Nine Mile Creek fishermen say harbour needs deeper dredging
Giles Clinton says boats hitting bottom causing damage, loss of income
Fishermen in a small harbour on the south shore of P.E.I. say they're worried about their boats getting damaged and possibly even running aground.
Giles Clinton has been fishing at Nine Mile Creek for more than 13 years. He says there is a big problem with congestion in the area.
"Most of the boats here are $100,000 to $150,000 boats. And you're got aluminum boats rubbing up against fibreglass boats and the fibreglass is the weakest of the two," he said. "So you're ruining a $100,000, $200,000 boat for a $30,000 boat."
Clinton says Fisheries and Oceans Canada tried to fix the problem by dredging a section of the harbour and installing a floating dock where boats could tie up.
He and other fishermen in the area said the digging wasn't deep enough and the dock now sits on shore waiting to be reinstalled.
'Big money' at risk
Clinton says at low tide, the boats are hitting bottom, which has caused damage to a few boats, including his.
"If you ruin your prop, it could be down for about a week and that's a lot of downtime," he said. "If you need to be out working at mussels or whatever, that's big money."
The problem, Clinton say, is even worse if the boat has a full load.
"On low tide, you can't get in here, you can't get in to offload, so you have to wait," he said. "It could take four hours for the tide to go out and come back in."
"You're sitting there with six, seven guys in the boat. You're paying them to sit there and do nothing, so it can get expensive."
Clinton says the waiting time makes suppliers impatient as well.
For now the fisherman are all docking close together, but Clinton hopes something will change soon.
"It's like to see them bring the dredge in and do it right and do it proper so we can use it," he said.
In an email to CBC, Fisheries and Oceans Canada said the basin was dredged last year, that the floating docks were removed for the winter months and will be reinstalled to the anchoring system when the proper hardware arrives.