New England Bounty
Originally published in HiHeyHello Magazine, Issue 006
It's January, and the sea is seasonably empty. Most creatures have retreated to cocoon in deeper waters, surprisingly warmer than winter shorelines. Onshore, the lighthouse is rendered invisible by sleet. Offshore, a few plucky lobstermen haul deserted traps and smoke Newports on the transom. I tuck my hands into my armpits and curse the cold. As a photographer specializing in underwater scenes, my art is tied to the unique beings that inhabit reefs and wrecks that dot the coast. I am waiting, rather impatiently, for life to return from its hibernation. Some days, I wonder if it will return at all.
Although they lack the publicity of tropical coral reefs or kelp forests, New England’s underwater landscapes are vibrant and worth exploring. Just take three steps into the shallows, and you'll find hermit crabs—right beyond the wavelets lapping the shore, I have seen entire Shakespearean dramas play out in 6 inches of water. They charge each other, scuttle over the tops of onlookers, and back away with claws spread wide. I try to snap their tiny portraits while imagining them shouting "en garde!" while brandishing their daggers.
Going deeper reveals a quiet neighborhood of periwinkles, each doing its best to keep the rocks tidy, mowing down every last bite of algae in their path. They're a bit shy, and if you pick them up, they firmly shut their trap door. But if you cradle them in your palm and softly hum folk songs, their tiny faces will turn up and peer at you. Constellations of starfish dot the seafloor, begging to be wished upon. Green crab bandits scamper over the reef, seeking out mussel beds and eelgrass meadows to pillage. Occasionally, you might even catch a small lobster out for a stroll or quarreling over property rights with neighboring crustaceans.
The bounty of yesterday and the reality of today
When the granite reefs do spring back to life, they will be a shadow of their former glory. Legend says that in 1497, explorer John Cabot reported the North Atlantic was swarming with so many fish that one could catch a bounty by dipping a basket overboard. On the shores of the New World, colonists wrote about inlets with herring packed so tight that you could walk across them.
The decline of the cod has been a tragic tale for the region. Massachusetts Bay Colony was built on the cod fishery during the time of British Pilgrims, who quickly generated wealth thanks to high cod demand in Europe and the West Indies. Due to the species’ role in launching the New World economy, cod is often called “the fish that changed the world.” Today, the namesake of Cape Cod is nearing commercial extinction due to a combination of factors, turning fishing into a nonviable career for most New England residents.
Those that still do fish have gotten too good at their craft. Equipment upgrades, such as ice-machines and fish-sensing radar, combined with competition from international fleets of cod-fishermen, have whittled the population down to a few thousand fish. Despite current catch-limits and no-fishing zones, experts are concerned that the North Atlantic cod stocks may not rebound.
Many of the cod’s underwater contemporaries are destined for the same fate. Fishing practices like bottom trawling have shredded beds of bubblegum coral and soft sponges, demolishing the homes and hunting grounds of deep-sea species. With nowhere to hide in the flattened ocean floor wasteland, young fish are gobbled up faster than they can reproduce. The eggs and larvae of the fish that do make it maturity are often smothered in clouds of mud, dispersed by the trawler’s haphazard teeth.
Overfished populations are unable to replenish themselves, destabilizing the delicate ecosystem of productive seas. Warming and acidification are threatening mollusks like mussels and oysters. Herring, shad, halibut, and cod populations are at all-time lows. The wild Atlantic salmon are disappearing and the lobster are starting to creep away, seeking shelter from warming waters.
Sharing the magic of these waters
In the past, I lived in the more temperate locales of South Africa and San Diego. There, diving became central to my physical and mental health. I was drawn beneath by the curious creatures, anemone gardens and swaying kelp branches. When a series of Covid-era events locked me into a Massachusetts residency, I was determined that I would continue diving. Despite the uncomfortable barriers of freezing temperatures, poor visibility, and prowling great white sharks, diving on the Atlantic Coast holds its own special charm.
On those rare days with great diving conditions, the shallow waters are a saturated vision of immense productivity. I swim over an emerald eelgrass jungle, Irish moss in rich cocoas and chestnuts, and sun-gold sugar kelp. It is a landscape with all of the vibrance of a South Pacific reef. Algae wear an iridescent coat, flashing cerulean sparkles as the current sways the weeds. Rocks are crusted over in determined droves of rose pink and neon yellow cold-water corals.
I hope to capture and share the overlooked beauty beneath our waves when photographing these waters. But I am scared that, one day, I will only have a ghost town to explore.
Often the vibrant, saturated colors are shrouded by a cloak of plankton. Sea shanties for lost souls lurk under rocks and behind boulders. Abandoned fishing gear, overtaken by the Irish moss, feels like a habitat of forgotten memories. The creatures who remain nervously flit from one hiding place to the next. Occasionally, a tautog will peek out of its hole, investigating for only a moment before darting back into the safety of the shadows. Formerly abundant habitats have transformed into an apocalyptic landscape where only the shrewd and skittish survive. An abyss of foreboding has replaced the immensity of life. Pulling myself against the current, I shrink against the emptiness that multiplies around me.
I often dream of swimming through a granite reef, untouched by humans. The highways of fish intersecting, the food chain undulating through the tides. Black bass, bluefish, Acadian redfish. The dance of schooling menhaden, the darts of hungry snappers. These species are still around, although in much fewer numbers than their ancestors. The mouth of the Charles River in Boston Harbor was once home to oysters who grew to be a foot long. Perhaps one day, we may reestablish the former magnitude of oyster reefs. They would help us divers with water clarity and help our fishy friends with the underwater housing crisis that plagues Massachusetts Bay.
Shipwrecks, haunted as they are, continue to tell stories of life. Barnacles still take to the rocks, and occasionally, striped bass pass by in twos and threes. On a warm spring day, when the air is still and the sea is calm, the Atlantic casts a shade of teal over these survivors, revealing treasures to hopeful divers like me. The Atlantic reefs may not be singing, but they are still humming, and that’s all it takes to summon a little periwinkle from its shell.
