Fisherman Michael Day of Kennebunk likes to kid around and say the idea for his alternative marine-based occupation – tour boat operator – was the result of “a fisherman going to bed at night after he’d eaten too much garlic and waking up at 1 a.m. with a brainstorm.” But actually, it is part of the diversity he believes is necessary for survival in these uncertain times for fishermen. “I could see the writing on the wall,” he says.
Day, whose father put him in a basket and took him out lobster fishing from Kennebunkport when he was a baby, has family maritime roots that stretch back to great-great-grandfathers who sailed on brigs between America and Europe and uncles who operated a saw mill that supplied timber used for masts by Essex, Massachusetts, shipbuilders.
Day, 44, has been fishing commercially for groundfish, scallops and lobster for 25 years. Diversifying, he hopes, will help him continue to make a living in marine-based occupations that keep him on the water and utilize his expertise.
In 1998, he saw an advertisement in a fishing magazine for a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) with a video camera mounted in the nose. The ROV could be launched from a boat to take pictures of the bottom of the ocean and send them back through cables to a video monitor on board the boat. Day liked the fact that this provided a way to gather information without doing the damage of trawling for it. At the same time, he noticed an article in a newspaper from the University of Rhode Island about the need for comprehensive near-coastal research and the number of vessels it would take for research to be effective.
Then came the 1 a.m. brainstorm. He could purchase the ROV, use it part-time for research and part-time during the tourist season to let vacationers view the sea creatures and their interactions on the bottom just off the coast near Cape Porpoise. He leased the ROV for the summer and experimented with it to be sure it would be suitable for his purposes. “It turned out that the quality of the video was significantly better than we had imagined,” says his wife, Cheryl Phillips-Day, who enthusiastically supported his idea. “Every time we put it overboard we saw something new and interesting.”
At first, Day launched the ROV from a 1935 Coast Guard motor lifeboat he had restored, but the vessel was too small to be suitable for boat tours. Once he realized he was on to something, he purchased the SILVER DOLLAR, a fishing dragger used by sons of Edward Hunt, a Phippsburg fisherman, who had sold it when federal regulations severely curtailed ground fishing. Day spent 1999 completely refurbishing the boat, giving it a new life complete with a canopy and side curtains on the stern deck to provide a viewing area for the monitor. He also gave it a new name, the ATLANTIC EXPLORER. The boat is Coast Guard approved for 49 people, but for comfort, Day limits tours to 36 customers.
The work so transformed the dragger, the surveyor who came to check it out in Wells Harbor where it was rebuilt told Day if he hadn’t seen that the documentation number, he never would have known it was the SILVER DOLLAR.
The new business, Atlantic Exposure Cruise and Charter Ltd., has been operating for two seasons, leaving from the Nonantum Resort in Kennebunkport. Tours have been popular, and the outlook is promising for the coming season. Day includes varied activities in the two-hour cruise: a swing by the Bush summer home and other Kennebunkport mansions, a look at Goat Island Lighthouse and Cape Porpoise Harbor, a visit with seals sunning on ledges, an explanation of lobster fishing using a half-model wooden lobster trap he built, and then, after setting anchor, launching the ROV and viewing whatever happens to be on the bottom. He adjusts the location for anchoring according to the weather, staying in the harbor when winds are up.
“The big joke in the family,” he says, “is that my two teenaged nephews, who have all this Nintendo experience, operate the ROV. When I was their age, I was stuffing bait bags.”
What will show up on the video is always a mystery. They have recorded creatures like sea anemones, sand lancers, crabs, sand shrimp, sea horses, octopus, jelly fish, lobsters, seals, blue fin tuna and schools of pollock, cod and herring swimming by. “You never know what you will see,” he says, adding that watching interactions between creatures like sand lancers being chased by crabs adds to the fascination of being able to view the ocean’s benthic community.
In addition to a full schedule from Memorial Day into October, which is set up by his wife and is available on-line, Day offers charter trips. Muriel Cotter of Wells, who works as an activities director for Senior Needs of Wells and Ogunquit, helped organize a fund-raising cruise with Day to raise money towards building a senior center for Wells and Ogunquit. “We had all ages except children on the cruise,” Cotter says. “Everyone raved about it. One or two people even returned with their grandchildren and whole families to go the out the following day.” The event was so successful it’s being repeated this year. Cotter says she also recommends the cruise for guests at her B&B, the Christmas Tide Inn in Wells, and that all who’ve participated have especially enjoyed Day’s extensive knowledge about the area and its lore.
Although Day has not been fishing for the past two years – he spent most of 1999 refurbishing ATLANTIC EXPLORER, missed part of the season in 2000 while he helped search for victims in a plane crash off Cape Porpoise, and then his wife was ill – he plans to return to fishing and alternate it, primarily lobstering, with the cruises as soon as he gets his license renewed. He also wants to become more involved in using his ROV for collaborative research and for educational programs. Recently, he took some of his extensive collection of benthic videotape to share with students at The School around Us in Arundel. He has visited with an environmental science class at the University of New England and given presentations to students at other schools in the area. He believes there’s a lot of potential for using the ROV and the tapes he has already collected.
For further information about Atlantic Exposure Cruise and Charter, visit
