I spotted these lobster buoys on a wharf in Halls Harbour, NS and thought they would make a pretty picture. For those of you that don’t know what these are, they are a flotation device that is tied to one end of a rope and the other end of the rope is attached to a lobster trap. Every fisherman in the area has a different colour and pattern to mark his/her own traps so they know which are his/hers. The colours are usually chosen to stand out against the colours of the sea in all different weather. The numbers found on the buoys are the numbers given to the boat by the Federal Department of Fisheries (each boat has a different number) and are put on the buoys so there is no dispute about who owns what trap in the case of a colour conflict and also to let the fishery officers identify who the traps belong to.

My father and I used a yellow for the small buoys and for the larger ones we used a yellow on the top and green on the bottom. :)