Nature & Science
Friday, August 3: Mostly sunny. Oak Bluffs harbor is bustling with visitors on the promenade and boats in the water, in the afternoon. Youngsters carry ice cream cones. A steady stream of visitors move slowly off the passenger ferry Island Queen, under a hot, late-afternoon sun. A steady, unwavering southwest breeze in the afternoon cools the landscape, and fills sails offshore.
Sengekontacket Pond will reopen for shellfishing Friday morning following state tests that came back clean, Edgartown shellfish constable Paul Bagnall confirmed.
The pond was closed to shellfishing on July 31 after more than two inches of rain fell, and remained closed this week.
Water testing in the pond was done on Wednesday by the state Division of Marine Fisheries.
Chilmark Pond has been ordered closed to swimming until further notice following a routine water sample taken July 31 that revealed high levels of bacteria.
According to the state Bureau of Environmental Health, the water sample revealed 399 colony forming units (CFU) per 100 milliliters of water of enterococci bacteria. A subsequent sample taken on August 2 showed 2,014 CFU per 100 milliliters of water. The sample taken on August 2 coincided with rainfall, which is known to skew data.
In the winter of 1973 Joe Alves, production director for Jaws, began his quest to find the perfect setting for Amity Island.
From Montauk to Marblehead, Martha’s Vineyard was the place that met Mr. Alves’s criteria.
“Edgartown was so pristine with the white picket fences and white buildings,” he said. “It was a wonderful place to be terrified by a shark. Then when I got to Menemsha it was a great fishing village with all the little shacks. It was absolutely perfect.”
Vineyard filmmaker Bob Nixon can’t escape great white sharks. Fresh from months of shooting the apex predators in the Pacific for a Discovery Channel special, last Tuesday afternoon he again encountered the animal, this time 100 feet off the Menemsha jetty. While the veracity of recent great white sightings on the Vineyard has been the subject of some debate, Mr. Nixon is fairly confident he saw the real deal. On board with him at the time was Dr. Sylvia Earle, one of the world’s preeminent oceanographers.
Fishermen who pursue a variety of important fish on Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine face drastic cuts in catch limits next year because of dwindling groundfish stocks. Cod and yellowtail flounder are in such a dire state that fisheries managers advising the New England Fishery Management Council are calling for catch limit cuts of 70 per cent or higher beginning next May.
Almanac
A comprehensive guide to weather and tides on the Island.
Vineyard Gardener
I guess this past week weather-wise is called a January thaw. We did not really experience it the last several years as December was unseasonably warm.
Farm & Field
Beige and brown and tan and black, with horns spiraled or semicircular or in undulating waves, a legion of goats marched up the hill toward us, bleating in anticipation of fresh grass and leaves.