Fishermen, sightseers and friends filled the Menemsha docks on Wednesday when the fishing boat Quitsa Strider II came in. The word was out. They had hit the jackpot.
Capt. Jonathan Mayhew, 50, of Chilmark and his crew had 31 harpooned swordfish on ice aboard. It has been years since a local fishing boat did so well. Hours later, his brother Gregory Mayhew and his crew on the fishing boat Unicorn landed 16 of the same.
These were big fish: Their average dressed weight was around 200 pounds. The largest weighed 306 pounds.
For generations, the arrival of the herring at coastal ponds has
been the Island's harbinger of spring. Now, major initiatives are
under way across the Island to enhance waterways for the returning
alewife.
This week, work began and is almost complete on the construction of
a fish ladder at the head of Lake Tashmoo.
Concerned about a precipitous decline in herring, the state has banned their harvest in Massachusetts for the next three years.
Also known as alewives, herring is the most valued bait fish in Vineyard waters.
The closure, which affects at least 100 herring runs along the Massachusetts coast, ironically comes at a time when Vineyard towns are taking steps to revive and improve their runs.
Capt. Gregory Mayhew, a Vineyard native and lifelong resident of Chilmark, runs the 75-foot steel dragger Unicorn out of Menemsha. This summer, for the first time in more than 20 years, he went sea scalloping. The reason, he said, is economics.
Pots and pans rattle. The television slides back and forth. Each time the bow of the Albatross IV slides up over the crest of a wave, something inside the 187-foot vessel bangs or rolls.
Twenty seconds later, when the bow descends into the valley of the next wave, the pots and pans bang back and forth again.
On this day, Sunday, April 3, the ship is on Georges Bank, more than 100 miles east of Cape Cod, so far from land it is not worth seeking shelter. The ship rides the waves at Cultivator Shoal, once a prime fishing area.
Georges Bank is a huge underwater island - 20,000 square miles and as large as the state of Massachusetts - that lies just below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
The bank is part of the continental shelf. More than 10,000 years ago, geologists believe, the bank was a high and dry island.
As the ocean rose, the island was submerged. Fish love the bank because it is a great source for food. Water depths are not much more than 100 feet and sometimes as shallow as 20 feet. Light from the sun penetrates to the bottom and supports a world of microscopic plankton that fish eat.
On an open sea deck, with the rolling waves of Georges Bank a mere eight feet away, Jon Brodziak cuts, and with tweezers takes a bone from each of the two inner ears of a haddock.
He places them in a small envelope for future study.
Then he does it again with another haddock. And again.
The bone is the otolith, which is used to tell the age of the fish; it is a far better measure than length.
Mr. Brodziak, along with several other scientists, is in the middle of a six-hour shift on the Albatross IV, in the pitch black night on the open ocean.
The old wooden sailboat up on blocks inside the shed at the
Martha's Vineyard Historical Society in Edgartown doesn't
look like much.
The white lapstrake boat, less than 20 feet in length, has not been
in the water since it was brought to the society in December 1936 from
Menemsha Creek. The paint has come off in many places. There is little
chance she will ever float again.
The question of how cod stocks fell so low in the waters off New
England is almost as perplexing as the question of how to bring about
recovery.
The favorite reason - too much fishing pressure - is
followed by other explanations, including changes in ocean temperature
and degradation of the environment. Perhaps it is a combination of these
things.
Pinpointing the cause or causes of plummeting cod stocks is key to
their rejuvenation.
