Collecting Locations

Once the Captains had weather and their vessels under control, the next major concern was knowing precisely where they were headed for collecting expeditions. Therefore, many of the logs detail specific directions and locations of catches. What’s especially interesting about these notes is the fact that they are very colloquial. When recounting locations in their logs, Captains rarely used coordinates or formal names, but instead referenced local landmarks such as individuals’ houses or signs. One example is in David Graham’s log from July 21, 1964, when he marked directions to a collecting location as “a little to the west of the second ‘No Trespassing’ sign on Naushon” (p.92). These types of directions were useful for the collectors to know where to return to, but comical in hindsight in their casualness.