Being on the water is Ray Gale’s lifeblood. Whether on Tashmoo, on the Lagoon, or in Vineyard Haven or Oak Bluffs Harbor, he has been the one to call for marine-related aid. Gale has repaired and built docks, and inspected hundreds of moorings, for decades. He has also helped countless people salvage their sunken boats, and towed stranded sailors.
John Curran speaks of Gale with affection for his assistance: “On several occasions, he’s helped me out with my 42-foot motor yacht. Several years ago, when we had a very bad storm, my boat snapped the mooring line, and was wedged up against one of the docks and was starting to take on water. I was working at the hospital that night. I couldn’t leave, and Ray and John Crocker, who was the harbormaster, were able to move the boat to the dock, and put a couple of pumps in to remove the water, to prevent my vessel from sinking.”
Gale comes by the nautical life naturally. He was born in Oak Bluffs, but spent his first eight years in the lobster town of Scituate: “I always wanted to be a fisherman. I quite often would walk down to the harbor and watch the lobster boats come in, and smell the bait, which I hated at that point in time. Yet I loved the lobster boats and the look of them. It was a good life. You were your own boss.”
During those early years, Gale’s father worked at Four River Shipyard in Quincy, and his mother was a gym teacher at Hanover High School. However, all four grandparents lived on the Island, where he spent many idyllic summers. Gale’s family returned here permanently, and he attended the Tisbury School and then Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School: “Back in those days, Martha’s Vineyard was a whole different Island. We kids played in the freshwater ponds in the summertime, and went to the beach. Being young guys, we raised a little hell once in a while. But we never got in trouble with any police, because they knew the families.”
Passionate about fishing, Gale recalls an adventure when he was still in high school: “I went on a swordfishing trip that amazed everybody. This was harpooning swordfish, not catching them using a rod and reel. I was what they call doryman. There was a tall mast that you’d go up to look for swordfish. If the captain harpooned one, he’d send you down to hop in the dory, and you’d haul the swordfish in by hand. The captain would yell out, ‘It’s a head shot!’” The term refers to hooking a swordfish directly in the head area, which is considered the most effective way to secure a catch, because the head is the strongest part of the fish, and provides the best leverage when reeling it in. However, Gale explains, “You have to be careful, because the swordfish would do what they call a breach. It could come up headfirst with its sword. When you started hauling, you’d jump back and hold on if the line went slack. I never got what they called punched, which is when it would come up through the bottom of the boat, right through the seat.”
After high school, Gale fished, and did all sorts of odd jobs: “In those days, you did what you could to make a dollar. But I always tried to get on the water in the warmer weather.” Eventually, though, he became a full-time lobsterman –– for 50 years. Gale’s good friend Lynne Fraker says, “Going lobstering with him, it’s really an amazing thing to watch those pots come up and take the lobster off. He’s been doing it for so long, and it’s such a rhythm. It’s like a dance. I’ve always been fascinated by that.”
Over the decades, others sought Gale’s help, and he worked, for instance, with John Packer when he and Dale McClure owned Gemini Marine. Gale recalls helping with a lot of dock work, but some of the work was a bit more unusual.
“They hired me to help clean up Nomans Land. The Navy was working out there to clean up the unexploded ordinances, a requirement when it was turned over to the wildlife people,” Gale says. “Gemini Marine had a big barge with a crane on it, and they were hired to bring everything back to Menemsha so all the metal could be transported off-Island. Every Friday, the Navy bomb squad picked up the bombs, exploded them, and then left them on the beach for us to bring back. There were some big explosions at times. At one point, I should’ve had a camera and had somebody take a picture. I was standing on a bomb on the barge they had detonated.”
Gale also worked on Naushon, which the Forbes family owns: “It was fun being on the island. I lived in a farmhouse dormitory-style with the farmworkers, so we had good times. The Forbes homeowners all had their boats, and I’d do the maintenance, whether it was varnishing, painting the bottoms, or doing a little engine work or woodworking.”
He laughs, recalling the quick change the homeowners would make before heading to the island. “They’ve got parking in Woods Hole, and they would show up in their nice cars and get out all dressed up in their suits and ties and their dresses. But they’ve got a little house, and they’d change their clothes into ripped dungarees. They just wanted to blend in.”
Gale is happiest on the water and being of use. Fraker says, “Ray helps a lot of people. I can’t tell you how many times he’s towed people back, in or gotten sunken boats off the bottom for people. That takes a lot of skill and time. Anybody who needs anything on the water, he’s there. He is a wonderful, smart, quirky person with a funny sense of humor.”