That was the closest to death I've ever been. That was very
scary, very scary.

William Feltner Jr. was the captain of the Miss Priss - the third
fishing vessel to recently sink in Cobscook Bay.

We were out dragging for scallops off Denbow Point, and it was
the last day of the week and it was around noon time, and I looked at
the boys and said, What do you think, call it good?

The crew decided to call it a day - and return home.

"As I was coming up through the reversing falls I struck an
underwater object, and the boat immediately started taking on water,
started flooding the deck. 13.) We get our safety gear out and I had
time to put a distress call over the radio."

Luckily the crew's call was heard by Kirby Schenks - who was on a
nearby boat … he jumped into his skiff and raced to the Miss Priss.

"He just by the grace of God got to us and we stepped off the bow
of the boat and into the skiff and backed away from the boat as it
went down."

I didn't think we were gonna make it out of there, and if it
wasn't for Kirby we wouldn't have. You don't get more than five
minutes in this water, and it starts kicking in, there isn't much you
can do.

The three men aboard the Miss Priss that day were the lucky ones … Two
other fishing vessels - with five crew members total - have met a
similar fate in that area … sadly none of the men survived...and one
of the men, Joseph Jones, remains missing.

That area has been dragged for many years. That was a very tragic
thing that happened to those two draggers. No one will ever know what
happened, there was no one around when they went down. 3.) It's just
speculation that they were dragging, got caught down, and flipped the
boat over.

There are a lot of theories. We probably will never know. I've
heard that one of them might have been over-rigged… But again, it's
all speculation at this point.

Denny's Bay and Whiting Bay - two areas the men used to fish in -
have been closed for two years for conservation purposes… Feltner
attributes his wreck - and possibly the others - to the treacherous
route the boats now must take to get to waters they can drag in…

These people have to make these passages where they aren't so
safe. Lot of tide, I mean there's no way to go around it. Falls
Island, you take the foxtails, there's just too much tide there as
there is going through reversing falls. There's just no win or lose.
That area you're draining two different bays, Whiting Bay and
Denny's Bay, in six hours, and when it goes the other way you're
filling it up in six hours. There's a lot of water moving through a
very narrow spot. So in that particular area there's a lot of current.

But with no where else to fish - the men have little choice but to
make the dangerous trek.

I know how hard it is on the water to make a living. It's tough.
People take a lot more chances when they're trying to support their
families. …Fishermen are fishermen, they're gonna go back at it.

I'll go back through there again. It's just, ya know, it's just
my job. I got two kids, a wife, and a house, I got to keep them going.

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