Mark Alan Lovewell
Some Island beaches are getting plenty of attention.
Over a hundred volunteers gathered on the Oak Bluffs side of the Joseph Sylvia State Beach on Saturday morning to plant beach grass, part of an ongoing effort to stabilize one of the most popular beaches on the Island.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to come back to South Beach and to Chappaquiddick for a large-scale cleanup of leftover World War I and World War II ordnance. Their work will begin April 1, according to Chris Kennedy of The Trustees of Reservations.
A new fishermen’s organization formed on the Island in the last month: the Martha’s Vineyard/Dukes County Fishermen’s Association. The group has arisen at a time when commercial fishing is at its worst, when fewer Vineyards call themselves commercial fishermen than ever before.
Martha’s Vineyard leads the Cape and Islands in bay scallop landings, beating Nantucket. The Vineyard’s commercial and recreational shellfishermen landed over 12,000 bushels this past season, and more are being landed. With three weeks still left in the season, Nantucket shellfishermen have landed 8,000 bushels. This makes the Vineyard the largest producer of wild bay scallops in the world.
The Vineyard may yet be the scene of another big fish film under the eye of Steven Spielberg: the Jaws director’s studio, DreamWorks, has just bought the film rights for a soon to be released book about the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.
The book, The Big One: An Island, an Obsession and the Furious Pursuit of a Great Fish, by David Kinney, published by Atlantic Monthly, will be released on April 8.
The Island’s senior centers offer a lot of programs for the elderly, They also offer a haven from the drama of these difficult times.
A bowl of steamed blue mussels is among the most valued culinary seafood dishes on the Island. Just about every restaurant that serves seafood offers the bivalve. But all of the mussels consumed on the Island comes from afar, nearly all from Canada. But in the years ahead the popular shellfish may be raised and harvested here.