Monthly e-Magazine Articles

Lobster lingo

Jul 30, 2025 | Over the Bar

As the months roll by, and we send these “Small Boats Big Ideas” emailed magazines 12 times a year, sometimes coincidence and fate create themes, topics or personalities that (as serendipity would have it) course through the issue.
So it is this month with Homarus Americanus, aka lobsters.
I bandied about a bunch of scientific fish names last month this one included, “homard” being French for lobster, and our Northeast cold-water version the best candidate for the American moniker, big claws and hard shells.

Meet Keith Wilda, the new face of ARC

Jun 25, 2025 | Fish Tales

Keith Wilda was sitting at a butcher block table at Aquaculture Research Corporation, ARC, looking at Chase Garden Creek and a line of upwellers full of clams.
“I’ll be right there,” he said, pointing with a grin, about to begin his next job: “Grading seed.”
Wilda started work before sunrise and recently marked his 100th day at the Cape’s epicenter of shellfish production, which lies hidden among northside Dennis dunes not far from Chapin Beach.

Ways to the water in peril

Jun 25, 2025 | Plumbing the Depths

Known as much for its shifting sands as 66 miles of coastline, Chatham relies on dredging and town officials believed they had permits in hand to do the required work.
“We thought we were approaching the finish line, but we were not,” said Greg Berman, Chatham’s director of natural resources. “We are hitting our heads against the wall.”
Communication delays with regulatory agencies meant they discovered last-minute they weren’t going to get a comprehensive dredging permit. The town barely had time to re-direct essential projects out of the larger permit application.

Phil Michaud and the surprises of squid

Jun 25, 2025 | Aids to Navigation

The audience wasn’t quiet when Lisa Whelan began describing what she made for that night’s Meet the Fleet.
The recipe includes an Asian sweet and spicy sauce, said the owner and chef at Dancing Spoons, to a chorus of “mmms” and “mmhmms,” with wild onions and the leafy green tops of vegetables from her garden. Then came a round of “yums.”
Long-finned squid, also known as Loligo, was the centerpiece and received the most oohs and ahhs of all.

Running in Reverse

Jun 25, 2025 | Charting the Past

It was spring, 1974. Joanne and I had made the decision to try commercial fishing for our livelihood. This meant I had to lay down my clarinet and swap my tuxedo and bow tie for oil gear and fishing boots. It was unquestionably the biggest decision I had made since getting married. That had turned out well (and continues to after fifty- plus years) so we secured a loan and became the new owners of a used, wooden Maine-built 30 – foot fishing boat.
It was a cute little traditional “down-easter”. Not too wide but the cedar-over-oak ex-Chatham Fisherman had nice lines, was white with mast-buff trim. It was powered by a gas truck engine of 150 horsepower, hooked up to a Borg-Warner reduction gear. She could do about 12 knots and seemed to me the best of choices for a cod “longliner” — I was over the moon. The dream was a dream no longer.

Photo Gallery: Volunteers make for a clam-tastic relay

Jun 25, 2025 | A Day in Photos

Wellfleet is famous for oysters, but the town also has an enviable quahog population, due in part to dedicated volunteers who help the shellfish department with their annual “relay” of quahogs from Taunton River. Over the course of several days in May, around 1,200 totes of clams made the trip over the bridge, placed in Wellfleet Harbor. The state runs the program; a multitude of clams are taken from the river, which is off limits to harvesting because of low water quality, purchased by towns to improve their shellfish programs. Clams cleanse themselves over months, spawn the next generation, and then become available for commercial and recreational harvest.