SKINNERS POND, P.E.I. — A heavy rope and a land-based tractor came to the rescue Friday afternoon in Skinners Pond after a series of lobster boats returning to port got caught up in seaweed.
The seaweed formed a mass at the mouth of the harbour so large that some boats got hung up solid and had to be towed through it.
A crew member on one of the boats placed fish tank covers on the seaweed and used them like snowshoes, walking across the mass to a ladder and up onto the wharf.
The captain of Burning Daylight, said he sailed out through the mass without issue Friday morning.
His was the third boat to get caught on the return trip. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said when asked if he had time to talk. He was waiting for one end of a tow rope to be delivered to his vessel.
The other end of the large braided rope was attached to Floyd Shea’s tractor on the wharf.
The rope snapped once, like a shotgun blast, before Shea was able to tow him free on the next hookup.
Chairman of the port committee, David Aylward, said the pile appeared Thursday and seems to have kept growing.
He estimated the mass at six feet deep by 20 feet wide and maybe 70 feet long.
“That’s got to be moved,” he acknowledged. “We’re trying to get hold of an excavator and a rock truck,” he said.
The excavator, when it arrives, will likely have to drive up the beach from Kennys Shore Road because it is too heavy for the bridge, he noted.
Aylward said calls were made Friday morning to get equipment in to move the seaweed but environmental permits are needed before the work is carried out.
One of the fishermen who got stuck subsequently developed a medical issue and paramedics were on the scene to assess shim when his boat got free.
With 61 boats fishing out of the port, Aylward said the work has to be done soon.
He expected the tide would be favourable for sailing out Saturday morning but wondered if they would be able to get back in on low tide.
Boats waiting outside the harbour for Burning Daylight to get free subsequently sailed in around the outside of the mass while others throttled right through.
Later, when Catch ‘N’ ‘A’ Breeze got caught up, other boats sailed past, and their wakes did not even rock the stuck craft.
The harbour is prone to sanding in but Aylward said he’s never heard tell of seaweed ever blocking the entrance before.
He suspects last weekend’s hurricane might have stirred up the seaweed.
