Squid, Tourists, and Car Crashes in Woods Hole

By Adrian Cole

The Asian man sitting on the dock had no obvious advantage over us, but he was pulling squid out of the water as if they were farmed and the harbor was a bathtub. We had caught one between the two of us. It was around midnight in Woods Hole, on the upper Cape. It was squid season, and people from all over the state were here, Asians in particular, to fill their freezers with this rubbery seafood. They came in late model SUVs, and after pulling up on the dock, the really serious ones unloaded K-Mart generators and fold-up boats, and multiple painter’s buckets stacked high. They threw everything into these perilous vessels, grandma included, and took up position in the harbor, under the deckhouse lights of the fishing fleet.

On the dock my Vietnamese neighbor grunted and yanked his pole into the air, causing the squid at the end of it to squirt water fifteen feet into my face. On the other side of me a couple of Beavis and Butthead clones from Falmouth made self-deprecating jokes about their lack of fishing prowess, and how the Chinese were taking over the world.

Just across the road from this public dock were the buildings of the Marine Biological Laboratory. They had a large tank where they bred squid, although not for eating. Scientists use them to study their nervous system, in particular their famous giant Axon. It has been suggested that the squid be nominated for a Nobel Prize for all the contributions it has made to our understanding of biology. Recently, scientists have been looking beyond their mighty Axon, and the nervous system in general, to other aspects of the squid—evolution has equipped it with the intelligence to survive in hostile environments and the speed to outrun predators. The previous summer a researcher had given my ten-year-old a bucket of live squid to throw to the school of wild Striped Bass who hung around in the boat basin, waiting for scraps. The water had boiled as the Stripers had made short work of their meal. So much for evolution.

Best known, perhaps, as a way-station to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, because the Steamship Authority runs ferries from there, Woods Hole has a lot to offer in its own right, apart from squid. Although the waiting ferry passengers can often make its tiny downtown congested, the town (technically part of Falmouth) has a distinct life all of its own, and a phenomenal position, straddling an isthmus with Martha’s Vineyard Sound on one side and Buzzards bay on the other. With a good collection of public beaches on either side, you can always find a sheltered place to swim, no matter the wind’s direction.

We rented a house in town the week after Labor Day, when the place was emptying, but not quite out of season. The water was warm on both sides of the isthmus, well into the night, and we found an association beach which we were not technically supposed to use, but since so many houses are rented out in the summer its near-impossible to tell who is a home-owner, a renter, or a guest. The town offers short, easy walks to cafes and restaurants, as well as a small grocery store if you don’t feel like the ten-minute drive to the Falmouth supermarket, and a good playground near both town and beach. For parents it makes for an easy life, navigating short distances between the main attractions.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Woods Hole is its society. Apart from the large numbers of out-of-towners who can afford the high season rental prices for beachfront luxury, Wood’s Hole is full of scientists from around the world, using the world-class facilities to help us better understand the ocean, the climate, and the sex life of bivalves. There also appears to be a special class of residents to whom I shall refer as the children-of-scientists, many of whom spent their summers growing up there, and upon reaching adulthood, found themselves incapable of leaving. These well-educated low achievers do whatever it takes to remain there; some run fishing charters, some are contractors, carpenters and plumbers. Some have opened restaurants, or manage property for absentee landlords. According to one child-of-a-scientist, the man managing our house—upon whose services we called to eradicate a nest of yellow-jackets—had achieved local notoriety as a teenager by driving off the cliff road by the lighthouse, and surviving. He even had a principle named after him, which states that the colder the water, and the more drunk you are, the greater your chances of survival in such an accident (those readers familiar with this principle will, obviously, be able to figure out whom I’m talking about).

The Asian squid-whisperer next to me seemed to have little relationship to these facts about Wood’s Hole, nor did the army of people who were sitting in their K-Mart boats decimating the New England squid population. It’s strange, the way in which places are very different quantities depending upon your relationship to them. The old-time residents and children-of-scientists see long-term family memories, locations of first kisses, or near-death car-crashes; the fabulously wealthy see discrete, exclusive getaways; the ferry-riding tourists see a nice boutique and an ice-cream store, with perhaps a characterful fisherman or two.

You can see these differences in the flesh when you stand on the drawbridge that crosses Main Street. When it opens, and the crowds stand behind the barrier to watch a boat pass underneath, you can watch the tourists watching the boater pass, and almost hear them wondering what his life must be like, heading out in his skiff to catch a few blues on a cloudless July morning. And for an instant—perhaps longer—you want to be that fisherman, to return to the harbor later, and perhaps go out again the next day, and the one after that.