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.