 1995, Ray made a couple of trips at the scallop before the crab season opened. The crab price was really good. It gave a boost to the fishermen and boat owners. After the crab, the boat went to Baffin Island to fish for turbot. Usually they'll be north from mid June to mid October. The catch for an eight- to ten-day trip is about 80,000 pounds. The fish is off-loaded at sea, from the Newfoundland Mariner and the other boats, onto a collector boat, which transports it to fish plants in Newfoundland. It takes about seven days for the collector to make a return trip.

If I needed Ray, I had to go through the Coast Guard. And if the Coast Guard couldn't pick him up they went through Montreal, and then they would call me back. I could be hours just waiting for Ray to call me if there was an important message that I had to get to him.

When our boat was north fishing for turbot, we had some problems with the hauler. They had to leave the gear in the water - 500 turbot nets - and sail for Nain, Labrador. Ray called me and said he was going to come up on the collector boat. He asked me to see if I could purchase a hauler. There wasn't one in St. John's and nothing in Nova Scotia. I could get one through from Quebec, but it would take six weeks.

I called a fisherman from this area. He had a deep water hauler he wasn't using and it was identical to the one Ray had. I asked him to bring it in to a company in Donovans. The head had to be taken off to fit it onto a small plane. But they couldn't get the top off of the hauler. Then I had to call another fisherman. He had a hauler in Bonavista and he said Ray could have a loan of it. I had to pick Ray up in Dover when he arrived on the collector boat. Then he drove out and got the hauler in Bonavista, and took it to Springdale to be flown to Labrador. All in all it cost us over $2,000 for labour on the two haulers, not owning either one of them. And it cost $3,600 to fly it down on a private seaplane.

One of the things I like about this work is talking with the buyers. The first year we went at the scallop, one buyer was paying $6.50 a pound for shucked scallop, another was paying $6.95. I called a company in Nova Scotia and they offered me $7.30 for it, not even seeing the scallop. A couple of companies here started calling me to see if the boat was in or when it was landing. I asked them what price they were willing to pay and they said $7.00. I said, "Sorry, I can have a truck on the wharf and that scallop aboard when she lands at $7.30 a pound."

"Well, we'll pay in between $7.00 and $7.30."