Searching for Surf and Safe Passage in the Gulf of Alaska

December 15, 2023 National, North Pacific

Back in March I got a call from adventure photographer James Barkman with news that his skipper Michael Phand from a previous fishing season in Alaska’s Prince Williams Sound just bought a swooning 54’ steel longline salmon seiner called Seaview. Captain Phand was looking for a keen crew of surfers to help bring her across the infamous Gulf of Alaska, a stretch of sea that lay between his home Port in Cordova and his current port in Sitka. Naturally I was interested. The plan was to spend two weeks with our crew of five pushing 1,000 nautical miles North West along the exposed Alaska coastline ducking in and out of coves looking for waves or shelter from storms, all while dodging icebergs, logs, and the occasional other boat. Photos, more, >>click to read<< 10:18

Alaska's Prince Williams Sound, F/V Seaview, freelance writer/photographer, his skipper Michael Phand, in the Gulf of Alaska, James Barkman, Nathan Stephenson, Searching for Surf and Safe Passage

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

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