Daily Archives: August 7, 2018
Derelict boat leaving mounting debts in wake
The Artemis, the derelict scalloper whose owner left a trail of woe and unpaid bills around Gloucester’s shoreside businesses, may soon be gone. But its saga could have the shelf life of a Norse legend. The 43-foot, steel-hulled vessel, which spent four months grounded on a Provincetown breakwater after being towed out of Gloucester, is tied up at a Provincetown pier, awaiting demolition. And Provincetown is paying the tab — estimated ultimately to cost about $39,000 — to haul the boat off the breakwater and cut it up. The town, according to local reports, has said it will try to recoup the costs of the salvage (about $30,000) and demolition (about $8,500) from vessel owner John Christiansen. Scott Memhard of Gloucester’s Cape Pond Ice on Monday basically said good luck with that. >click to read<21:40
Abandoned puppies rescued from uninhabited Canadian island
The puppies were spotted by local fishermen JR Cook and his friend, who said they could hear barking coming from the island late in the evening. So the two fishing buddies went back the next day, and saw some movement in the brush. “The fellas could see some dark figures on the island across the water and thought it might be wolves fighting”, she said in a telephone interview. “As they got closer, they realized there were seven abandoned, 3 1/2-month old puppies on the island starving to death”, said Debra Vandekerkhove with Norway House Animal Rescue. The pups have since become known as the “Little Gilligan’s Island Puppies”. They’ve got a Facebook page and a Go Get Funding page if you fancy contributing something to the upkeep of the puppies. >click to read<20:09 
Asleep at the Wheel: Fatigue Led to Capsize of Fishing Ship and $27,200 Fine
Crew fatigue led to the grounding and loss of commercial fishing vessel Jan and its owner, Wild Fish (NZ) Limited, being fined $27,200 following prosecution by Maritime NZ. Maritime NZ Northern Regional Manager, Neil Rowarth, said the sole helmsman at the time of the grounding, a 17-year-old deckhand, fell asleep soon after going on watch in the early hours of 11 January 2016. The helmsman had worked a full day, slept for between only one hour and three-and-a-quarter hours, and was then woken to take his turn on watch. He had never before been on watch by himself at night. >click to read<19:38
Three Coast Guard aircrews transit more than 1,200 miles to medevac man from fishing vessel west of Dutch Harbor
A Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew medevaced a man from the 116-foot commercial fishing vessel Patricia Lee 190 miles west of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, early Tuesday morning. The helicopter crew safely transported the 27-year-old man from the fishing vessel Patricia Lee to awaiting air ambulance personnel in Dutch Harbor for further care. The man was reported to have been in stable condition. District 17 command center watchstanders received a report Monday evening from the fishing vessel’s master that a crewman had been hit in the head by a crab pot. >click to read<18:29
P.E.I. fisherman prepare for fall lobster season
Lee Knox is hoping the forecast for this Thursday’s setting day of relatively light wind of up to 15 knots holds, as it will allow for good conditions for fishermen to unload their traps.,, The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a conference call with port representatives set for this morning to assess setting day weather conditions and make the decision on whether the season opens Thursday, as scheduled, or gets delayed. Knox is anticipating it will get started on time. Approximately 218 western P.E.I. fall fishermen share Lobster Fishing Area 25 in the Northumberland Strait with mainland fishermen from Chatham, N.B., nearly to Amherst, N.S. >click to read<
Ocean Beauty permanently closes Petersburg cannery
Ocean Beauty Seafoods will permanently close the company’s Petersburg cannery. Company president and CEO Mark Palmer said in an Aug. 2 letter to Petersburg borough that Ocean Beauty’s facilities at Excursion Inlet, Cordova and Kodiak provide it with adequate canning capacity to meet customer demand. The processor invested money in its Excursion Inlet plant, about 40 miles west of Juneau and will focus on more fresh and frozen processing. The letter also mentions a multi-year agreement with a floating processor vessel Ocean Fresh. >click to read<14:45
Cape Sable Island fisherman recalls ‘sea monster’ encounter 42 years later
Shag Harbour UFO Festival goers were treated to an eye witness account of a sea creature encounter, experienced by Cape Sable Island fisherman Rodney Ross in July 1976, while fishing with his father on the fishing grounds known as Pollock Shoal. The opening night of the UFO Festival (Aug. 3) was only the third time that Ross has told the story to an audience. He is the last of the five fishermen aboard three different boats that saw the creature during a one-week period 42-years ago. “Some like to call it the South Side sea monster and I think I probably agree it looked like a monster,” said Ross. The story begins on a Monday when a fellow fisherman, the late Eisner Penney, was out fishing on the Pollock Shoal. >click to read<13:18
Commercial Fisherman Plead With State Consultant For License System Overhaul
The young men who work the decks of Hank Lackner’s dragger, Jason & Danielle, spend up to three weeks at a time far over the horizon from their homes in Montauk, toiling in heat and high seas. “My crew just spent 13 days at sea, working 20-hour days—these are true commercial fishermen,” Mr. Lackner told a consultant who has been hired by the state to craft new licensing guidelines at a meeting in Southampton last week. “They spend 200 days a year on my boat, they don’t have a lot of chances to get out. They shouldn’t be eliminated from this process. We don’t want them to go away. We have to figure out a way where the [landings of] trips they worked gets them some kind of credit for being on the boat.” For years, young commercial fishermen have been stalled from setting out on their own by the state’s embargo on issuing “new” licenses, and by inflexible rules for transferring existing licenses from those who are leaving the industry to those trying to get in. >click to read<10:58
New Brunswick officials suspected pesticide use near lobster pens
An email exchange between employees of Northern Harvest Sea Farms and New Brunswick environment officials reveals the tensions at play last summer and fall during sea lice outbreaks in the Bay of Fundy. The documents — obtained by CBC News through a right-to-information request — surround attempts by the salmon aquaculture company to apply pesticides to its salmon cages in Campobello Island’s Head Harbour. Pesticides can be fatal to lobster, and the salmon farm is near lobster-holding facilities maintained by local fishermen. >click to read<10:19
Narragansett Bay – Invasive Asian Crab Outcompeting Young Lobsters
Speculation about the cause of the decline of lobster populations in Narragansett Bay has focused on an increasing number of predatory fish eating young lobsters, warming waters stressing juveniles, and a disease on their shells that is exacerbated by increasing temperatures. A new study by a scientist at the University of North Carolina points to another contributing factor: Asian shore crabs.,,, Adult lobsters live in much deeper water than the shallow intertidal zone inhabited by Asian shore crabs, so the two species seldom interact. But some larval lobsters settle in the intertidal and subtidal zones, which they use as nursery habitat. Prior to the arrival of Asian shore crabs, it was an area that had fewer predators and an abundance of food. But now the young lobsters are finding themselves in competition with the crabs for food and shelter. >click to read<09:25
Four are charged with illegal commercial fishing in Dog Fish Bay.
The state has filed charges against four commercial fishermen accused of illegal harvesting salmon in a bay south of Homer. Alaska Wildlife Troopers wrote in a dispatch Monday that Eric Winslow, 61, Paul Roth, 35, and Mark Roth, 64, all of Homer, and Robert Roth, 39, of Anchor Point, are charged with working together to illegally drive salmon out of a closed area near the mouth of a creek in Dog Fish Bay into an open fishing area, where they harvested them. Altogether, 33,328 pounds of salmon were illegally harvested, according to the dispatch. >click to read<08:42
