News

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...

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...

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 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...

“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...

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...

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...

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...

Before Greg Skomal, internationally known shark scientist, spoke to 400 or so high school students gathered at the Cape Cod Community College, a video about last year’s WaterWORKS event was projected on a big screen. One student made a confession. “I didn’t know about any of these opportunities,” he said, speaking of the myriad water-related industries and nonprofits he had just visited with as part of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce’s Blue Economy career day...

The week before Christmas the phone rang at the Fishermen’s Alliance office and Napi was talking, which meant I needed to stop and pay attention because anytime Napi started talking you needed to focus. His mind was able to connect disparate, startling, shocking, brilliant, disquieting, cantankerous, but ultimately satisfying elements at a moment’s notice...

Growing up, Claire Fitz-Gerald always wanted to do something with oceans as a career. “I’m a Chicago native,” she says, “so at first I thought it would be at an aquarium, with dolphins.” After studying marine biology in college in New England, Fitz-Gerald got a position as a federal fisheries observer, which gave her first-hand knowledge about life on the water...

We all express frustration with the pace of government, how the wheels seem to turn too slowly if at all, how the process feels like a slog through mud, how weeks turn into months turn into years. Believe me, there are times when I share that feeling.