One of Sheepshead Bay’s last fishing boat captains says he’ll go down with the ships
To Robert Sapanara, the sea is friend and foe, but his passion for it remains undeterred. “There are no words to describe how breathtaking the ocean can be, and I’ve seen it at its best and I’ve seen it at its worst, and I love them both,” said Sapanara, 50, the captain of the 110-foot-long Brooklyn VI fishing boat, docked between voyages at Pier 6 in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay. On a good excursion, his customers— recreational fishers—can easily fill their buckets with the day’s catch; at other times, the fish don’t bite as readily. “Fish aren’t trees, but have heads and tails,” said Sapanara, who has steered his vessel as far as 100 miles from the shore to catch fresh tuna. For about a dozen years, the married father of two sons has worked five days a week as a marine oiler at the Staten Island Ferry’s maintenance operations in order to score health insurance. Read the story here 09:57
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