February 4, 2025 โ At 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 4, commercial fisherman Barry Day is 10 miles off the coast of Half Moon Bay, watching the clock. One minute to go until the start of Dungeness crab season.
In the pitch black sea, Dayโs radiant orange buoys bob with the promise of a payday. In total, he has set out 250 crab traps. Every buoy is attached to a thin rope that stretches 200 feet down to a cylindrical, metal-and-wire pot on the ocean floor. Day spent the previous month readying the pots: inspecting every piece of wire, splicing and joining ropes, repairing rubber wrappings, painting buoys.
Each trap costs around $300 all accounted for โ $75,000 of gear now at the bottom of the ocean. Insurance for his boat and two deckhands is another $30,000. Then thereโs the cost of slip space at the harbor. Thirty percent of sales goes to his crew. These are the numbers crawling in the back of his mind as the seconds tick by.