A young Nova Scotia fisherman thought his lobster season was over before it began when he his boat sank Wednesday night.
But it only took 48 hours for his community to save the day.
Now, Brandon Surette has the equipment -- and another boat -- just in time for dumping day.
On Friday, most of the boats along the Lower East Pubnico wharf were all ready for dumping day. Surette’s new boat, though, was flurry of activity – and it was a relief to the 19-year-old.
“I was in quite the panic, I guess, cause I’m only my second year,” said Surette. “I mean I never seen something like that before really, and all the people seen that kind of stuff there said that it was the quickest they had ever seen a boat go down.”
Surette had his boat geared up Wednesday, started it and knew pretty quickly, something was wrong.
“We opened up the little engine room hatch in the wheel house and you could just hear the water gushing right in,” Surette said.“I guarantee you, in less than 10 minutes it was gone.”
More impressive was the time it took this community to rally around Surette.
“If it happened to me, I'd want people to help,” said Dilan Leblanc, a fellow fisherman who volunteered to help.
That's the attitude of about 100 locals -- many of them fellow fishermen – who did everything from donating gear to finding Surette a new boat.
Friday, dozens turned out to get the rope ready and all of it was donated by a local business.
It was trucked down to the wharf today, where there were plenty of people on hand gearing up his newly leased boat.
“We got him going again, within a day he's ready to roll,” Leblanc said. “It just shows, when we was doing the rope over the west side, there was people from all over the communities; it was just incredible really.”
Ralph Amirault, Surette's grandfather and retired fisherman, says help is what made it possible.
“Without it, we would have been in a mess,” Amirault said. “There's no way you could get it done. There's 100 men working all together.”
Shawn Warner is one of Surette’s crew members.
“At first, I didn't think we'd get the chance to get out,” Warner said. “I wasn't sure we'd get a boat and get all our gear ready, but all our locals did all our trawl for us … we're good to go I guess.”
Surette is thankful.
“I always loved it around here, but after seeing all the stuff that happened there it just makes me proud to be brought up in this community,” he said.
It’s a community clearly anchored in the tradition of one for all, and all for one.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Brown.
