Sam, a professional fiddler, serenades the author on the trip back to the mainland. Photo by Jack Farrell
Spring 2024
By Jack Farrell
Early March, and spring projects have already begun at Star Island, the unofficial capital of the Isles of Shoals. In fact, we’d be out there today chipping concrete for the base of a new crane at the island pier but for the northwest wind, gusting this morning to 45 knots over at the weather station on White Island. Wind, waves and strange weather have been the name of the game this season with at least a half-dozen extreme events so far causing major damage, and raising the collective level of awareness about climate change and an uncertain future for our coast.
The year has also brought lots of rain, and precious little snow. Catboat Bob and Mrs. Crabbie, our expatriate sailor friends now residing close to the North Pole near Quebec, were so frustrated with the warm temperatures and lousy skiing that they came down to the flatlands last week to install some new seat cushions in the Shining Star, hauled out in South Berwick, Maine, for some finishing work that we didn’t have time for the first time around. Bob gets a little grumpy when he comes down out of the hills this time of year, and he was even crankier than usual this visit. Mrs. Crabbie confided to me that the bizarre weather was driving Bob “bats–t crazy.” Perhaps in the nick of time, a foot and a half of wet snow (“the kind that doesn’t just blow away”) fell on the Northeast Kingdom yesterday – the best news a landlocked sailor could hope for in March on the verge of mud season.
With the Shining Star in drydock, we’ve been going out in the island’s 34-foot Calvin Beal, Almeda. Last Friday morning was pretty rough with a six- to eight-foot leftover northeast swell, and the wind backing to the north. The Almeda was built a little bit shallower than the original design, for her first life among the sandbars of Cape Cod. As a consequence, the propeller loses its grip on the water from time to time in a big sea, and the engine sounds for a few seconds like it’s about to give up the struggle. It’s the kind of thing you never really get accustomed to, and it causes a tiny jolt of panic every time it happens.
Once at the dock, the tide was so high that the three remaining feet of stone pier above the water offered little shelter, and the stiff northerly breeze denied any peace, as the boat swayed in and out against the pilings. The lines always need constant adjustment in the changing tide at the stone pier, but that day it was made worse by the wind and resulting surge, until the wind finally dropped a bit after noon. The visit gave me another chance to look at damage from the succession of early season storms. Many of the island’s shoreline features are dramatically altered. There is almost no sand left at the swim beach. Running streams deeply eroded the thin gravel and broken bits of old brick that paved the island roads. Stone retaining walls separating lawn from shoreline lie tumbled about in places, and there is clear evidence of the biggest waves reaching to the edge of the hotel porch.
State governments have applied for federal disaster relief as a result of four separate storm events this year: December 17 and 21, and January 10 and 13. Maine sustained the most damage from these events. To qualify for FEMA funds, events must result in damage to public infrastructure in excess of $20 million. Public infrastructure damage estimates from these four storms exceed $100 million to date in Maine alone, where the state received over 500 reports of serious damage within five days following the January 13 storm.
While much of the recent damage impacted parks and tourist-centered areas (destruction of the pier at Casco Bay’s Eagle Island, roadway, beach and shore facility damage at Acadia National Park, a month-long closure of Reid State Park in Georgetown, flooding of downtown Kennebunkport, damage to historic Portland Head Light and Pemaquid Point Light, etc.), significant damage with the most urgent consequences was done to working waterfront facilities. Among the worst of these was the lobstering village of New Harbor where wharves, fish houses and a recently renovated residence were swept away and left floating in the harbor. The next day’s headline on the local television station said it best: “Storm washes part of Maine community into the water.” Unlike the more fully engineered and heavily built public facilities, private wharves and buildings supporting the fishing industry are more susceptible to high winds, waves and storm surge. Repeated events in close succession combining wind gusts over 60 knots, two- to three-foot storm surges and historically high tides are just too much for many of these facilities. These are the iconic structures that define what we love about the coast – and more importantly, that support the lives of thousands of families – and they are increasingly at risk.
Added to these woes in the fishing community is the uncertainty surrounding the future of the remaining critical fisheries, the most important being the Maine lobster fishery, which dwarfs all others in commercial value. The 2023 lobster landings were the lowest in the last 15 years at 94 million pounds (as opposed to 108 million in 2021). The Commissioner of the Maine Division of Marine Resources, Pat Keliher, says that the drop came as a surprise, and is likely due to warming inshore waters and the overall changing climate. The Gulf of Maine is among the fastest warming water bodies globally. The peak lobster harvest has been moving northeasterly along the coast over the past decades, leaving areas in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and adjacent Maine ports with dwindling harvests, as southern areas bear the brunt of the warming.
In response to the climate threats and other uncertainties, Maine DMR is enacting new gauge size changes that will impact the minimum sizes at which lobsters can be taken. The population of young lobsters is closely monitored as a bellwether indicator of future harvests. The juvenile population has declined by 40% over the last three years, triggering the change in gauge size. For 2025, the minimum size will increase from 3 ¼ inches to 3 5⁄16 inches in an attempt to allow younger lobsters more opportunity to reproduce before being caught. In 2025 the minimum size could increase to 3 3⁄8 inches.
If that were not enough, the heated controversy surrounding lobster gear and threats to endangered Right Whales got even hotter when a dead juvenile female was discovered off Martha’s Vineyard in late January. According to preliminary investigations, NOAA has stated that the whale was entangled in lobster line consistent with that employed in the Maine fishery. Maine lobster fishermen have to date vehemently maintained that their activities pose no threat to the whale species, while federal regulators promote expensive new regulations designed to reduce the possibility of such deadly entanglements. This issue is just one more threat to the life, look and feel of the coast that we love. As for me, I want the whales and the fishermen to win the debate, but I’m not sure how that can happen.
More broadly, we seem to be living in a time when most of what I took for granted as a young man is up for grabs. Approaching 70 years old, I know that I could be merely echoing the conservative inclinations of my grandmother’s generation (born in England in 1898 and an accomplished classical musician, she declared – wrongly – to my dismay at age 66 in 1964 that the Beatles were nothing but a passing phase, soon to be forgotten). But I think it could be more than that. From technology to climate to politics, and even to the boats we sail in, everything is changing fast. Too fast for me.
But last week I rode in from Star Island (where things change with persistent reluctance, it often seems) on the Maine lobster boat Almeda. Along with me was a dear friend of Alex the caretaker – a professional fiddler who has even made her own fiddle. Sam was on the island for a visit, and to work on new songs Alex has written, inspired by her solitary life out there. On the open stern as we pulled away from the pier, Sam played a farewell to her friend, which I could only barely appreciate over the rumble of the engine. When Alex was out of range, Sam moved inside so I could hear her better. The ease with which a seasoned professional navigates her instrument, no matter the setting, was inspiring. When I wound up the engine for the rest of the 10-mile trip, Sam put her fiddle back in its case. We talked about musicians and music above the diesel’s din all the way back to Portsmouth. I’ve been playing my guitar with renewed commitment every day since that trip. Thank you, Sam.
Jack was the manager at Star Island for many years. He currently manages major construction and utility projects there and provides all-season boat service to the island (average 250 trips per year) for luggage, food, employees, supplies and guests. He also runs Seacoast Maritime Charters, LLC providing year-round private charter boat service and marine logistics to the general public, now in the Shining Star. He still enjoys cruising in his classic Ted Hood sloop, Aloft, and teaching skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.
