Authorities discovered the body of an Essex lobsterman floating in the Inner Harbor next to the AmeriCold building off East Main Street late yesterday afternoon.

John Symonds, 64, of 12 Burnham Court, was found face up at 4:27 p.m. yesterday on the rocks in the outer skirts of the Inner Harbor just off Smith Cove. He was a heavy-set man wearing overalls and a gray sweater with the sleeves rolled up and knee-high rubber boots.

"It appears from all indications he was working on board his boat and took an accidental fall into the water," Detective Thomas Quinn said. "A final determination (into the cause of death) will be made by the medical examiner's office."

Police, Coast Guard officials and a representative from District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office found identification in the right rear pocket of the man's overalls.

His white 25-foot boat, Cros, was found untied at the end of the dock at Robinson's Public Landing at the end of Pirates Lane in East Gloucester. But prevailing winds kept it pinned to the dock, Quinn said. His green Ford Ranger was parked in the lot above.

Carla O. Symonds, his wife of "just under 37 years," said he was likely working on the Cros' engine because the cover was off and the boat was untied.

"He's been lobstering since he was 16 years old," she said when reached by phone at her home last night. She said he mostly worked out of Gloucester.

Symonds had not been out since the end of last year because of the weather, his wife said.

The Symondses, both natives of Essex, have six children - two in Essex, two in Boston, one in Beverly and one in Arizona - and four grandchildren.

"He's been my best friend for more than 38 years," Carla Symonds said.

In his younger years, she said her husband was an outdoorsman, hunting for duck and deer and doing some clamming aside from his career as a lobsterman.

"It's all he wanted to do," she said. "He wanted to be his own boss."

She remembered him attending their children's athletic events, from football to field hockey to baseball and softball and ice hockey.

Leon Bents, 38, a truck driver from Minnesota, spotted the body first and had someone in AmeriCold call police.

"I had to look twice," he said. "The last thing you expect to see there is a body."

Bents said he was looking into the ocean as he waited for his truck to be loaded before he departed for a trip to Chicago.

Dana MacDonald, an AmeriCold employee and East Gloucester resident, said he had seen the man on the docks before, but did not know him personally.

"He was the only boat out there in the winter," he said. "You'd see him working on his boat and traps."

Some other AmeriCold employees gathered on the parking lot as police blocked the area near a metal fence separating the ocean and the lot.

Near 6 p.m., as the sun hovered over West Gloucester, other employees lined the fence, watching officials search and cover Symonds' body after the tide had receded. It was originally discovered floating, but as the tide left it rested on the rocks. Police examined it, checked for identification and personal effects in the pockets and covered it with a white sheet while they searched his boat and truck. A metal stretcher waited to take him to the medical examiner's office in Boston.

One of those employees who watched was Alan Brigham.

"It's a shame," he said. "Someone was probably waiting for him to come home."