Not a flake to be seen

We didn't see any snow, not even a flake, but lots of rain - for when it rains in North Carolina - it pours. The wind seems tamer here, not as heavy.  It could be that it doesn't come with a bite below 32*. Today it will warm to 40 and by Tuesday it will be 60. Not bad and since we are trying to avoid the bitterness of winter, I guess we are doing just fine. Maybe next year we will go further south, but that's for summer planning. For this winter we plan to stay here on the Neuse River. We walk every day, spend time reading, writing, visiting with friends and sometimes go out for supper. That's our day in a nutshell. The news around Oriental is all about the only grocery store closing. That would be the WallMart, the small size that was suppose to be the super market for the area. They've been here one year, put the only local grocery store out of business and now they are pulling up stakes, leaving the community scratching their heads and looking for rides to the nearest supermarket which is in Grantsboro about a half hour ride. Like driving to Orleans to buy a loaf of bread. Good old WallMart took the only pharmacy with them as well, after putting the only pharmacy out of business as well.  If you need a prescription filled you drive 20 minutes. Many of the town's elderly are looking for rides. There is no bus service here. This also doesn't bode well for the sailing transients who were able to purchase supplies by walking or biking the mile to the now defunct market. Dave and I have been blessed to have friends like Ellen and Randy who have loaned us their old truck to do the big shopping. We stocked up before we left home so there is plenty in the freezer and in the cabinets. We pick up fresh farmed eggs at the farmers market on Saturdays and purchase milk and a few other essentials at the Inland Water Ways Provisions Co, just feet from the boat. We buy water for drinking and cooking by the gallon, I have a week's supply left so we will have to make a trip to the closest supermarket next week. We will lay in 10 gallons of drinking water and I'll stock up on paper products at that time. I admit it was convenient having Wall Mart close by,  but I swear I'll never set foot in one again. It is my belief that their experiment in the grocery business was a way for them to get some kind of a tax break, or earn points for credit or some other scheme to put more profit in the pockets of the Waltons. They had to have had this planned out to the penny. There's no way that they could just close up after only one year and then say it didn't work out. They didn't even try. So screw them, just like they screwed this community. I'd never been in one before I came here and I don't think I'll ever need anything from them again. So that's my rant for today. Stay out of Wall Mart if you can. I know they are cheaper, but sometimes cheaper isn't better.

I'm glad to be able to use FaceBook.  Keep snapping those pics of Provincetown with snow on the streets, the wind howling a gale. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Miss the people, but not the weather. 

Fair Winds my friends. Stay safe, warm and dry.

I Have a Dream

Brrrrrr. It does get cold in North Carolina. There was frost on the dock this morning, but the sun is out and the temp will rise to almost 50* We can live with that. Our little cabin is warm and dry with just one small electric heater. We had a late breakfast after Dave returned from the 'Bean' - that's the local coffee shop, the only one in town I might add. He's just left to help load ice for the local draggers. They are getting ready to go out. The boats are bigger here, more like New Bedford, but fishermen are the same no matter where you go. They just want to make a living and are struggling to make sense of the rules and regulations. The talk on the dock is about flounder. Seems N. Carolina fish are not as abundant as they once were, just like at home. The politicians, scientists, environmentalist, and fishermen are speaking about what they each believe are the problems. So far I've not heard one solution. It's like Henny-penny running around shouting the sky is falling. She gets everyone worked up and they all believe her, so they are easily led to the cave where the fox who started the rumor, is waiting to eat them all up. So is everyone running around shouting the sky is falling. Yes. Should we all be led to that dark cave, No. Oh ye of little faith.  There is evidence that the fish, their habitat and our oceans are changing. Isn't that what life is all about, change! If we could all just stop pointing fingers, running around in circles, and start working together then maybe we can begin to talk about solutions. How about we start building hatcheries, We did it with lobsters in New England. How about catching wild spat for sea scallops, We did it in Cape Cod Bay. How about for every pound of fish landed one penny is put aside for producing fingerlings. How about letting fishermen do the survey work, after all they are the ones affected, they know where the fish should be. And let's have less finger pointing at the draggers, that's not a solution and frankly they've been fishing the same way for over a hundred years, maybe it's not dragging that is the problem, maybe it's gill nets in the estuaries, maybe it's hooks by the billions, maybe it's the crap that has been dumped in the ocean, and maybe it is greed (those who wish to control all the fish populations), or maybe it's zealots who just want everyone to think the way they do (like some of the environmentalists that I've met). The fishermen I know love the ocean, profoundly. They are the watchdogs. They're the ones who know what's going on out there. We landlubbers, and I include myself in that category, we just listen to Henny-penny running around shouting and try to make sense of it all.
I thought Dave and I could take the winter off, I mean really get away from all the fishing rhetoric, all the notices from NOAA, all the heartbreaking rules that have been foisted on us over the years, but we've found there is no getting away from it. Dave is now talking about getting out of fishing, hanging up his boots. It's time and I think that this winter has helped him see that there is life after fishing. We will always love the fishermen's ways, the boats, the fish, the oceans, but it is so hard to watch some of the senseless things going on, like putting a lock on someones fishhold, letting the fish rot rather that allow the fish to be trucked out of state. There's no common sense left and we're frustrated by it. I have a dream, to see fishermen as the valuable men and women they are. Fair winds, stay safe, warm and dry.

God Bless the dreams of Martin Luther King, Let's hope his spirit lives on and that all men will live as brothers, in peace.

January at the dock in Oriental

January and it's chilly but not freezing. When the sun is out it's down right lovely and it's lovely today. We've had some wonderful visits these past couple of days. Met new friends and old friends here at the dock in Oriental. Yesterday we had five visitors in the foc'sle before 10 AM. Everyone talking about their adventures on the water. It's music to our ears. Jay and Sarah live aboard the Sea Angel and are salty to be sure. They have crewed and cooked aboard schooners, Roseway and others, They have sailed from West Coast through the Panama Canal and up the east coast to Maine and now they are on their own private sailing adventure. Then surprise / surprise we hear someone calling out across the dock, "Hey Dave, It's Brad Pease from Chatham." He and his wife C. Louise Moye (a fine artist) are sailing the Sea Chanty to Florida and hopefully to the Bahamas. We visited their boat. It has that WOW factor, wood, traditional, classic. A real beauty. We had a delightful visit with them first at lunch at the M & M's and then along with Randy & Ellen for BOGO Pizza at Silo's. This place has been terrific to and for us. Our days fly by, we get to visit with great people and most of them are sailors. Dave also gets to talk with the fishermen from the shrimp boats that surround us. This small wharf is a place where if you take out your fish here - you can get your ice and tie up here at no cost. There is a steady coming and going of boats, shrimpers and draggers. When the shrimp season is over, they go for flounder and/ or fluke. When the flounder leave, they change over to sea scallops. Just like it used to be at home in Provincetown.
    In the North east we have the Gulf of Maine closed, sector allocations, days-at-sea, and now the National Marine Fisheries has added a cost to the boat of $710. per day that you go out for ground fish - if an observer goes with you. And you have no choice, you have to take the observer, after you notify big-brother 48 hours in advance of going fishing, they decide if you have to take an observer and if you do, the boat has to pay $710 to NMF to take him/her. For us that means we will never be able to go fishing, we only make about $1000 for the day, then take out expenses (fuel etc) add in the new observer cost and you are left with nothing. If we are lucky we may break even. There is a law suit going on, many many Congressmen and women, senators, scientists, and fishermen have asked that NMFS not put this burden on an already overly regulated industry. All pleas have fallen on deaf ears- thus the law suit. Dave and I both agree that this is another tactic of NMFS to get rid of fishermen and their boats. No small boat owner will survive. The bigger boats will pay, maybe not like it, but they'll cough up the 710 bucks. We are definitely a changing industry, a changing country and a changing world. It's just that I don't particularly like how it is shaping up. I don't even recognize it as the America I grew up in. I've never been very political, but I may have to start shouting, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Remember that line, I keep hearing it said and it worries me. We do need to rethink where we want this country to be in 5 or 10 years. Will only the biggest corporations be allowed to own the water, the land and the businesses? It seems to be where we are heading.
    I'm so glad Dave and I got to take the Richard & Arnold south this year. No freezing lines to deal with, no severe storms causing the boat to be pitched against the wharf and no filling out the daily log books for NMFS. We had to keep our tracking device turned on at all times even though we are not fishing, not even in the northeast. We had to put a new device onboard (cost $3000) because we are considered transiting. Oh and it costs us $69. a month to track us. We're not fishing so we are paying  for absolutely nothing. We'd like to get the federal permits off the boat, but there are so many rules about that, that we're afraid to make a move. We would most likely end up with no permits, no money and no retirement.
    Thanks for letting me vent. Fair winds, stay safe, warm and dry.