JANUARY 2012

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Key West

Quantum Key West 2012: Sailboat racing runs daily in the waters off Key West from Jan. 16-20. Pictured are Farr 40s, which last competed in Quantum in 2010. They are returning this year in the international grand prix class after a 1-year hiatus due to their world championship in Australia.
More information is available at www.premiere-racing.com .

Group wants to put discharged vets
to work on cleanup boats
         DOUGLAS JORDAN l For Waterfront Times
         Rudy Socha has two passions: protecting the marine environment and helping veterans. As CEO of the newly formed non-profit group Wounded Nature - Working Veterans, Socha is hoping to serve both with a fleet of cleanup boats manned by recently discharged veterans.
         “These are two issues that are close to my heart,” Socha said. “As our name suggests, nature is wounded, and we want to help. And when people get out of the military, they often find it hard to get civilian work right away. So, we’re providing that.”
         But first the group, which is based in Charleston, S.C., has to raise funds to build five houseboats — one for each branch of the military — envisioned for the  project. Efforts are currently underway to raise funds for the first boat honoring the United States Coast Guard, which will be used to clean East Coast shoreline areas.
         The houseboats will move up and down the East Coast, attending port festivals, visiting military bases and cleaning beaches. Each vessel will have its own sponsor and be branded by that sponsor in addition to having markings that show the military branch the houseboat represents.
Employing vets
         Wounded Nature plans to hire vets for a period of 120 days. In that time, they will work on one of the boats doing coastal cleanups and providing public education about environmental issues. Socha said the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will help with screening and placement.
         “We want to give them their first job out of the military,” he said. “It’s a way of saying thank you, and a way of helping them readjust to civilian life, as well as providing nature with some much-needed help.”
         Though vets will work full-time for the four months they are employed with Wounded Nature, it’s more than temporary employment, Socha said. He declined to say how much they will earn, but said it would be enough to support a family.
         “We want to put them to work right away, and we'll give them a lot of marketable experience — not just in cleanup, but in education, public relations and management. Hopefully, by the end of their employment with us, they'll have lined up permanent jobs.”
Cleaning house:
         As Walter Brooke's character said in the 1967 film, “The Graduate,” it all started with one word: plastics.
         “The idea of using houseboats came after I realized that the number of rescued birds, sea turtles, and sea mammals that had ingested plastic items had increased dramatically,” Socha said. “We investigated why it was occurring and discovered that none of the cleanup non-profits wanted to work on the rural beaches and estuaries because of the travel time to and from each cleanup location. Our houseboats can be stationed immediately offshore or beached right at the cleanup area.”
Socha, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War era, wanted to do something to help vets, too.
“A lot of employers have some misconceptions about recently discharged veterans,” he said. “They think they’re all just trained killers, or are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. The fact is, most, if not all, people who serve in the military learn many skills that are very well suited to civilian employment.”
David Neblett is a Miami-based maritime law attorney who serves as chairman of the Florida fundraising efforts. He will be approaching marinas, yacht clubs, boat dealers, fishing clubs, marine equipment companies, and some private individuals to help launch the Coast Guard boat in the coming months.
         “The response has been fantastic so far,” Neblett said. “Everybody I’ve talked to said this is a great idea, and they’re excited to get involved.”
         Already, Neblett said, some heavy hitters have expressed interest or support, including corporations such as Pepsi and Google. He said Florida is a key state because of its vast coastline and the huge number of recreational boat owners who live here.
         “We're building this thing from scratch, and it’s moving along quite well,” Neblett said. “Everybody agrees it’s a real ‘feel-good’ project. But obviously, it needs a lot of help.”
Socha said everybody who participates in the national campaign will receive “Team Coast Guard” stickers for their boats or cars. Individuals donating $2,500 will receive a bronze appreciation plaque, and for $5,000 they get a gold level plaque, and they receive a platinum level plaque for $10,000. All 2012 donations will be used to fund the houseboat, Victory Vessel, honoring the Coast Guard.

Up close:          For more information visit www.woundednature.org .          WoundedNature.org is an IRS approved non-profit charity serving to clean up the environment employing veterans reentering the civilian workforce.          Wounded Nature raises money through donations, memberships, sponsorships, and grants. The organization has minimum overhead and funds raised annually go directly to fund the mission and operation of Wounded Nature, and the houseboats.          The houseboats will be affiliated with a number of non-profit and for-profit entities to generate additional publicity and exposure for their supporters.          Wounded Nature’s homeport for the houseboats is Charleston, S.C.          The houseboats will move up the East Coast during the summer and work in the southern coastal areas during the winter months. As the ship moves north it will be docked at the closest large port each month as employees return home for their days off. In general, the organization's employees will work for 20 straight days and have 10 days off each month. Workers will be bused or flown between their homeport and the ship’s current work location.

Archaeologists land world’s oldest fish hook
         ZOE CORBYN l The New York Times Syndicate
         The world’s oldest fishhook has been unearthed at a site in East Timor, alongside evidence that modern humans were catching fish from the open ocean as far back as 42,000 years ago.
         The discoveries, from a limestone cave site known as the Jerimalai shelter on the north of the island, are published in “Science.”
         Sue O’Connor, an archaeologist at the Australian National University in Canberra, and her colleagues found two broken fish hooks made from shells. They dated one to approximately 11,000 years old and the other to between 23,000 and 16,000 years old – the earliest known example of fish-hook manufacture.
         The oldest previously known fishhooks are associated with the beginnings of agriculture, which in South East Asia was around 5,500 years ago, says O’Connor.
         The team also found more than 38,000 fish bones at the site, dating the oldest back to 42,000 years ago. Some were from inshore species, but almost half were from “pelagic species” – fish that dwell in the open ocean, providing the oldest known evidence of humans fishing far from shore. The most commonly found pelagic species at the site were tuna, but there was also evidence of humans eating sharks and rays, among others.
         “That these types of fish were being routinely caught 40,000 years ago is extraordinary,” says O’Connor. “It requires complex technology and shows that early modern humans in island South East Asia had amazingly advanced maritime skills.”
Angling for survival
         How the pelagic fish were caught isn’t known, but the researchers speculate that it was done from boats or rafts using either nets or fiber lines with hooks. The particular hooks discovered by O’Connor and her colleagues don’t seem suitable for pelagic fishing, she says, but other types may have been made. Tuna swim too fast for spearfishing to have been successful, she says.
         That offshore fishing took place is “perhaps not that surprising” given that humans are known to have been capable of seafaring at that time, notes Christopher Henshilwood, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.
         In fact, people are thought to have first arrived on the island of Australia 50,000 years ago. But O’Connor’s find does provide direct evidence for advanced fishing equipment, methods and forward planning.
         Fishing skills would have helped early modern humans to cross the ocean to Australia by allowing them to efficiently exploit coastlines and survive on the open sea, says O’Connor.
         Far older fish bones have been found at sites in southern Africa – those at the Blombos Cave in South Africa, for example, date from 40,000-50,000 years ago – but they have generally been from inshore species whose capture would require less complex technology. A small number of tuna vertebrae have been found, but these can be attributed to  the scavenging of fish washed up on beaches, says Richard Klein, an archaeologist at Stanford University in California, who has worked extensively in the region.
         The oldest known fishing tackle from the vicinity dates from around 12,000 years ago, but it includes only bone gorges (straight hooks) and net sinkers, probably used exclusively inshore, he adds.
         O’Connor thinks that coastal sites that could have provided more evidence of early maritime technology in Africa may have disappeared owing to a rise in sea levels over time. The Jerimalai site – which was preserved because it perches high up on the edge of an geologically uplifting coastline – provides a “window into what early modern humans were capable of,” she says.