Unusual blue Cape Breton lobster called 'flawless' and named Opal

A lobster-fishing couple from Sydney Mines is celebrating their good fortune after one of the traps they hauled on Sunday contained a blue lobster.

Scott MacKinnon and Sonya Weiss were pulling up their lobster pots as usual when they spotted something ''glowing" in one of them.

• What makes a blue lobster so blue?

Weiss told CBC News her first reaction was how "beautiful" he was.

"It was actually captivating and he's flawless; there's nothing wrong with him. It's almost like the other lobsters went 'Whoa, we're not even going to touch this guy," she said.

MacKinnon, who is a fisherman with 30 years of experience, said this is "my first time actually seeing one and catching one."

'Good luck to return it to the sea'

"The blue lobster, the old people say, my dad says, brings luck and prosperity to the boat and the crew and that it's good luck to return it to the sea."

Weiss has named the lobster Opal, despite confirming it's a "boy."

"He's white, blue, he's got purple all along the edges so it reminded me of an opal," she said.

Rare though blue lobsters may seem, Opal was the second one caught off Cape Breton over the weekend.

Opal to sit out remainder of season

The other one "didn't make the legal gauge size, which is 82.5 [mm]," MacKinnon said. "Our measurement was way above that so we know it was a different blue lobster."

MacKinnon says that makes Opal the only legally blue lobster caught on the weekend. The smaller lobster — named Blueberry — has already been released.

The couple have taken the lobster to a fisheries pound for the duration of the season both for the luck and so that "nobody will catch it and 'plaque' it."

Opal will be put back into the ocean July 14.