Diving for scallops

Imagine it’s your job to dive for scallops deep in the cold, murky waters off the Maine coast. It’s a hard job and one that fewer fisherman are doing.

Now imagine you have use of just one arm. That’s the case for James Sewell, who lost his right arm in a 2009 snowmobiling accident and resumed diving less than a year later, according to this New York Times video by Maine filmmakers Christoph Gelfand and Caroline Losneck.

“I’ve never been a person that likes for people to do stuff for me,” said Sewell, who also dives for urchins and fishes for bluefin tuna. “I like to do for myself.”

According to the Times, Sewell, 43, is one of only about 30 active scallop divers working on the Maine coast.

The video shows what that job is like for Sewell, who dives off his boat, the Sophie Elizabeth, out of Cushing.

“It’s just not a 9 to 5 job. Deep diving puts a lot of nitrogen into your blood. It’s hard on your joints. It’s hard on you,” Sewell says in the video. “Once you get to a certain age you’re not going to be able to keep doing it. I think about my family and the risks you take. Every day that you go down on bottom you have that chance of something fails or something happens — that might be the last time that you see them.”