Mark Alan Lovewell
Even when the snow flies and there is a bitter cold blast of wind from the north, when icicles hang from the roofs, Island workshops are busy.
At John Thayer’s Vineyard Haven workshop near the shore of Lagoon Pond, the garage door rattles loudly when a cold easterly breeze blows across the pond. A westerly wind rattles the back door. Mr. Thayer makes custom furniture and cabinetry.
Shenandoah, the graceful 108-foot topsail schooner that has long been a landmark in the Vineyard Haven harbor, is laid up at a Fairhaven shipyard, her majestic hull stripped bare and her ribs exposed as she undergoes extensive work to reverse a botched restoration job performed by a shipyard in Maine last year.
Robert Douglas, who is both captain and owner of the Shenandoah, has sued the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard for the apparently shoddy work that left his schooner taking on seawater last summer while she was filled with school children.
A small but spirited group of fishermen met this week to discuss forming an advocacy organization.
The meeting was held Wednesday at the county administration building; 16 people attended. The idea of forming a formal fishermen’s association comes at a time when federal regulators are clamping down on fishing permits and a new bill has been filed in the state legislature to ban commercial fishing for striped bass.
In November they played leading roles in the regional high school drama The Miracle Worker.
Since then Katharine Clarke and fellow high school student Daniel Cuff have been working miracles of their own in the waters of Sengekontacket Pond.
The two seniors have been immersed in a marine biology water sampling project since last October. They’ve collected more than 30 water samples from beneath the Little Bridge, put the samples under a microscope and documented what they found.
A renewed effort to restrict striped bass to game fish status in Massachusetts is dividing recreational and commercial fishermen.
Legislation was filed on Beacon Hill last month that would ban the commercial sale of wild striped bass in the commonwealth and also place stricter limits on the recreational fishery.
Members and friends of the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association got a flavor of a busy season ahead on Saturday. The club now in its 20th year held their annual afternoon banquet at the Edgartown Whaling Church. More than 100 anglers showed up for the luncheon, to sip soda and eat fried chicken. The event included the delivery of plaques to first place winners of the club’s own summer-long fishing tournament and included the election of officers and a report on plans for the new year.