Shark Protection Rules Announced

Annual Tournament Held in Oak Bluffs Without Incident

By JACK SHEA

Trumping a 536-pound winning shark is difficult but the biggest news
out of the 21st Monster Shark Tournament weekend for marine biologists,
conservationists and fishermen is that the federal government is
stepping up to protect several species of overfished sharks.

People said it would never work. But people were wrong. Vineyard
Haven boat builders Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin have a partnership that
has survived 30 years, including a devastating fire that left them with
nothing but the will to start over again. Today Gannon and Benjamin is a
household name on the Vineyard, synonymous with wooden boats and Island
values.

Interviews by Rachel Nava Rohr

Ross Gannon:

Is there a gene for how you play a D chord on a guitar?

Ben Taylor jokes that his father reckons there is, for Ben forms the
chord in exactly the same unorthodox way James does. Ben says it's
just that as a self-taught player, he copied the moves of the musician
he admires most - his dad.

The toes of Daniel Libeskind's black elkskin cowboy boots curl
up like those curved walls he so loves - spiralling curves that
cross a void of history in the Jewish Museum he designed in Berlin,
bathtub-like curves beckoning 75 feet down into bedrock in his master
plan for the Ground Zero memorial, a curve inspired by a shard of earth
to house exhibits in the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England,
where even the floor curves six feet down.

Oak Bluffs selectmen on Tuesday looked ahead to an unsettling
future, one in which the landscape of the Island is strewn with
construction sites, construction trucks and traffic jams. But instead of
pondering some hypothetical or even worst-case scenario, they were
staring in the face of reality.

The pond bottom and shoreline rocks below Rick Karney and Dave
Grunden as they sit, discussing the reasons for this week's
closure of Sengekontacket Pond to shellfishing, are green with weedy
marine growth.

Nearby a duck, which has been feeding on the weed, raises its
tail
and drops another little
contribution of fecal matter into the water.
Right on cue, as if to
underline the point that Mr.
Grunden, the Oak
Bluffs
shellfish constable, has just made.

Most people think of the shark as the ultimate symbol of dread,
giants with cold lifeless eyes who cruise the ocean looking for swimmers
they can tear from limb to limb. The very word itself is used to
describe people in society who prey on others or who engage in deceptive
practices.

There is probably not an animal in the world more despised or feared
then sharks, ranking right down there with snakes and spiders.

Most people think of the shark as the ultimate symbol of dread,
giants with cold lifeless eyes who cruise the ocean looking for swimmers
they can tear from limb to limb. The very word itself is used to
describe people in society who prey on others or who engage in deceptive
practices.

There is probably not an animal in the world more despised or feared
then sharks, ranking right down there with snakes and spiders.

It is a misty Tuesday night in Chilmark, the kind of evening when the Vineyard seems a million miles from the rest of the world.

Sengekontacket Pond will be closed to shellfishing for four months each year in the peak summer season on a permanent basis, as a result of intractable problems with high levels of dangerous bacteria.

From now on the pond, which spans Edgartown and Oak Bluffs and is a popular spot for recreational clammers, will be closed from the start of April until the end of September annually.

The closure does not affect swimmers and boaters.