Daily Archives: January 30, 2021
20 crew members on vessel in Dutch Harbor test positive for COVID-19 in latest seafood industry outbreak
A factory trawler joined a growing list of seafood processors and vessels in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands that have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks recently. Twenty members of the 40-member crew on the factory trawler Araho, owned by the O’Hara Corp., tested positive for the virus, the City of Unalaska said Friday. Upon arrival in Unalaska from Seattle on Wednesday night, a couple of crew members reported symptoms of COVID-19, according to Unalaska city manager Erin Reinders, who said testing began when the vessel arrived. >click to read< 19:46
A cold snap can’t stop him… and sea scallops fear him! I asked, “Do you love it?” And Captain Zach Storer admitted he did love it…
Captain Zach Storer, the skipper of the Jenna Lee, pulled his jacket a bit tighter when I must of reminded him (me all bundled up, shivering a little) how cold it actually was, just prior to snapping the top photo of him… as if he had forgotten… as if he hadn’t realized… as if being cold had been last on his morning list of “things to do,” the man surrounded by heavy-metal fishing gear layered with sea ice. photos, >click to read< 11:02
Southeast Alaska’s 2020-21 commercial Dungeness crab season harvest is the 2nd largest on record
The harvest for Dungeness crab in Southeast Alaska’s commercial fishing season is the second largest on record. The catch from the fall fishery added to one of the few bright spots from last year. A few areas of Southeast’s commercial Dungeness crab season are still open through February but most areas closed at the end of November. The estimate for the fall harvest is 813,000 pounds. That’s down slightly from recent years. But the 2020 summer harvest was so large–at 5.87 million pounds–that it still makes the total season harvest the second largest ever. “What we saw last year was a big harvest, it was a big season poundage wise,”,, The price paid to fishermen was below recent years. >click to read< 10:24
Coronavirus relief: N.J.’s sinking fishing industry nabs $11M life raft from state
Nearly a year after being approved by federal lawmakers, financial relief is being handed out to New Jersey’s battered fishing industry. Gov. Phil Murphy and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday that $11.3 million in grants are being distributed to Garden State fishermen, and the businesses that support them. The relief money was part of the $2 trillion CARES Act which was passed by Congress and signed by former President Donald Trump in March. >click to read< 09:47
Shrimp boat stranded by Hurricane Zeta a headache for all
The smell from the fuel spill on Friday, along with the noise from the clean-up, was annoying to residents who lived on the north side of the canal. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Coast Guard responded to the spill early Friday morning. The residents who live near the docks on a canal off of Old Fort Bayou said they have complained about the shrimp boats in the past to no avail. And that was before Hurricane Zeta left one of Benjamin Nguyen’s boats in one of the neighbor’s yards in October. For Nguyen, the storm killed his business of selling shrimp from the dock. >click to read< 08:44
May Day! Maine man charged with false distress call to Coast Guard
Nathan Libby, of Rockland, is charged with making a false distress call to the Coast Guard on December 3rd, 2020 via VHF-FM radio channel 16. Based on the call, the Coast Guard initiated a search spanning more than five hours, which included the use of a local Coast Guard vessel, a Maine Marine Patrol vessel, and a helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. A criminal complaint was filed on January 27th in the U.S. District Court in Portland against Libby, who faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of the crime. >click to read< 07:45
