Le Menagerie sails off of the anchor
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Le Menagerie Logbook: 05/21/2005: Island Times
Wind: 12-22 SSE, higher gusts / Air Temp: 85 / Water Temp: 83 / Tide: Falling / Skies: Clear / Water: Off Color, Whitecapped /Seas: 2-3'/ Depart: 1300 Arrive: 1900.
Been promising the twins all weekend that we would take them fishing on Menagerie. Of course, that’s an excuse to get in a good sail trip too. Packed an icechest full of supplies and another full of ice for the fish and headed out to the Marina around noon. Winds were picking up. I shortened the tiller about 8” and took care of the crack at the rudder attachment, and moved the camcleat over about 3”, and redrilled it into the cabin top the previous night so the boat was ready to go.
At the marina talked briefly with our friends Jim and Janice who own Island Times, a new 37 Island Packet. Beautiful boat. Yankee cutter rigged with two headstays and in mast furling, all of the bells and whistles. Jim is taking off next Monday for Rio Dulce Belize for the hurricane season, then points south and west, through the big ditch and then up to the Sea of Cortez. He’s not coming back. Jim said his son called last week and told him “you should’ve done this 20 years ago”, he told him “the hell with it….I’m doing it NOW”. He’s 62. Former Huey pilot in Viet Nam, then with the US Geodetic Survey in Central America, he owned land in Panama and just sold it to down pay the Island Times. Said he’ll be making payments until he’s 82, but what the hell, they’re only 70 dollars a month more than his social security check, and it’s all done direct withdrawal. No insurance..... no guts, no glory. I wish him well, and can’t help but let my envy show.
Underway it was a circus just backing out with all of the public boat ramp jokers jockeying to and from the ramp, and after banging Menagerie around somewhat rudely in her slip, I finally got her spun around and headed out of the harbor.
On the outside, we reefed the main, and put out about 35% of the big genny, and were cutting quite a rug; three or four tacks and we were at the Pirates Landing pier, Kelani balled up in a lump on the cockpit seats, screaming and carrying on, a real drama queen, back to the old song and dance about not heeling…..
I missed the line under the causeway, and relined up, drew out a little more genny (the winds are blocked off and light near the bridge), and shot the gap, about halfway through, when all of the sudden, the starboard sheet tore out of the jamb cleat and we had to wrestle canvas for a second to get it back under control. It was a bad time too, because the gap is so narrow, and the tack so tight, and we ended up almost next to the western concrete pilings on the way out to the southern part of the bay. Just a few long tacks on the choppy south side, and we were in the shallow water near the remnants of the old causeway. We dropped the canvas, and I put the hook over, and the girls got ready to fish.
Kelani had quit her histrionics now, and she and Savannah grew intent on fishing. I rigged their rods, and immediately they had bait in the water, eyes glued to their rod tips.
We ate a bit of lunch, and I went below in the shade and passed out on the port settee in the heat, only stirring when I heard the lid of the ice-chest open and a fish flop inside. And then another, and another.
The wind had picked up to about 20 or so, and long fetch whitecaps rolled by. Every now and then big boats plowed close by, and we rolled violently on the anchor. Around 1830 we decided to pick up the hook and head back. I lit only the genny about 65% on a dead downhill run, and we sped toward the causeway channel. We made a single jibe, lined up and cruised through, never missing a beat. On the other side, we jibed again and took it all the way back to marker 17, dolphins accompanying us off the starboard bow. The tide was so low that a large trawler style sportsfisherman was aground on the right side of the channel as we passed the green entrance buoy and stowed the canvas for good. We made the slip about 1900, weaving our way through the dayboaters again. Washed Menagerie down as the girls fished in the marina. They’re a couple of fishing fools those twins.
Been promising the twins all weekend that we would take them fishing on Menagerie. Of course, that’s an excuse to get in a good sail trip too. Packed an icechest full of supplies and another full of ice for the fish and headed out to the Marina around noon. Winds were picking up. I shortened the tiller about 8” and took care of the crack at the rudder attachment, and moved the camcleat over about 3”, and redrilled it into the cabin top the previous night so the boat was ready to go.
At the marina talked briefly with our friends Jim and Janice who own Island Times, a new 37 Island Packet. Beautiful boat. Yankee cutter rigged with two headstays and in mast furling, all of the bells and whistles. Jim is taking off next Monday for Rio Dulce Belize for the hurricane season, then points south and west, through the big ditch and then up to the Sea of Cortez. He’s not coming back. Jim said his son called last week and told him “you should’ve done this 20 years ago”, he told him “the hell with it….I’m doing it NOW”. He’s 62. Former Huey pilot in Viet Nam, then with the US Geodetic Survey in Central America, he owned land in Panama and just sold it to down pay the Island Times. Said he’ll be making payments until he’s 82, but what the hell, they’re only 70 dollars a month more than his social security check, and it’s all done direct withdrawal. No insurance..... no guts, no glory. I wish him well, and can’t help but let my envy show.
Underway it was a circus just backing out with all of the public boat ramp jokers jockeying to and from the ramp, and after banging Menagerie around somewhat rudely in her slip, I finally got her spun around and headed out of the harbor.
On the outside, we reefed the main, and put out about 35% of the big genny, and were cutting quite a rug; three or four tacks and we were at the Pirates Landing pier, Kelani balled up in a lump on the cockpit seats, screaming and carrying on, a real drama queen, back to the old song and dance about not heeling…..
I missed the line under the causeway, and relined up, drew out a little more genny (the winds are blocked off and light near the bridge), and shot the gap, about halfway through, when all of the sudden, the starboard sheet tore out of the jamb cleat and we had to wrestle canvas for a second to get it back under control. It was a bad time too, because the gap is so narrow, and the tack so tight, and we ended up almost next to the western concrete pilings on the way out to the southern part of the bay. Just a few long tacks on the choppy south side, and we were in the shallow water near the remnants of the old causeway. We dropped the canvas, and I put the hook over, and the girls got ready to fish.
Kelani had quit her histrionics now, and she and Savannah grew intent on fishing. I rigged their rods, and immediately they had bait in the water, eyes glued to their rod tips.
We ate a bit of lunch, and I went below in the shade and passed out on the port settee in the heat, only stirring when I heard the lid of the ice-chest open and a fish flop inside. And then another, and another.
The wind had picked up to about 20 or so, and long fetch whitecaps rolled by. Every now and then big boats plowed close by, and we rolled violently on the anchor. Around 1830 we decided to pick up the hook and head back. I lit only the genny about 65% on a dead downhill run, and we sped toward the causeway channel. We made a single jibe, lined up and cruised through, never missing a beat. On the other side, we jibed again and took it all the way back to marker 17, dolphins accompanying us off the starboard bow. The tide was so low that a large trawler style sportsfisherman was aground on the right side of the channel as we passed the green entrance buoy and stowed the canvas for good. We made the slip about 1900, weaving our way through the dayboaters again. Washed Menagerie down as the girls fished in the marina. They’re a couple of fishing fools those twins.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The Aplysia Scam
May is rapidly drawing to an end.
The uncertain winds of the early month have switched to the summer pattern, and soon the jenn-aire effect will be upon the island and its eclectic residents. There is a certain resolve to survive another tourist season, another hurricane season, to slay the torpid days of summer by immersing ones body in the equally torpid waters of the Gulf, cool drink in hand.
It’s the time of the season when a mans fancy turns to….Aplysia.
Aplysia brasiliana, commonly called sea-hare are a critter that shows up right about now, and hangs around till fall, disappearing before the winter temperatures cool the Bay and Gulf. Where they go, nobody knows, and fewer care. Locals call them inkfish, though they are anything but fish. They’re really a snail without a shell, a true sea slug, a gastropod. The brown gelatinous creatures are all over the place this time of year, slowly flapping modified appendages that look like wings, undulating and gliding on top of the water, in a blind and mindless search for seaweed. Poor swimmers, some get caught in the surf, and eventually end up on the beach where they lay in puddles of purple ink, to decay in the hot sun. The ink they produce is harmless to humans, though irritating to other marine life, this substance seems to be their primary defense mechanism. When disturbed or threatened they exude ink profusely, turning the surrounding water, clothes and hands a beautiful, deep purple.
My friend Sara, who has devoted a good deal of her academic career to trying to understand these animals (and again, I’m not sure why) says they aren’t worth a shit to eat. No matter how you fix them. Personally, I couldn’t bring myself to try a mouthful of this gooey, nauseating critter, and I’ve eaten just about everything that swims or grows in the sea. Along that line of thinking, I’d probably never consider eating a jellyfish either, common sense just sometimes prevails.
They do make nice aerial fodder though, especially when lobbed or launched from water ballon slingshots at unsuspecting victims, either in the water or on the beach. They hit with a most satisfying wet splat, exploding in a fine mist of ink that’s pretty awe inspiring. An unprovoked, unexpected Aplysia bomb attack truly strikes terror, and sometimes anger in the uninitiated. Fortunately, the stain is not permanent.
Neurobiologists love Aplysia, because the animal has a giant nerve axon, one easily studied. I imagine that a great deal of our collective understanding of nerve function and disorders has come from studying this lowly organisms responses to the variety of tortures that this branch of biology conjures up, but like the tunicate, it isn’t nearly as glamorous, or controversial as stem cell research, so you’ll probably never see anything about it on CNN or Fox news. Dr. Mengele I presume?
For us, Aplysia have always been a windfall. In a former time, we’d load the old four wheel drive with an ice chest of beer, an empty ice chest, and our surfboards, and head down to the condos on the bay. In the course of a drunken evening, we’d paddle around in the Thompkins channel, collecting Aplysia on the nose of our longboards, periodically transferring them to the empty icechest (now with seawater in it) waiting on the lighted docks. The beer chest would get progressively lighter, and the Aplysia ice chest heavier, till the beer finally ran out and we had a few dozen Aplysia which we’d hurry back to the lab and put on life support, the aerator. The next day we’d call UTMB in Galveston, and they’d immediately send a little white haired faggot down to take our icechest of Aplysia back up to Galveston, and pretty soon, in a week or two, we’d receive a check for a hundred dollars or so. I think we were getting something like two fifty each for the little buggers. Our dedicated field collecting allowed the Dr. Frankenstein types a perpetual fresh stock of innocent critters to run their experiments on. This worked out pretty good for us, and it kept us in beer for a few days, whenever they needed the critters anyway. I never thought much about the Aplysia scam after I left the lab that time though.
Today, I collect Aplysia with nets on the jetties, risking jetty rash from falls on the slippery algae covered granite. I’m a salaried employee now…I make the big money so I’m informed that I can’t make that extra check anymore. This benevolent entity wants to keep me fully locked in indentured servitude. We keep the Aplysia alive here, feed them the amazing Gracilaria that I culture, clean out the tanks whenever too much shit accumulates, and ultimately cull them out and package them up, each individually weighed, bagged with seawater and oxygen and carefully packed in a Styrofoam shipping container, taken to FedEx and given a first class ride to Houston.
Aplysias are big business too, there’s even a place in Florida growing them in vitro just to provide enough for the researchers. There was a scare a couple of years ago when many researchers switched to using laboratory rats, but apparently, they just couldn’t get enough of the ol' Aplysia, and switched back again to their tried and trusty brand. And, the scam has been elevated to a quasi-legitimate bureaucratic undertaking, complete with invoices, requests and accounting sheets, there’s gold in them hills!
But, now someone else makes ten bucks apiece for the bastards, this place makes a cut, and yours truly, the humble narrator of the Eye of the Hurricane gets the big weenie. I guess that’s Karma or some shit. Ah, for the good old days….
And if that isn’t bad enough, the neurobiologists want these animals in a certain size range, and not kept at the lab for anything more than a few days. I’m wondering if maybe they want them with cute little nametags too, maybe tags that say things like “Hi, my name is Admiral Alfred the Aplysia, won’t you be kind to me and feed me just 6.5 grams of either Gracilaria or Ulva a day, keep my quarters clean and free of shit, and promise to pay attention to me?” Just wait till the fucking things start getting scarce. I bet they won’t sing that song then.
The uncertain winds of the early month have switched to the summer pattern, and soon the jenn-aire effect will be upon the island and its eclectic residents. There is a certain resolve to survive another tourist season, another hurricane season, to slay the torpid days of summer by immersing ones body in the equally torpid waters of the Gulf, cool drink in hand.
It’s the time of the season when a mans fancy turns to….Aplysia.
Aplysia brasiliana, commonly called sea-hare are a critter that shows up right about now, and hangs around till fall, disappearing before the winter temperatures cool the Bay and Gulf. Where they go, nobody knows, and fewer care. Locals call them inkfish, though they are anything but fish. They’re really a snail without a shell, a true sea slug, a gastropod. The brown gelatinous creatures are all over the place this time of year, slowly flapping modified appendages that look like wings, undulating and gliding on top of the water, in a blind and mindless search for seaweed. Poor swimmers, some get caught in the surf, and eventually end up on the beach where they lay in puddles of purple ink, to decay in the hot sun. The ink they produce is harmless to humans, though irritating to other marine life, this substance seems to be their primary defense mechanism. When disturbed or threatened they exude ink profusely, turning the surrounding water, clothes and hands a beautiful, deep purple.
My friend Sara, who has devoted a good deal of her academic career to trying to understand these animals (and again, I’m not sure why) says they aren’t worth a shit to eat. No matter how you fix them. Personally, I couldn’t bring myself to try a mouthful of this gooey, nauseating critter, and I’ve eaten just about everything that swims or grows in the sea. Along that line of thinking, I’d probably never consider eating a jellyfish either, common sense just sometimes prevails.
They do make nice aerial fodder though, especially when lobbed or launched from water ballon slingshots at unsuspecting victims, either in the water or on the beach. They hit with a most satisfying wet splat, exploding in a fine mist of ink that’s pretty awe inspiring. An unprovoked, unexpected Aplysia bomb attack truly strikes terror, and sometimes anger in the uninitiated. Fortunately, the stain is not permanent.
Neurobiologists love Aplysia, because the animal has a giant nerve axon, one easily studied. I imagine that a great deal of our collective understanding of nerve function and disorders has come from studying this lowly organisms responses to the variety of tortures that this branch of biology conjures up, but like the tunicate, it isn’t nearly as glamorous, or controversial as stem cell research, so you’ll probably never see anything about it on CNN or Fox news. Dr. Mengele I presume?
For us, Aplysia have always been a windfall. In a former time, we’d load the old four wheel drive with an ice chest of beer, an empty ice chest, and our surfboards, and head down to the condos on the bay. In the course of a drunken evening, we’d paddle around in the Thompkins channel, collecting Aplysia on the nose of our longboards, periodically transferring them to the empty icechest (now with seawater in it) waiting on the lighted docks. The beer chest would get progressively lighter, and the Aplysia ice chest heavier, till the beer finally ran out and we had a few dozen Aplysia which we’d hurry back to the lab and put on life support, the aerator. The next day we’d call UTMB in Galveston, and they’d immediately send a little white haired faggot down to take our icechest of Aplysia back up to Galveston, and pretty soon, in a week or two, we’d receive a check for a hundred dollars or so. I think we were getting something like two fifty each for the little buggers. Our dedicated field collecting allowed the Dr. Frankenstein types a perpetual fresh stock of innocent critters to run their experiments on. This worked out pretty good for us, and it kept us in beer for a few days, whenever they needed the critters anyway. I never thought much about the Aplysia scam after I left the lab that time though.
Today, I collect Aplysia with nets on the jetties, risking jetty rash from falls on the slippery algae covered granite. I’m a salaried employee now…I make the big money so I’m informed that I can’t make that extra check anymore. This benevolent entity wants to keep me fully locked in indentured servitude. We keep the Aplysia alive here, feed them the amazing Gracilaria that I culture, clean out the tanks whenever too much shit accumulates, and ultimately cull them out and package them up, each individually weighed, bagged with seawater and oxygen and carefully packed in a Styrofoam shipping container, taken to FedEx and given a first class ride to Houston.
Aplysias are big business too, there’s even a place in Florida growing them in vitro just to provide enough for the researchers. There was a scare a couple of years ago when many researchers switched to using laboratory rats, but apparently, they just couldn’t get enough of the ol' Aplysia, and switched back again to their tried and trusty brand. And, the scam has been elevated to a quasi-legitimate bureaucratic undertaking, complete with invoices, requests and accounting sheets, there’s gold in them hills!
But, now someone else makes ten bucks apiece for the bastards, this place makes a cut, and yours truly, the humble narrator of the Eye of the Hurricane gets the big weenie. I guess that’s Karma or some shit. Ah, for the good old days….
And if that isn’t bad enough, the neurobiologists want these animals in a certain size range, and not kept at the lab for anything more than a few days. I’m wondering if maybe they want them with cute little nametags too, maybe tags that say things like “Hi, my name is Admiral Alfred the Aplysia, won’t you be kind to me and feed me just 6.5 grams of either Gracilaria or Ulva a day, keep my quarters clean and free of shit, and promise to pay attention to me?” Just wait till the fucking things start getting scarce. I bet they won’t sing that song then.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Three Hundred and Fifty Miles of Line
Pot hauler visible on the right, mid-upper corner behind the "seven by" crab pot. This monster is why I now have to have another joint surgery.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Those Who Came Back, and Those Who Never Did
The winds are blowing out of the southeast today about 25 knots. No sailboats are out, and most of the swell is blown flat. It’s not the day to surf or sail. It’s hot. About 90 degrees hot. I’m trying to tie up a lot of loose ends, so it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m a slave to this fucking computer because in about two weeks I have to go in for a surgery on my left arm, which will leave me more useless than usual, being as I’m left handed. I’ll probably be on sabbatical for the whole month of June.
The knife count to date is two knee surgeries, a surgery to the right elbow, and now one on the left. And probably both wrists before it’s over. In another life, in another line of work we used to joke about this, saying; "right now, somebody is paying me for this, but someday I’m gonna pay for this”.
It appears that someday has come.
Last night I watched “ Deadliest Catch” or some such shit on the Discovery Channel. It’s another reality series, this one about crab fishing in Alaska.
Years ago, after I got out of the Coast Guard I stayed on in Kodiak Alaska, and like many 22 year old kids then I didn’t have a clue about what I wanted to do. In order to make ends meet and bankroll my bad habits I had to make money, and some of my bad habits took lots of money. Since Kodiak is a fishing town, the easiest way to make money is doing something in the industry. Kodiak touts itself as "the town where crab is king".
So first I started working in the canneries during crab season, unloading crab from the holds of the boats that were coming in. Burrowing down through mountains of live King and Tanner (“Snow”) crab, loading them into a never-ending string of two thousand pound buckets to be hauled up into the busy, steaming processing plant where they are summarily killed, gilled, cooked, frozen, boxed and shipped out to eventually find their way south, to grace the tables of consumers rich enough to pay for the delicacy. Boat after boat, day after day was backbreaking and boring work that paid about minimum wage, but that was the place to be in order to get hired on to a crabber. You just had to wait until somebody got killed, hurt, quit or fired.
Crabbing is what most guys wanted to do at the time. It was an opportunity to make real money in short order, hopefully enough to live on for the rest of the year without having to do any real work. Besides, crabbers were cool, they held the top of the dockside food chain, the macho order of the northern lights.
Eventually I got hired on. No, I actually lied my way onboard a big crabber, the Express, a 135 foot vessel skippered by an old ex-coalminer with blacklung named Sam Jackson. Years later after I left the industry I heard that the Express sunk in the Gulf of Alaska just south of Kodiak. So I lied my way into a job, told them I could coil.
Crab pots are big square cages made of welded steel rebar, usually three feet deep and seven feet by seven feet square, covered with netting and weighing seven hundred pounds, unloaded. They rest on the seafloor in about six hundred feet of water waiting for crabs to crawl in for the bait. Hauling the pots off of the bottom is done by passing the poly line through a big round hydraulically powered sheave ( a roller device that funnels, or jambs the line) called a powerblock. The uphauling line then gets coiled on the deck until the pot is landed on the pot launcher, picked, rebaited and ready to launch again. Before the advent of the mechanical coiler (“Kinghauler”) the job was done by a crewman, and it was an artform. The line exits the powerblock at around a fathom (6 feet) per second, and in a smooth rhythmic hand-over-hand motion the coiler lays it into a nice neat pile as the other crew stands by ready to land the pot. It was an artform that some could and some couldn't do, deckhands who could coil were always in demand, and the attrition rate was high. So I lied my way onboard by saying I was proficient at the art. Thankfully, one of the other crewman was a friend of mine, and miraculously, the deck boss was patient once he learned the truth, and amazingly enough, after just a few turns at a half speed block, I had it down. I could coil, and before the trip was over I was as good as any.
Later, I wrote a story about this incident, which got published in the Alaska magazine, my first attempt at writing a short story, my first submission for publication. They paid me something like 350 dollars, and I think it was as ecstatic a moment as when I coiled my first pot at full speed block.
My crab fishing days lasted for three long seasons, seasons that stretched from November through March from Cape Chiniak to far out the Aleutian chain. We worked what seemed like twentyfour-seven days, the only rest to and from the gear, catnaps between endless strings of crab pots. I figure that I coiled something like 350 miles of line all told. It was brutal work, and I think most of us were scared shitless a lot of the time, but we never really knew it because we were always too busy or bone weary to feel it. Even the biggest boats are mere specks in the jaws of the bitter Alaskan waters. One season, eight people I knew never returned from the sea to drink with the rest of us in the bars.
I ended up falling in love with fishing. The sea, the fish and the crustaceans became a powerful drug in my bloodstream. So I fished more than just crab, I fished for shrimp and halibut, become a bonafide floating predator, and eventually skippered my own small halibut boat.
Eventually I left Alaska, bound for my first attempt at college when commercial fishing took a big downturn because of resource depletion, and season wages fell to poverty levels. It was a doldrums that lasted a good many years for the crabbers of Alaska. I eventually got my education, but my heart always remained on the fishing boat deck.
Ultimately, the repetitive motion of coiling, handling pots and fighting a bucking deck probably KO'd the majority of my joints, cartilage and bone. And, this has made several orthopedic surgeons a few dollars off of my insurance, but I can still coil a line and you should see me tackle a mighty garden hose or the anchor line to Le Menagerie.
Three years ago, I had the opportunity to subcontract on a sixty five foot double-rigged shrimper up at Aransas Pass. The boat was specifically rigged to catch and relocate sea turtles as part of a US Army Corps of Engineers dredging project requirement. I accepted the job, though it was difficult to go offshore now that I had a family.
The captain and crew were Hispanic and it didn’t take long for Spanish to become my own dominant language, and I found myself comfortable speaking no English. Besides taking my turn on the deck, I took my turn in the galley cooking breakfasts of migas con huevo and making ceviche from freshly caught cobia. I developed an immediate friendship with all on board. Cliché, but true, there is kinship and commonality among all who go to sea, regardless of where you’re from, where you’ve sailed or fished.
As the on board biologist I quantified and identified bycatch- everything from sharks to starfish, and of course any seaturtles that might get hauled aboard in the specially modified shrimp nets. I worked in twelve hour shifts along with another biologist, which was reminiscent of other commercial fishing I had done, things like shrimp and halibut. I worked the night shift, which was even more reminiscent of my commercial fishing days, working under the glow of the sick yellow halogen deck lights. The only thing missing was the freezing spray and the pitching twenty foot seas. I didn’t miss that part. I even enjoyed handling the nets, pulling the lazy line and shooting the big trawls back into the inky depths. The job evoked a world of emotions and sensations long buried. Sleep was deep and restful against the hum of the diesel engine, the sound of deck machinery and the smell of the salt air. I remembered, for a vague instant another scene, passing through the Shelikof Straights as the sun sank over the western horizon, mountains turning from brown to gold in the last dying remnants of the day and asking the question among ourselves, as we lined the rail watching this passion play unfold, “Why would anyone want to work on the land?”.
The job though was prematurely cut short when the dredge sucked in a Kemps Ridely turtle, and was shut down. I returned home on a bus.
Today, I get my fix of the sea as often as possible aboard Le Menagerie, the drone of deck machinery and diesel replaced by the song of the wind in the sails and rigging, and the sound of the water slipping by the hull. Each time, my soul reaches back from the present and reconnects to something, probably much older than I am. And sometimes when we're out there, and the sun is setting, lighting up the water in the same way, I say a prayer for my friends from the sea, those who came back, and those who never did.
The knife count to date is two knee surgeries, a surgery to the right elbow, and now one on the left. And probably both wrists before it’s over. In another life, in another line of work we used to joke about this, saying; "right now, somebody is paying me for this, but someday I’m gonna pay for this”.
It appears that someday has come.
Last night I watched “ Deadliest Catch” or some such shit on the Discovery Channel. It’s another reality series, this one about crab fishing in Alaska.
Years ago, after I got out of the Coast Guard I stayed on in Kodiak Alaska, and like many 22 year old kids then I didn’t have a clue about what I wanted to do. In order to make ends meet and bankroll my bad habits I had to make money, and some of my bad habits took lots of money. Since Kodiak is a fishing town, the easiest way to make money is doing something in the industry. Kodiak touts itself as "the town where crab is king".
So first I started working in the canneries during crab season, unloading crab from the holds of the boats that were coming in. Burrowing down through mountains of live King and Tanner (“Snow”) crab, loading them into a never-ending string of two thousand pound buckets to be hauled up into the busy, steaming processing plant where they are summarily killed, gilled, cooked, frozen, boxed and shipped out to eventually find their way south, to grace the tables of consumers rich enough to pay for the delicacy. Boat after boat, day after day was backbreaking and boring work that paid about minimum wage, but that was the place to be in order to get hired on to a crabber. You just had to wait until somebody got killed, hurt, quit or fired.
Crabbing is what most guys wanted to do at the time. It was an opportunity to make real money in short order, hopefully enough to live on for the rest of the year without having to do any real work. Besides, crabbers were cool, they held the top of the dockside food chain, the macho order of the northern lights.
Eventually I got hired on. No, I actually lied my way onboard a big crabber, the Express, a 135 foot vessel skippered by an old ex-coalminer with blacklung named Sam Jackson. Years later after I left the industry I heard that the Express sunk in the Gulf of Alaska just south of Kodiak. So I lied my way into a job, told them I could coil.
Crab pots are big square cages made of welded steel rebar, usually three feet deep and seven feet by seven feet square, covered with netting and weighing seven hundred pounds, unloaded. They rest on the seafloor in about six hundred feet of water waiting for crabs to crawl in for the bait. Hauling the pots off of the bottom is done by passing the poly line through a big round hydraulically powered sheave ( a roller device that funnels, or jambs the line) called a powerblock. The uphauling line then gets coiled on the deck until the pot is landed on the pot launcher, picked, rebaited and ready to launch again. Before the advent of the mechanical coiler (“Kinghauler”) the job was done by a crewman, and it was an artform. The line exits the powerblock at around a fathom (6 feet) per second, and in a smooth rhythmic hand-over-hand motion the coiler lays it into a nice neat pile as the other crew stands by ready to land the pot. It was an artform that some could and some couldn't do, deckhands who could coil were always in demand, and the attrition rate was high. So I lied my way onboard by saying I was proficient at the art. Thankfully, one of the other crewman was a friend of mine, and miraculously, the deck boss was patient once he learned the truth, and amazingly enough, after just a few turns at a half speed block, I had it down. I could coil, and before the trip was over I was as good as any.
Later, I wrote a story about this incident, which got published in the Alaska magazine, my first attempt at writing a short story, my first submission for publication. They paid me something like 350 dollars, and I think it was as ecstatic a moment as when I coiled my first pot at full speed block.
My crab fishing days lasted for three long seasons, seasons that stretched from November through March from Cape Chiniak to far out the Aleutian chain. We worked what seemed like twentyfour-seven days, the only rest to and from the gear, catnaps between endless strings of crab pots. I figure that I coiled something like 350 miles of line all told. It was brutal work, and I think most of us were scared shitless a lot of the time, but we never really knew it because we were always too busy or bone weary to feel it. Even the biggest boats are mere specks in the jaws of the bitter Alaskan waters. One season, eight people I knew never returned from the sea to drink with the rest of us in the bars.
I ended up falling in love with fishing. The sea, the fish and the crustaceans became a powerful drug in my bloodstream. So I fished more than just crab, I fished for shrimp and halibut, become a bonafide floating predator, and eventually skippered my own small halibut boat.
Eventually I left Alaska, bound for my first attempt at college when commercial fishing took a big downturn because of resource depletion, and season wages fell to poverty levels. It was a doldrums that lasted a good many years for the crabbers of Alaska. I eventually got my education, but my heart always remained on the fishing boat deck.
Ultimately, the repetitive motion of coiling, handling pots and fighting a bucking deck probably KO'd the majority of my joints, cartilage and bone. And, this has made several orthopedic surgeons a few dollars off of my insurance, but I can still coil a line and you should see me tackle a mighty garden hose or the anchor line to Le Menagerie.
Three years ago, I had the opportunity to subcontract on a sixty five foot double-rigged shrimper up at Aransas Pass. The boat was specifically rigged to catch and relocate sea turtles as part of a US Army Corps of Engineers dredging project requirement. I accepted the job, though it was difficult to go offshore now that I had a family.
The captain and crew were Hispanic and it didn’t take long for Spanish to become my own dominant language, and I found myself comfortable speaking no English. Besides taking my turn on the deck, I took my turn in the galley cooking breakfasts of migas con huevo and making ceviche from freshly caught cobia. I developed an immediate friendship with all on board. Cliché, but true, there is kinship and commonality among all who go to sea, regardless of where you’re from, where you’ve sailed or fished.
As the on board biologist I quantified and identified bycatch- everything from sharks to starfish, and of course any seaturtles that might get hauled aboard in the specially modified shrimp nets. I worked in twelve hour shifts along with another biologist, which was reminiscent of other commercial fishing I had done, things like shrimp and halibut. I worked the night shift, which was even more reminiscent of my commercial fishing days, working under the glow of the sick yellow halogen deck lights. The only thing missing was the freezing spray and the pitching twenty foot seas. I didn’t miss that part. I even enjoyed handling the nets, pulling the lazy line and shooting the big trawls back into the inky depths. The job evoked a world of emotions and sensations long buried. Sleep was deep and restful against the hum of the diesel engine, the sound of deck machinery and the smell of the salt air. I remembered, for a vague instant another scene, passing through the Shelikof Straights as the sun sank over the western horizon, mountains turning from brown to gold in the last dying remnants of the day and asking the question among ourselves, as we lined the rail watching this passion play unfold, “Why would anyone want to work on the land?”.
The job though was prematurely cut short when the dredge sucked in a Kemps Ridely turtle, and was shut down. I returned home on a bus.
Today, I get my fix of the sea as often as possible aboard Le Menagerie, the drone of deck machinery and diesel replaced by the song of the wind in the sails and rigging, and the sound of the water slipping by the hull. Each time, my soul reaches back from the present and reconnects to something, probably much older than I am. And sometimes when we're out there, and the sun is setting, lighting up the water in the same way, I say a prayer for my friends from the sea, those who came back, and those who never did.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Who Polices the Police?
I hope you will take the time to read this carefully before dismissing it as another one of my rants. Since you will not listen to me, let me try and enlighten you to a few things in writing. First, the police are not your friend. By the very nature of the word, "police" indicates a condition where one loses freedom to authority. It is quite easy for that authority to become corrupt and self serving. When the police want your "consent" to search you, it is usually due to the fact that they have no probable cause to do so. It is an open door to government mischief. Whether you have anything to hide or not, giving them consent to "search" you, or your property is a basic violation of the 4th amendment of the US Constitution, which states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Probable cause has a narrow definition, and MUST be legally supported, it is seldom a judgement call on the part of the street police, but rather one decided higher up, by a judge. That's how our system works. By giving them permission without strict adherence to the constitution, we basically give authorization for our constitutional right to be violated. A right that many have fought and died for. This is not cooperation. This is abdication. It has been my long standing belief that this country is heading in two directions, both with the same result, both for the same reason; corruption of the constitution. By not making the constabulary accountable to the constitution, we enable them to set precedent which will eventually come back and haunt us. Remember, we are only a few steps from a gestapo state, and things like 9-11 have hastened that condition. I get outraged when people are ambivalent or mypoic to this. It is up to us as citizens to police the police, police the government, and this is our sacred responsibility it is not an option. By allowing them to corrupt the constitution, your rights and my rights, we pound another nail into the coffin of freedom.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Probable cause has a narrow definition, and MUST be legally supported, it is seldom a judgement call on the part of the street police, but rather one decided higher up, by a judge. That's how our system works. By giving them permission without strict adherence to the constitution, we basically give authorization for our constitutional right to be violated. A right that many have fought and died for. This is not cooperation. This is abdication. It has been my long standing belief that this country is heading in two directions, both with the same result, both for the same reason; corruption of the constitution. By not making the constabulary accountable to the constitution, we enable them to set precedent which will eventually come back and haunt us. Remember, we are only a few steps from a gestapo state, and things like 9-11 have hastened that condition. I get outraged when people are ambivalent or mypoic to this. It is up to us as citizens to police the police, police the government, and this is our sacred responsibility it is not an option. By allowing them to corrupt the constitution, your rights and my rights, we pound another nail into the coffin of freedom.
Monday, May 09, 2005
The Back Roads
I rolled out west on my scooter Friday to visit my dad. He's 86 years old and a source of inspiration to all of us aging pirates. He lives alone, has a girfriend ( he can't get her to play strip cribbage though), and still drives ( but I don't know for how much longer) his big old white caddilac all over McAllen and the surrounding towns.
I got a notion to take the day off, the winds were pretty light, and skies blue and I had the option to sail, but it'd been about a couple of months since I've seen the old man. D was substituting over at the elementary school, and called just as I was getting ready to take off so we met at Manuels for a quick breakfast of chorizo con huevos before I rode, and with a fueled body, I fueled the iron pony, cranked the power on, heading west out the back roads.
The back roads run through towns that pretty much resemble the Rio Grande Valley the way it was when I was a kid. Back in the 1960's there was little urban development, the area was mostly agriculture, and going to the island was an all day experience, once here there was little to do except play in the Gulf of Mexico or fish. Miles of farm fields, brushland and small towns, untouched by progress separated our family home in Mission from the coast. It was an endless expanse of flat two-lane blacktop running east to west, north to south. It's as if the original designers had no concept of anything but the cardinal compass points.
I turn north on Farm Road 1847 just past Bayview, gunning the two wheeler about sixty five, just humming along, all systems go. At FM 106, I turn left (west), and roll along past some of the remaining orchards, some still in blossom, the early morning air heavy with the scent of orange. When I was a kid, learning to drive, it seemed like most of the Valley was orchard, and it was easy to get lost. It was like driving in a maze, and since many of the roads were poorly marked, there were times when I actually was lost, which was OK in those days because gas only cost something like thirty five cents a gallon, and besides, it gave me an excuse to push my grandmothers bald-tired Buick Skylark at insane and unsafe high speeds along the lonely, neverending straight road, always searching for that one different road, the road that led home.
The air begins to turn hot, and then hotter, the farther from the coast I ride. I find myself slowing down for the towns of Rio Hondo on the Arroyo Colorado, Combes and Santa Rosa, all puctuation marks in an otherwise open throttle ride. At the town of Santa Rosa, there's a north joggle where 106 turns into 107. I always wondered what the reason was for this apparent right angle joggle in an otherwise seamless highway. I found out many years ago when taking the first of many geology classes, the professor explained that the surveyors, coming from Cameron County had surveyed FM 107 on magnetic north and the surveyors coming from the opposite direction (Hidalgo County) had surveyed FM 106 on true north, and where they met (Santa Rosa), well....there had to be a compensation for magnetic deviation. I think I would've joggled the roads in less than a ninety degree angle of meeting if I had been the planner. Just a perverse sense of doing something different, maybe show my prodgeny that I really do know more than just the cardinal compass points.
Riding a motorcycle is a sensory experience, as addictive as cocaine or heroin, but driving a car is a mindless job, something best done on internal autopilot. Driving (as opposed to riding) is a brain numbing experience that isolates you from the world, with life as a surreal movie played out in fast forward just on the other side of the windshield. No matter what the commercials try to tell you, the average person usually looks for ways to escape the task at hand when driving in a car, especially in the city. Too often I find myself locked into the jeep, air conditioning on, talk radio jabbering incessantly, the rest of the world blowing by, pretty much unaware that I'm stuck in a steel shell rocketing through an unfelt, unexperienced world with the only sense of travel being the motion of things going by, lost forever just outside the windows.
On the steel horse, experiencing the outside is manditory and without question, you're an integral part of it. Every buffet of the bike in the wind, each gust on your chest, the noise of it in your ears along with the drone of the engine lets you know that you are alive, bound to this world, you are a player in this world, not just traveling through it. At low speeds, the smells and sounds of the world filter through, untouched by glass and air conditioning, some sucked in to the carburetor destined to become the explosion of fuel and air that produces the power that propels you down the road, others sucked into your brain in the explosion of senses that evoke distant or maybe new memories, energy that propels you through life . Just past Santa Rosa, the sugar mill is operating, and I can pretty much taste the sweet odor of sugarcane being processed in the morning air already hot and redolent with the smell of tar and asphalt, blooming wildflowers and native brush which line the searing road, all flashing by in a kaleidoscope of bright color.
I slow down for the towns of Edcouch and Elsa. These towns date back to the early 20th century, when a local gringo developer, Ed Couch named the two nascent cities after he and his wife, Elsa Couch. For many years they were small farm communities north of Weslaco, roughshod composites of little tacquerias and cantinas lining the dusty street, with maybe an auto parts store or a llantaria (tire repair) breaking the monotony of the otherwise unremarkable, flat landscape. From here, the world is truly flat. Today I notice a Pizza Hut, a Stars, a Jack in the Box and a Whataburger all lining the main street of Edcouch. And of course there's the requisite Circle K (Circle Jerk) Wells Fart-go Bank and Auto Zone. Progress marches on.
Nearing McAllen, the traffic begans to mimic any other big town I have ever been in, ever had the misfortune to live in. Consturction, filth and inconsiderate driving, buildings jammed up against buildings, apartments, houses and businesses all within whisper of each other. People living an arms distance from one another, never knowing one another, doors locked, hearts locked. I am claustraphobic, agorophobic, wanting to flee before I finish the task at hand. Why would anyone want to live there? Almost immediately I begin to long for my island, for my stretch of the coast, the endless expanse of wind and wave. I think about just turning the bike around and pointing it east towards the water, where I know we both want to return to, but I complete the journey at my fathers doorstep.
An eternal afternoon spent with the old man, saying adios in the late afternoon heat, sinking into the saddle of my iron pony, once again rolling the throttle on, and with the sun on my back, head east, thankful to be going home.
I got a notion to take the day off, the winds were pretty light, and skies blue and I had the option to sail, but it'd been about a couple of months since I've seen the old man. D was substituting over at the elementary school, and called just as I was getting ready to take off so we met at Manuels for a quick breakfast of chorizo con huevos before I rode, and with a fueled body, I fueled the iron pony, cranked the power on, heading west out the back roads.
The back roads run through towns that pretty much resemble the Rio Grande Valley the way it was when I was a kid. Back in the 1960's there was little urban development, the area was mostly agriculture, and going to the island was an all day experience, once here there was little to do except play in the Gulf of Mexico or fish. Miles of farm fields, brushland and small towns, untouched by progress separated our family home in Mission from the coast. It was an endless expanse of flat two-lane blacktop running east to west, north to south. It's as if the original designers had no concept of anything but the cardinal compass points.
I turn north on Farm Road 1847 just past Bayview, gunning the two wheeler about sixty five, just humming along, all systems go. At FM 106, I turn left (west), and roll along past some of the remaining orchards, some still in blossom, the early morning air heavy with the scent of orange. When I was a kid, learning to drive, it seemed like most of the Valley was orchard, and it was easy to get lost. It was like driving in a maze, and since many of the roads were poorly marked, there were times when I actually was lost, which was OK in those days because gas only cost something like thirty five cents a gallon, and besides, it gave me an excuse to push my grandmothers bald-tired Buick Skylark at insane and unsafe high speeds along the lonely, neverending straight road, always searching for that one different road, the road that led home.
The air begins to turn hot, and then hotter, the farther from the coast I ride. I find myself slowing down for the towns of Rio Hondo on the Arroyo Colorado, Combes and Santa Rosa, all puctuation marks in an otherwise open throttle ride. At the town of Santa Rosa, there's a north joggle where 106 turns into 107. I always wondered what the reason was for this apparent right angle joggle in an otherwise seamless highway. I found out many years ago when taking the first of many geology classes, the professor explained that the surveyors, coming from Cameron County had surveyed FM 107 on magnetic north and the surveyors coming from the opposite direction (Hidalgo County) had surveyed FM 106 on true north, and where they met (Santa Rosa), well....there had to be a compensation for magnetic deviation. I think I would've joggled the roads in less than a ninety degree angle of meeting if I had been the planner. Just a perverse sense of doing something different, maybe show my prodgeny that I really do know more than just the cardinal compass points.
Riding a motorcycle is a sensory experience, as addictive as cocaine or heroin, but driving a car is a mindless job, something best done on internal autopilot. Driving (as opposed to riding) is a brain numbing experience that isolates you from the world, with life as a surreal movie played out in fast forward just on the other side of the windshield. No matter what the commercials try to tell you, the average person usually looks for ways to escape the task at hand when driving in a car, especially in the city. Too often I find myself locked into the jeep, air conditioning on, talk radio jabbering incessantly, the rest of the world blowing by, pretty much unaware that I'm stuck in a steel shell rocketing through an unfelt, unexperienced world with the only sense of travel being the motion of things going by, lost forever just outside the windows.
On the steel horse, experiencing the outside is manditory and without question, you're an integral part of it. Every buffet of the bike in the wind, each gust on your chest, the noise of it in your ears along with the drone of the engine lets you know that you are alive, bound to this world, you are a player in this world, not just traveling through it. At low speeds, the smells and sounds of the world filter through, untouched by glass and air conditioning, some sucked in to the carburetor destined to become the explosion of fuel and air that produces the power that propels you down the road, others sucked into your brain in the explosion of senses that evoke distant or maybe new memories, energy that propels you through life . Just past Santa Rosa, the sugar mill is operating, and I can pretty much taste the sweet odor of sugarcane being processed in the morning air already hot and redolent with the smell of tar and asphalt, blooming wildflowers and native brush which line the searing road, all flashing by in a kaleidoscope of bright color.
I slow down for the towns of Edcouch and Elsa. These towns date back to the early 20th century, when a local gringo developer, Ed Couch named the two nascent cities after he and his wife, Elsa Couch. For many years they were small farm communities north of Weslaco, roughshod composites of little tacquerias and cantinas lining the dusty street, with maybe an auto parts store or a llantaria (tire repair) breaking the monotony of the otherwise unremarkable, flat landscape. From here, the world is truly flat. Today I notice a Pizza Hut, a Stars, a Jack in the Box and a Whataburger all lining the main street of Edcouch. And of course there's the requisite Circle K (Circle Jerk) Wells Fart-go Bank and Auto Zone. Progress marches on.
Nearing McAllen, the traffic begans to mimic any other big town I have ever been in, ever had the misfortune to live in. Consturction, filth and inconsiderate driving, buildings jammed up against buildings, apartments, houses and businesses all within whisper of each other. People living an arms distance from one another, never knowing one another, doors locked, hearts locked. I am claustraphobic, agorophobic, wanting to flee before I finish the task at hand. Why would anyone want to live there? Almost immediately I begin to long for my island, for my stretch of the coast, the endless expanse of wind and wave. I think about just turning the bike around and pointing it east towards the water, where I know we both want to return to, but I complete the journey at my fathers doorstep.
An eternal afternoon spent with the old man, saying adios in the late afternoon heat, sinking into the saddle of my iron pony, once again rolling the throttle on, and with the sun on my back, head east, thankful to be going home.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
The New Sheriff in Town
My friend Ken stopped by this morning to visit. I noticed his white 4WD truck parked at the lab when I got back from turning on the baypump. Ken works for the National Marine Fisheries Service as an agent, and he's the new sheriff in town. We became friends last winter during the Christmas freeze when green sea turtles stranded on the shoreline like so many lawn ornaments, and we ended up having to babysit about 18 of them.
The Corps of Engineers in its infinite wisdom was opearting a dredge at the time in Brazos Santiago Pass, under the rationale that they would do less damage to emergent seagrass beds during the winter. Never mind the fact that our reptile friends are lethargic and much more prone to being sucked up in the dredge intake, to be belched out on the beach along with tons of muddy dredge spoil in a process called "beach replinishment".
Beach replenishment is a scam that the city of South Padre Island came up with along with the Corps of Engineers to deal with the tons of unwanted dredge disposal material, mostly bottom muck and mud. This spoil is always a problem whenever a dredging project is undertaken, and our one pass between the Port and the open Gulf, the Brazos Santiago Pass is no exception. Although the Brazos Santiago is a natural pass, or cut in the island, it requires periodic dredging to maintain an average depth of around 35 feet which allows large vessels access to the Port of Brownsville. So every two years a massive project is undertaken to accomplish this. The City contracts the Corps of Engineers to pump the freshly excavated mud on the beaches in the hope that this will slow the erosion caused by natural and man made process, things like knocking down the primary dune field in order to build condominiums and hotels. They pay the Corps something like a million dollars each time they pump their otherwise unwanted spoil on the beach. I suspect somebody, or a group of somebodies much higher up is profiting from this exercise in futility, but I'll refrain from speculating, or the Eye of the Hurricane and its author could very well disappear from the planet.
For a little while though, the beach appears wider, although much muddier, and I guess the throngs of vacationing winter Texan tourists thoroughly appreciate this effort to save our beach. Because the dredge spoil consists of mostly mud sediments, natural erosion in the form of the longshore current quickly picks it up and carries it northbound to be eventually deposited along the coastal eolian sandplain, replenishing miles and miles of deserted and unspoiled beach, shoreline and inland potrero in a process thoroughly appreciated by vacationing whitetailed deer, coyote, rattlesnake and Santa Gertrudis cattle.
So I met Ken when the dredge rudely deposited a turtle on the beach during that cold period, and he caught wind of it. Of course the dredge operator denied that this happened, but was more than a little embarassed when Ken went to talk with them on the beach, and right then as they were talking, the dredge outlet spewed another fricasseed tortuga verde on the beach. Although caught apparently red handed, the upper echelon of the NMFS failed to successfully prosecute the dredge operator. That's the way it is, one arm of the government rarely polices another. It's all on the wink and nod system.
I know that frustrates the hell out of Ken. Of all of the feds that I've known, he seems to be one of the rare ones who understand the long term consequences of greed. Whether it's overfishing or consumer fraud, Ken goes after them like a bulldog. He's the new sheriff in town.
One of the new sheriffs latest frustrations is with wholesalers who are dumping a species of Atlantic fish that are commonly called redfish. Completely unrelated to our own redfish (red drum), this species of ocean perch is inferior in quality and size to our own native fish, but since one of the vernacular names is redfish, these unscrupulous marketers are selling it under that moniker, at a substantially lower price than true redfish. The restaurants buy it at a lower cost, and sell it to the consumer in the form of "blackened redfish", charging the same price they would if they sold the real thing. The irony is that just about anything tastes good blackened. You could blacken the sole of an old shoe and it'd probably be allright, maybe a little tough though. So although not illegal, it is nevertheless, unscrupulous, and I'm sure if the consumer knew what was going on he'd be pretty pissed. Of course to do anything about it would take a hefty effort on the part of the NMFS legal staff, and they're unwilling to make that effort as long as thing remain status quo. They told him though, if it generated a lot of publicity (the squeeky wheel kind of thing), they might be more inclined to react.
I just talked to the new Sheriff on the phone, and we're going to get together and sit on the back deck of Le Menagerie, drink a few beers, eat some fried chicken and watch people try and trailer their boats after a long day of drinking and fishing on the Laguna Madre. Should be fun. Last time I enjoyed that form of entertainment, somebody ripped the axle off of their trailer when they backed too far down into the water.
The Corps of Engineers in its infinite wisdom was opearting a dredge at the time in Brazos Santiago Pass, under the rationale that they would do less damage to emergent seagrass beds during the winter. Never mind the fact that our reptile friends are lethargic and much more prone to being sucked up in the dredge intake, to be belched out on the beach along with tons of muddy dredge spoil in a process called "beach replinishment".
Beach replenishment is a scam that the city of South Padre Island came up with along with the Corps of Engineers to deal with the tons of unwanted dredge disposal material, mostly bottom muck and mud. This spoil is always a problem whenever a dredging project is undertaken, and our one pass between the Port and the open Gulf, the Brazos Santiago Pass is no exception. Although the Brazos Santiago is a natural pass, or cut in the island, it requires periodic dredging to maintain an average depth of around 35 feet which allows large vessels access to the Port of Brownsville. So every two years a massive project is undertaken to accomplish this. The City contracts the Corps of Engineers to pump the freshly excavated mud on the beaches in the hope that this will slow the erosion caused by natural and man made process, things like knocking down the primary dune field in order to build condominiums and hotels. They pay the Corps something like a million dollars each time they pump their otherwise unwanted spoil on the beach. I suspect somebody, or a group of somebodies much higher up is profiting from this exercise in futility, but I'll refrain from speculating, or the Eye of the Hurricane and its author could very well disappear from the planet.
For a little while though, the beach appears wider, although much muddier, and I guess the throngs of vacationing winter Texan tourists thoroughly appreciate this effort to save our beach. Because the dredge spoil consists of mostly mud sediments, natural erosion in the form of the longshore current quickly picks it up and carries it northbound to be eventually deposited along the coastal eolian sandplain, replenishing miles and miles of deserted and unspoiled beach, shoreline and inland potrero in a process thoroughly appreciated by vacationing whitetailed deer, coyote, rattlesnake and Santa Gertrudis cattle.
So I met Ken when the dredge rudely deposited a turtle on the beach during that cold period, and he caught wind of it. Of course the dredge operator denied that this happened, but was more than a little embarassed when Ken went to talk with them on the beach, and right then as they were talking, the dredge outlet spewed another fricasseed tortuga verde on the beach. Although caught apparently red handed, the upper echelon of the NMFS failed to successfully prosecute the dredge operator. That's the way it is, one arm of the government rarely polices another. It's all on the wink and nod system.
I know that frustrates the hell out of Ken. Of all of the feds that I've known, he seems to be one of the rare ones who understand the long term consequences of greed. Whether it's overfishing or consumer fraud, Ken goes after them like a bulldog. He's the new sheriff in town.
One of the new sheriffs latest frustrations is with wholesalers who are dumping a species of Atlantic fish that are commonly called redfish. Completely unrelated to our own redfish (red drum), this species of ocean perch is inferior in quality and size to our own native fish, but since one of the vernacular names is redfish, these unscrupulous marketers are selling it under that moniker, at a substantially lower price than true redfish. The restaurants buy it at a lower cost, and sell it to the consumer in the form of "blackened redfish", charging the same price they would if they sold the real thing. The irony is that just about anything tastes good blackened. You could blacken the sole of an old shoe and it'd probably be allright, maybe a little tough though. So although not illegal, it is nevertheless, unscrupulous, and I'm sure if the consumer knew what was going on he'd be pretty pissed. Of course to do anything about it would take a hefty effort on the part of the NMFS legal staff, and they're unwilling to make that effort as long as thing remain status quo. They told him though, if it generated a lot of publicity (the squeeky wheel kind of thing), they might be more inclined to react.
I just talked to the new Sheriff on the phone, and we're going to get together and sit on the back deck of Le Menagerie, drink a few beers, eat some fried chicken and watch people try and trailer their boats after a long day of drinking and fishing on the Laguna Madre. Should be fun. Last time I enjoyed that form of entertainment, somebody ripped the axle off of their trailer when they backed too far down into the water.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
He Never Spilled a Drop
OK Littleman, this one's for you.
Back in 1995 I worked at the Lab on special assignment. I lived in an old, leaky 1970's vintage, 35 foot travel trailer about two streets over from the lab in Isla Blanca Park. My trailer mate was my friend Ray.
Ray was from Combes Texas, near Harlingen, about 25 miles away from the island, and we were surfing pals. Through the years we became unconditional friends, and today still are. Ray's married now and in the Border Patrol over in Arizona where he keeps us safe from the tonks.
That summer when a job opportunity at the lab opened up, I saw to it that Ray got a shot at it, and sure enough, DH hired him. I knew then that things were going to be interesting. Real interesting.
It was a summer of madness. I had just suffered the double whammy. My mother died from cancer that prior March, and I had won a vicious court battle with my ex wife and her white trash friends. The winds of change were howling all around me, and I was looking to misbehave badly. So, living on the island seemed like the only thing to do. It's the one place where infantile behavior in the middle aged is not only tolerated, but encouraged.
We flew a pirate flag over the trailer, and manufactured all kinds of mischief. We surfed a lot, fished a lot and drank and smoked our way into oblivion almost every day.
About two or three times a week we'd load up the little Boston Whaler with a mini trawl net and head out to the bay to collect critters for the aquaria. Sometimes we'd catch flounders, and stranger bottom fish like stargazers and toadfish, and sometimes we'd haul interminably heavy bags full of sea urchins, or other bottom treasures like bricks and tires.
We'd usually pack along a couple of single line sampling devices too (fishing rods) and squirrel away a little rum in the ice chest- ice chest (the other ice chest had water and an aerator for live specimens), well hidden under the ice, cokes and limes. The Boston Whaler wouldn't go all that fast in rough water, but when the bay was smooth, the little 25 horse Evindrude would pop the thing up on top, and we'd plane along over the transparent shallow waters at about fifteen or twenty miles an hour, prop throwing a white foamy wake like the head on a good beer.
On almost any given day, we'd shut down in the middle of a school of speckled trout, and cast lures at them, always taking a few back to the trailer for dinner, to be blackened or fried. We rarely bought food. It just wasn't a priority when you could catch enough fish to fill your belly before going uptown to drink until the early morning hours, then catch a little sleep before having to go back to work, beginning the cycle again.
Since the Whaler steered with the outboard engine tiller, Ray would usually stand up on the bow scouting for fish while I blasted the thing along at full throttle. Sometimes scouting for fish involves smelling for them, and Ray was a good bloodhound. Speckled trout feed by gorging, regurgitating their stomach contents to attract more small fish so the whole school can feed, causing slicks that smell like watermelon. So it's either spot the slick, or smell the watermelon smell, and then you know that you're in the neighborhood.
Late one afternoon, we were scooting along, cuba libres in hand looking for a school of fish. Ray spotted a slick off of the port bow and pointed. Without backing off on the throttle, I spun the little boat over on a hard 45 degree turn. At that exact instant, the chine strake caught an errant little wave, and bucked, launching Ray up and over the high side into the water. I countinued making the turn, only instead, I kept going in a 360 to retrieve my friend. I was a bit worried that he might have gotten injured in an incident vaguely reminiscent of a bad Evil Knievel stunt.
So, I was amazed to see Ray standing in water almost up to his eyeballs, drink held high, in a classic Statue of Liberty pose.
I backed off of the trottle and threw the skiff into neutral, coming alongside and Ray handed me his drink, climbing aboard. Glancing into the huge blue plastic cup, I was amazed to see the lime chunk, ice and dark frothy rum and coke, all intact, with no apparent spillage.
Such an impressive act of drink preservation takes courage, talent and the proper concern for priorities.
We set up our drift from there, and as I recall, caught a couple of fat specks for dinner, but the rest is lost in the fog, although I have a lingering impression of a surreal moment, that moment when the entire universe holds its collective breath for just one second, just before the big red ball drops over the western shoreline, and the bay turns from blue to black.
But what I remember most is that he never spilled a drop.
Back in 1995 I worked at the Lab on special assignment. I lived in an old, leaky 1970's vintage, 35 foot travel trailer about two streets over from the lab in Isla Blanca Park. My trailer mate was my friend Ray.
Ray was from Combes Texas, near Harlingen, about 25 miles away from the island, and we were surfing pals. Through the years we became unconditional friends, and today still are. Ray's married now and in the Border Patrol over in Arizona where he keeps us safe from the tonks.
That summer when a job opportunity at the lab opened up, I saw to it that Ray got a shot at it, and sure enough, DH hired him. I knew then that things were going to be interesting. Real interesting.
It was a summer of madness. I had just suffered the double whammy. My mother died from cancer that prior March, and I had won a vicious court battle with my ex wife and her white trash friends. The winds of change were howling all around me, and I was looking to misbehave badly. So, living on the island seemed like the only thing to do. It's the one place where infantile behavior in the middle aged is not only tolerated, but encouraged.
We flew a pirate flag over the trailer, and manufactured all kinds of mischief. We surfed a lot, fished a lot and drank and smoked our way into oblivion almost every day.
About two or three times a week we'd load up the little Boston Whaler with a mini trawl net and head out to the bay to collect critters for the aquaria. Sometimes we'd catch flounders, and stranger bottom fish like stargazers and toadfish, and sometimes we'd haul interminably heavy bags full of sea urchins, or other bottom treasures like bricks and tires.
We'd usually pack along a couple of single line sampling devices too (fishing rods) and squirrel away a little rum in the ice chest- ice chest (the other ice chest had water and an aerator for live specimens), well hidden under the ice, cokes and limes. The Boston Whaler wouldn't go all that fast in rough water, but when the bay was smooth, the little 25 horse Evindrude would pop the thing up on top, and we'd plane along over the transparent shallow waters at about fifteen or twenty miles an hour, prop throwing a white foamy wake like the head on a good beer.
On almost any given day, we'd shut down in the middle of a school of speckled trout, and cast lures at them, always taking a few back to the trailer for dinner, to be blackened or fried. We rarely bought food. It just wasn't a priority when you could catch enough fish to fill your belly before going uptown to drink until the early morning hours, then catch a little sleep before having to go back to work, beginning the cycle again.
Since the Whaler steered with the outboard engine tiller, Ray would usually stand up on the bow scouting for fish while I blasted the thing along at full throttle. Sometimes scouting for fish involves smelling for them, and Ray was a good bloodhound. Speckled trout feed by gorging, regurgitating their stomach contents to attract more small fish so the whole school can feed, causing slicks that smell like watermelon. So it's either spot the slick, or smell the watermelon smell, and then you know that you're in the neighborhood.
Late one afternoon, we were scooting along, cuba libres in hand looking for a school of fish. Ray spotted a slick off of the port bow and pointed. Without backing off on the throttle, I spun the little boat over on a hard 45 degree turn. At that exact instant, the chine strake caught an errant little wave, and bucked, launching Ray up and over the high side into the water. I countinued making the turn, only instead, I kept going in a 360 to retrieve my friend. I was a bit worried that he might have gotten injured in an incident vaguely reminiscent of a bad Evil Knievel stunt.
So, I was amazed to see Ray standing in water almost up to his eyeballs, drink held high, in a classic Statue of Liberty pose.
I backed off of the trottle and threw the skiff into neutral, coming alongside and Ray handed me his drink, climbing aboard. Glancing into the huge blue plastic cup, I was amazed to see the lime chunk, ice and dark frothy rum and coke, all intact, with no apparent spillage.
Such an impressive act of drink preservation takes courage, talent and the proper concern for priorities.
We set up our drift from there, and as I recall, caught a couple of fat specks for dinner, but the rest is lost in the fog, although I have a lingering impression of a surreal moment, that moment when the entire universe holds its collective breath for just one second, just before the big red ball drops over the western shoreline, and the bay turns from blue to black.
But what I remember most is that he never spilled a drop.
Monday, May 02, 2005
The Cussing Man
Early May on the third coast is a strange time of the year. Spring has generically passed, but summer isn't quite fully developed with it's scorching south wind and brain dissolving, crippling sun. In May, the winds don't know whether to blow from the north or from the south, and one day the water is chocolate milkshake brown, the next day, azure blue.
It's a time of the year when people can't quite seem to find their balance. A truncated season of schizophrenia and neurosis. People fight and bicker, usually with little or no reason or purpose. I always want to sail away this time of the year, escape to the coast of Mexico, some place like Papantla or Tuxpan, where nobody knows my name.
Then there are the characters who populate the boulevard like so much flotsam and jetsam tossed up on the beach by the indecisive waves to slowly ripen in the May heat, characters like the cussing man.
The cussing man drifts up and down the street all day long from the Bahia Mar to Isla Blanca Park, a distance of about seven or eight miles, borne along by some unseen current, some internal rhythm. He's always dressed in a pair of blue jeans rolled up to the knee, like knickers, without shoes or a shirt except in inclement weather, when he breaks over and puts on an old faded gray hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head, cinched down , eyes always on the pavement, slowly shuffling along.
Every now and then the cussing man stops at any one of the local businesses, appearing to be another engineered and designed fixture, like maybe a wooden display case or a decrepit lamp poised just behind the legitimate customers, the yuppies and tourists who come here this time of year to escape their own paranoia. Once inside, he rarely says anything at all, but when the medication isn't working, or maybe the moon and tides are in just the right phase, he has an uncontrollable penchant for letting out melodious, unctuous strings of profanity. I guess it's something like tourettes syndrome or some other disorder du jour, but to me, it's an art form. I marvel at a well executed sailors tongue, disorder or not. Sometimes I wonder where the cussing man came from, what his history is, what storm deposited him on our beach.
Sometimes the cussing man hangs out at George and Scarlets Nature Center over by On the Beach, and George and Scarlet being the gentle people they are seem to keep him in check while he's there. They have to because they often have school groups, families and the requisite Red-Eared northerner milling around in the center, viewing their collection of marine life and photos, who might not find his flawless recitation of profanity as interesting as I do. At least I've never heard of any antics that the cussing man has performed there.
Les told me one time the cussing man unleashed and wagged his penis at the female clerk at the Circle K across the street from the Nature Center, and went directly to jail for a little while. Les also tells me he lives on some kind of penchant or disability. He thinks the cussing man just fades into the endless dunes or under a boardwalk when the sun goes down. Les knows a lot about folks. He assembles these facts like bits of madness on cocktail napkins for later reference when he sobers up.
Lately I think I might have contracted tourettes syndrome, or maybe some other cussing disorder. I figure now I can just unleash profane outbursts with impunity, blame them on something beyond my control. I could go up to people who piss me off, people like my jerkoff, exlandlord and say things like: "goddamn sunufabitch muthafucking shitpile dickwad pisssucking ball licking bastard", and just walk away, smirking. I wouldn't follow the cussing man as far as pulling out my own penis and shaking it at anyone though.....
It's a time of the year when people can't quite seem to find their balance. A truncated season of schizophrenia and neurosis. People fight and bicker, usually with little or no reason or purpose. I always want to sail away this time of the year, escape to the coast of Mexico, some place like Papantla or Tuxpan, where nobody knows my name.
Then there are the characters who populate the boulevard like so much flotsam and jetsam tossed up on the beach by the indecisive waves to slowly ripen in the May heat, characters like the cussing man.
The cussing man drifts up and down the street all day long from the Bahia Mar to Isla Blanca Park, a distance of about seven or eight miles, borne along by some unseen current, some internal rhythm. He's always dressed in a pair of blue jeans rolled up to the knee, like knickers, without shoes or a shirt except in inclement weather, when he breaks over and puts on an old faded gray hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head, cinched down , eyes always on the pavement, slowly shuffling along.
Every now and then the cussing man stops at any one of the local businesses, appearing to be another engineered and designed fixture, like maybe a wooden display case or a decrepit lamp poised just behind the legitimate customers, the yuppies and tourists who come here this time of year to escape their own paranoia. Once inside, he rarely says anything at all, but when the medication isn't working, or maybe the moon and tides are in just the right phase, he has an uncontrollable penchant for letting out melodious, unctuous strings of profanity. I guess it's something like tourettes syndrome or some other disorder du jour, but to me, it's an art form. I marvel at a well executed sailors tongue, disorder or not. Sometimes I wonder where the cussing man came from, what his history is, what storm deposited him on our beach.
Sometimes the cussing man hangs out at George and Scarlets Nature Center over by On the Beach, and George and Scarlet being the gentle people they are seem to keep him in check while he's there. They have to because they often have school groups, families and the requisite Red-Eared northerner milling around in the center, viewing their collection of marine life and photos, who might not find his flawless recitation of profanity as interesting as I do. At least I've never heard of any antics that the cussing man has performed there.
Les told me one time the cussing man unleashed and wagged his penis at the female clerk at the Circle K across the street from the Nature Center, and went directly to jail for a little while. Les also tells me he lives on some kind of penchant or disability. He thinks the cussing man just fades into the endless dunes or under a boardwalk when the sun goes down. Les knows a lot about folks. He assembles these facts like bits of madness on cocktail napkins for later reference when he sobers up.
Lately I think I might have contracted tourettes syndrome, or maybe some other cussing disorder. I figure now I can just unleash profane outbursts with impunity, blame them on something beyond my control. I could go up to people who piss me off, people like my jerkoff, exlandlord and say things like: "goddamn sunufabitch muthafucking shitpile dickwad pisssucking ball licking bastard", and just walk away, smirking. I wouldn't follow the cussing man as far as pulling out my own penis and shaking it at anyone though.....
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