The Harvest supermoon tetrad eclipse that the world witnessed on Sunday is supposed to be the culmination of three previous eclipses in 2015. Everything that happened since this spring is coming to fruition, apparently.
Whether or not your believe in astrology, that prophesy certainly was true for UnderCurrent Productions! Without knowing it, we scheduled the final production day of our scallop documentary on Sunday, September 27, just hours before the blood moon eclipsed. A fitting end to a project that began in April.
It was also the final day of New Bedford’s Working Waterfront Festival, an amazing display of civic and fishing pride in America’s #1 fishing port. Dan Georgianna, an economist emeritus at UMass-Dartmouth and a member of the Center for Sustainable Fisheries, shared his two cents on why sustainable fishing policies = sustainable fishing communities. As the final interview of our documentary, his perspective was a great summary of everything we’re trying to say in the film.
To top it off, we ran into several of the people who have given us advice or appear in the documentary, from Chris Wright, who has lended his expertise aboard the F/V Huntress to scallop research since the mid-90s; Deirdre Boelke, the New England Fisheries Management Council’s scallop plan coordinator, who was checking out the event with her beautiful family; and Laura Orleans, a New Bedford folklorist and tireless organizer of Working Waterfront events year-round.
One of the highlights of the day was the scallop-shucking competition, in which professional scallopers face off against the clock to shuck 100 scallops. Unbelievably, the average time was 4:30!
It took us about 4:30 to scarf down some fried seafood, while chatting it up with fellow festival-goers. We heard stories of how the city has changed over the years and learned some new Cape Verdean/Portuguese seafood recipes. But what really stuck with us was the way that the fishing industry touches lives, from the dockhands to restaurant staff, to the bankers and insurance brokers… to the filmmakers who try to fit all these puzzle pieces into a portrait of truly sustainable fishing culture.
Now that “it’s a wrap” we are immersing ourselves in the edit with the goal of showing you a little tease by Halloween!
