Gary Steele was once a builder who got by. Now he’s a veteran lobster fisherman who’s considering putting a tennis court on his family’s 1.5-ha property in Kingston, 300 km south of Adelaide. How did this change come about? Twenty years ago, Steele built a house for a local man, Merv Braithwaite, who told him, “You know, you’d make more money fishing than building.” With something of a family background in fishing, Steele thought he’d give it a go, even though his wife, Julie, had her doubts and everything he knew about the game could be scrawled on a cray’s pincers.
A practical man, Steele learned fast. But those eight years as Braithwaite’s deckhand were tough. “It was a dog’s life,” he says, with nights spent at sea without amenities in an “open-slather” industry in which “everyone was ready to shoot each other.” Things today are far more civilized. Each of the 181 licensed fishermen in Steele’s Southern Zone is limited to a maximum catch: no more than 159.3 kg per lobster pot per OctoberMay season. Once you reach that limit, you’re on holidays, though usually with decent spending money. As the 17-m fiberglass lobster on the edge of town suggests, Kingston’s prosperity depends in no small way on the success of its fishermen, most of whose catch is exported to Asia.
Steele’s office, which he shares with his deckhand, Barry Moore, is a $750,000 aluminum boat, Cutloose, equipped with six beds, a shower, toilet, TV, microwave oven and satellite navigation that directs them to any of the 78 pots they’ve placed on the ocean floor. “Since I started, the technology’s gone from a watch, compass and flagpoles to state-of-the-art stuff,” says Steele, 49. Throw in quotas and faster boats, and “it’s a day game now.” Still, in fishing season the days start at about 3 a.m. and leave Steele exhausted. Decades at sea have taken their toll on his skin and his hearing: “I’m half-deaf from the rumble of motors.”
Regrets? None. “I love the sea. I love what I do.” The daily thrill is hauling up pots to see how much catch is in them. On a good day, Steele and Moore bring in 250 to 300 kg of cray. It took them 90 days at sea last season to catch their quota.
Steele’s license and pots look like staying in the family. The second of his and Julie’s three kids, 18-year-old Josh, is keen to take over from his dad before too long. The sea’s been kind to the Steeles, all because one of them, 20 years ago, decided to take a chance on it.
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