I'm so happy that you are coming to Orleans to go fishing with me! We will be continuing a tradition, and in preparation, I've been checking the tides. The first morning you are here, we should plan to be at Strong Island by dawn when the ebb starts. I'll take my fly rod and you can use a popping plug, or a buck tail and pork rind. I no longer like to fish with eels unless desperate to get a keeper.

When the sun is up, we'll be hungry and can go home for breakfast --- unless of course the fish are biting!

Later in the day, when the tide is well out, we'll go back, take a few casts off Namequoit Point, and drift along the eel grass beds between Hog Island Flat and Portanimicut. If the sun is shining, we can see the channels well, and perhaps we'll be able to watch the fish come up on the flats if we're quiet and there aren't any other boats around. We'll go down Little Crooked Channel, fish the rocks at that place my grandfather called the Bass Hole, and then drift along back of the house with the cupola.

Bass or bluefish for the table will be our goal. I do hope we'll have something to skiver for dinner! If we get skunked in Little Bay, we'll try the Narrows, take a cast or two close to Rooster Rock, in the rip at the end of Dogfish Bar, and by the spot off the old air base. We also have that stretch from Minister's Point to the harbor mouth. We might even get a fluke, although they've been scarce since South Island became South Beach four or five years ago.

Speaking of islands becoming beaches, you've been fishing in Pleasant Bay long enough to see a lot in the recent changes. Think back to the stories my grandfather told. His dad, Captain Samuel Mayo, was able to sail his 60-foot mackerel schooner, the Corporal Trim, into Chatham Harbor, which was then just east of Strong Island, then tack or reach through Little Bay and up the river to Barley Neck. In those days, Pochet Island was a real island. In a small boat, you could sail, as my grandfather did, from Pleasant Bay to Nauset Harbor behind, or as it was said, inside Nauset Beach.

There was very little fishing for pleasure back then. The Cape as well as the rest of the country was in an economic depression, and the Mayos had to work long hours just to scratch out a living.

Once though, my grandfather said, he caught "a mess of blues" while trolling behind his skiff in Frostfish Cove. Yes, I admit I was skeptical about this location too, since now it's a very shallow place where you'd expect nothing more than snappers or blue claws, but Richard Brown told me about a school of blues that followed the pogies right up into Lonnie's Pond, then couldn't find their way out. It makes the story about my grandfather's experience more believable.

Most of his fishing was not for fun at all, though, since he spent most of his time clamming with his father, Captain Sam. That was hard work. Imagine, day after day, walking to the shore at Jack Knife Point while pushing your heavy gear in a wheelbarrow, then loading the skiff and rowing down to the flats. They'd have the tide with them coming and going, but they were bound to have a head wind in one direction or the other. The two of them would pull at those heavy oars, past Old Field Point, Namequoit Point, Money Head --- out to the clamming grounds back of the outer beach. Then it was dig, dig, dig until the tide turned, and then they rowed home to pack the clams and ship them off to market.

It's a good thing they were both short men: It meant they didn't have to bend so far! But the work was still wet, muddy, and cold.

The bay has changed a lot in 150 years, and so too the fishing. It keeps on changing. You remember when you were a little boy how plentiful the flounder used to be? There were so many all I had time to do was give you and your sister lines with spreaders, and bait the hooks with worms. The two of you no sooner dipped your lines in and you were yelling that you had a fish! Now flounder are scarce.

For a long period there were no bluefish either, until one day Jessie Sargent looked out, saw fish breaking, and went to find out what they were: That marked the return of the blues to Pleasant Bay! When the blight of the 1930s killed off the eel grass, the brant, bass and shellfish took an awful hit too.

The issues now are excess nitrogen, wake damage, fuel and noise pollution. Some blame the scarcity of fish on too many cormorants and seals. The ecology of the bay is a delicate balance, a microcosm of the problems that confront our planet. Any change may have effects we cannot always predict. If we hope to preserve Pleasant Bay for your children and grandchildren we'll have to strive to make sure the changes are in the best interest of this beloved, but fragile estuary.

On this sober and reflective note, I'll tuck this in the mail. Bring your foul weather gear, but don't worry about waders: Yours are hanging in the barn. It's not like the Front Range, but it is where your ancestors settled, and where you too are deeply rooted. Have a safe flight.

Love, Dad
( Dr. Mayo Johnson)

Let me tell you of my jewels, of my proud possessions, of what they are and where they are.

My jewels are close at hand, just over the hill from my home, in Pleasant Bay.

Have you ever seen the blue of the bay on a sharp, clear winter day? That color is as startling as a perfect sapphire. If you prefer jade, you will find it looking down into the dark green depths of the bay from dock or boat. On moonlit nights, silver disc riding high over the water, I see diamonds, a sparkling path of them on the bay, from moon to me. Sunlight makes an even more brilliant bracelet of diamonds, so bright I cannot look at it for long.

If the day is foggy, I see pearls, pearls set in platinum, in the water's color. On a cloudy day, the bay is like an opal, many-hued and ever-changing. There are tourmaline days when the bay picks up color from land and sky. The water off our dock at low tide often is like the semi-precious stone called the citrine, a pale yellow-green. There are summer days of aquamarine, when the bay's whole expanse is the most delicate translucent blue-green, so like that stone.

At dawn, looking east, I see coral highlights reflected in the water from the rising sun and undulating in the early-morning breeze. Out in a boat and looking west to a vivid sunset, I have seen blood-red waters to rival a ruby. Shallow waters along the shore seem to me to have the yellowish brown of a topaz, while water over the dark gold of sand is like the tiger-eye stone. With the setting sun at just the right angle above the water, I have seen the living green of an emerald.

And sometimes, at twilight, after a bright day of sun, the bay turns an otherworldly amethyst-purple for a few moments before darkness falls.

I do not need precious stones in a jewel box, I have them nearby to enjoy freely. And I can share them all with you.

Or do you have a jewel from Pleasant Bay to share with me?

The Namequoit Sailing Association nestles inconspicuously under the scrub pines of Frost Fish Cove in Orleans. Its tranquil little harbor, with its fleet of Widgeons and Daysailers, leads out to The River and Little Pleasant Bay. Although pressure to grow bigger is constant, NSA chooses to remain unassuming and limits its membership to 60 families.

NSA's origins date back to the late 1940s, when a group of families who sailed on Pleasant Bay thought it would be fun to do some informal racing. They were also eager to gather their children together and teach them to race so that "when they get older, they can race anywhere in the world."

The first meeting of the founding families was held on July 12, 1950, at the home of Ethel and Ken Johnson on Barley Neck Road. The 17 people present elected a chairman and a secretary and agreed to race their nine boats the following Saturday. The race kindled enthusiasm, and at a meeting on the shore of Jack Knife Point afterwards, it was voted to observe the channel markers and to open the membership roster.

There was no clubhouse, and thanks to the services of John White --- a professor at Annapolis --- no paid sailing instructor, so NSA's dues initially were minuscule. Barbara White was kind enough to let the children use her bathroom, and to store equipment in the basement of the Whites' house, but the need for a permanent clubhouse was evident.

In 1952 the Bartow family offered NSA a 10-year lease on four-and-a-half acres of land on Mayflower Point. The Johnsons donated their "clam shack," which was then dismantled, trucked to the new site and set up. Ten glorious years ensued with only a few twinges of concern about finances and membership.

When the 10 years were up, however, membership went down and expenses went up. Moving the clubhouse to its new home on Frost Fish Cove brought NSA perilously close to bankruptcy. But with the help of a dedicated core membership and the issuance of debentures, the association rode out the tough times.

Even in organizational extremis, however, NSA was a sailing force. The association joined the Lower Cape Sailing Association, obtained a Penguin Charter, hosted the Mighty Mites Regatta, competed in SMYRA and NEBCA races, and won the five-race series of the Juniors Championship in Surf City, New Jersey. NSA Juniors also organized a Little Pleasant Bay Sailing Regatta in which they regularly "creamed" their archrivals in the Camp Viking boats.

Eventually John White resigned, and sailing instructors were hired. When the association's wooden Beetle Cats proved too costly to maintain, NSA replenished the fleet with Widgeons, Sunfish and 420s. The social side of the association also burgeoned, with square dances, picnic suppers, moonlight sails and a series of lively fundraising events. Peripheral social activities, notably bridge and tennis, also became very popular.

In 2001, with over 30 families on the waiting list and 80-100 children participating in the junior program, NSA appears to be sailing before the wind. Juniors this summer will sail Monday through Thursday. Beginners will learn the basics in Widgeons and Sunfish in the morning. The more experienced sailors will learn to race in the 420s in the afternoon. Janet Lindahl has details; her number is 508-255-1470.

One small hitch is an overall declining interest in racing. Today's Juniors and Seniors clearly love to sail, but they do not have that wild passion to race which characterized the association's early members. Commodore Harry Herrick's goal is to rekindle that spirit by holding Junior races on Fridays, and by encouraging all boats to participate in the weekend races.

Harry is determined to reinfuse members with the old desire --- "to go out and have a lot of fun while doing one's best to beat the pants off one's fellow sailors."

A friendly, informal group of sailors formed the Pleasant Bay Cruising Club in 1998. The club organizes picnics, island tours, rallies, Wednesday night and special sailboat races, shore cleanups and parties, as well as group cruises and overnights. Although the club organizes more than a dozen events yearly, its spirit is likely best revealed in countless spontaneous gatherings and cruises on Pleasant Bay and adjacent waters. Its "Tide and Current Chart" is invaluable for cruising Nantucket Sound.

PBCC makes every effort to coordinate its gatherings in harmony with other groups' events, and lists others on the PBCC schedule. The club has several guest moorings in different locations that are available to vessels flying its burgee. No boat is too small or too large, and no one is too young or too old, for PBCC.