Experience the Sea without Going to the Sea

by Josh Lew on

The Great Lakes are among the most underrated tourist destinations in the US. Take Lake Superior, for example. Today I walked along the Lake in Duluth, Minnesota and watched gigantic ships come into the harbor. In certain ways, it felt more like the Pacific Northwest than the Midwest.

Of course, there are some aspects of this area that remind you of where you are:
1. Most of the conversations you overhear are about hockey, even though it’s not hockey season for another few months.
2. People here think that the best way to prepare freshly caught fish is to dip it in batter and deep fry it.
3. The guest services people at the hotels often refuse tips, responding to your gesture as if you have just offered them a bribe to help you remove a body from your room.

Other aspects of Duluth and Lake Superior are more sea-like and cosmopolitan. The lakefront area of downtown is filled with cool bars and live music venues. Students from UMD (University of Minnesota Duluth) give this strip a youthful vibe. And then there are the cruises, sea gulls, the port, the brick buildings, and all the other things that you might find in a mid-sized port town on either of the coasts. I’ll have more from this freshwater sea later in the week.

Florida flights delayed due to — catfish on runway.

by Grant Martin on

As Florida gets pounded by rain for the third day straight, the 20 + inches of rain dropped on the sunshine state is starting to starting to have an effect on airport operations.

Flooding and generally soaked conditions near the Melbourne International Airport resulted in a slew of confused animals wandering through the grounds thinking that fields were wetland — two gopher tortoises, four walking catfish, an alligator and a blue indigo snake so far, to be exact.

While doing routine checks at the airport, inspectors discovered the creatures and were forced to delay at least one Delta Airlines inbound aircraft as they cleared the tarmac. According to the airport’s executive director, “The tortoises were moved to the airport’s designated gopher tortoise relocation area [while] the walking catfish and snake were tossed back into a nearby pond. The gator wanted no part of the action and scampered back into a drainage ditch”

Ah, the Gopher Tortoise Relocation Area. Many a heady night have I spent in the GTRA (as we regulars call it), drunk, flipping over Tortoises and playing red rover with the locals. I miss the days of unbridled tortise racing, binge drinking and catfish baseball at the Melbourne Airport — now all we have left is a small relocation area, a crate full of old photos and a vial full of unicorn tears to remember the past.

What strange things have been found on planes?


Snorkeling Maui’s Molokini Crater

by Jeremy Kressmann on

I love to snorkel. Living in New York, it’s not something I get to do very often (East River anyone?) so I jump at the chance to try it any time I’m traveling somewhere more tropical. Hawaii is an especially good spot for snorkeling fans, offering an embarassment of good spots where you can literally walk into the water off the beach and see all kinds of neon-hued fish, giant sea turtles and all sorts of weird-looking coral formations.

Recently I had a chance to check one of Maui’s most famous snorkel spots, Molokini Crater. This tiny crescent-shaped island, just off Maui’s southern coast, is actually the remains of a long extinct volcano. Today, it’s a recognized wildlife sanctuary, home to hundreds of species of marine life, including huge fish, sea urchins, coral, shrimp and all manner of nesting sea birds. Due to the island’s unique crescent shape, it’s largely sheltered from the dangerous ocean currents, making it the ideal place to check out some cool underwater life in a unique setting. Upon entering the water, I was surprised by my surroundings. The water depth is much deeper than I’ve typically found when snorkeling, reaching down almost 40-50 feet. The visibility at Molokini was also fantastic, allowing for great underwater views in all directions. Not to mention I was surrounded by hundreds of triggerfish like the one you see in my picture above. Divers and snorkelers come out to the area fairly regularly, so they’re not afraid to swim right up to you for a closer look. As I swam around, I encountered all manner of sea urchins, angelfish and even an octopus. Definitely on par with some of the best snorkeling I’ve done. I won’t try to claim I was by myself – a large number of boats and snorkelers visit the island each day. However, it was easy enough to swim away from the crowds and find myself all alone with nothing but the sound of me breathing through my snorkel tube.

Since Molokini lies well off Maui’s coast, you’ll need to take a charter cruise to reach it. Depending on what you want, trips can run anywhere from $70-$100, typically including an hour or two of snorkeling, lunch/breakfast and the opportunity to laze around on a sailboat, cocktail in hand. We ended up using Paragon, who charter a small catamaran and had a very friendly staff, though I will say they were a bit casual about confirming our reservation.

And what about all you land lovers? Fear not, you can still check out some cool Hawaiian marine life. Take a visit the Maui Ocean Center, which I hear is fantastic.

Big in Japan: The world’s most expensive tuna fish

by Matthew Firestone on

Are you ready for this one?

Last week in Tokyo, a Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 for a single bluefin tuna.

(In case you’re wondering, that’s somewhere around 6.1 million yen!!)

The record breaking fish, which was caught off the coast of Japan’s northern city of Aomori, tipped the scales at 607 pounds (about $92 per pound of flesh).

The sale took place at the first auction of the year at Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market, which is located in Central Tokyo.

According to market officials, the record price was caused by a sharp decline in world tuna supply due to tighter international controls on the catch for bluefin tuna.

At present, the Japanese eat one quarter of the world’s total supply of tuna fish each year.

As any Japanese person can tell you, tuna are also the centerpiece of the Japanese diet. Whether you’re partial to maguro (?????; tuna) or toro (????; fatty tuna belly), one thing is for certain:

Tuna are delicious.

Of course, this why bluefin tuna will most likely be extinct sometime in the next fifty years.

It’s hard to imagine a fish like tuna becoming extinct, especially since they’ve been so abundant in the world for most of recorded history. However, numbers are falling dramatically, and it’s very unlikely that the population can sustain itself for much longer.

So, are we perhaps the last generation ever to enjoy fresh sushi?

Perhaps.

Approximately one year ago, British scientists issued a report warning that within the next fifty years, there will most likely be nothing left to fish from the sea. According to the report, nearly one-third of historical sea fisheries have already collapsed, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

The scientists, who published their findings in the journal Science, partly attributed the fishery decline to the global increase in the popularity of sushi.

Despite the demand for more tuna, bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not resulting in bigger returns. On the contrary, the global catch of blue fin tuna fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.

Dr. Steve Palumbi, a scientist at Stanford who worked on the project, told the press: “Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood.”

Eeek.

Sadly, it may be to late to save the noble bluefin tuna.

However, existing bluefin tuna stocks are being plundered, with high rates of overfishing being reported by virtually every single country in the European Union.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) sets annual fishing quotas to be followed by all member countries. With that said, conservation groups are cynical of ICCAT, and are partial to calling them the International Commission to Catch All Tuna.

Whether you loved canned tuna and mayo or fresh sashimi with a splash of soy sauce, it’s probably best to just enjoy fish while they’re still around.

** All images sourced from the Wikipedia Commons project **

Greetings from Crete: Diving Like It’s 2999

by Iva Skoch on

If Crete is the first place you will ever dive, chances are you won’t ever do it again…unless you like hanging out underwater, some 60 feet deep and in poor visibility, and seeing about ten fish an hour, that is.

If diving here is any indication of the state of fish in the Mediterranean, we should all be very, very scared. There are, for sure, more fish at an average all-inclusive hotel restaurant buffet table than there are in the water off the northern coast of Crete.

To be fair, we did see a few barracuda and a couple fireworms, but that’s about it. Save your Euros for sightseeing and frappe-drinking instead.