Sailing away with Keys lobsters
Neither pirates nor low prices deflate the spirit of Robert Palma and his crew
By Kathy Bergren Smith
Robert Palma eases the Lady Josephine away from the dock at 2 in the morning on a late summer night with a sense of unease. It is not the weather that worries him; it is calm and clear in Marathon, Fla., with a fine forecast. The 53-foot fiberglass lobster boat is shipshape, and its twin Cats are purring through the glassy black water toward the Seven Mile Bridge.
What Palma is concerned about is the precipitous drop in the price of his catch, the Florida spiny lobster. As he heads out to check on 4,000 traps, the price at the dock for the clawless crawfish is hovering around $3 per pound, astonishingly low. After last year's triple whammy of tropical storms sent the lobsters on a mass migration, and the economic meltdown sent buyers running for cover, everyone thought that this year would bring prices back up, at least to the $6 mark.
But lingering economic woes and cheap imports are giving the Florida lobstermen no break. Nevertheless, like most commercial fishermen, Palma, 38, is an optimist. From his perspective, there seems to be a slight uptick in demand for live lobster, so Palma decides he will fill his 3,000-gallon live-well and fish 500 traps and return to Marathon the following day, rather than make the circuit to all of the traps.
"I will basically have the lobsters that we catch today sold before we return," says Palma, because, in addition to running the Lady Josephine, he also manages the Lobster Connection, one of the Florida Keys' largest lobster dealers.
"We are an end-to end operation," says Palma.
The family-owned compound on the southern end of Marathon includes Pancho's Fuel Dock and Marina, the Lobster Connection and two of the largest lobster boats in the Marathon fleet: the Lady Josephine and her sister ship, the Ileana Y Lili. Palma is married to patriarch Juan Paan's daughter Emily, who runs the "upstairs" part of the business.
After passing under the Seven Mile Bridge, the crew settles into the bunks to sleep. Palma settles into the captain's chair and studies his impressive array of electronics. The lights of the Ileana y Lili are trailing close behind and will accompany the Lady Josephine throughout the night. Aboard the other boat, Juan Paan, 78, steers but will turn the wheel over to his son, Juan "Tony" Paan, 44, in the morning and will work the deck as he has since his youth in Cuba.
Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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