This is another memory from my stint in the Coast Guard.

We were forced to stay in the harbor due to a bank of fog that lasted for a week. Our mission was ‘Aids to Navigation Maintenance’. To put it in simple terms, we were on a buoy tender and we serviced those big metal objects one sees floating in the harbor.

To do our job we had to be able to actually see certain objects on the shore in order to triangulate the position of the particular buoy that was being serviced. Storms, tides and collisions with vessels sometimes dragged the navigational aid off station, thus creating a danger.

After a week of doing busy work, the weekend was looked at as an oasis of relaxation (read that as two days of debauchery and drunkenness) until we found out that no liberty was to be granted. We were still ship bound, and most of us were in a bad humor because of it.

Due to having to work all day and then stand mid-watch I was not bothered by having to stay on board, but some crew members were very bored and in a cruel mood.

It started when one of the old salts pulled out his rod and began fishing, it didn’t bother him to stay aboard either. He set up on the fantail and started casting.

Now for you landlocked folk, the harbors in the northern climes are full of seagulls.

As I was just coming out of the berthing area the old salt made another cast, but the bait never hit the water! A gull had caught the lure in the air and started to fly away with what he thought was his dinner.

The problem was that his dinner was still attached to the pole by heavy test line.

I stood there aghast, the old sailor just let the reel sing as the line played out.

Finally satisfied, the old salt ‘set the hook’ with a mighty jerk of the pole. The bird fell from the sky like a stone!

“That’ll teach ya! Ya miserable buzzard!” exclaimed the sailor as he reeled in the unconscious bird. The man looked at me and began to laugh at my shock.

“’e won’t be stealin’ no more o’ ma lures!” he said with a huge grin.

“But… But they’re protected,” I said, totally shocked.

“Look around at all of the fishing boats here, boy.”

I did as told and saw that each vessel had at least one dead seagull hanging in the rigging.

“Why are they hanging gulls like that?”

“To keep the live uns off o’ the boats, Sonny. Gulls is nothin’ but flyin’ rats that shit all over and a royal pain ta boot! ”

This was the first of many Gull “games” that I was to see during my stint in the Coast Guard.

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