i woke up early to jump in the water before it gets too hot. paddled out before 7am and it was already hot! i wanted to catch only a couple of waves and come in but ended catching about 15 waves and stayed out for 2 hours. the waves were going off again and not too many people were out. we are going to get swell after swell for the next 3 weeks so if you want to surf perfect summer waves in perfect weather, now is the time! the endless summer continues!
this is called sea cucumber or Namako in japanese. most local people in hawaii don’t eat it, but lots of japanese and chinese love it. you can find it anywhere on the island. and it’s actually kind of expensive.
a couple of weeks ago, some resident of waimanalo went to go see a fisherman’s catch on the beach. this fisherman came in with hundreds of namako in his boat. the lady took this photo, posted it on social media, and things got heated. it became big news for hawaii. lots of people got angry for this guy taking too much. and if you look at his catch, it is too much.
the problem: hawaii has no fishing laws. oh wait! we do, but nobody educates the fisherman on it. locals don’t know our fishing laws so nobody knows if they’re even being broken. i grew up on this island and fishing laws were never taught in school. and no government organization is educating the public. i find out here and there about it through friends. that’s about it.
this guy took too much namako. but hey, there are other fisherman on the island taking too much of everything. i see it all the time and even if you call the police, there is nothing they can do about it because even they don’t know about the fishing laws. what’s the solution? thank goodness to social media and thank goodness that everybody has iPhone cameras nowadays, the public is finally becoming aware. awareness is the key to protecting our island and resources. i want to thank this concerned resident for taking this photo and posting it. now the whole state of hawaii knows it it wrong. no, the guy didn’t go to jail, but it’s pretty embarrassing to get caught like this on this tiny island. that’s worst than jail. i’m sure all eyes are watching out for him and his boat. this was 2 weeks ago when it was actually legal to take this much namako.
after this, the government scrambled and made a rule effective immediately. thank you Governor Ige. let’s protect our resources before it’s all gone.
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jun 27, 2015
The state Board of Land and Natural Resources unanimously approved an emergency rule Friday to ban sea cucumber harvesting for 120 days in Hawaii’s nearshore waters.
The rule, which Gov. David Ige approved late Friday, is effective immediately. A violation is considered a petty misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail, with criminal fines from $250 to $1,000 and administrative fines from $1,000 to $3,000.
