Unless you look closely, parts of Point Judith could be mistaken for a small-boat port on the Cape.
By Doreen Leggett
Old-time commercial fishermen share many tales of fishing down in New Jersey or Florida, heading to Alaska to make money and coming home to buy a boat. Our personal favorites; coming from away to fish for a month or two, loving it so much they move to the Cape.
Small- boat fishermen from around here still land at other ports to make sure they have the most successful year possible, and captains from ports up and down the seaboard depend on this peninsula’s harbors. This port patchwork helps make the industry strong. This month’s photo gallery explores one important, nearby port that matters to Cape fishermen: Galilee on Point Judith, Rhode Island.
Galilee was known as one of the region’s top lobster ports, and now also brings in an abundance of Jonah crab. The port is also home to other gear types, including gillnets.
A portion of the state-owned port of Galilee, on Point Judith, in Narragansett, is occupied by a vertically-integrated company called Town Dock, which focuses on squid and owns a fleet of draggers.
Galilee is named after the Biblical Galilee. Four of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, Peter, James and John, were fishermen from Galilee. The village is directly across the harbor from Jerusalem.
Last year, the port was responsible for about 70 percent of the state’s fisheries landings, worth about $56 million. For comparison, the ports on the Cape combined landed around $80 million.
The port of Galilee in the 1930s. Providence Journal.
Similar to the Cape,Galilee has been a draw for artists for more than a century. Providence Journal photo, circa 1925.
There is room to store and work on fishing gear at the point and in a lot across the street.
Fishermen catch everything from flounder to fluke to black sea bass.
Point Judith is a harbor of refuge, but the breakwaters constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers have fallen into disrepair and commercial fishermen worry about the future.
During warm summer months, tourists flock to town to buy local seafood, visit state beaches, take the ferry to Block Island and charter boats to go fishing or whale watching. Sound familiar?