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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] The Kombu Harvest | Ironbound Island Seaweed
  • Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 03:20:53 -0400

http://www.ironboundisland.com/sea-stories/the-kombu-harvest/
The Kombu Harvest
<http://www.ironboundisland.com/sea-stories/the-kombu-harvest/>

I had a memorable experience harvesting digitata, guided by seaweed
harvesting partners Matt and Raivo of Ironbound Island Seaweed, off the
Schoodic Peninsula in “Downeast” Maine. We woke up at 4:00 A.M., squeezed
ourselves into skin-tight wet suits, and drove down to the harbor. We got
into a wooden boat that Matt had built himself, and towed a smaller wooden
boat, which he had also built. Do-it-yourself has no limits. We glided
through the calm bay waters into the foggy dawn for a long time. I wondered
how my guides could possibly navigate in the dense grayness where the sea,
sky, and land all blended into one. We saw seagulls and seals. The water
got choppier. We were headed beyond the harbor to the turbulent ocean
waters where digitata thrives.

We arrived at our destination just as the tide was getting low enough to
give us access. Seaweed harvesting is ruled by the tides. Matt and Raivo do
almost all of their harvesting during the week each month when the tides
are at their lowest. We anchored the big boat and got into the smaller
boat, then aimed for a large stand of digitata growing from an underwater
rock ledge. When we got near the digitata, we jumped out of the boat into
the cold, choppy water. Matt and Raivo took turns staying in the boat to
keep it from drifting away, continually rowing back to near where we were,
so we could toss the digitata we harvested into the boat.

There I was in the ocean, with a sharp knife in my hand. The idea was to
stand on the rock ledge from which the digitata was growing, and cut it at
the stalk to harvest it. Sounds straightforward enough. And it would have
been, had the waves been kind enough to stop. But every time a wave came
rolling rhythmically in, suddenly the water over the rock ledge I was
standing on was about five feet deep instead of two feet. Reaching down to
the digitata stalk in the deeper water involved dunking my entire body,
head included, into the ocean. And half the time the wave would knock me
right off the rock ledge.

I spent a lot of that morning flailing around, knife in one hand, seaweed
in the other, feeling like Lucy Ricardo in another madcap misadventure.
When I’d actually get a handful of digitata, the aim was to throw it into
the rowboat, another challenge intensified by the rough water. It was crazy
and incredibly fun, regardless of how little I managed to harvest. As my
body was pushed around by the waves I identified with the seaweeds, whose
lives are a continual push and pull of tidal influences. Several small
rowboat loads later, the tide was rising too high for us to continue, so we
boated back in the mid-morning sun to the South Gouldsboro harbor, nestled
in a bed of slippery digitata.

When we got back to Matt and Raivo’s place, we shed our wet suits and ate,
then got down to the business of hanging all the seaweed to dry. Each plant
requires individual handling. After hours of hanging digitata, our hands
were covered with gooey gelatinous slime. Another time I helped Matt and
Raivo hang wet seaweed I had just been in an auto accident, and found that
the flexible slimy seaweed absorbed the shock from my body. Eating seaweed
brings this soothing absorptive quality into your digestive tract. Most of
the seaweed available in the U.S. is imported from Japan, where it is a
popular staple ingredient and is farmed intensively. I want to make a plug
for seaweed bioregionalism and urge readers to support small seaweed
harvesters along America’s coastal waters.

*from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz (Chelsea Green Press)
<http://www.wildfermentation.com/>*



  • [permaculture] The Kombu Harvest | Ironbound Island Seaweed, Lawrence London, 03/29/2016

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