Weather news, 

 Relay-style 



Photo by Cassie Griffin 



Hines has encouraged boat-owners to maintain their equipment 



want to know how to surf fish and 

 where they can drive on the beach to 

 fish." Hines has several ways of 

 providing this information: 



— With an office at the N. C. 

 Marine Resources Center at Bogue 

 Banks, Hines is constantly in contact 

 with people interested in marine 

 resources, and those numbers increase 

 during the summer months. 



Not all of Hines' requests come from 

 the coast or even from the state. An ad 

 agency in New York City wanted to 

 know how many fish there are in the 

 ocean. A fellow from North Dakota 

 wanted to sell his restaurant, move to 

 North Carolina and become a commer- 

 cial fisherman. Hines says the man is re- 

 considering the idea. "I think he was 

 laboring under the impression that it 

 was an easy, glorious way to make a 

 living," Hines says. 



And, then there's work with other 

 Sea Grant programs and state and 

 federal agencies. Agents transfer infor- 

 mation about new gear or fishing 

 techniques from state to state and 

 from coast to coast. "I'm working with 

 an agent in Alaska now who has re- 

 quested information on the anti- 

 fouling paint I'm using in my crab-pot 



study," he says. "He is hoping they 

 can use it up there on octopus pots to 

 stop their marine-borers problem." 



What kind of person is a marine ad- 

 visory agent? "I'm kind of a jack-of- 

 all-trades, I guess, since you have to be 

 responsive to all types of marine in- 

 terests," Hines says. "You can call 

 yourself an expert, or knowledgeable 

 anyway, in one particular area, but 

 whoever walks through that door or 

 calls on the phone, well you've got to 

 be able to answer the question or know 

 where you can find the answer. 

 Sometimes that just takes one phone 

 call, and sometimes it may take a cou- 

 ple of days of calls and searching." 



Hines isn't desk-bound, or even at 

 his desk at all somedays. He doesn't 

 mind the lack of a daily routine which 

 comes with his job. "With the diver- 

 sity of things I get involved in, I 

 haven't had a day yet when I have got- 

 ten bored because of doing the same 

 things over and over too many times," 

 he says. "There's enough different 

 things to do during any given day 

 where you don't get tired of doing it. 

 Besides, I like folks, I simply enjoy 

 working with people. I guess that's 

 what I enjoy the most." 



Sea Grant agents and specialists 

 connect people — people who have 

 problems or questions with people who 

 have answers. They may help an eel 

 exporter find a supply of American 

 eels, a marina operator learn more 

 about insurance or a coastal home- 

 owner fight erosion. 



Jim Bahen, Sea Grant's marine ad- 

 visory agent in Wilmington, is trying 

 to help commercial and sportfishermen 

 learn more about fickle offshore 

 weather. He knows when a fisherman 

 leaves the dock the weather may be 

 sunny and the seas normal, but 35 

 miles offshore, squalls packing shifty 

 winds and six-foot waves may send the 

 fisherman back to the dock with no fish. 



Fishermen need better weather in- 

 formation about the intermediate 

 offshore zone (18 to 50 miles offshore) 

 to make sound fishing decisions. Bad 

 weather can endanger lives and waste 

 time and fuel if conditions are too poor 

 for fishing. 



The National Weather Service 

 (NWS) offers a marine weather 

 forecast covering to 100 miles 

 offshore. But Al Hinn, meteorologist- 

 in-charge at the NWS in Wilmington, 

 says the weather information isn't as 

 complete as he would like. 



The Gulf Stream, which meanders 

 northward off the North Carolina 

 coast, creates some special offshore 

 forecasting problems. "There can 

 easily be a ten- to fifteen-degree tem- 

 perature difference in the air over the 

 Gulf Stream," Hinn says. "The tem- 

 perature difference causes more 

 evaporation, more clouds and more 

 showers and thunderstorms. These can 

 be localized conditions that aren't 

 general to the whole offshore zone." 



To make its offshore forecast the 

 NWS relies on information from one 

 weather buoy off Frying Pan Shoals 

 and information relayed from 

 cooperative ship reports, a fish house 

 in Southport and a marina in Atlantic 

 Beach. "That amounts to thirty to 

 fifty reports a month," Hinn says. 

 "That's only one to two reports a day 

 and some days we get no reports." 



To help the NWS offer better 

 forecasting for fishermen, Bahen is 



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