John Nicolai says it took him a long time to forge a connection with the sea, even though he has a line of ancestors who have made their living in various maritime pursuits, from fishing off the island of Corsica to captaining schooners from Southern Spain to Morocco to serving in the navy and merchant marine. “I even have ancestors who received a commendation from Queen Victoria when they saved the crew of a British ship that sank in the Mediterranean,” he says. “But I was the weird one.”
Nicolai, who lived in the United States until he was 13 and then returned to France with his French-born parents to live there until he was in his 20s, first became a professional chef after he came back to the States. He completed a culinary arts program, worked as a chef in Washington, D.C., and owned an upscale restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina. He also worked for 15 years on various types of vessels and earned a U.S. Coast Guard 50 gross ton Master’s License in 1994.
When Nicolai and his wife, Coreen, who also is a Coast Guard licensed captain, moved to Maine seven years ago (both had summered here as children), he decided he would much rather pursue a career doing something on the water than return to the stressful life of running a restaurant. “It’s like waging war every night if you want to maintain a certain quality,” he says. “And, you have to deal with the staff.”
As he made friends with fishermen in the Gouldsboro area where he and Coreen built a home, an idea for a new business took shape: take a small number of people out on a boat tour and show them how lobster fishing works. Along the way, go sightseeing in Frenchman Bay, throw in stories about local lore and history, and have as much fun as possible – like the time he pulled a trap, found a lobster that had bubbles foaming out of its mouth and whooped to a young boy on the trip, “It’s got rabies!” (Of course he explained afterwards, but the boy’s mother later wrote that “Elliott still tells people about lobsters with rabies!”)
Nicolai found a 30-foot traditional wooden lobster boat in Wiscasset to use for the business. He rebuilt it from stem to stern with an emphasis on safety equipment and obtained a special permit from the Department of Marine Resources to fish 15 lobster traps but throw the lobsters back (increased this year to 20 traps). The LULU Lobster Boat Rides were ready to go in 1998.
He believes the biggest factor for the success of this venture is its small size, with no more than six people per tour. Donna DeLena of Malden, Massachusetts, who went out on the LULU with her husband, agrees. “I’ve been out on other tours, but that’s just what they were,” she says. “On the LULU you get a better idea of what it must be like to be a lobsterman.” Another LULU veteran, Cathy Matteucci, who took her two children, ages 9 and 12, says the LULU’s small size made it possible for the children to ask questions and stand next to Nicolai while he pulled the traps. Her daughter was thrilled because they were allowed to drive the boat a little bit, and her son says he was impressed with all they learned not only about lobsters but about the ocean and other marine life that sometimes shows up in traps.
“I tend to baby them,” he says of his customers. While he finds that people don’t care if they go out in fog – “they want the New England experience,” he says – if it gets a little windy, he tries to reschedule if he knows he has people who aren’t tolerant of that sort of thing. “I’ve heard too many horror stories about whale watching tours,” he says. “I had one gent who called and said, ‘I have a phobia if I lose sight of land, I’ll go crazy.’ I made an extra effort to stay as close in as I could and afterwards, he said it was the first time he had been on a boat and not freaked out or gotten seasick.” In fact, so far, no one has gotten seasick, he adds, with a “knock on the old wooden hull.”
Nicolai is especially grateful for the help he’s received from friends in the fishing community. “I’ve been out with them a number of times,” he says, “They’ve been very generous about letting me come on their boats and in educating me.”
For the first two years, the LULU was based in Hancock, but then was asked to sail from The Golden Anchor Inn & Pier Restaurant in Bar Harbor. The business has attracted a lot of positive attention. Maine’s Lobster Insti-tute asked Nicolai to take people out who attended the Lobster College weekend last September, and has signed him on for a repeat performance this season. Because Nicolai speaks French fluently, the French Bureau of Tourism featured the LULU in an article in a widely circulated French newspaper, Le Monde. “A gentleman found that on the Internet and chartered the LULU just for his son and himself for the whole day,” he says. “They flew down in a private plane from Canada and I even prepared a picnic for them. That was a rare event, but we can do it.”
There also have been trips for schoolchildren, and a wedding on board. Numerous honeymooners – 20 couples in one season – have discovered the LULU after being married on Cadillac Mountain.
Nicolai says “Yes, I miss cooking, but do I enjoy that as much as what I do now? No, absolutely not. I’m closing in on 50, and this is the first time I have found something I can enjoy doing. The people are great; everybody has a good time.” He adds that if he and Coreen wanted to have a larger business, they could run a whale watching tour. “But we love this,” he says. “It’s so low pressure. We’re happy with what we do.”
For further information about the LULU, see