Special Announcement

Possible Scalloper Strike

There will be a meeting at the Fairgrounds Restaurant tomorrow (Sunday) at 1pm to discuss a possible strike. Please spread the word. I will see you there.

Highliner Scallopers

There are a handful of guys in the scallop fleet who are considered highliners. One of them is Carl Sjolund. He's been commercial bay scalloping for almost 50 years. There is not one inch of both Nantucket Harbor or Madaket Harbor bottom that he hasn't dredged for scallops. He goes out in any kind of weather and gets his limit usually before anyone else in the fleet. Here are a few shots I took of Carl today-






Jack Dooley is another highliner. Jack is 78 and due to his failing eyesight, he has retired from scalloping and sold his boat. He still goes with the guy he sold his boat to every once and a while. Jack caught a lot of scallops in his day. He always has an interesting story for me about the old days of scalloping. Here are a couple pictures I took the other day of Jack-

Nice Morning/Tons of Scallops

'Nother nice morning to be out on the water. The storm we had over the weekend removed the eelgrass exposing tons and tons and tons of scallops on the harbor floor. I got my five bushel limit in an hour and a half. I saw several guys heading in with their limits at 7:30 after starting at the legal time of 6:30 am. I've never seen so many scallops in my life as this year. Everywhere you drop a dredge, it comes up full of scallops. Here are some scenes from today.

Heading out in the pre-dawn hour-


Passing by the Miss China-


Sunrise-


Scallops, scallops and more scallops-

Storm Aftermath/Scallops on Beaches

Spent the day surveying the damage from yesterdays storm. Several boats either sunk or washed up on various beaches around the island.

This 30 foot live-aboard never made it-



These two wrecks were wedged up against the first pier at Monomoy-


The pier leading out to the very end of North Wharf collapsed-



Lionel Starr back in the water after hauling out for the storm-



Easton Street flooded-


Took a ride out to Madaket as well. It was a mess-






During the storm, thousands of bushels of scallops washed ashore in several different locations around the waterfront. I went to Folgers and Hulbert Ave to take pictures. Folgers had the most amount of scallops on the beach. I counted 75 people at Folgers today taking scallops off the beach. There were around 30 people along Hulbert Ave taking the scallops on the beach. I would say that over 90% of the scallops I saw washed up on the beaches today were adults. There were very little, if any, seed.

From Folgers-


This dog was getting in on the action too-


Scenes from Hulbert Ave and the scallops on the beach there-





Sunset over the storm damaged waterfront-

Storm

I shot the above video during the height of the storm this afternoon. The big steel dragger is tied to the end of the Town Pier. She was getting tossed around like a cork. I'm thinking it was blowing at least 70 mph at that point.

Here are a few more pictures I took. Sorry there are not more but it was just too nasty out to take pictures today.

Commercial Scalloping. Day Two

It was another beautiful day out on the water today. Light winds and cool. The scallops were jumping into my boat. Everyone was all smiles catching their limit of scallops in record time. Here are a few shots I grabbed this morning-

Cold sunrise-


Part of the fleet-



Irving and Ted-


Jan Jelleme and mate on a good tow-


One of my dredges full of scallops-


I hit the mother lode today. Scallops everywhere!

Opening Day Of Commercial Scallop Season

Commercial bay scallop season started at 6:30 this morning. It was a nice morning out on the water. Calm wind, sunshine and warm. I took my brother Richard along with me. We got my 5 bushel limit in no time and we were back at the dock unloading at 8:30am.

Here are a few scenes from this morning-