Oyster CSA Wellfleet Restoration Sponsorship, Boston Lobster Tour Discount, Buy an Oyster Share, Antique Style Oysterknife

MOP Sponsors Wellfleet Oyster Restoration

At the Oyster Project's last Board Meeting we were pleased to have Curt Felix of Wellfleet's Waste Water Committee present on the oyster restoration activity in Wellfleet Harbor. While Wellfleet has a healthy and well-known oyster industry, the natural reef is largely gone. This restoration effort at the mouth of Duck Creek consists of placing shell and allowing for the naturally existing spat (young oysters) to settle on it and grow. The MOP Board is particularly excited about this effort as its goal is to create reef and to measure the improvement in water quality. A number of other Cape towns are interested in using oysters for nitrogen removal including Mashpee and Falmouth.

Map of Wellfleet's Duck Creek

Curt explained that the project needed additional funding to buy more sea clam shell to use as cultch. Our $2000 grant will allow the purchase of approximately 6 dump truck loads.MOP will also be sharing some of the oyster shell it  has collected for recycling in 2011.  If you were at the B&G oyster event on Sunday, you met some of our indefatigable volunteers collecting four barrels of shell. That shell will be aged for a year before use at space graciously loaned to us by an East Boston Businessman.

Clam shell in place in Wellfleet

This project is a collaboration among the Town of Wellfleet, the Green Boston Harbor Project out of UMass Boston and Environmental Partners Group.


Buy A Share in an Oyster Harvest

We recently learned of an interesting oyster partnership in Rhode Island -The Walrus and the Carpenter Oysters offer oyster lovers in Providence,  New York and possibly Boston to buy oysters directly from farm in Community Supported Aquaculture.(CSA). Jules and Patch raise less than a million oysters per year in the pristine waters of Ninigret Pond, one of the largest coastal ponds in Charlestown, RI..

Jules and Sean recycled leftover bamboo from the Big Bamboo exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art  to use on their farm.

Big Bamboo 2010

To reach out to this innovative duo email Walrus/Carpenter



Discount on Boston Harbor Lobster Tours

The team at Boston Lobster Tours is offering a $45 discount to friends of the Oyster Project on their $180 Lobster Tour. The trip accommodates up to 6 people for a 75 minute cruise with a Coast Guard certified Captain. In addition to getting out on our beautiful harbor, the Captain will haul up traps and harvest lobsters to be sold for consumption. Seeing the traps pulled up can be a fun eyeopener as they usually contain a multitude of creatures including crabs, starfish, and other fish as well as the lobsters. Children really do enjoy this.

Freshly caught lobsters are said to be better tasting than those that have been kept for some time. When I go on this trip in June, I intend to find out first hand! BTW- The largest population of live lobsters in the US is in Tennessee near the Fed-Ex Hub. (Who wants to eat a lobster from Tennessee?)

To get your discount type in the word "Oyster" when booking the tour on line.




Unique Savanah Oyster-Knife Oozes Old Style Workmanship

MOP just learned of the hand-forged Georgia Oyster Knife is  made from treated, mild steel with a decorative twist that is inspired by Savannah's historic ironwork. The manufacturer claims that the one-piece, steel design with additional bottle-opening bar is the strongest oyster knife ever made. Having a bottle opener built in sure is convenient and it this were from a more Northern clime we would say it is a fine example of Yankee ingenuity.

Here is a fun video showing how they forge the knife.