How still lies the bay,
In the light western airs
Which blow from the crimson horizon.
Once more we tack home,
With a dry empty hole,
Saving gas with the breezes so fair.
She's a kindly cape islander,
Old but still sound,
But so lost in the long liners shadow.
Make and Break and make do
But the fish are so few,
That she won't be replaced should she founder.
Now it's so hard to not think of before the big war
When the cod went so cheap but so plenty.
Foreign trawlers go by now with long seeing eyes
Taking all where we seldom take any.
And the young folk don't stay
With the fisherman's ways.
Long ago they all moved to the cities.
And the ones left behind,
Old and tired and blind,
Won't work for a pound, for a penny.
In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few.
Too many are holed up and rotten.
Most houses stand empty.
Old nets hung to dry
Are blown away lost and forgotten.
Now I can see the big draggers
That stirred up the bay
Leaving lobster traps smashed on the bottom.
And they think it don't pay
To respect the old ways
That make and break men have not forgotten.
For we still keep our time
To the turn of the tide.
In this boat that I built with my father
Still lifts to the sky, "One Lunger," and I
Still talk like old friends on the water.
In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few.
Too many are holed up and rotten.
Most houses stand empty.
Old nets hung to dry
Are blown away lost and forgotten.
In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few.
Too many are holed up and rotten.
Most houses stand empty.
Old nets hung to dry
Are blown away lost and forgotten.