Aiming for $500,000, the Martha's Vineyard Sustainable Seafood Collaborative raised $515,000 to bring fish wholesaling back to Menemsha.
Reverend Arlene Bodge of Chilmark Community Church opened the start of the summer boating season with the annual blessing of the fleet ceremony on the Menemsha waterfront.
A vast harbor improvement plan in Menemsha is largely complete after five months of work in the harbor. Chilmark executive secretary Tim Carroll said minor adjustments still need to be made, including replacing of some lightbulbs in bombards, finishing electrical work and securing the water line.
“The seagulls are already dropping lobster and crab claws on the docks,” Mr. Carroll said.
Normally, the Coast Guard is on the lookout for mariners in distress. But on Sunday crew members aboard a 270-foot cutter stationed in Portsmouth, Va. spotted a more welcome sight: two right whales swimming northwest of Menemsha in Vineyard Sound.
The sighting was made at 9 a.m. Sunday.
If you had walked the shoreline of the Vineyard between roughly 1870 and the middle 1930s — especially the muscular, rocky north shore from Lambert’s Cove west to Gay Head — you would have seen something there’s absolutely no sign of today: row after row of wooden stakes stretching up to 100 feet outward from the beach into Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds.
The character of Menemsha is expected to be a topic for debate at a Chilmark special town meeting on Monday, when voters will be asked to approve an extensive new dock and pier system in the historic fishing village.
The meeting begins at 8 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center. Longtime moderator Everett Poole will preside over the two-article warrant.
Harpooned swordfish, once synonymous with the Fourth of July holiday and a staple of the Menemsha fishing fleet, are no longer being caught by Vineyard fishermen.
Though prevalent in local fish markets this season, harpooned swordfish are now all being caught by fishermen from afar.
The reason has to do with a convoluted bureaucracy, an expensive permit system and waning interest in the age-old method of catching fresh swordfish.
