Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/121906
✺✺✺ "This kind of diving hasn't happened here in years and years." Unlike lobsters, scallops, haddock, and the other seafood that have come to define Maine's commercial waterfront, sea urchins were not fished on a large scale in these parts until the late 1980s. Before then, most fishermen regarded these spiny marine invertebrates as nothing more than a nuisance caught in lobster traps. Today they can fetch up to $7 a pound during the holiday season (although the price drops considerably the rest of the year), paid in cold hard cash right at the docks by buyers from Japan, Cambodia, and other parts of the world. "It wasn't until the Japanese tanked their own fishery that they started serially going around the world and fishing down other urchin fisheries," says Trisha DeGraaf of Maine's Department of Marine Resources. "We've been able to hold on to ours, but we haven't had any real signs of recovery." Since the buyers began arriving, Maine's urchin catch has plummeted from 41 million pounds in 1993 to 2.4 million in 2011. In 2009, Whiting and Denny's Bays were closed entirely in an effort to combat this overfishing. Now, after three years of vigilant regulation and monitoring, they have been reopened, leaving DeGraaf and her department holding their breath. F irst light arrives at 5:30 AM, and the boat ramp at Cobscook Bay State Park is a zoo. One after another, trucks back down the gravel and launch their boats into Whiting Bay. "Been here 20 years," says a fisherman after parking his truck. "Never seen it so busy." The surrounding terrain is raw and foreboding. Conifers rise high from the water's rocky edge, and seaweed covers everything. It's a land of bald eagles, ospreys, seals, the occasional black bear, and more than 200 species of bird and other wildlife. The bay's most distinctive feature, however, is its tide. Cobscook, meaning "boiling waters" in the native Maliseet-Passamaquoddy language, joins the Bay of Fundy in one of the highest tidal ranges in the world. Approximately every six hours, 100 billion tonnes of seawater rise and fall in the Bay of Fundy, while further inland at Cobscook this tide is expressed in a powerful current that, the night before the dive, ripped a 40-foot boat from its mooring and ran it onto the rocks some miles away. More pointedly, Cobscook's "boiling waters" make urchin fishing a deadly endeavor that has claimed the lives of several in recent years. After a 10-minute motor from the dock, Leask puts his 40-foot center console, Amber Mist, in neutral and gets ready to fish. He pulls a scuba diving dry suit over two pairs of sweatpants, a T-shirt, and two fleece jackets. The waterproof outfit is a patchwork of black and red neoprene, bound with baseball-like stitches and a zipper that could best be described as industrial. "I made this suit myself," he says proudly, stepping into a pair of thick booties. "Certainly one of my more crafty moments." Leask squirts liquid soap on his hands as a lubricant, then yanks on a pair of three-finger neoprene gloves. Florescent yellow flippers go on his booted feet and a 50-pound weight belt around his waist. He then heaves on an oxygen tank, plugs one of its tubes into a valve on his suit, and turns the nozzle. "This keeps me from sinking straight to the bottom," he says of the air now filling his suit. Finally, he slips on a neoprene hood and a dive mask and bites down on his scuba mouthpiece. With little more than a nod, Leask drops off the starboard side of the boat. The water is around 40 degrees Fahrenheit and the tide is just beginning to run. Urchin divers typically work in teams of two: A diver harvests the urchins, while a helper mans the boat and sorts the catch. Fifty-seven-year-old Clint Richardson is assisting Leask today. Richardson's job is monotonous and backbreaking: Haul up the bag full of urchins, toss down an empty net, sort the catch, and be sure not to run over Leask with the boat. After dragging a bag on board, Richardson dumps 50 pounds of urchins on the sorting table and begins checking for size. A legal urchin can be no smaller than two 106 inches and no larger than three (sans spines). With a measuring tool, Richardson sizes each one, placing the legals in plastic containers and tossing the illegals overboard. "You want to try one?" he asks. This is a green urchin, the only urchin fished for in the Gulf of Maine. It's known in some circles by its ironically long scientific designation, Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis. A close cousin of starfish and sea cucumbers, the green urchin is an echinoderm, which generally means a five-pointed, radially symmetrical marine invertebrate. Its spines are much less sharp than they appear, more pencil tips than thumbtacks, and they reach out, almost inquisitively, to my prodding fingers. Flipping it over, I find the urchin's mouth, known as "Aristotle's lantern," through which it consumes kelp and other algae along with tiny invertebrates such as young mussels. "Here, crack it open with this," Richardson says, handing me a rusty garden hoe. I strike the urchin's soft spot and reveal the reason we are all here: Roe. Eggs. Liquid gold. Brave or curious or downright starving must have been the first person to crack open one of these gnarly, spine-covered suckers and slurp down its gooey innards. The eggs are hazard orange and have the consistency of very fine couscous. As I tip the urchin over, the roe oozes out into my palm. Okay, down the hatch. It tastes savory, coating my palate in buttery richness. There isn't much to chew on—just a gelatinous mouthful of umami. The finish is exceptionally briny, achieving a new level of fishy, even for day-boat sashimi. Think lobster-claw succulence, eel salt, and oyster mouthfeel, with just a I strike the urchin's soft spot and reveal the reason we are all here: Roe. Eggs. Liquid gold. A legal urchin can be no smaller than two inches and no larger than three (sans spines). BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 104-109_BC_F_Uni_LateSpring13.indd 106 4/10/13 11:43 AM