Sponsored story courtesy of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.
Bob Eder claims waiting is the hardest. “You get used to a little anxiety before the season starts,” he said. Bob didn’t intend a career as a crab fisherman. As a college student “without direction” in his early 20’s, he was a writer and a published poet with four different majors. His appetite for commercial fishing was whetted by some friends that got summer jobs in Alaska fisheries.
Bob’s first job was in Port Orford on a small vessel; however, he took the job with writing in mind. “I knew that experience would be a good source of things to write about,” he said. “Long story short, I got ‘swallowed by my subject.’”
After a season of salmon trolling, by the second summer, he started to think about making fishing his career. By the following spring, he’d “purchased a crummy little boat, and I’d never even parked one before,” he said, laughing. “It was hard to get the financing together, but I did it. This was before quota management and limited entry; I came in at the tail end of a period where fishing was a little easier to enter than it is now.”
He “jumped in with both feet,” recognizing right away the industry’s volatility. “You don’t earn money unless you produce, year after year,” he explained. His confidence increased with his next boat purchase, recognizing he had a real aptitude for fishing. His original plan of fishing salmon in the summers and “fooling around in the winters” was derailed when “crab grabbed me.”
The late 1970s were challenging and busy for Bob. He was married in 1978, had a boat, the F/V Nesika, built for him in 1979, and had his first son, Ben, in 1980. By the time his second son, Dylan, was born, Bob was separated, gaining full custody of the boys in the divorce.
A move from Port Orford to Newport proved prolific in many ways. He met Michele Ann Longo, a thriving lawyer, who became his soulmate and stepmother to the boys. In Port Orford, he was “a big fish in a small pond,” and now in Newport, he could set eyes on the prize of getting a second, larger boat.
“Until I met Michele, I had my hands full. I felt lacking both as a parent and as a fisherman. Life got easier and better with her support. This industry challenges marriages. It’s all consuming. She knew who I was when she met me, and she was ok with that.”
The name of Bob’s next boat? F/V Michele Ann. Michele had joked about naming the boat after her, not thinking Bob would take it to heart. “She broke down crying in surprise when she saw it,” he said, “I gave her the bottle to christen it, and when she did, she said, ‘may the life of this boat be bountiful and safe.’”
Sons Ben and Dylan grew up fishing, and Ben parked his “boundless energy” and strong physique into fishing for crab and sablefish alongside dad. “Ben identified as a fisherman more than I realized until after he was gone. He totally got me. He understood and connected with the kind of joy I got from my work.”
The saying “lost at sea” has a deep significance for Bob.
December 11, 2001. Ben was home from the University of Oregon, where he was studying international relations and organic chemistry. He’d stayed up late the night before, reading a chemistry text, even though school was out until January. Bob asked if he wanted to help him set gear on the Michele Ann, but Ben said they needed more help on the Nesika.
At 10:44 a.m. on that fateful day, the Yaquina Bay Coast Guard station received a call from F/V Gary Lee reporting that another vessel, the Nesika, had capsized half a mile west from Yaquina Bay. By 6 p.m. that day, rescue squads had not located any signs of the crew: Rob Thompson, Jared Hamrick, Steve Longlot – and Ben Eder.
There’s something about a close coastal community that buoys people at their lowest points. “How the community responded was pretty special,” said Bob. “For about a year and a half, I was just going through the motions. One day, a vendor I’d known for a long time came to the boat and said, ‘you love your work as much as anyone I deal with. I can tell. Are you ever going to let yourself enjoy it again?’ And I realized he was right.”
Bob thinks about Ben every day but also feels free to enjoy fishing again. His wife Michele, who has since passed from cancer, wrote a book that fishermen say is the greatest testimony to their life’s work: Salt in Our Blood. Dylan retired from fishing after Ben died, saying it was something the three of them did together, and is now a teacher. The Michele Ann is now owned and operated by Poggy Lapham, a protégé of Bob’s.
“It’s a very pure connection to the natural world. It’s literally a privilege to fish – it’s a public resource. I consider it my calling – I could have been doing many other things. Crabbing called me. I’m just a lucky person.”
There is a beautiful tribute on the boardwalk in Newport that honors the men of the Nesika. It says, “May the Life of This Fleet Be Bountiful and Safe.”
