October 30, 2024 — There’s a chill in the air on this overcast morning in late September, as Buzz Scott steers his boat, the “Hurry Sundown,” out of a Rockland marina and toward the granite breakwater that protects the harbor.
He points to small specks displayed on the vessel’s navigation system. They’re abandoned fishing traps sitting on the ocean floor. Scientists estimate there are millions of them littering the bottom of the Gulf of Maine.
The plastic-coated wire traps are torn loose from their buoy lines in storms or accidentally cut off by propellers in high-traffic areas and collect at the bottom of Maine’s many coves and harbors.
“I think right in here is going to be a gold mine,” Scott said. “There’s one every ten feet it looks like on the sonar.”
Scott’s nonprofit, OceansWide, has been training scuba divers to recover derelict, or “ghost gear,” from the seafloor. They’ve primarily been diving in Boothbay Harbor but are in Rockland for the first time.
Scott tosses a buoy with a small orange flag into the water to mark their dive spot.