When Louie Rivers and Miss Sandy fished 250 days a year
Louie Rivers was among the finest men I’ve known, and the times we spent aboard the Miss Sandy remain among my best memories of being on the water. Our days began before the sun, walking the dark streets of Provincetown to the pier. This was the 1980s, when the town was wilder than it is now. Plenty of young men were ending their adventures just as we were starting ours, lounging on a bench in front of town hall that came to be called “the meat rack...
PHOTO GALLERY: Crew training revealed
We were able to hold our first fishermen’s training program earlier this month. The images in this gallery give a sense of the breadth of training involved – from classroom work on gear to safety drills to boat visits. And there is a lot not pictured as well, discussions about management, insight into various scientific studies and research, navigational training, even knot-tying lessons...
Adding one more big element to our uncertainty
Uncertainty has always been a silent, unwelcome partner to a fisherman. Wild weather, the mysterious movements and actions of fish, natural patterns beyond anyone’s control, balky equipment, shifting regulations, big price swings in the market, even climate change – I could go on. And now comes another huge uncertainty, how a virus we call corona and the illness it brings, Covid-19, will change this world and our small part of it...
Looking toward a fishing future
When Captain John Our needed to redo his boat he hired people to do the body work, but did much of the engine rebuild himself. “Pretty much all of the best captains are great mechanics,” said Seth Rolbein as he looked out at 30 or so marine tech students at the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich earlier this month. Several students seem well on their way to fitting that bill...
Fish on film
Anthony Lucia stands on a wide, red fishing boat in Saquatucket Harbor in Harwich, a video monitor and a tangle of wires behind him, the sound of a drill in the background. In his hand is a bright white board with perfectly spaced black marks, interspersed with red lines, which will measure fish from nose to tail down to the centimeter. “I just made this last night,” he says...
Exploring Electronic Monitoring
How do you measure “soft costs?” Wait. What ARE “soft costs?” Soft costs represent a fisherman’s time and effort. They have a monetary value despite not being an actual invoice to be paid. The soft and hard costs of electronic monitoring programs (EM) were at the forefront of conversations for two days in February during the National Electronic Monitoring Workshop, in Seattle, Washington, hosted by NOAA Fisheries and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission...
The ‘dogfish’ challenge is not new
The year 1916 went down as one of the greatest in the fishing history of Massachusetts. Here’s Dr. David L. Belding’s description, author of the 51st annual report of the Massachusetts Commissioners on Fisheries and Game (meaning the first report was written in 1865, as the Civil War ended): “Prosperity ruled the waves for the salt-water fishermen of Massachusetts in 1916...
PHOTO GALLERY: The beauty of fog
“The fog is a chest, a magical chest! What wonders are hidden in it, the only way to see them is to dive into the fog!” -- Mehmet Murat ildan. Chatham is known for fog and commercial fishing and in this photo gallery we celebrate both. The photos are a blend of old and new and accompanied by a well-known, or obscure, fog quote. There is something about the fog that draws us in and we hope it does for you as well...
The annual meeting; an in-house calendar
Calendars can be arbitrary, highlighting particular dates for no obvious reason -- why is Groundhog Day always February 2? Why was Presidents’ Day February 17 when no president was born that day, the closest being Washington’s birthday February 22, or Lincoln’s February 12? But regardless, calendars have a way of focusing the mind. And at best their dates give us a moment to stop, consider the big circle that is a year, take stock of where we are and where we’ve been...
For Parker it is a matter of trusts
After years of research, discussions, and painstaking planning, the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust had a rather unusual beginning. Paul Parker, executive director at the time, was on his second date with his future wife when they met a fisherman just off the highway. “I remember bringing a $315,000 check to a rest stop in New Hampshire and he handed me a bill of sale,” Parker said...
Fish on Fridays may be just the beginning
Broad Reach CEO Bill Bogdanovich remembers when a family member of one of the residents at The Victorian, Broad Reach’s assisted living residence in Chatham, provided lobster, fresh off the boat, for everybody’s lunch – as in dozens of people. “Heck of a day,” said Bogdanovich with a grin. Those days could become the new normal if a plan championed by the Fishermen’s Alliance becomes a reality...
