Jadon Jackomino, left, and Tanner Lazaro, right, organize traps they will be setting with Frank Thompson before sunrise on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. Lazaro not only works for Thompson a few days a week, but also hauls his own lobster traps with his student lobstering license.
Tanner Lazaro washes his boat Used N Abused off of Frank Thompson’s wharf on Friday, August 20, 2021.
Jean Thompson holds out her phone so her husband can hear as Mike Yohe, the CEO of Lobster 207, talks to them about the closure of over 900 square miles of federal fishing waters at their home on Friday, September 3, 2021. They talked about the
Tanner Lazaro picks up his fiberglass model of a lobster boat he made in shop class in 8th grade at Vinalhaven School on Wednesday, September 8, 2021. He made it to look like his favorite lobster boat, Frank Thompson’s boat Obsession.
Jadon Jackomino kisses his girlfriend Sahmara Robbins after returning to the lobster buying float on Vinalhaven island after a day hauling lobster taps with Frank Thompson on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. Jackomino, who is 18 years old and lives on the mainland, has been working on the back of boats for years. He said it is the only thing he knows how to do that will make him a decent living without having to have a degree. There are more than 4,500 lobster captains in Maine, thousands of sternmen, like Jackomino, and another 35,000 jobs that are generated by the industry, such as dock workers, like Robbins, truck drivers, dealers and processors.
Tanner Lazaro stands behind Frank Thompson in the cabin of Thompson’s boat as they steam out into federal waters on Saturday, July 24, 2021. Lazaro has shown intense interest in lobstering since he was old enough to walk on to a boat and Thompson has taken Lazaro under his wing, but the future for young lobstermen and women can at times seem bleak. Warming ocean waters—the Gulf of Maine is now considered one of the fastest-warming bodies of ocean water in the world—the new whale regulations and off-shore wind development are all very real threats to a continuation of their way of life.
Tanner Lazaro bails water out of his friend’s skiff before taking it out to his boat on Tuesday, August 24, 2021. Lazaro doesn’t have his own skiff at the moment so he usually has to borrow a friends to get out to his boat.
An older lobsterman passes by Tanner Lazaro as he hauls up his traps in his boat on Tuesday, August 24, 2021. Lazaro, unlike some other kids on the island, doesn’t have a captain father in his life whose boat he can use. He saved up and bought his own boat which he was able fix up and get out on the water before summer’s end.
Corey Cayton takes a cigarette break in-between hauling up traps with his captain Walt Day’s boat Night Moves on Tuesday, July 6, 2021. It was an uncharacteristically rough morning on the water for the mid-summer, according to Day.
A section of Vinalhaven’s Carvers Harbor seen from the inside of a building where the local Lions Club holds their meetings on Monday, September 6, 2021. The space is being donated to the club by a local summer resident who wants the buildings near the water to remain in use by year-round community members.
Kyle Grant closes his eyes and rests as he steams out past the three mile line on Frank Thompson’s boat on Saturday, July 24, 2021. Grant’s father, Justin, a lobsterman who works with Frank, said he hopes his son will leave the island and go to a trade school after he graduates high school as a backup to lobstering.
From left, Jadon Jackomino, Tanner Lazaro, Austen Jackomino and Frank Thompson wait for the next trawl line to come up while out hauling lobster traps in Thompson’s boat in federal waters on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. It was 15-year-old Lazaro’s last week of summer before the start of his sophomore year of high school. The previous day, August 31, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put out a ruling that called for a closure of a section of federal waters to traditional lobster fishing. The closure, the first of its kind in Maine, was a win for defenders of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and a blow to Maine’s iconic lobster fishery.
The Grand Marshall of the Vinalhaven Fourth of July parade, Marion Tolman, waves at spectators in the crowd as they drive down Main Street during the annual parade on Sunday, July 4, 2021.
Lobsterman Frank Thompson looks down toward his three sternmen as they begin to haul his traps on his 57-foot boat Obsession Saturday, July 24, 2021. Thompson was born and raised on Vinalhaven, an island of 1,200 year-round residents 15 miles off the coast of Maine. The island is the second largest lobstering port in the state and almost all of year-rounders rely on the fishery for their livelihoods in some way or another. Thompson has worked on the water his whole life and is now one of the island’s most well-known captains. He helped found the lobstering union and prides himself on helping to fight against the forces he believes are trying to destroy the lobstering industry.
Tanner’s mother Celena Scott and his little brother Scotty, 6, watch the sunset from their back porch at their home on Thursday, September 2, 2021. Sitting on Tanner’s boat one afternoon Scotty said he didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grows up. “Maybe a policeman, maybe in the SWAT team,” he mused. “Or maybe a hauler like Tanner, my daddy and my gramps.”
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