Nina Mach
Nina Mach is the sister and mother of scallop fishermen. When her son was in high school, he was considering a career as a fisherman. Nina suggested he go out on a fishing trip with her brother to try it (or rule it out).
“He was in between junior and senior year of high school, and I said, ‘I think you need to go out on a trip, because if you’re gonna like it, you’ll like it, and if you’re not gonna like it, you need to rule it out’. He went out fishing during that summer with my brother, and he came home, and he was just beaming from ear to ear…he was just so happy. And I thought, ‘Well, what else does a parent want other than for their child to be happy at a job that they like that can pay their bills’.”
“I had to get used to him not being able to be there for a birthday or Mother’s Day or Christmas or Thanksgiving sometimes, because there were times that he was in for a month, and then the captain would say, on Thanksgiving or a few days before Thanksgiving, “We’re going out Thanksgiving Eve.” To them, it didn’t matter that it was Thanksgiving. They were looking at the conditions of the weather, and that’s the most important thing.”
“I’m glad he’s doing what he’s doing. He’s happy and that makes me happy. And I know it’s dangerous, but it’s something that needs to be done. It doesn’t need to be done necessarily by him, but he’s doing something he loves…
…One time he said, ‘Nina, if I ever die doing this, know that I was doing something that I loved, it’s okay.’ He said, ‘Just let me stay there. That’s where I was and that’s where I’m gonna stay.’ I know some people need to have the body, for religious reasons, and for closure. But if anything did happen and there was no chance that he was alive, I think I would feel comforted that he told me that. It would still be hard, but I would respect his wishes and not try to find his body when he died doing what he loved.”
“One time, Tyler was fishing out of Hyannis, and I happened to have tickets to the Melody Tent right when he was going to be coming in. We went a little early to go say Hi to him, and I’d never been to that dock. So we go, and it’s more like a recreational boating Marina. I’m thinking ‘I don’t think this is the right dock’. Then I look and there’s a crowd down at the end of the dock, and there’s my son. He has no shirt on, all tattooed, long, long hair, looking like a Māori tribesman. He’s got dark skin because he’s Cape Verde and a Native American, and there’s just people all over watching him. I stood next to an older couple, and they said ‘Look at that man. He’s working so hard’ and I said, ‘That’s my son’.”
“He went up to Seattle, and he just went down to the docks and started checking out the different boats. He went on to one boat, he ended up talking to the captain on the boat, and captain was really gruff. ‘What do you want?’, ‘I’m just checking to see if you need anybody.’ ‘Where are you from?’ He said, ‘New Bedford’. He says, ‘What’s your name?’ So, Tyler tells him his name, and he says, ‘You know anyone else that is a fisherman there?’ ‘Yeah. Peter Barbero.’ And so, the guy goes, ‘Peter Barbero? I went to high school with Peter!’ So, what are the chances of that?”
“Without going into a lot on the regulations and things, sometimes the decisions are being made by people that aren’t privy to the actual boats themselves. They’ll send people out there to check on things. They have observers that have ways of counting the scallops and what’s in a certain area. But these fishermen aren’t short sighted. Their families are in it. They’re not going to, it would take away their own livelihood if they were to overfish everything and not be able to have that in future years for their sons or daughters or anyone else that might fish.”
“Tyler has a daughter that is 6. I think one of our most fun things, a couple of months ago, Tyler was going out fishing right when I was going to pick her up. She and I made up a sign, and it was very cold, so she and I got out of the car, and we went on the hurricane barrier, and we could see them coming. As they got closer, she’s holding up the sign, and he is taking a picture of us holding up this big sign that said, ‘We Love You’ and she had drawn little pictures. So, they went through the barrier and then he went to the back of the boat so he could wave to us a few minutes more. He texted me before they lost communication:
‘Thank you. That’s going to help me through not just this trip, but all my trips.’”
F/V Resilient approaches the hurricane barrier as Tyler heads out on a fishing trip.
Nina and Tyler’s daughter holding a “We Love You” sign on the hurricane barrier for Tyler to see as he leaves on a fishing trip.
“There was a time that Tyler got hurt on a boat. I was happy and relieved that Captain turned around and brought him in. It was a big undertaking, and they probably lost a lot of money. Tyler had told me the name of the boat, but I wasn’t going to go down and walk around to find the captain, because you’re not usually going to catch him. So, I called a friend that works on the docks and asked, ‘Who owns such and such a boat?’ He gave me the name and his address. I sent the owner a letter. I just thought that was easy enough for him to not do the right thing, so I was appreciative. Tyler could have had permanent repercussions from that injury if it hadn’t been taken care of right away. I never said anything to Tyler, because, you know, he’s a grown man, and he might not like his mom sending a letter to the owner. But apparently the owner ran into Tyler at some point, and he said ‘Hey, I got a letter from your mother.’ Tyler just laughed and said ‘Really?’ The owner said ‘I never got a thank note like that from anybody before. I’m glad she wrote.’ So, I thought that was really nice.”
“In the old days, when they didn’t have as much of the satellite phones, they had this thing called BoatTrax. Tyler would just call and say, ‘We’re doing good. We’re going to be another three days.’ and I would get the message. But when the Celtics were in the playoffs, we had always watched together, I would call and tell BoatTrax what the scores were and get this information to Tyler Mach on this particular boat. So, it got to the point where I knew the guys at BoatTrax. A couple of them, when I’d call, ‘Hi, this is Nina. I’m sending a message to Tyler on the such and such’, and they’d say, ‘What’s the score?’ so they knew why I was calling. Because sometimes, as a mom, it was nice to just be able to do something silly like that, to let them know, because they didn’t have as much communication way back then.”
